In the aftermath of the First World Struggle, 1 / 4 of a century earlier than the Nuremberg and Tokyo conflict crimes trials, Britain, France, and different Allied or Entente powers performed a daring experiment in worldwide justice. Extensively denounced as a failure, and barely remembered immediately, the experiment has essential classes for worldwide justice in a world as soon as once more dominated by conflict.
On the finish of June 1918 the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Fortress, steaming from Halifax in Nova Scotia to Liverpool, was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-86. In accordance with the official report:
The ship went down inside ten minutes of being struck, and for upwards of two hours the submarine repeatedly tried to blot out all traces of the deed by speeding backward and forward among the many wreckage and firing twenty shells or extra from the massive gun they carried. Just one boat with 24 survivors escaped. This crime surpassed in savagery the already formidable array of murders of non-combatants by the Germans.
