Wednesday, April 5, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
11
Commentary...
An incendiary telegram sends Americans ‘Over There’
By Jim Cornelius
News Editor
April 6, 2017, will mark
the 100th anniversary of the
entry of the United States of
America into The Great War.
The U.S. had been offi-
cially neutral since the war
burst like a sudden summer
thunderstorm over Europe
in August of 1914. Unlike a
summer storm, the war did
not pass in a quick, violent
spasm. It ground on and
on, chewing up thousands,
then millions of lives as the
allies Great Britain, France
and Russia became locked
in a death struggle with the
Central Powers — Germany,
Austria-Hungary and the
Ottoman Empire. Most
Americans wanted no part of
the horrible conflict, though
American arms manufac-
turers and farmers profited
handsomely from providing
weapons and wheat, almost
exclusively to the Allies
who, thanks to the British
Royal Navy, dominated the
seas.
P r e s i d e n t Wo o d r o w
Wilson won re-election in
1916 on the slogan, “He
kept us out of war.” By then
there were also loud voices
advocating for intervention
on behalf of the Allies, not
least from former president
Theodore Roosevelt, who
saw the war as a struggle
for the future of Western
Civilization. The Germans,
desperate to knock Great
Britain out of the war and
ease the British naval block-
ade that was slowly stran-
gling the Reich, decided to
initiate unrestricted subma-
rine warfare — knowing
that sinking American ship-
ping risked provoking U.S.
intervention.
The German General
Staff calculated that they
could starve Britain — heav-
ily dependent on American
and Canadian foodstuffs,
as well as war materiel —
out of the war before the
U.S. could mobilize an
army and send it across the
Atlantic. To help ensure that,
they schemed to keep the
Americans occupied dealing
with a military crisis on their
southern border. Mexico had
been convulsed in revolution
since 1910, and much of the
paltry military force of the
United States was concen-
trated on the border. In fact,
the U.S. Army had spent
most of 1916 chasing revo-
lutionary general Pancho
Villa across the Chihuahua
desert after Villa crossed the
border into New Mexico and
attacked the small town of
Columbus.
The Germans figured that
war on the border would
prevent the Americans
from intervening in Europe,
even if unrestricted sub-
marine warfare raised the
Americans’ ire.
As 1917 dawned,
German Foreign Minister
Arthur Zimmermann made
an offer to the govern-
ment of Mexican President
Venustiano Carranza that he
hoped the Mexicans couldn’t
refuse:
“We intend to begin on
the first of February unre-
stricted submarine warfare.
We shall endeavor in spite
of this to keep the United
States of America neutral.
In the event of this not suc-
ceeding, we make Mexico
a proposal or alliance on
the following basis: make
war together, make peace
together, generous finan-
cial support and an under-
standing on our part that
Mexico is to reconquer the
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lost territory in Texas, New
Mexico, and Arizona. The
settlement in detail is left
to you. You will inform the
President of the above most
secretly as soon as the out-
break of war with the United
States of America is certain
and add the suggestion that
he should, on his own initia-
tive, invite Japan to imme-
diate adherence and at the
same time mediate between
Japan and ourselves. Please
call the President’s attention
to the fact that the ruthless
employment of our subma-
rines now offers the prospect
of compelling England in a
few months to make peace.”
Signed, ZIMMERMANN.
The German play was not
very strong. Carranza hated
the Yanquis, but he had his
hands full consolidating his
own power (he’d be assassi-
nated by his favorite general
in 1920) and pacifying his
war-torn country, and was
in no position to get into a
shooting war with the United
States, no matter what the
territorial enticement.
But the telegram proved
much worse than a failed
gambit. British intelligence
intercepted the cable and
decoded it. The British gov-
ernment and its operatives
understood that the telegram
was explosive, but they were
reluctant to release the infor-
mation to the Americans and
tip their hand about their
ability to crack the German
diplomatic code. They sat
on it for three weeks, then
colluded with the Americans
to come up with a cover
story that the telegram had
been stolen in deciphered
form in Mexico.
It wasn’t a very good
story, and a lot of Americans
didn’t buy it. They — rea-
sonably enough — sus-
pected a British forgery
designed to pull the U.S. into
the war and the Empire’s fat
out of the fire. Inexplicably,
Arthur Zimmermann himself
confirmed the telegram’s
authenticity, endeavoring to
make the Americans under-
stand that as long as the
U.S. stayed out of the war,
the proposed deal with the
Mexicans would never take
effect. That was tone deaf,
to say the least. Enraged
American public opinion
turned decisively against
Germany, and on April 2,
Wilson asked Congress for a
Declaration of War.
On April 6, 1917, the
United States of America
entered the Great War to
make the world safe for
democracy. Of course, it
didn’t work out quite that
way. America’s intervention
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did prove decisive. In an
unprecedented mobiliza-
tion effort, the U.S. shipped
millions of fresh if inexperi-
enced troops to shore up the
Allies on the Western Front
in France.
An exhausted, bled-
out Germany sought an
Armistice in November
1918, and Wilson sailed
across the Atlantic — the
first time a sitting president
had left America’s shores —
to craft a peace to cap “the
war to end all wars.”
But what actually came
to pass was a peace to end
all peace, leading to a sec-
ond, even more horrific
war that would overturn the
world order and establish the
United States as the domi-
nant player on the interna-
tional stage. That’s the role
we continue to play, to our
benefit and to our cost, a
role we first auditioned for
100 years ago on April 6,
1917.
(PBS will air a new three-
part American Experience
documentary on the United
States involvement in the
war starting on April 10.)
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