The Zimmermann Telegram

On January 19, 1917, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent a telegram. It was addressed to the German ambassador to Mexico, and was an attempt by Germany to keep the United States too distracted in the new world to intervence in the old; that is, if Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare impelled United States to enter the First World War on the side of the Entente. The message read as follows:

Arthur Zimmermann.

WE INTEND TO BEGIN UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY. WE SHALL ENDEAVOR IN SPITE OF THIS TO KEEP THE UNITED STATES NEUTRAL. IN THE EVENT OF THIS NOT SUCCEEDING, WE MAKE MEXICO A PROPOSAL OF ALLIANCE ON THE FOLLOWING BASIS: MAKE WAR TOGETHER, MAKE PEACE TOGETHER, GENEROUS FINANCIAL SUPPORT, AND AN UNDERSTANDING ON OUR PART THAT MEXICO IS TO RECONQUER THE LOST TERRITORY IN TEXAS, NEW MEXICO AND ARIZONA. THE SETTLEMENT IN DETAIL IS LEFT TO YOU.

WE WILL INFORM THE PRESIDENT OF THE ABOVE MOST SECRETLY AS SOON AS THE OUTBREAK OF WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES IS CERTAIN AND ADD THE SUGGESTION THAT HE SHOULD, ON HIS OWN INITIATIVE, INVITE JAPAN TO IMMEDIATE ADHERENCE AND AT THE SAME TIME MEDIATE BETWEEN JAPAN AND OURSELVES.

PLEASE CALL THE PRESIDENT'S ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT THE UNRESTRICTED EMPLOYMENT OF OUR SUBMARINES NOW OFFERS THE PROSPECT OF COMPELLING ENGLAND TO MAKE PEACE WITHIN A FEW MONTHS.

ZIMMERMANN

Robert Lansing.

At first, the plan was to have a submarine carry the telegram to across the Atlantic to Mexico; it did not work out that way, so Zimmermann sent it to Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador in Washington, who was to forward it to Mexico City. Unfortunately, the Royal Navy had cut Germany's transatlantic cable. Consequently, Zimmermann had to utilize one owned by the British, which U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had given them permission to use if the conveyances pertained to ending the war. There was also another factor that nobody in the German government knew off: the British had the Germans' code book.

When the intelligence chief at the Royal Navy's headquarters saw a sufficiently deciphered version of the Zimmermann Telegram, he knew that Germany had played right into their hands. Yet how, he asked himself, was he supposed to impart this information to the Americans? The Kaiser would surely know that his enemy was reading essentially all of his communications. Eventually, he found a solution. After five weeks, in which the telegram was locked away in a safe, the Zimmermann telegram was shown to London, accompanied with an explanation: it was found on a vessel.



The coded Zimmermann Telegram.

Events now proceeded at a rapid pace.


On February 23, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour shared the message with the American ambassador, who in turn shared with Washington. In the American capital, Secretary of State Robert Lansing convinced an angry Wilson to not tell the American people until it was certain that such an announcement would be as effective as it could possibly be.

On February 28, Wilson gave Lansing permission to promulgate the Zimmermann telegram. The next morning, March 1, the message was the top story in many papers across the country; but such an act on Germany's part was inconceivable to much of the public. It was, cried the isolationists, simply a British attempt to deceive the U.S. into thinking the Kaiser wanted give Uncle Sam grief on the American continent.

On March 3, Arthur Zimmermann, interviewed by the press, stated that the telegram was his.

As historian Martin Gilbert wrote in The First World War, "One more nail had been knocked into the coffin of American neutrality."