January 19th - Zimmermann Telegram

On this day, in 1917, the German Foreign Secretary, Authur Zimmermann, sent a telegram to Mexico proposing Germano-Mexicano co-operation against the United States of America. The Germans hoped to make the United States a little less united. The telegram is known as theZimmermann telegram and is believed to be named after Authur Zimmermann, not Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan) who spells his name differently, and I'm not talking about the whole "Dylan" thing.

The story of the telegram is long and tedious, so here it is. Arthur encoded the message and sent it to the German ambassador in Washington DC. The ambassador realised the message's anti-American rhetoric wasn't intended for anyone in America so he forwarded it to everyone on his mailing list. This list included the German ambassador in Mexico and no one else. The end result is that the message left Germany and ended up in Mexican hands, where it was supposed to be. Once in Mexican hands the message was just like one end of the Mexican bandit mustache.

The telegram was sent in anticipation of Germany's resumption of unrestricted naval warfare, which had less to do with belly-buttons and more to do with shooting first and asking questions later. The German commanders knew this would antagonise the US (and anyone else who happened to be on a pleasure cruise at the time) and they feared the Americans would join the war. That's whyMexi-Deutsche relations were so vital, and why the telegram was sent.

Upon reading the telegram the German ambassador knew what he to do, and after a quick lie down due to indigestion he contacted the Mexicans. He offered material support for a Mexican military offensive against the United States. The Mexicans could take back the US states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. They could have also taken back Kansas but they didn't want it. These states had been lost to the US during the Mexican-American War.

The Mexican President (aka head honcho) assigned a general to assess the offer. The general found it was worthless for a number of reasons. First, and this should probably go without saying, invading the United States would mean war with the United States. Second, Germany did not have naval and sea-faring capacity to supply what they promised. Third, the general just didn't want to. This telegram proved to do more bad than good, which isn't hard because it didn't do any good.

Because Germany had no direct telegraphic access to Mexico the message was sent using British and US telegraphic lines. The British intercepted the message and decoded it. The message was then used to encourage the US to join the war on the righteous English side instead of the evilGermexian side.

This episode is an important lesson that can be summed up by a well-known saying that I can't think of at the moment.