THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The Sink of Iniquity On 27 March 1917, having just discharged over 1,000 sick and wounded passengers at the port of Avonmouth, HMHS Asturias, a hospital ship, was hit with two torpedoes from a German U-Boat. Although it was not sunk, 31 people were killed and the Asturias was declared a total loss. The fact that the Germans had attempted to sink a hospital boat – by sheer fortune not full of injured passengers – caused outrage amongst the British public. It was the indiscriminate nature of Germany’s submarine warfare that caused the United States to enter the war a little over a week later, on 4 April 1917.
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140 THE SINK OF INIQUITY signed and inscribed with title on reverse pen ink and coloured pencil 10 x 8 3⁄4 inches Illustrated: Evening News, March 1917