The Zimmerman Telegram - WW1 1917
England's World War I Cryptographers, Room 40, Crack Germany's Code
German U-Boats sank The Lusitania in 1915; 128 Americans died. Unrestricted attacks began in 1917. But ... it took a secret memo to cause Woodrow Wilson to declare war!
The Peace Broker
Woodrow Wilson was elected President of the United States in 1912 as a reformer with grand optimism that he could make America a better place. Why not?! He was America’s first president to have a doctorate degree. In 1914, one year after taking office German troops rolled across the Belgium border and over the eastern border of France. His reform program was halted in its tracks. Wilson then assigned himself the mission of solving the rest of the world’s problems. He declared the US neutral and offered his services as peace broker. Until the eve of America’s entrance into the Great War he clung to the belief that he could somehow be the solution.
The Code Breaker
Off the west coast of the European Continent, the island nation of Great Britain could smell war coming and in 1912 decided that its first action would be to severe Germany’s communication link with the rest of the world. On midnight of 4 Aug 1914, the English cable ship Telconia severed Germany’s transatlantic cables. Now all of their communication would be funneled by wireless from Berlin and then across a cable in Africa. Throughout the war Great Britain’s only impediment in this was overcome when German ciphered intercepts were given to a naval engineer named Alfred Ewing whose unique hobby was constructing ciphers. He was assigned, with a small crew, to a nondescript room with #40 on the door. This rapidly expanding group of cipher geeks was to become known as Room 40 for the duration of the war.
The War Makers
Germany had been in a diplomatic mess since the Kaiser had decided to rid himself of his pugnacious Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, who had been responsible for unifying the many Prussian and German states. He had maintained national security through a complex system of alliances that made his friends stronger and kept his enemies week. When the Kaiser let those agreements lapse it was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose. As a result, Germany was put in a position where they felt they had to attack Belgium and France on 4 Aug 1914. Now, World War I began in earnest. Throughout the war Germany was worried that the US would come into the fight on the side of France and England. They continually tried to get Mexico and Japan to attack America to keep them occupied. They had very little understanding of Woodrow Wilson’s great desire to be a peacemaker and thought him to be disingenuous. After all, he was allowing US merchants to supply the Allies.
The Spy Masters
No one had more spies in America than the German government. These operatives were wreaking havoc in a country that they desperately wanted to keep out of the war and Wilson was turning the other cheek. German U-Boats sank vessels with American passengers and Wilson lodged protests but kept his hope for peace alive. Several times there was a hint of Germany’s plans to incite Mexico to war with the US but Wilson single-mindedly looked past it. Showing their disrespect for these actions, Germany decided they must chance unconditional submarine warfare on shipping in the Atlantic in order to win the war. This was to begin on 1 Feb 1917. In order to insure America could not retaliate in Europe, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman sent a telegram to the Mexican Government offering to give them Texas, New Mexico and Arizona if they would invade the United States. On 17 Jan 1917, Alfred Ewing’s Room 40 team deciphered it and gave the message to England’s Director of naval Intelligence, Sir William Hall. On 5 Feb 1917, they uncovered another dispatch from Zimmerman, directing Mexico to start implementing the plan immediately rather than waiting for the US to declare war.
The Peace Keepers
Hall was ecstatic. If nothing else budged President Wilson, surely an imminent attack on American soil by German backed troops should do it. Hall spent a few weeks covering Room 40's tracks, making sure Germany did not discover its intelligence breach. Then he worked with the American ambassador, Walter Page, to notify Wilson on 24 Feb 1917. It was the last straw and when the American people got wind of it, as a nation, they responded. In Wilson’s speech on 2 Apr 1917, asking congress to declare war he said, “Our object … is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice.” He said that it would be a fight for democracy and for civilization itself. He felt that America’s job was to “bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself, at last, free.” It is interesting to note that spies and intrigue, numerous attacks and loss of life in shipping and many proven cases of sabotage and destruction could not dislodge Wilson’s dream of world peace, which he called “peace without victory”. It was only a small paragraph in a Western Union Telegram that transformed him into the American President who told congress that the only way to make the world “safe for democracy” was to gain “peace through victory”!
Sources
The Zimmerman Telegram by Barbara Tuchman, 1966, Macmillan Co.
The Doughboys, America in the First World War by Gary Mead, 2000, Overlook Press
The Great War by William R Griffiths, 1986, Avery Publishing Group
Senate Document #5, 65th Congress, I Session
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