Zimmermann telegram and USW are fake and staged by Britain

[Major Major]

What if the Zimmermann telegram [was] . . . fake and orchestrated by Britain to make US join WW1 on entente side?

Yet it was a mainstay of isolationist thought.

In spite of the fact that Zimmerman himself admitted it was true, and was praised by a vote of the Reichstag for his initiative in the war effort.

 

[TRH]

Yet it was a mainstay of isolationist thought.

In spite of the fact that Zimmerman himself admitted it was true, and was praised by a vote of the Reichstag for his initiative in the war effort.

I guess to be fair US news from Germany was effectively controlled by the Entente while the war was still on, so not sure what channels Zimmerman's confirmation was received by at the time.

 

[Alex1guy]

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.

That's not USW. It requires a declaration from Germany. It's not about sneakily sinking boats it was an announced policy from Germany. You can't fake that.

 

[NoMommsen]

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. ...

... actually the british 'sat' on the cables. And it were the cables the US of A used the british Intelligence tapped into (one of the reasons the british need a good 'cover' story to somewhat hide they actually also read all cables destined to the US of A).
After cutting of the german tarnsatlantic cables diplomatic messages not sent by radio went via british cables from Stockholm to Buenos Aires and from ther via a US of A based companys cables to Mexico.
Another way was going by gratitude of the US State Department via US of A diplomatic cables from the continent which run via London.

And the latter way was actually chosen for the Zimmermann message to be sent to german Washington embassy - from where it was forewarded to Mexico - as rendered by the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin safer than via the swedish diplomatic channels. ... Who would have though of the british tapping into US of A diplolmatic cable traffic ...

 

[NoMommsen]

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.

... with the numbers going up IOTL - at least in the 'beginning' ... couldn't be said the RN actually WAS as 'incompetent as you say?

 

[Comte de Geneve]

'Faking' the Zimmerman telegram is conceivable. Faking USW is not. Germany announced USW, it was no secret, it was publicly announced policy. And USW was much more important than Zimmerman in the US DOW.

 

[minhow]

Good answers everyone.

The point of this topic isn't much to see the US joining the Central Powers, it's much to see an entente US, that discovers that was deceived to join a war.

About the USW, it's much better to rephrase it into some select RN subs attacking US shipping and using KM flags, uniforms and colors to fake a german attack.

But conspiracies are hard to do, but they are interesting to think. Zimmermann telegram have everything to be a conspiracy or ASB, because how idiotic it was, but the german government kinda liked it on time, reading from comments.

The US could discover it from spies, because they aren't 100% convinced on this, and is leaked to public, so isn't a government secret, the public knows. And about early 1918, until april, because there isn't a big US presence in Europe, there is USSR, Germany isn't totally defeated, so there is a chance to change something.

 

[NoMommsen]

... Zimmermann telegram have everything to be a conspiracy or ASB, because how idiotic it was, ...

... about the often alleged "idiocy" regarding the Zimmermann teoegram itself as well as Zimmermann reactions to I would like to recommend getting ... somewhere ... a copy of this compared to other works (esp. the abomination of Barabara Tuchman) truly deeeply researched and sourceed work about the Zimmermann Telegramm and its backgrounds by Thomas Boghardt.

It should be able to shift that trope of 'idiocy of the Zimmermann telegram' so beloved also around here a bit ...

 

[CalBear]

Problem with this scenario is that the U.S. DIDN'T just take the British's word for the source of the document. There was considerable skepticism regarding the provenance of the telegram in the weeks after it was revealed. The American public took Zimmerman's OWN WORD for the authenticity of the message. The bloody fool admitted he had sent the telegram during a speech to the Reichstag on March 29th. Congress declared War a week later on April 6th, 1917.

A similar situation hold true regarding the Lusitania. The issue of USW was that the Germans were sinking AMERICAN ships, far more than the sinking of British vessels (although the world was still innocent enough of a place the the vast majority of Americans thought it was rather bad form to drown 1,195 civilians, including women and children in what amounted to a sneak attack).

There is also the classic "grew up eating lead paint chips with every meal" problem with the British doing all the harebrained things listed. Simply not going to happen.

This only works in an ASB scenario. If the OP would like this thread moved to ASB they should contact the Mods.