|
|||||
|
|
|||||
The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note) was a 1917 diplomatic proposal from the German Empire to Mexico to make war against the United States.[1] The proposal was caught by the British before it could get to Mexico. The revelation angered the Americans and led in part to a U.S. declaration of war in April.[2]
The message came as a coded telegram dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, on January 16, 1917, to the German ambassador in Washington, D.C., Johann von Bernstorff, at the height of World War I. On January 19, Bernstorff, per Zimmermann's request, forwarded the telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt. Zimmermann sent the telegram in anticipation of the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany on February 1, an act which German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg feared would draw the neutral U.S. into war on the side of the Allies.[3] The telegram instructed Ambassador Eckardt that if the U.S. appeared likely to enter the war, he was to approach the Mexican Government with a proposal for military alliance. He was to offer Mexico material aid in the reclamation of territory lost during the Mexican–American War (the Southeastern section of the area of the Mexican Cession of 1848) and the Gadsden Purchase, specifically the American states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Eckardt was also instructed to urge Mexico to help broker an alliance between Germany and the Japanese Empire.
The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and decoded by the British cryptographers of Room 40.[4] The portrayal of its contents in the American press on March 1 caused public outrage that contributed to the U.S.'s declaration of war against Germany and its allies on April 6.
Contents |
Zimmermann's message was:
The Telegram was part of a German effort to distract the U.S. and divert American aid going to the Triple Entente.[5] Germany had long sought to incite a war between Mexico and the U.S., which would have tied down American forces and slowed the export of American arms.[6]
Mexican President Venustiano Carranza assigned a general to assess the feasibility of a Mexican takeover of their former territories.[7] The general concluded that it would not be possible or even desirable for the following reasons:
Carranza formally declined Zimmermann's proposals on April 14, by which time the U.S. had declared war on Germany.
The Telegram was sent to the German embassy in the U.S. for re-transmission to von Eckardt in Mexico. It was sent by three routes: transmitted by radio, and also sent over two trans-Atlantic telegraph cables operated by neutral governments (the U.S. and Sweden) for the use of their diplomatic services. Direct telegraph transmission was not possible because the British had cut the German cables in the Atlantic.
The Swedish cable ran from Sweden; the U.S. cable from the U.S. embassy in Denmark. However, neither cable ran directly to the U.S. Both cables passed through a relay station at Porthcurno, near Land's End, the westernmost tip of England. Here the signals were boosted for the long trans-oceanic jump. All traffic through the Porthcurno relay was copied to British intelligence; in particular, to the codebreakers and analysts in Room 40 at the Admiralty.[8]
After their telegraph cables had been cut, the German Foreign Office appealed to the U.S. for use of their cable for diplomatic messages. President Wilson agreed to this, in the belief that such cooperation would sustain continued good relations with Germany, and that more efficient German-American diplomacy could assist Wilson's goal of a negotiated end to the war. The Germans handed in messages to the U.S. embassy in Berlin, which were relayed to the embassy in Denmark and then to the U.S. by American operators. However, the U.S. placed conditions on German usage: all messages must be in clear. The Germans assumed that the U.S. cable was secure, and used it extensively.[8]
Obviously Zimmermann's note could not be given to the U.S. in clear. The Germans persuaded Ambassador James W. Gerard to accept it in coded form, and it was transmitted on 16 January 1917.[8]
At Room 40, Nigel de Grey partially deciphered the telegram by the next day. Room 40 had previously obtained German cipher documents, including the diplomatic cipher 13040 (captured in Mesopotamia), and naval cipher 0075, retrieved from the wrecked cruiser SMS Magdeburg.[9][10]
Disclosure of the Telegram would obviously sway American public opinion against Germany. But Room 40 chief "Blinker" Hall was reluctant to let it out, because the disclosure would expose Room 40's breaking of German codes, and also that Britain was eavesdropping on the U.S. cable. Hall waited three weeks. During this period, De Grey and William Montgomery completed the decryption. On 1 February Germany announced resumption of "unrestricted" submarine warfare, which led to the U.S. breaking off relations with Germany on 3 February.[8]
Hall passed the telegram to the Foreign Office on 5 February, but still warned against releasing it. Meanwhile, the British discussed possible cover stories: to explain to the Americans how they got the ciphertext of the Telegram, without admitting to the cable snooping; and to explain how they got the cleartext of the Telegram without letting the Germans know their codes were broken.
For the first story, the British also got the ciphertext of the Telegram from the Mexican commercial telegraph office. The British knew that the German Embassy in Washington would relay the message by commercial telegraph, so the Mexican telegraph office would have the ciphertext. "Mr. H", a British agent in Mexico, bribed an employee of the commercial telegraph company for a copy of the message. (Sir Thomas Hohler, then British ambassador in Mexico, claimed to have been "Mr. H" in his autobiography.) This ciphertext could be shown to the Americans without embarrassment. The retransmission was enciphered using cipher 13040, so by mid-February the British had the complete text.
For the second story, the British claimed that that their agents had stolen the Telegram's deciphered text in Mexico. The German Foreign Office refused to consider a possible code break, and instead sent von Eckardt on a witch-hunt for a traitor in the embassy in Mexico. (Von Eckardt indignantly rejected these accusations, and the Foreign Office eventually declared the embassy exonerated.)[8]
On February 19, "Blinker" Hall, the head of Room 40, showed the Telegram to the secretary of the U.S. Embassy in Britain, Edward Bell. Bell was at first incredulous, thinking it was a forgery, then enraged. On February 20 Hall informally sent a copy to U.S. ambassador Walter Page. On February 23, Page met with Foreign Minister Balfour, and was given the ciphertext, the message in German, and the English translation. Then Page reported the story to President Woodrow Wilson, including details to be verified from telegraph company files in the U.S.
Popular sentiment in the U.S. at that time was anti-Mexican as well as anti-German, while Mexico was anti-American and in some cases, anti-European.[11] General John J. Pershing had long been chasing the revolutionary Pancho Villa, who had carried out several cross-border raids. News of the Telegram further inflamed tensions between the U.S. and Mexico.
On the other hand, there was also a notable anti-British sentiment in the U.S., particularly among German and Irish Americans. Until the early months of 1917 American press coverage of Britain and France was not much more sympathetic than press coverage of Germany. Above all, the vast majority of Americans wished to avoid the conflict in Europe. At first, the Telegram was widely believed to be a forgery perpetrated by British intelligence. This belief, which was not restricted to pacifist and pro-German lobbies, was promoted by German and Mexican diplomats, and by some American papers, especially the Hearst press empire. Those doubts were removed by Arthur Zimmermann himself. First on March 3, 1917, he said, "I cannot deny it. It is true." Then on March 29, 1917, Zimmermann gave a speech in which he admitted the telegram was genuine.[12]
On February 1, Germany had resumed "unrestricted" submarine warfare, which caused many civilian deaths, including American passengers on British ships. This caused widespread anti-German sentiment. The Telegram greatly increased this feeling. Besides the highly provocative anti-U.S. proposal to Mexico, the Telegram also mentioned "ruthless employment of our submarines."[13] It was perceived as especially offensive that the coded Telegram had been transmitted via the U.S. embassy in Berlin and the U.S.-operated cable from Denmark.
The Telegram was not an isolated case of German-Mexican collaboration, for Germany had long sought to incite a war between Mexico and the U.S., which would have tied down American forces and slowed the export of American arms to the Allies.[14] The Germans had engaged in a pattern of actively arming, funding and advising the Mexicans, as shown by the 1914 SS Ypiranga arms-shipping incident,[15] and German advisors present during the 1918 Battle of Ambos Nogales. The German Naval Intelligence officer Franz von Rintelen had attempted to incite a war between Mexico and the U.S. in 1915, giving Victoriano Huerta $12 million.[16] The German saboteur Lothar Witzke, responsible for the March 1917 munitions explosion at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in the Bay Area,[17] and possibly responsible for the July 1916 Black Tom explosion in New Jersey, was based in Mexico City. The failure of the Americans under General John J. Pershing to capture Pancho Villa in 1916, in the movement of President Carranza in favor of Germany emboldened the Germans to write the Zimmerman note.[18]
In October 2005, it was revealed that an original typescript of the deciphered Zimmermann Telegram had recently been discovered by an unnamed historian who was researching and preparing an official history of the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The document is believed to be the actual telegram shown to the American ambassador in London in 1917. Marked in Admiral Hall's handwriting at the top of the document are the words: "This is the one handed to Dr Page and exposed by the President." Since many of the secret documents in this incident had been destroyed, it had previously been assumed that the original typed "decrypt" was gone forever. However, after discovery of this document, the GCHQ official historian said: "I believe that this is indeed the same document that Balfour handed to Page."[19]