WI no Zimmermann Telegram?

Blair152

Banned
What got the United States into World War I in 1917, was in part, the decision of the Kaiserreichmarine to resume unrestricted submarine warfare.
The other? A coded telegram being sent to Mexico that was intercepted, and
decoded, by the British, and sent to the United States. This was the tipping
point and Woodrow Wilson could no longer tolerate German interference.
The next day he declared war on Germany. I'll let the title speak for itself.
 
Beyond factual errors in your post have you noticed the search mechanism or must you keep asking questions whose answers are readily available on existing threads with the most modest effort on your part?
 

Blair152

Banned
,

Beyond factual errors in your post have you noticed the search mechanism or must you keep asking questions whose answers are readily available on existing threads with the most modest effort on your part?
The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and decoded by the British and
sent to the United States. That's a fact. Not a factual error. The gist of the
Zimmermann Telegram? If Mexico joined the Central Powers, it could get the
Southwest back. Right after receiving the Zimmermann Telegram, Wilson declared war on Germany. BTW, it's no factual error, Germany did resume
unrestricted submarine warfare in late 1915 and early 1916, FACT, NOT
error.
 
Mexico, a destitute Third World country in the midst of an anarchic civil war with no functioning government, is going to seize the Southwest from the US? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
FACT: The Germans sent it three ways, one of them through the US government itself, and the British (amusingly) caught all three.

The joy for the British was being able to hand the US the code along with detailed instructions as to where in the State Department's own files the US could find the telegram to translate, that German telegram and many more having been passed on by the Wilson administration in what was itself a violation of international law.

The British thus revealed that not only were they aware of Wilson violating international law but that Germany was using this illegal gift provided by the US to try to organize an attack on the US.


FACT: Wilson certainly did not declare war the next day, nor could he have on any day, only Congress has that power. At the time Wilson's own ambassador to the UK noted that Germany's behavior would mean war with any government but could not conclude that this term 'any government' would apply to Woodrow Wilson.


FACT: The German use of submarine warfare, restricted or otherwise, in 1915 and 1916 obviously has nothing to do with the subject at hand(US entry into the war) nor did it have anything to do with your original post.
 
RogueBeaver, this was the same German foreign ministry whose head, when the crisis exploded, was so uniquely stupid that when an American journalist on the German payroll, stated that 'of course Mr Zimmerman would deny the charge' Zimmerman responded by stating he could not as it was true.
 
If the title of the thread means what I think it means, then the answer is maybe.

The most that can really be said is that without the ZT, Wilson could have stayed neutral longer had he so decided. But USW had already led to a severance of diplomatic relations three weeks before he learned of the note, and on March 18 three US merchantmen were sunk by u-boats on the same day, an act which would have made war hard to avoid even without the ZT.

Keep in mind that this was a new departure. Hitherto, all Americans killed had been travelling as passengers on Allied (usually British) ships. Never before March 1917 had any American ship been directly attacked. This took matters to a whole new level.

I certainly agree the ZT struck a big blow against neutrality, but if sinkings of US ships continued, I suspect war was only a matter of time even without it.
 
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