On January 16th, 1917, German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman sent a coded telegram to the German minister in Mexico that revealed a plan to renew Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (USW) and propose an alliance to Mexico. In exchange for initiating an attack on the United States, Germany promised to allow Mexico to annex parts of the American Southwest (Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico). In the Zimmerman Note, the Germans intended for Mexico to go to war with America in hopes that America would divert their attention to protecting their homeland and as a result, slow down their shipments of arms, munitions, and troops to the Allied powers.
The Germans had a longstanding history of backing up Mexico: in the 1914 Ypiranga Incident, Germany armed, funded, and even advised the Mexicans on military strategies. The Germans promoted conflicts between Mexico and America to little success: President Wilson did retaliate a few times (invasion of Veracruz, capture of Pancho Villa, etc.), but it wasn’t enough to form a war, as peace conventions quickly deescalated the situation.
The secret to the British’s ability to decode the telegram was that they had already started intelligence efforts when the war seemed imminent in 1914. They sent ships to cut Germany’s trans-atlantic cables and six other underwater cables that sent messages from Germany to Britain. Soon after the war began, Britain was able to tap into German messages sent over overseas cable lines borrowed from neutral countries.
In 1915, Russia sent over a copy of the German naval codebook retrieved from a drowned sailor and a copy of the German diplomatic code stolen from a German diplomat’s luggage. This information allowed the British to get a head start on decoding German messages. By 1917, most German messages could be deciphered by the British cryptographic office known as “Room 40”.
Since many of their lines were cut, the only way Germany could send their telegram to Mexico was through a relay system: the telegram would be sent to the United States embassy office in Denmark, sent to the United States, then sent to Mexico. However, the Germans were caught in a precarious situation of relying on the United States to send their coded message to Mexico, as there was a large possibility the American telegraphers would find the coded messages alarming.
Soon after the Zimmerman Telegram was sent, the British decoded the telegram and sent it to the United States. By March 1st, its scandalous contents were spilled all over the front covers of national newspapers. Although most of the U.S. believed in neutrality and isolationism, the Zimmerman Telegram set off the first nationwide demand for war with Germany.
Along with the sinking of several passenger boats, submarines, and other American vessels, the Zimmerman Note finally pushed the U.S. over the brink. Since the Zimmerman Note provided fresh evidence of German aggression, President Wilson abandoned his policy of neutrality and asked Congress to declare war on Germany and the Central Powers. Four days later, the U.S. cast its lot with the Allied Powers and went to war.
Sources:
- https://www.theworldwar.org/explore/centennial-commemoration/us-enters-war/zimmermann-telegram
- https://www.history.com/news/what-was-the-zimmermann-telegram
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
- https://www.history.com/news/the-secret-history-of-the-zimmermann-telegram
- https://www.britannica.com/event/Zimmermann-Telegram
I really enjoyed reading your post as it was very well organized. First, you introduced what the Zimmerman note was and then you went on to explain some history behind Germany helping Mexico. This gave a good reasoning behind why Germany said that they would help Mexico take back some of the territory that the US originally took from them. I thought it was really interesting how Germany knew that the telegram could be easily intercepted as they had to go through the US embassy in Denmark in order to send the message to Mexico, yet they still decided to send the telegram. Germany must of thought that they had no other option, but to send the telegram as they knew that the US had a bias towards Great Britain. Your post also made me wonder how Mexico responded through all of this. Mexico obviously heard about the telegram but ultimately thought that it would be unfeasible to obtain the territory back from the US. There reasoning was that Germany's promise of finanical aid for a war was unreliable, and even if they did have the money and won the war, it would be extremely hard to pacify the whites living in the regions.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
This was an excellent blog post that went in depth into the infamous Zimmermann Telegram. I wasn't aware that the Germans had prior history with Mexico but turns out I was wrong. Despite their good relations it wouldn't have made sense for Mexico to join the war as they would've been crushed by the United States. I suppose that at this point of the war the Germans believed that they needed to use their U boats to stay in the war so the US joining the war was inevitable. The Zimmermann Telegram only sped up the process of the US getting into the war and was really a far fetched hope from the start but if you look at where Germany was at this point of the war, with the Americans about to join the Germans needed extra help to survive.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting blog post about the Zimmerman Telegram and detailed how the whole interception and decoding happened. You explained well the backstory to why the British were able to decode the message and notify the United States. It is much more understandable that people in the United States would be much more interested in fighting in a war with Germany after they went after their neighbor to try and start a war between the two.
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