USA HISTORY

AMERICAN IMPERIALISM(1890 1919)

THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD WAR I

[SOURCES]
Sent by Germans to encourage a Mexican attack against the United States. Intercepted & decoded by Britain.

(A) ** Zimmerman Telegram

(B) Lusitania Telegraph

(C) Roosevelt Corollary

(D) Monroe Doctrine

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note or Zimmerman Cable) was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany.

Concept note-2: -British code breakers worked to decrypt communication codes. In October of 1914, the Russian admiralty gave British Naval Intelligence (known as Room 40) a copy of the German naval codebook removed from a drowned German sailor’s body from the cruiser SMS Magdeburg.

Concept note-3: -This telegram, written by German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann, is a coded message sent to Mexico, proposing a military alliance against the United States.

Concept note-4: -In January 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause.

Concept note-5: -Zimmermann’s alliance proposal did reach the desk of Mexican President Carranza, but it was officially rejected once a military commission determined that there would be no benefit in accepting it.