In the first months of World War I, the United States was still officially neutral, but its ports were already tied to the war overseas. Ships carried horses, mules, supplies, and munitions across the Atlantic, and those cargoes made American harbors places of suspicion and fear.
This 1915 report from New Orleans claimed that police had uncovered a plot to destroy ships after they had gone to sea. The alleged plan involved clockwork “infernal machines” hidden among cargoes bound for the Allied armies.
According to the account, ten Germans were seized, one man confessed, and investigators believed the scheme may have originated in New York.
Ten Germans Seized in New Orleans as Planters of Bombs in Ships
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana. — An alleged wholesale plot to destroy ships carrying horses and mules or munitions of war to the allied armies was unearthed by the police, following a series of arrests, including ten Germans…