The border between the United States and Mexico is now a daily topic in the news. With the war on drugs, the separation of parent and child with no protocol for reuniting them, the renegotiation of NAFTA, and the election of a new progressive president in Mexico that border will continue to claim headlines for some time.
American/Mexico relations have rarely been peaceful for long. In the 1820s, American settlers in Mexican Texas rebelled to form the Republic of Texas that later became an American state. The Mexican-American War in the 1840s, a war deliberately provoked by President Polk saw the U.S. add California and the southwest states to its territory. In the early 20th century, relations between the two were "delicate." American troops captured the city of Vera Cruz due to a missing salute, President Wilson took sides in the political wars in Mexico, and Pancho Villa's raid on an America border town led to 5,000 America troops hunting him down in Mexico. The shift from coal powered ships to oil power and the discovery of large oil deposits in Mexico made the country of considerable interest not only to the United States, but also to Britain and other naval powers.
When the First World War started in 1914, both America and Mexico remained neutral. Wilson won his second term in office vowing that he would not send American boys to fight in a European conflict. As the war entered its third year, both sides in the conflict were tired and worn out. The Allies saw America as an ally; the Germans were wary of America joining the Allies and tried to keep it neutral. But as 1917 lingered on the writing was on the wall - the United States inched closer and closer to joining the Allies.
When the war had started, there were several transatlantic telegraph cables that connected America and Europe. The first connected Ireland with Newfoundland and others followed. Further south, a cable connected Africa with Brazil. Germany certainly could not use the lines that ran from the British Isles so communication with its American Embassy had to follow a difficult route out of Europe to Africa, then to South America and finally northward to Washington D.C.
With President Wilson determined to negotiate peace in Europe, a faster way to connect Germany with its American embassy had to be found for negotiations to proceed. The American embassy in London offered to allow Germany to use its connection to New York for coded diplomatic messages to speed things up. And so it was that coded German telegraphs to its embassy in Washington were sent from Berlin to the U.S. embassy in London and forwarded to America on the British cable.
The British were well aware of this process. But they had a secret. They had broken the German diplomatic code. Messages from Berlin to Washington were read as soon as they were sent while the Germans rested comfortably on the assumption that their code could never be broken.
Germany's foreign affairs minister was a fellow named Zimmerman. In order to keep America from sending troops to fight in Europe, he thought up a delightful plan. If he could convince Mexico to go to war against the United States, those troops that would have to be sent to Europe would be deployed to fend off Mexico. Even better, if he could get Japan to leave the Allies, he might be able to forge a Mexican-Japanese alliance making the threat even worse. German would fund the venture and send arms and other support; Mexico would also get back Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Today this sounds very far-fetched but in 1917 it did make sense even if it ignored some very practical problems. The U.S. was not yet a major power. A war with Mexico (and possibly Japan) would stretch its military to the limit.
Zimmerman composed a directive to his Washington and Mexican embassies outlining this plan in some detail. Reduced to a telegraph it made its way to London and then, via the British cable to Washington.
The British were astounded as they read Zimmerman's proposal. Having tried unsuccessfully to add America to the Allied forces, this German plot would anger Wilson and the American public enough to declare war on Germany. The sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania in 1915 (which some still claim was a evil British plot) had almost done the trick. Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 - that almost did it. The Zimmerman telegraph would certainly force Wilson's hand and see an end to American neutrality.
However, there was a problem. In the Second World War, the British also broke the German codes. When plans to bomb Coventry were decoded, Churchill had to decide to warn the city and possibly disclose the source of his knowledge or let the city be bombed without warning. To protect the secret, he did not defend the city. The British in the First World War had to find a way to leak news of the Zimmerman telegraph to America without disclosing that they had broken the German code.
The answer to that problem was the telegram forwarded to the German ambassador to Mexico. Fortunate circumstances gave Britain access to the Mexican telegraph office where an employee happily supplied a copy on request. As this differed in some particulars from the Zimmerman telegram, releasing it to the Americans would locate the security breech in Mexico City, not in London. But how to avoid the obvious response that the cable was a British trick (like the fake "Lusitania Medal" given out by British Embassies). The coded cable was delivered to the American ambassador in England and, with British help, was decoded at the American embassy, technically American territory. Further, the Zimmerman telegram had been sent through the American link to Washington, so America already had a copy of that as well as the Western Union telegram to Mexico. While still coded, the duplication of coded messages would allow confirmation that the kindly offer for Germany to use American access to the transatlantic cable had been abused. Certainly Wilson's reputation for high moral principles would be offended by this.
Which was exactly what happened. Wilson was mad and ordered that the Zimmerman telegram be released to the press. It made banner headlines - "GERMANY SEEKS ALLIANCE AGAINST U.S.; ASKS JAPAN AND MEXICO TO JOIN HER."
While Congress was still arguing over the authenticity, Zimmerman admitted writing it. Still, the dithering continued as more American ships were sunk by German submarines. Wilson, having been re-elected on his promise to keep America out of war had no choice but to ask Congress for a Declaration of War against Germany and her allies.
In our present day world, private communications continue to be fodder for the media even as media has changed drastically since 1917. Look to our south where the release of private correspondence has figured prominently in many of the Trump scandals and the hounding of Secretary Clinton. It seems the more anyone in the public eye tries to keep embarrassing private letters and e-mails secret, the more likely it is that they will be made public. Even private conversations can come back to haunt years later. With the Internet, all of your own e-mails will remain accessible forever.
