World War I, the Banksters, the Lusitania and Bailing Out America’s Wealthiest Families

Few folks understand the link between Banksters and wars, largely because naïve Americans can’t bear the thought that they’ve been duped and lied to by the media and the government. Even worse, the thought that their loved ones died in foreign wars for nothing more than defense contractor and Bankster profits is a brutal truth that’s like a dagger straight through their souls – it’s so damn painful that they refuse to believe it. It’s an ongoing problem.

The primary information source for this post is Chapter 12 from The Creature From Jekyll Island (The Creature) by G. Edward Griffin titled “Sink the Lusitania”. It’s just another fascinating chapter in The Creature that documents the role of the Banksters and central banks in murderous wars and the events leading up to the wars. Griffin states “American schoolchildren are taught that Uncle Sam came into the war “to make the world safe for democracy”. Forget that democracy is unlimited majority mob rule where 51% of the people get to squash the rights of the other 49% at the ballot box. Our founders greatly feared democracy as a form of government and for obviously sane reasons. More to the point, it was no accident that WW I was started in 1914 following the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

England and France borrowed heavily from the Banksters to fund World War I. But the Bankster were involved in far more than the business of loaning money; they also had a cut of damn near everything associated with the war machine and the House of Morgan was the principle US banking player. War materials are a huge business and the House of Morgan seemed to procure monopolies as shipping agents and purchasing agents for just about every possible accoutrement of war. The House of Morgan had contracts with Great Britain that “would eventually climb to an astronomical $3 billion. The firm became the largest consumer on earth, spending up to $10 million per day….Each month, Morgan presided over purchases which were equal to the gross national product of the entire world just one generation before.” The House of Morgan was also heavily invested with funding the French government’s substantial role in WW I.

How big were Morgan’s WW I profits? The Creature goes on to state “It is estimated that in the course of the war some 2000 million [2 billion] dollars passed in this way through Morgan’s hands.” Being a direct lender and having subsidiaries to earn a cut of all things associated with war commerce is, by far, the most profitable venture in all of human history.

But where the story gets really interesting is when WW I was going badly for France and England because of the German U-boats that managed to sink between 1914 and 1918 over 5,700 ships loaded with critical food supplies and war materials. The situation became so desperate that England and France were seriously considering suing Germany for peace. Such a situation would have resulted in massive investor losses. The Creature states:

“The Morgan group had floated one-and-a-half billion dollars in loans to Britain and France. With the fortunes of war turning against them, investors were facing the threat of a total loss. As Ferdinand Lundberg observed: “The declaration of war by the United States, in addition to extricating the wealthiest American families from a dangerous situation, also opened new vistas of profits”.”

It couldn’t be more clear – war is always about money, bailing out the wealthy and the prospect of more profits from more and more war.

President Woodrow Wilson, a progressive Democrat who dreamed of one world socialist government, was also heavily connected to Wall Street. In fact, it can be stated that Wall Street owned Wilson. Wilson also claimed to be a pacifist and Griffin offers clarity on Wilson’s alleged pacifism “It is probably true that Wilson was a pacifist at heart, but it is equally certain that he was not entirely the master of his own destiny. He was a transplanted college professor from the ivy-covered walls of Princeton, an internationalist at heart who dreamed of helping to create a world government and to usher in a millennium of peace…he was all but powerless to act on his own..”

For all Wilson’s self-righteous claims as a pacifist and humanitarian, he had no problem whatsoever participating in the sinking of the Lusitania and sending 1,195 folks, including 195 Americans, to their ocean graves. Despite Wall Street buying up major newspapers and installing their own editorial staffs and journalists to promote America’s entry in WW I, the American people were still not buying into American involvement in WW I which they believed to be a European problem and certain not their problem.

The Lusitania was built to look like a passenger ship but it was also built to specifications of the British Admiralty as documented by Griffin “Everything from the horsepower of her engines and the shape of her hull to the placement of ammunition storage areas were, in fact, military designs. She was built specifically to carry twelve six-inch guns. The construction costs for these features were paid for by the British government”. The Lusitania was owned by the Cunard Company. Why the Lusitania? Cunard wasn’t owned by Morgan who failed in his attempt to buy it.

One of the most revered men in western history, Winston Churchill, also happens to be one of the most evil. He was aware that the Lusitania had been selected to sail into U-boat infested waters without escorts for the sole purpose of being sunk. Churchill even “issued orders that British merchant ships must no longer obey a U-boat order to halt and be searched. If they had armament, they were to engage the enemy. If they did not, they were to attempt to ram the sub. The immediate result of this change was to force German U-boats to remain submerged for protection and to simply sink the ships without warning”.

Shockingly, the Germans knew that the Lusitania was loaded with war materials and that the US and Britain were setting up a passenger ship to be sunk. The German Embassy in Washington protested to the US State Department who not only ignored the German communication but the State Department refused to issue warning to passengers despite knowing that they would be die. The German Embassy went even further and attempted to takeout full page ads in major newspapers warning Americans that the Lusitania was in grave danger of being sunk. The State Department intervened and blocked newspapers from running the ads.

Needless to say there was much silent celebration in the US, Britain and on Wall Street when the Lusitania was sunk by a U-boat on 5/7/1915. War fever finally gripped Americans and their outrage was expected. The propaganda coup and the Lusitania cover-up paid off splendidly for the US government, Britain and the Banksters. Griffin writes “The purpose…would have been better served had an American ship been sunk by the Germans but a British ship with 195 Americans downed was sufficient to do the job. The players wasted no time in whipping up public sentiment.”

Nearly 1200 drowned folks were inconsequential casualties for the war profiteering Banksters and the US government. WW I raged between 1914 and 1918 and resulted in 10-12 million deaths, the low end of the estimate. Wikipedia estimates 15 million deaths and 20 million wounded. However, the most interesting aspect of all this murderous carnage is that the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 specifically to facilitate perpetual wars, starting with WW I, and to create the biggest wealth transfer in human history – from the poor and middle class to the rich, and all in a very deadly and bloody fashion.

The real purpose of WW I, the Federal Reserve and America’s entry into WW I? Griffin nails it “Congress dutifully passed the War Loan Act which extended $1 billion in credit to the Allies. The first advance of $200 million went to the British the next day and was immediately applied as payment on the debt to Morgan….Within three months the British had run up their overdraft with Morgan to $400 million dollars, and the firm presented it to the government for payment…. “The Wilson Administration found itself in an extremely awkward position, having to bail out J.P. Morgan” wrote Ferrell, but Benjamin Strong “offered to help…” “…in 1917-18, the Treasury quietly paid Morgan piecemeal for the overdraft”. By the time the war was over, the Treasury had lent a total of $9,466,000 including $2,170,000 given after the Armistice. That was the cash flow they had long awaited. In addition to saving the Morgan loans, even larger profits were to be made from war production. The government had been secretly preparing for war for six months prior to the actual declaration”.

Griffin’s 26 page chapter is meticulously documented with a whole lot more of the gory details surrounding J.P. Morgan, the US government and WW I but the bottom line is perfectly clear – WW I was a Bankster initiative. The Lusitania tragedy is a classic example of what is called a false flag attack or how a government engineers an event specifically designed to garner populist outrage and the beating of the war drums by the people. False flag attacks are very common and very effective propaganda coups.

Peace activists of all political stripes should be asking themselves this: without central banks how could governments wage horrific warfare? The answer is they can’t and without war debt bailouts from government central banks the Banksters would never assume such risks. In the case of WW I, the Banksters never would have risked their own money but the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 guaranteed that the Banksters would be paid out of the public treasury regardless of the outcome of Bankster war gambling. Bankster don’t care who wins the war, they only care about getting paid and making themselves richer.