Arthur Zimmermann (1864–1940), the German minister of foreign affairs, authored the note and forwarded it to Mexico via the embassy in Washington. Zimmermann Telegram, also called Zimmermann Note, coded telegram sent January 16, 1917, by German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to the German minister in Mexico. Wilson had refused to assign US Navy crews and guns to the merchant ships, but once the Zimmermann note was public, Wilson called for arming the merchant ships although antiwar members of the US Senate blocked his proposal. However, it has been established that two methods were used. On April 2, … On this day in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson learned of a shocking piece of paper that made America’s entry into World War I inevitable. The United States placed conditions on German usage, most notably that all messages had to be in cleartext (uncoded). The Zimmermann Telegram was a message sent on January 12, 1917, from the German … As a result, it was determined to decline the German offer. Which of the following examples is a characteristic of total war? How one telegram helped to lead America toward war. [19], The Swedish cable ran from Sweden, and the American cable from the American embassy in Denmark. Sir Thomas Hohler, the British ambassador in Mexico, later claimed to have been "Mr. H" or at least to have been involved with the interception in his autobiography. Bell was at first incredulous and thought that it was a forgery. The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and decoded by the British who in turn shared it with the United States. [4] Zimmermann sent the telegram in anticipation of the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany on February 1, which the German government presumed would almost certainly lead to war with the United States. Arthur Zimmermann, German foreign secretary Zimmermann Telegram WHAT A message calling on Mexico to join in a coming war against the US and promising to help it recover territory lost in the Mexican War of 1846-1848 Which of the following examples is a characteristic of total war? "[24] Page then reported the story to Wilson on February 24, 1917, including details to be verified from telegraph-company files in the United States. And they were equally nervous about America discovering they were reading their cables! An official response was issued to Berlin on April 14, 1917, stating that Mexico had no interest in allying with the German cause. In Mexico, British agents were able to obtain a copy of the ciphertext from the telegraph office. [5] The Germans had aided in arming Mexico, as shown by the 1914 Ypiranga Incident. "[29], Wilson considered another military invasion of Veracruz and Tampico in 1917–1918,[30][31] to pacify the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and Tampico oil fields and to ensure their continued production during the civil war,[31][32] but this time, Mexican President Venustiano Carranza, recently installed, threatened to destroy the oil fields if the US Marines landed there. The German provocations were partially successful. Public opinion demanded action. The British cryptographic office known as “Room 40” decoded the Zimmermann Telegram and handed it over to the United States in late-February 1917. Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. In January 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. What was the purpose of Woodrow Wilson’s neutrality policy? The Zimmermann Telegram helped turn the U.S. public, already angered by repeated German attacks on U.S. ships, firmly against Germany. How a decrypted German telegram pushed the United States into World War One and prompted a wave of hostility on the US-Mexico border The message - … President Woodrow Wilson ordered the military invasion of Veracruz in 1914 in the context of the Ypiranga Incident and against the advice of the British government. On discovering its contents the British hesitated at first in passing it on to the Americans. Five weeks later, America entered World War I. Sent to the Admiralty's Room 40, code breakers found that it was encrypted in cipher 0075, which they had partially broken. The British knew that since the German embassy in Washington would relay the message by commercial telegraph, the Mexican telegraph office would have the coded text. Since the public had been told falsely that the telegram had been stolen in a decoded form in Mexico, the message was at first widely believed to be an elaborate forgery created by British intelligence. The Zimmermann Telegram, or Note, was significant to the history of World War I because it forced United States President Woodrow Wilson to … Room 40 had obtained German cryptographic documents, including the diplomatic code 3512 (captured during the Mesopotamian campaign), which was a later updated code that was similar to but not really related to code 13040, and naval code SKM (Signalbuch der Kaiserlichen Marine), which was useless for decoding the Zimmermann Telegram but valuable to decode naval traffic, which had been retrieved from the wrecked cruiser SMS Magdeburg by the Russians, who passed it to the British. However, neither cable ran directly to the United States. The telegram was sent as a coded message by German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann on January 16, 1917. It had already informed Carranza in June 1916 that it could not provide the necessary gold needed to stock a completely-independent Mexican national bank. https://www.thoughtco.com/world-war-i-zimmerman-telegram-2361417 (accessed April 6, 2021). As Mexico was emerging from a recent civil war, Carranza sought to improve relations with the United States as well as other nations in the region such as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The Zimmermann Telegram was a diplomatic note sent by the German Foreign Office to Mexico in January 1917 which proposed a military alliance between the two nations should the United States enter World War I (1914-1918) on the side of the Allies. The Zimmermann Telegram and Germany’s use of unrestricted submarine warfare were the leading causes of _____. Press outlets around the world published the diplomatic correspondence between the German foreign office and its representative in Mexico on 1 March 1917, causing a major earthquake in public opinion worldwide. Even if by some chance Mexico had the military means to win a conflict against the United States and to reclaim the territories in question, it would have had severe difficulty conquering and pacifying a large English-speaking population which had long self-government and, Other foreign relations were at stake. ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/world-war-i-zimmerman-telegram-2361417. It helped to generate support for the American declaration of war on Germany in April. Besides the highly-provocative war proposal to Mexico, the telegram also mentioned "ruthless employment of our submarines." 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. More than 100 hundred years after British intelligence intercepted the Zimmermann telegram, Dr David Kenyon, research historian at Bletchley Park, talks to History Extra about how the telegram altered the course of the First World War and influenced future code-breaking operations…. Many Americans then held anti-Mexican as well as anti-German views, Mexicans had a considerable amount of anti-American sentiment in return, some of which was caused by the American occupation of Veracruz. [19] By 1917, the diplomatic code 13040 had been along for many years. The Germans persuaded US Ambassador James W. Gerard to accept it in coded form, and it was transmitted on January 16, 1917. It helped pressure President Wilson to ask Congress for a declaration of war against Germany in 1917. Believing that Britain could be quickly crippled if its supply lines to North America were severed, Germany prepared to re-implement this approach effective February 1, 1917. 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