Zimmermann telegram and USW are fake and staged by Britain

[minhow]

What if the Zimmermann telegram and unrestricted submarine warfare were fake and orchestrated by Britain to make US join WW1 on entente side?

Britain uses submarines to sink american cargo and blames the germans, to make things worse they forge the Zimmermann telegram, in a way to make it look legit, but Germany denies it, unlike OTL. The US declares war on Central Powers after that.

But what if the US discovers all that around april 1918, alongside with the discovery of Lusitania having weapons on board.

Which effects it could have? How things would have changed from this?

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Faking some diplomatic documents are one thing, tho difficult. Faking a destructive military campaign is another. Thats likely to backfire on Britain. Its about as stupid difficult as some of the German initiatives that got them into trouble.

 

[West234]

I agree with the comment above it is extremely difficult to put off something like this convincingly but assuming the Brits do it is it going to cause a diplomatic fire storm between America and the UK. Assuming it is discovered late into the war the American Government likely unsuccessfully attempts to cover up this information in the name of keeping up morale in the ongoing war effort. Assuming it gets out anyway it would strain American British relations but by this point America was likely too invested in the war effort to back out. The part that would most infuriate the American public would be sinking of America ships and it would give credibility to many of those arguing against the war especially among the republicans. In the end the main changes I think are with the treaty of Versailles and the post war era. The Americans would be much more aquecent to what the French and Italians wanted with Wilson who was an artent American nationalist likely taking personal offense at the British slight possibly pushing harder against British colonial expansion in the Middle East and for Irish independence. It also likely means an even bigger Republican sweep in 1922 and 24 due to the “pointless” war as many Americans would see it.

 

[Lalli]

This is really ASB. It is really hard to fake some telegram message. And even harder to fake USW. Americans would notice quickly something. And organising that would require tens if not hundreds of people. Someone would sooner or latter tell something. And it would be too hellish expensive. About as stupid idea as fake moon landing. Not going to work and will backfires badly.

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

This is really ASB. It is really hard to fake some telegram message. And even harder to fake USW. Americans would notice quickly something. And organising that would require tens if not hundreds of people. Someone would sooner or latter tell something. And it would be too hellish expensive. About as stupid idea as fake moon landing. Not going to work and will backfires badly.

There's nothing ASB with this scenario, false flag attacks, forged documents and other such things happened throughout history, and given that it is the 1910s, those are even easier to fake than modern ones.

And it is even more grounded in reality as in this case, it eventually gets out.

 

[Lalli]

There's nothing ASB with this scenario, false flag attacks, forged documents and other such things happened throughout history, and given that it is the 1910s, those are even easier to fake than modern ones.

And it is even more grounded in reality as in this case, it eventually gets out.

Faked unrestricted submarine warfare is much bigger thing than creating some small incident on border.

 

[jlckansas]

You also have the origination and destinations of the cable. You cannot fake it going to the German Ambassador in Mexico and you would have to have a way to originate the cable to come from Germany. This was not sent by radio but by actual underseas cable that did not travel through the UK areas and you would be able to track back where it had originated from. You would also have to have to have a way to cover for the UK subs suddenly appearing in US waters or in UK waters where the German Uboats had not been.

 

[Cymraeg]

What if the Zimmermann telegram and unrestricted submarine warfare were fake and orchestrated by Britain to make US join WW1 on entente side?

Britain uses submarines to sink american cargo and blames the germans, to make things worse they forge the Zimmermann telegram, in a way to make it look legit, but Germany denies it, unlike OTL. The US declares war on Central Powers after that.

But what if the US discovers all that around april 1918, alongside with the discovery of Lusitania having weapons on board.

Which effects it could have? How things would have changed from this?

*Astonished silence*
ASB. Nope, ASB in spades.

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

Faked unrestricted submarine warfare is much bigger thing than creating some small incident on border.

It is indeed a much larger undertaking but in no way it is ASB.

You would also have to have to have a way to cover for the UK subs suddenly appearing in US waters or in UK waters where the German Uboats had not been.

Given that they should have the routes for inbound ships from the US to Britain then they could plan submarine deployment to intercept said ships, sink them, before moving to their assigned patrol zones. During WW1, the international press was in Britain's hands.

Heck, they could create the impression of unrestricted submarine warfare just by utilizing the 8 D-class submarines, which look very similar to the U-16 subs, by doing sporadic attacks throughout British waters.

I believe the logic of this TTL is that, after seeing the fallout of the Lusitania, the Admiralty decides to push the idea that Germany never stopped unrestricted sub warfare but with the events of 1916 then put it on the backburner until late 1916/early 1917.

 

[YYJ]

What if the Zimmermann telegram and unrestricted submarine warfare were fake and orchestrated by Britain to make US join WW1 on entente side?

Britain uses submarines to sink american cargo and blames the germans, to make things worse they forge the Zimmermann telegram, in a way to make it look legit, but Germany denies it, unlike OTL. The US declares war on Central Powers after that.

But what if the US discovers all that around april 1918, alongside with the discovery of Lusitania having weapons on board.

Which effects it could have? How things would have changed from this?

Re: Fake USW, Germany resumed USW in February 1, 1917. The US broke off diplomatic relations 2 days later, and declared war April 6. In February and March 1917, that is between the declaration of USW and the US declaration of war, German U-boats sank more than one million tons of shipping. Are you suggesting that Royal Navy Submarines sink one million tons of British, American and neutral shipping as a false flag operation?

Here is a list of ships sunk in February: 328 vessels

Losses by Month - Ships hit by U-boats - German and Austrian U-boats of World War One - Kaiserliche Marine - uboat.net

The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. Over 40.000 pages on the officers, the boats, technology and the Allied efforts to counter the U-boat threat.

uboat.net

Here is a list of ships sunk in March: 413 vessels

Losses by Month - Ships hit by U-boats - German and Austrian U-boats of World War One - Kaiserliche Marine - uboat.net

The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. Over 40.000 pages on the officers, the boats, technology and the Allied efforts to counter the U-boat threat.

uboat.net

That is quite a false flag operation.

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

Re: Fake USW, Germany resumed USW in February 1, 1917. The US broke off diplomatic relations 2 days later, and declared war April 6. In February and March 1917, that is between the declaration of USW and the US declaration of war, German U-boats sank more than one million tons of shipping. Are you suggesting that Royal Navy Submarines sink one million tons of British, American and neutral shipping as a false flag operation?

Here is a list of ships sunk in February: 328 vessels

Losses by Month - Ships hit by U-boats - German and Austrian U-boats of World War One - Kaiserliche Marine - uboat.net

The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. Over 40.000 pages on the officers, the boats, technology and the Allied efforts to counter the U-boat threat.

uboat.net

Here is a list of ships sunk in March: 413 vessels

Losses by Month - Ships hit by U-boats - German and Austrian U-boats of World War One - Kaiserliche Marine - uboat.net

The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. Over 40.000 pages on the officers, the boats, technology and the Allied efforts to counter the U-boat threat.

uboat.net

That is quite a false flag operation.

I don't believe they need to sink that much, if the targets were passenger liners or other ships that leads to a high number of US lives lost, perhaps even some politicians or the Secretary of State, then it won't matter how much tonnage is sunk.

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

I don't believe they need to sink that much, if the targets were passenger liners or other ships that leads to a high number of US lives lost, perhaps even some politicians or the Secretary of State, then it won't matter how much tonnage is sunk.

How many is high? 500? 5,000?

 

[Garrison]

It is indeed a much larger undertaking but in no way it is ASB.

In the strict sense that it doesn't involve magic or aliens not it isn't ASB, in any sense that it is remotely possible then no, its the sort of thing that only works in bad thriller novels. This is just a bizarre idea that seems to have been proposed simply to have the USA join the CP as there is no sensible or credible option to achieve that.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

500 get attention, 1,200 is in range of the Titanic tragedy, 2000 puts you at the Lusitania level.

 

[YYJ]

The implementation of USW is not just sinking a US flagged vessel or two. It is the nature of sinking and the locations of sinking vessels of all flags. The whole point of declaring USW was as a deterrent to trade with Britain. Britain claiming that Germany has declared USW and Germany denying it is a whole other thing.

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

How many is high? 500? 5,000?

Probably 5 or 8k?

In the strict sense that it doesn't involve magic or aliens not it isn't ASB, in any sense that it is remotely possible then no, its the sort of thing that only works in bad thriller novels. This is just a bizarre idea that seems to have been proposed simply to have the USA join the CP as there is no sensible or credible option to achieve that.

I don't think that's the OP's intention? They find out when the war is just as good as over and there's no reason why they would join the defeated powers. Sure, the British dragged them into the war but there's no reason to start another one at this point in time.

 

[TRH]

I don't believe they need to sink that much, if the targets were passenger liners or other ships that leads to a high number of US lives lost, perhaps even some politicians or the Secretary of State, then it won't matter how much tonnage is sunk.

You need a ton of discipline to pull this off and keep it a secret. I doubt such a risky and high-level initiative goes forward without Cabinet approval, so just from the start you need all of them to, at a minimum, not squeal about this insanely risky proposal to attack neutral civilian targets and blame Germany for it. The War Cabinet at the time included Labour leader Arthur Henderson, who IOTL resigned in protest in August 1917 because the others wouldn't support an international peace conference.

So there's hurdle one. You'd have us believe that Henderson would be part of the group that receives this briefing on a dangerous and illegal strategy of deception and war crimes and either go along with it or, at the least, look the other way instead of resigning and leaking it to the press when he resigned from the Cabinet IOTL over far less.

You'd need the same level of absolute discipline and acceptance from the rest of the Cabinet as well, plus the Admiralty and everyone else involved in the planning and implementation of the operation. Any of those dozens if not hundreds or thousands of individuals could upend everything by squealing or refusing to follow illegal orders. And they might dissent for any number of reasons: not only moral ones, but also just out of fear that something goes wrong and the Americans might discover the truth sooner or later. They need to be on board and they need to be confident that nothing could possibly go wrong in spite of the countless things that could go horribly wrong.

Because if they think this is likely to go wrong, then their best bet at forestalling disaster and probable war with the United States would be to leak the plans before they're implemented. That would spur public outrage and force the plans to be abandoned immediately and denied publicly. So why would they not do just that?

 

[Garrison]

Probably 5 or 8k?

I don't think that's the OP's intention? They find out when the war is just as good as over and there's no reason why they would join the defeated powers. Sure, the British dragged them into the war but there's no reason to start another one at this point in time.

Well even if that's not the overall idea, its still nonsensical. A Germany that was smart enough to avoid all that self sabotage probably doesn't get itself into the war in the first place. The OP's idead requires radically rewriting the behaviour of the British and the Germans without offering up any explanation of why this is.

 

[jlckansas]

It is indeed a much larger undertaking but in no way it is ASB.

Given that they should have the routes for inbound ships from the US to Britain then they could plan submarine deployment to intercept said ships, sink them, before moving to their assigned patrol zones. During WW1, the international press was in Britain's hands.

Heck, they could create the impression of unrestricted submarine warfare just by utilizing the 8 D-class submarines, which look very similar to the U-16 subs, by doing sporadic attacks throughout British waters.

I believe the logic of this TTL is that, after seeing the fallout of the Lusitania, the Admiralty decides to push the idea that Germany never stopped unrestricted sub warfare but with the events of 1916 then put it on the backburner until late 1916/early 1917.

This is one of the fallacies of this. When you setup shipping lanes for the inbound ships and suddenly the the tonnage sunk goes up and you don't have people relieved from command and more ships put there then it will look fishy, and especially if the RN ships don't get sunk more often. You basically have to keep the RN in the dark to keep them from not attacking submarines and to have a way to explain why the RN is suddenly incompetent.

 

[TRH]

This is one of the fallacies of this. When you setup shipping lanes for the inbound ships and suddenly the the tonnage sunk goes up and you don't have people relieved from command and more ships put there then it will look fishy, and especially if the RN ships don't get sunk more often. You basically have to keep the RN in the dark to keep them from not attacking submarines and to have a way to explain why the RN is suddenly incompetent.

And as the points of potential failure multiply, the pressure on everyone involved in this gigantic conspiracy to break ranks and try and stop the madness will only grow. Conspiracies are hard.