One of the German countercharges to the barrage of hostile press was their claim that the Lusitania, like other British commercial vessels, had been provisionally designated an "armed merchant cruiser" by the British Admiralty. In time of war such ships were to be equipped with deck guns, but the Lusitania was deemed to be too big and expensive to operate in such a capacity. This June 5, 1915, cartoon, entitled "Those Cannon on the Forward Deck," clearly expresses the widely held contempt for the flimsy German justification.