By the winter of 1916/17, World War I had reached a deadlock. While the Allies commanded greater resources and fielded more soldiers than the Central Powers, German armies had penetrated deep into Russia and France, and tenaciously held on to their conquered empire. Hoping to break the stalemate on the western front, the exhausted Allies sought to bring the neutral United States into the conflict. A golden opportunity to force American intervention seemed at hand when British naval intelligence intercepted a secret telegram detailing a German alliance offer to Mexico. In it, Berlin’s foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, offered his country’s support to Mexico for re-conquering “the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona” in exchange for a Mexican attack on the United States, should the latter enter the war on the side of the Allies. The British handed a copy of the Telegram to the American government, which in turn leaked it to the press. On March 1, 1917, the Telegram made headline news across the United States, and five weeks later, America entered World War I. Based on an examination of virtually all available German, British, and U.S. government records, this book presents the definitive account of the Telegram and questions many traditional views on the origins, cryptanalysis, and impact of the German alliance scheme. While the Telegram has often been described as the final step in a carefully planned German strategy to gain a foothold in the western hemisphere, this book argues that the scheme was a spontaneous initiative by a minor German foreign office official, which gained traction only because of a lack of supervision and coordination at the top echelon of the German government. On the other hand, the book argues, American and British secret services had collaborated closely since 1915 to bring the United States into the war, and the Telegram’s interception and disclosure represented the crowning achievement of this clandestine Anglo-American intelligence alliance. Moreover, the book explicitly challenges the widely accepted notion that the Telegram’s publication in the U.S. press rallied Americans for war. Instead, it contends that the Telegram divided the public by poisoning the debate over intervention, and by failing to offer peace-minded Americans a convincing rationale for supporting the war. The book also examines the Telegram’s effect on the memory of World War I through the twentieth century and beyond.

Guide for social studies teachers in using primary sources, particularly those available from the National Archives, to teach history.

The story of how, in January of 1917, the British intercepted and deciphered a message from Berlin which they knew would bring America to the aid of the Allies. It involves a tale of espionage, secret diplomacy, international politics and personal drama probably unparalleled in history.

The classic account of the lead-up to World War I, told with “a rare combination of impeccable scholarship and literary polish” (The New York Times)—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August During the fateful quarter century leading up to World War I, the climax of a century of rapid, unprecedented change, a privileged few enjoyed Olympian luxury as the underclass was “heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate.” In The Proud Tower, Barbara W. Tuchman brings the era to vivid life: the decline of the Edwardian aristocracy; the Anarchists of Europe and America; Germany and its self-depicted hero, Richard Strauss; Diaghilev’s Russian ballet and Stravinsky’s music; the Dreyfus Affair; the Peace Conferences in The Hague; and the enthusiasm and tragedy of Socialism, epitomized by the assassination of Jean Jaurès on the night the Great War began and an epoch came to a close. The Proud Tower, The Guns of August, and The Zimmermann Telegram comprise Barbara W. Tuchman’s classic histories of the First World War era.

How did the telegraph, a new and revolutionary form of communication, affect diplomats, who tended to resist change? In a study based on impressive multinational research, David Paull Nickles examines the critical impact of the telegraph on the diplomacy of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Case studies in crisis diplomacy--the War of 1812, the Trent affair during the U.S. Civil War, and the famous 1917 Zimmermann telegram--introduce wide-ranging thematic discussions on the autonomy of diplomats; the effects of increased speed on decision making and public opinion; the neglected role of clerks in diplomacy; and the issues of expense, garbled text, espionage, and technophobia that initially made foreign ministries wary of telegraphy. Ultimately, the introduction of the telegraph contributed to the centralization of foreign ministries and the rising importance of signals intelligence. The faster pace of diplomatic disputes invited more emotional decisions by statesmen, while public opinion often exercised a belligerent influence on crises developing over a shorter time period. Under the Wire offers a fascinating new perspective on the culture of diplomacy and the social history of technology. Table of Contents: Introduction I. Control 1. The Anglo-American Crisis of 1812 2. Diplomatic Autonomy and Telecommunications II. Speed 3. The Trent Affair 4. Speed and Diplomacy 5. Diplomatic Time III. The Medium 6. The Zimmermann Telegram 7. Technical and Economic Factors Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Acknowledgments Index Reviews of this book: David Paull Nickles has plumbed the archives of four countries to determine just how transformative [the invention of the telegraph] really was. Under the Wire is a subtle and impressive examination of history. --Christian D. Brose, Wall Street Journal In this study of the impact of telegraphy on the management of international relations, the reader is rewarded time and again by finding original observations regarding familiar events. This is a book that can have a shaping effect not only on the field of international relations but on many others, since it compels one to think hard about how changes in technology affect behavior and thought among groups with deeply rooted traditions and beliefs. --Ernest R. May, Harvard University