Late on Wednesday, 31 January 1917, the U.S. State Department was notified that, from the following day, German submarines would sink any merchant vessel within a war zone encompassing the British Isles and the Mediterranean. After several months of resistance, the Kaiser and his Chancellor had given way to pressure by the admirals and the High Command and authorized a policy which they knew would almost certainly bring America into the war against Germany. This risk they were prepared to take, never doubting that unrestricted U-Boat warfare would force Britain to sue for peace within five months, long before the United States could send any forces to Europe. If Britain contemplated withdrawing from the war, her allies would speedily seek terms from Berlin. As Germany anticipated, the U.S. responded by breaking off diplomatic relations on 3 February.
Already precautions were being taken by the War Department. As early as 5 February, General Pershing and his men started coming back from Mexico. Yet President Wilson stopped short of seeking a declaration of war from Congress. He was content to warn Germany that if U.S. vessels were sunk and American lives lost, active steps would be taken.
On Friday, 23 February, British Naval Intelligence handed over to the American Ambassador in London a deciphered copy of the famous intercepted telegram sent by the German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmermann, to the embassy in Washington on 19 January for transmission to Eckhardt, the German envoy in Mexico City. In the telegram Zimmermann proposed that if the U.S. declared war on Germany, Eckardt should seek an alliance. He should tell Mexicos President Carranza that, in return for "generous financial support" from Berlin, the Mexicans would invade the United States and, as part of the peace settlement, Germany would insist on the cession to Mexico of the lost territory of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Carranza was also to seek Japans adhesion to the alliance, by serving as mediator between Berlin and Tokyo and inducing the Japanese to switch sides. The telegram was so improbable that it read like a bad novel.
It was hardly surprising that when Zimmermanns proposals were made public by Wilson on 1 February, even many Anglophiles thought the telegram was a forgery. Doubts, however, were soon allayed, for Herr Zimmermann was proud of his ingenious matchmaking. He considered his enterprise a perfectly legitimate exercise in preparatory diplomacy. On 3 March he summoned a press conference in Berlin. "Of course Your Excellency will deny this story?", the correspondent of the (anti-British) Hearst newspapers dutifully asked. "I cannot deny it," snapped Zimmermann, "it is true." His admission was in the New York newspapers the next morning.
Yet still Wilson seemed to linger, though in reality he was hampered by filibustering in the Senate, led by Robert La Follette, Republican of Wisconsin. The loss to U-Boats of three American ships, sunk without warning on the same day (Sunday, 18 March) hardened feelings in Wilsons cabinet. On the next Tuesday, there was a unanimous Cabinet vote for a declaration of war, only the President refusing to commit himself. But the next day he summoned Congress for a special session on 2 April. There was no doubt over his purpose.
Eight days before the Congressional session, Wilson sent his war message to Congress. On the evening of the 2nd, sought a declaration of war against Germany. "We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no domination," he asserted. However, he had to wait four days before Congress completed its deliberations. In the Senate, the war resolution was debated for 13 hours, but when the vote was taken on 5 April, only six of the 96 opposed entry into the war, three Republicans and three Democrats. The House backed Wilson by 371 to 50. In the small hours of 6 April, Good Friday, the resolution was finally carried, and the United States was at war with Germany.
The kick that moved the American people to support America's entrance into the war was the Zimmermann telegram. It awoke that part of the country that had been undecided or indifferent. Secretary of State Robert Lansing said that the telegram transformed the apathy of the Western states into "intense hostility to Germany" and "in one day accomplished a change in sentiment and public opinion that was otherwise impossible to achieve." The telegram was not a theory or an issue but a gesture that anyone could understand. It was the German boot planted on the American border. To the mass of Americans, who thought little and cared less about Europe, it meant that if they fought, they would be defending America, not merely extracting Europe from its own quarrels. It put the American people to demand that their elected leaders, Wilson in particular, do something about the threat to the country.
Would Americans have been willing to go to war without the telegram? Probably not. Before it was published, the dominant feeling inspired by the war--always excepting pro-Ally New England--was the stubborn, if inglorious, slogan that got Wilson elected the previous fall: "He kept us out of war." Afterward, the mood changed to anger and the realization that war was inevitable. Wilson knew this when he drafted his war speech to Congress. He no longer had the excuse of ignoring the goading of the Lodge and Roosevelt faction because he knew the country as a whole was not with them. After the public reaction to the Zimmermann telegram, that excuse was taken from him. On 17 March, the Literary Digest published a summary of nationwide press comment on the telegram under the heading "How Zimmermann United the United States." That was a fair estimate of published opinion, even if it ignored the unswerving La Follettes and that mute opinion which can never be weighted. It left Wilson bereft of the prop of public opinion which had so far sustained his struggles to keep the U.S. neutral.
Sources:
Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram
Alan Palmer, Victory 1918
Already precautions were being taken by the War Department. As early as 5 February, General Pershing and his men started coming back from Mexico. Yet President Wilson stopped short of seeking a declaration of war from Congress. He was content to warn Germany that if U.S. vessels were sunk and American lives lost, active steps would be taken.
On Friday, 23 February, British Naval Intelligence handed over to the American Ambassador in London a deciphered copy of the famous intercepted telegram sent by the German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmermann, to the embassy in Washington on 19 January for transmission to Eckhardt, the German envoy in Mexico City. In the telegram Zimmermann proposed that if the U.S. declared war on Germany, Eckardt should seek an alliance. He should tell Mexicos President Carranza that, in return for "generous financial support" from Berlin, the Mexicans would invade the United States and, as part of the peace settlement, Germany would insist on the cession to Mexico of the lost territory of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Carranza was also to seek Japans adhesion to the alliance, by serving as mediator between Berlin and Tokyo and inducing the Japanese to switch sides. The telegram was so improbable that it read like a bad novel.
It was hardly surprising that when Zimmermanns proposals were made public by Wilson on 1 February, even many Anglophiles thought the telegram was a forgery. Doubts, however, were soon allayed, for Herr Zimmermann was proud of his ingenious matchmaking. He considered his enterprise a perfectly legitimate exercise in preparatory diplomacy. On 3 March he summoned a press conference in Berlin. "Of course Your Excellency will deny this story?", the correspondent of the (anti-British) Hearst newspapers dutifully asked. "I cannot deny it," snapped Zimmermann, "it is true." His admission was in the New York newspapers the next morning.
Yet still Wilson seemed to linger, though in reality he was hampered by filibustering in the Senate, led by Robert La Follette, Republican of Wisconsin. The loss to U-Boats of three American ships, sunk without warning on the same day (Sunday, 18 March) hardened feelings in Wilsons cabinet. On the next Tuesday, there was a unanimous Cabinet vote for a declaration of war, only the President refusing to commit himself. But the next day he summoned Congress for a special session on 2 April. There was no doubt over his purpose.
Eight days before the Congressional session, Wilson sent his war message to Congress. On the evening of the 2nd, sought a declaration of war against Germany. "We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no domination," he asserted. However, he had to wait four days before Congress completed its deliberations. In the Senate, the war resolution was debated for 13 hours, but when the vote was taken on 5 April, only six of the 96 opposed entry into the war, three Republicans and three Democrats. The House backed Wilson by 371 to 50. In the small hours of 6 April, Good Friday, the resolution was finally carried, and the United States was at war with Germany.
The kick that moved the American people to support America's entrance into the war was the Zimmermann telegram. It awoke that part of the country that had been undecided or indifferent. Secretary of State Robert Lansing said that the telegram transformed the apathy of the Western states into "intense hostility to Germany" and "in one day accomplished a change in sentiment and public opinion that was otherwise impossible to achieve." The telegram was not a theory or an issue but a gesture that anyone could understand. It was the German boot planted on the American border. To the mass of Americans, who thought little and cared less about Europe, it meant that if they fought, they would be defending America, not merely extracting Europe from its own quarrels. It put the American people to demand that their elected leaders, Wilson in particular, do something about the threat to the country.
Would Americans have been willing to go to war without the telegram? Probably not. Before it was published, the dominant feeling inspired by the war--always excepting pro-Ally New England--was the stubborn, if inglorious, slogan that got Wilson elected the previous fall: "He kept us out of war." Afterward, the mood changed to anger and the realization that war was inevitable. Wilson knew this when he drafted his war speech to Congress. He no longer had the excuse of ignoring the goading of the Lodge and Roosevelt faction because he knew the country as a whole was not with them. After the public reaction to the Zimmermann telegram, that excuse was taken from him. On 17 March, the Literary Digest published a summary of nationwide press comment on the telegram under the heading "How Zimmermann United the United States." That was a fair estimate of published opinion, even if it ignored the unswerving La Follettes and that mute opinion which can never be weighted. It left Wilson bereft of the prop of public opinion which had so far sustained his struggles to keep the U.S. neutral.
Sources:
Barbara Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram
Alan Palmer, Victory 1918
