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“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.”
-Arthur Zimmerman
Once Texas became a state in December 1845 and then the U.S. convincingly won a war against Mexico, you would think that Mexico was done with trying to take back the Southwest. But there was another attempt, thanks to Germany. It was 104 years ago this week that the infamous Zimmerman Telegram became public. And no, this was not a message sent by a very young Bob Dylan.
During World War I, Germany hoped 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. The Germans had long engaged in a pattern of actively arming, funding, and advising the Mexicans: The naval intelligence officer Franz von Rintelen had attempted to incite a war between Mexico and the U.S in 1915, giving Victoriano Huerta, briefly the president of Mexico, $12 million for that purpose; The German saboteur Lothar Witzke, responsible for the March 1917 munitions explosion at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in the San Francisco Bay Area, and possibly responsible for the July 1916 Black Tom explosion in New Jersey, was based in Mexico City; The failure of American troops to capture Pancho Villa in 1916 and the rhetoric of President Venustiano Carranza in favor of Germany further emboldened the Kaiser Wilhelm.
The Zimmermann Telegram was part of an effort carried out by the Germans to postpone the transportation of supplies and other war materials from the U.S. to the Allied Powers that were at war with Germany. The German High Command believed that if the U.S. were sufficiently distracted the Germans would be able to defeat the British and French on the Western Front and strangle Britain with unrestricted submarine warfare before American forces could be trained and shipped to Europe to help out. The Germans were encouraged by their successes on the Eastern Front into believing that they would be able to divert large numbers of troops to the Western Front in support of their goals.
As the quote at the top of this column indicates, the gist of the telegram sent to the government of Mexico in February 1917 by Arthur Zimmerman, the German foreign secretary, urged Mexico to invade the U.S. and conquer a huge chunk of the Southwest. This bold incursion would so occupy America’s political and especially military forces that there would be no way it would consider sending troops to Europe to assist the Allies. (By the way, while Zimmerman was at it, he also encouraged Japan to declare war on the U.S.)
Mexico gave this idea serious thought. President Carranza assigned a military commission to assess the feasibility of the Mexican takeover of their former territories. However, the generals concluded that it would be neither possible nor even desirable to attempt such an enterprise because, for one thing, Mexico was in the midst of a civil war and Carranza's position was far from secure. Also a reality was the U.S. was far stronger militarily than Mexico. Even if Mexico's military forces were completely united and loyal to Carranza, no serious scenario existed under which they could invade and win a war against the U.S. Also a factor was even if by some chance Mexico had the military means to win a conflict against the U.S. and reclaim the territories in question, Mexico would have severe difficulty conquering and pacifying a large English-speaking population that was both accustomed to self-government and – thanks to the Second Amendment! -- better supplied with arms than most other civilian populations. Who would want to mess with the Texas Rangers?
Germany’s attempt to incite a war in the Northern Hemisphere backfired. Zimmermann's office had been hamstrung from the outset because direct transmission of the telegram to Mexico was impossible as the British had cut the German international cables at the outbreak of war. However, Germany was able to communicate wirelessly through the Telefunken plant (operating under Atlantic Communication Company) in West Sayville on Long Island where the telegram was relayed to the Mexican Consulate. Ironically, the station was under control of the U.S. Navy, who operated it for Atlantic Communication Company, the American subsidiary of the German entity. This was possible because 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 Woodrow Wilson agreed in the belief both 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.
So, essentially, Germany was depending on the American communications system to transmit and deliver to Mexico a message urging Mexico to attack the U.S. As mentioned, the telegram did get delivered to Mexico City, but along the way it was decoded. Clearly, disclosure of the telegram would sway public opinion in the U.S., but the dilemma was that by exposing the plot the U.S. would be revealing that it knew how to break the German code. For several weeks, and while Mexico deliberated, the message was bounced back and forth between the U.S. and Great Britain as they tried to figure out what to do.
Ironically, the problem was solved for them by the impatient Germans: In February, they announced the resumption of "unrestricted" submarine warfare, an act which led the U.S. to break off diplomatic relations with Germany. It might have still been a good idea to keep the contents of the telegram secret but when they were reported to President Wilson he was outraged and wanted the telegram published. When it was in newspapers across the country on March 1, many Americans shared their chief executive’s anger. Forget Mexico invading the U.S., perhaps it was time for the U.S. to again invade its southern neighbor and teach them a lesson.
This did not come to pass. True, many Americans at the time held anti-Mexican as well as anti-German views, and in Mexico there was a considerable amount of anti-American sentiment in return (thanks in no small part to the American occupation of Veracruz). General John J. Pershing had long been chasing the revolutionary Pancho Villa for carrying out several cross-border expeditions. News of the telegram certainly further inflamed tensions between the United States and Mexico. However, many Americans, particularly German and Irish Americans, wished to avoid the conflict in Europe. Since the public had been told falsely that the telegram had been stolen in a decoded form in Mexico, the message was widely believed at first to be an elaborate forgery. That belief, which was not restricted to pacifist and pro-German lobbies, was promoted by German and Mexican diplomats alongside some American newspapers, especially the Hearst press empire. The motivation to invade Mexico lost some steam.
Arthur Zimmerman should have kept his mouth shut. Any doubts as to the authenticity of the telegram were removed when at a press conference on March 3, he told an American journalist, "I cannot deny it. It is true." Then, on March 29, Zimmermann gave a speech in the Reichstag in which he admitted the telegram was genuine. It also didn’t help that thanks to the resumption of submarine warfare two American ships were sunk and as a result most U.S. shipping companies held their ships in port. Besides the highly provocative war proposal to Mexico, the telegram had also mentioned "ruthless employment of our submarines.”
Public opinion demanded action, and a few weeks later they got it. On April 6, 1917, Congress voted to declare war on Germany. In his address, President Wilson had asked Congress for "a war to end all wars" that would "make the world safe for democracy.” Well, we know how that turned out.
Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including, most recently, “Tombstone: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride From Hell.” The next collaboration with Bob Drury, “Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier,” will be published in April by St. Martin’s Press. Please go to your local bookstore or to Amazon/bn.com to pre-order.