WI Zimmerman Telegram not decoded by British

Mexico was never going to accept. The USA was the only sizeable arms manufacturor in the Americas, and since the Royal Navy controlled the shipping lanes German promises of supplies and arms were worthless.
But the USA doesn't enter the war, Germany doesn't launch it's spring offensive, Lloyd-George refuses to send Haig reinforcements to stop him going on any more offensives and it's a race between which happens first: Germany running out of food, Britain running out of money or a French army mutiny.
 
Mexico was never going to accept. The USA was the only sizeable arms manufacturor in the Americas, and since the Royal Navy controlled the shipping lanes German promises of supplies and arms were worthless.
But the USA doesn't enter the war, Germany doesn't launch it's spring offensive, Lloyd-George refuses to send Haig reinforcements to stop him going on any more offensives and it's a race between which happens first: Germany running out of food, Britain running out of money or a French army mutiny.
I think Britain would have run out of money first. Which is why Woodrow Wilson so desperately wanted to drag the US into the War -- this I found out in The Creature From Jekyll Island. I also found out in that volume that the US State Dept. in early 1917 quashed a legal notice from the German Embassy that otherwise would have warned Americans about Germany's U-boat operations around the British Isles. Every paper in the US except one knuckled under and the people weren't informed. One fine day in April, the HMS Lusitania set sail from NYC laden down with armaments for Britain (a good portion of them in shipping crates that were mislabelled). And we all know... the rest of the story!
 
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I also found out in that volume that the US State Dept. in early 1917 quashed a legal notice from the German Embassy that otherwise would have warned Americans about Germany's U-boat operations around the British Isles. Every paper in the US except one knuckled under and the people weren't informed. One fine day in April, the HMS Lusitania set sail from NYC laden down with armaments for Britain (a good portion of them in shipping crates that were mislabelled). And we all know... the rest of the story!

Except that the Lusitania and 2 other ships were sunk in 1915. The later resumption of the Uboot campaign and the Zimmerman letter in combination were enough to force the issue after the Germans had backed down once then broke their promise. Zimmerman admitted the note was real to try and mitigate the diplomatic damage, rather than denying something that was authenticated and being proven a liar. Germany was fucked at this point and tried everything it could. But obviously everything was managed poorly and OTL is the result.
 
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