Zimmerman denies the telegram

Gnomepilled

Gnomepilled

After the Zimmerman telegram was leaked, most people believed it was a hoax. It made sense too. Britain actually had a habbit of doing this. People shrugged it off. There was no evidence that Germany had actually done anything either.
That was until Germany admitted it was real. The German ambassador actually sent a telegram to a country in the midst of a devastating civil war to invade the United States, a neutral country.
The US promptly declared war and Germany lost to a revolution.
Let's talk about butterflies for a sec.
While Germany was winning before America intervened, things weren't going well for them either.
France was on the brink of revolution but so was Germany.
Ireland was revolting and the Russian Empire had collapsed but Germany was on the brink of famine.
Germany was a military dictatorship under the control of Ludendorff.
So from what I'm getting at is that it would be a pyrrhic victory for Germany.
If France collapses then Britain must sue for peace.
But that does not remove the fact that Germany would go through a famine or that Germany is either being ruled proto-Nazis or undergoes a revolution.
What happens to the post war period?
Who would win? The proto-Nazis or the Socialists?
Would the French Republic win against the Communists? If they don't will France join the USSR?
 
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Alex1guy

After the Zimmerman telegram was leaked, most people believed it was a hoax. It made sense too. Britain actually had a habbit of doing this. People shrugged it off. There was no evidence that Germany had actually done anything either.
That was until Germany admitted it was real. The German ambassador actually sent a telegram to a country in the midst of a devastating civil war to invade the United States, a neutral country.
Click to expand...

That's not how quite it went down though. The reality is a bit more nuanced.

Ironically, the Germans used the American embassy in Denmark and from there an American telegraph line and company to transmit the coded telegram to Mexico. Berlin had been doing this for a while, as they thought the line was secure due to the Americans allowing them to send coded messages, but it was being monitored by British intelligence.

The British convinced the Americans of the telegrams legitimacy by showing they had cracked the German codes. They gave US intelligence the means to decrypt the German message, who then decoded it themselves and found the contents of the message. The Americans were actually more worried about potentially alerting the Germans that their codes had indeed been broken by the British which was the real dilemma Washington faced.

When Zimmerman came out and confirmed the message's legitimacy in an interview, he actually solved the intelligence dilemma. Sans Zimmerman blabbing, they would have had to find another means to cover up the British codebreaking efforts. However the Germans also sort of figured out that the codes must have been broken and Zimmerman alluded to this fact in a speech to the Reichstag.

It was the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare that really dragged America into war, saying it was the Zimmerman telegram popular but oversimplified narrative of what was really going on. Anti-German sentiment was rising in America at the time however what it did do was give Washington a convenient excuse to declare war that could be sold to the general public.

The more simple question might be, what if he never sent it in the first place? Although this might just delay entry as opposed to stopping it entirely. Maybe look at what if the Germans don't resume unrestricted submarine warfare?
 
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Gnomepilled

Gnomepilled

Alex1guy said:
That's not how quite it went down though. The reality is a bit more nuanced.

Ironically, the Germans used the American embassy in Denmark and from there an American telegraph line and company to transmit the coded telegram to Mexico. Berlin had been doing this for a while, as they thought the line was secure due to the Americans allowing them to send coded messages, but it was being monitored by British intelligence.

The British convinced the Americans of the telegrams legitimacy by showing they had cracked the German codes. They gave US intelligence the means to decrypt the German message, who then decoded it themselves and found the contents of the message. The Americans were actually more worried about potentially alerting the Germans that their codes had indeed been broken by the British which was the real dilemma Washington faced.

When Zimmerman came out and confirmed the message's legitimacy in an interview, he actually solved the intelligence dilemma. Sans Zimmerman blabbing, they would have had to find another means to cover up the British codebreaking efforts. However the Germans also sort of figured out that the codes must have been broken and Zimmerman alluded to this fact in a speech to the Reichstag.

It was the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare that really dragged America into war, saying it was the Zimmerman telegram popular but oversimplified narrative of what was really going on. Anti-German sentiment was rising in America at the time however what it did do was give Washington a convenient excuse to declare war that could be sold to the general public.

The more simple question might be, what if he never sent it in the first place? Although this might just delay entry as opposed to stopping it entirely. Maybe look at what if the Germans don't resume unrestricted submarine warfare?
Click to expand...
While I simplified it because you can't fit it entirely in a single post, it was a major incident and provides a more interesting German Victory scenario.
Unlike the 1915 victory which just means a German ran EU (and has too many similarities to Kaiserreich despite this being basically the Kaiserreich pod), this a Germany that will win but fall to revolution. A communist France, a collapsing Russia. Just so interesting.
While I'm sure America probably would have declared war a while later (accounting for bureaucracy) it probably would be pointless because France would have probably collapsed if the US didn't intervene.
A Ludendorff Germany or massive USSR is so cool to me.
However, the ambassador not sending it is much easier and won't harm relations further.
 

Dorknought

There is no point in denying it as the act of co-opting Mexico (and Japan) was to threaten the US into NOT joining the war, Mexico was to attack IF the US entered the European conflict. Coupled with the belief that the US Army was a joke and that U-Boats would sink all the troopships anyway the damage for the Telegram was minimal or so the German believed.
 
Gnomepilled

Gnomepilled

Dorknought said:
There is no point in denying it as the act of co-opting Mexico (and Japan) was to threaten the US into NOT joining the war, Mexico was to attack IF the US entered the European conflict. Coupled with the belief that the US Army was a joke and that U-Boats would sink all the troopships anyway the damage for the Telegram was minimal or so the German believed.
Click to expand...
Ironically once America entered the war and their troops started entering the way their morale rapidly fell despite Germany being at their height.
 

jlckansas

Zimmerman denies the telegram and then something happens where they don't get around to doing anything, Kaiser Bill gets sick or something and paralyzes diplomatic related matters and the military takes it slow until he recovers, then the US wonders if it really was a legitimate offer to Mexico. Have them hold off on USW because of other factors and then the US is left without a excuse.
 

NoMommsen

Kicked
Alex1guy said:
That's not how quite it went down though. The reality is a bit more nuanced.

Ironically, the Germans used the American embassy in Denmark and from there an American telegraph line and company to transmit the coded telegram to Mexico. Berlin had been doing this for a while, as they thought the line was secure due to the Americans allowing them to send coded messages, but it was being monitored by British intelligence.

The British convinced the Americans of the telegrams legitimacy by showing they had cracked the German codes. They gave US intelligence the means to decrypt the German message, who then decoded it themselves and found the contents of the message. The Americans were actually more worried about potentially alerting the Germans that their codes had indeed been broken by the British which was the real dilemma Washington faced.

When Zimmerman came out and confirmed the message's legitimacy in an interview, he actually solved the intelligence dilemma. Sans Zimmerman blabbing, they would have had to find another means to cover up the British codebreaking efforts. However the Germans also sort of figured out that the codes must have been broken and Zimmerman alluded to this fact in a speech to the Reichstag.

...
Click to expand...
... it was perhaps even somewhat more complicated than @Alex1guy already indicated.
Room 40's 'boss' Reginald 'Blinker' Hall sat for about a month on the decrypted telegram before it been forewarded to the americans, been seen by Wilson only at 26th Feb. (IIRC) but with its conten was known by Hall already at 19th Jan.. For one thing:
he didn't 'trust' the foreign office it should have been sent to on the proper chain of command.​
But more important:
he did NOT want to reveal that the british intelligence was and had tapped the US-american diplomatic cables.​
... and read ALL their messages.​
... what they continued to do until well into the interwar period even when the US of A was allied to them in their 'special realtionship'.​


For Zimmermanns quick 'admission' of authorship of the telegram. ... IMO a most of the times completey overlooked question why he did it.

Contrary to @Alex1guy the german politicians -esp. Zimmermann - did NOT consider codes broken at least not in the technical way it actually happened. Zimmermann and the leading political persons persons (including military top brass) were not only grossly uneducated about all this coding and ciphering stuff but also had some ... 'ethical' aversion to learn about it as unhonest and not fitting an honorable man.
For them it MUST have been a spy , a person who might have been able to read code and 'transfer' thereby the content of the telegram. A treacher was something they could understand MUCH more easily which was assumed to sit in the Americas as Zimmermanns almost immediate statement to semi-official news agency Wolff's Telegraphen Bureau told.
Also the Wilhelmstraße considered the way the telegram took through the american embassy in Berlin via Kopenhagen to Washington as 'safe' as the State Department in Washington thought it would be also. Noone thought the brits would dare to tap into US american communications. ... would be too much of an affront, wouldn't it? :winkytongue:

Zimmermann did and could not know the leak of information.
... but ... had to assume that at least the US american goverment had the means to produce further evidence in case he would denounce it making him not only a 'plotter' but also a liar.
Saying nothing ... would have likely been seen as a 'confirmation' (not unsimilar to some modern goverment(s) saying that it say nothing about an incident it very likely was and everybody assumes so it was responsible for).
Therefore he actually took the least bad course and 'fled forward' also to have some control over the comming controversy in giving it some defensive turn as a look for a contingency 'just for the case' of US american DoW.
 

matzeskatze

Depending on, if the Telegram in question was already in Mexican hands, one could create a narative it was a test of transmission security and integrity of codes.
So if the message is not yet in Mexican hands it could be argued that it was a "Sting Operation" by the Germans to tarnish the British for dishonoring diplomatic practices. It would be weak but Imo could be spun. But that would require some prior thinking about.
And as @NoMommsen said, that was not something the Germans were big on.

So for a TL there are some hooks that could be used. I.e. realizing that the Germans did read Russian tactical transmissions early in the war and that problems may occure there. Or someone hints at the possibility of code books being lost...
 

Cryhavoc101

Gnomepilled said:
After the Zimmerman telegram was leaked, most people believed it was a hoax. It made sense too. Britain actually had a habbit of doing this. People shrugged it off. There was no evidence that Germany had actually done anything either.
That was until Germany admitted it was real. The German ambassador actually sent a telegram to a country in the midst of a devastating civil war to invade the United States, a neutral country.
The US promptly declared war and Germany lost to a revolution.
Let's talk about butterflies for a sec.
While Germany was winning before America intervened, things weren't going well for them either.
France was on the brink of revolution but so was Germany.
Ireland was revolting and the Russian Empire had collapsed but Germany was on the brink of famine.
Germany was a military dictatorship under the control of Ludendorff.
So from what I'm getting at is that it would be a pyrrhic victory for Germany.
If France collapses then Britain must sue for peace.
But that does not remove the fact that Germany would go through a famine or that Germany is either being ruled proto-Nazis or undergoes a revolution.
What happens to the post war period?
Who would win? The proto-Nazis or the Socialists?
Would the French Republic win against the Communists? If they don't will France join the USSR?
Click to expand...
Regarding France being close to revolution

Was it?

I mean there was no Turnip winter for the French peoples as there was for the Germans and the 'mutiny's' in the front lines were not quite as serious as is popularly thought

Gun Jesus does a good video lecture on it

 

TDM

Alex1guy said:
That's not how quite it went down though. The reality is a bit more nuanced.

Ironically, the Germans used the American embassy in Denmark and from there an American telegraph line and company to transmit the coded telegram to Mexico. Berlin had been doing this for a while, as they thought the line was secure due to the Americans allowing them to send coded messages, but it was being monitored by British intelligence.

The British convinced the Americans of the telegrams legitimacy by showing they had cracked the German codes. They gave US intelligence the means to decrypt the German message, who then decoded it themselves and found the contents of the message. The Americans were actually more worried about potentially alerting the Germans that their codes had indeed been broken by the British which was the real dilemma Washington faced.

When Zimmerman came out and confirmed the message's legitimacy in an interview, he actually solved the intelligence dilemma. Sans Zimmerman blabbing, they would have had to find another means to cover up the British codebreaking efforts. However the Germans also sort of figured out that the codes must have been broken and Zimmerman alluded to this fact in a speech to the Reichstag.

It was the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare that really dragged America into war, saying it was the Zimmerman telegram popular but oversimplified narrative of what was really going on. Anti-German sentiment was rising in America at the time however what it did do was give Washington a convenient excuse to declare war that could be sold to the general public.

The more simple question might be, what if he never sent it in the first place? Although this might just delay entry as opposed to stopping it entirely. Maybe look at what if the Germans don't resume unrestricted submarine warfare?
Click to expand...
This is a tough one to get going because the Germans did so because it was the only way they had to maybe break the UK blockade on them which was beginning to bite.
 
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Jacarí

The Zimmerman offer was a joke.

Mexico was "coming out" of a civil war (still in the middle of it) that had killed about a tenth of its population, had no domestic weapon production and no way to get weapons from Germany either. Germany was threatening the US with an empty water gun.

Even if Mexico had been able to fight a country with 7 times its population, what would they do... invade Texas? ...and? Not to mention the US had invaded Mexico twice in 3 years by then.

It was a dumb idea, hilariously bad, and had no chance to be taken seriously by anyone with half a clue.

But evidently some of those clueless people were in charge in Germany, so they sent it and then acknowledged it.

The US govt had clearly picked a side, so they used the telegram and USW to get the US into a highly unpopular war that required an immediate draft in spite of all the propaganda. The US govt needed that fig leaf to try and nudge the country into the war, take that away and it might not happen... but I doubt it, Wilson wanted war.

What would be needed was for an event to delay USW until the Russian Revolution begins, giving the Germans another way to win the war instead of the USW delusion, thus preventing it from happening and the US from entering the war.

All you need is delay USW for two months for an automatic CP victory.
 
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Jacarí

Gnomepilled said:
Ironically once America entered the war and their troops started entering the way their morale rapidly fell despite Germany being at their height.
Click to expand...

The Germans concentrated their resources and best troops in an all or nothing push because they knew thry had to win the war BEFORE fresh troops came in, it was a roll of the dice, once those troops were spent all that was left were barebone units, shells, mere ghosts of themselves that now had to fight in a war that could not be won, after all, their best troops and last resources were spent and they were in the brink of famine.

Those German soldiers realized they were fighting in an unwinnable war, so they quit, there was no point any longer.
 

Garrison

Donor
Gnomepilled said:
After the Zimmerman telegram was leaked, most people believed it was a hoax. It made sense too. Britain actually had a habbit of doing this. People shrugged it off. There was no evidence that Germany had actually done anything either.
Click to expand...
Well that's completely wrong to start with. The British had plenty of proof it was real, they just went to great pains to avoid having to reveal the exact mechanics of how they found out about the telegram . Whatever some US newspapers might have said Wilson had been given proof it was real and acted accordingly. USW by itself would have dragged the USA into the war, Zimmerman just put the icing on the cake.
 

Ohfshkssgb

Gnomepilled said:
this a Germany that will win but fall to revolution. A communist France, a collapsing Russia. Just so interesting.
Click to expand...
Is this alternatehistorypt or am I dreaming ?communism in Germany failed completely even when it lost the war how can it succeed when Germany wins. Communist France ? Left will be totally discredited if the Socialist government loses the War.
 
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