The U.S., at the time, was highly divided about international conflict. “In the event of this not succeeding,” Zimmermann’s note read, “we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.” The ambassador was also directed to urge Mexico to strike up an alliance with Japan in an eventual fight against America. By then, the United States was already on its slow and inexorable path to war with Germany and, in the telegram, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann instructed his ambassador in Mexico on what to do if America failed to maintain its neutrality and joined the Allied forces. newspapers, about a German telegram that had fallen into the hands of the American government. Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace." Signed, ZIMMERMANN.On March 1, 1917, an explosive story hit the front pages of major U.S. You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal or alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. "We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. ( Decoded message text of the Zimmermann Telegram) The Zimmermann telegram clearly had helped draw the United States into the war and thus changed the course of the war, which ended with an armistice, an agreement in which both sides agree to stop fighting, on November 11, 1918. The telegram had such an impact on American opinion that, according to David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers, "No other single cryptanalysis has had such enormous consequences." It is his opinion that "never before or since has so much turned upon the solution of a secret message." On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress formally declared war on Germany and its allies. On February 24 Britain released the Zimmermann telegram to Wilson, and news of the telegram was published widely in the American press on March 1. In response, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Germany in February. Meanwhile, frustration over the effective British naval blockade caused Germany to break its pledge to limit submarine warfare. To protect their intelligence from detection and to capitalize on growing anti-German sentiment in the United States, the British waited to present the telegram to President Wilson. In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson was elected President for a second term, largely because of the slogan "He kept us out of war." Events in early 1917 would change that hope. While armies battled in Europe, the United States remained neutral. Between 1914 and the spring of 1917, the European nations engaged in a conflict that became known as World War I.
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