Zimmerman Telegram/Addendum
Arthur Zimmermann's Speech Regarding the Zimmermann Telegram, 29 March 1917
I wrote no letter to General Carranza. I was not so naive. I merely addressed, by a route that appeared to me to be a safe one, instructions to our representative in Mexico.
It is being investigated how these instructions fell into the hands of the American authorities. I instructed the Minister to Mexico, in the event of war with the United States, to propose a German alliance to Mexico, and simultaneously to suggest that Japan join the alliance.
I declared expressly that, despite the submarine war, we hoped that America would maintain neutrality.
My instructions were to be carried out only after the United States declared war and a state of war supervened. I believe the instructions were absolutely loyal as regards the United States.
General Carranza would have heard nothing of it up to the present if the United States had not published the instructions which came into its hands in a way which was not unobjectionable. Our behaviour contrasts considerably with the behaviour of the Washington Government.
President Wilson after our note of January 31, 1917, which avoided all aggressiveness in tone, deemed it proper immediately to break off relations with extraordinary roughness. Our Ambassador no longer had the opportunity to explain or elucidate our attitude orally.
The United States Government thus declined to negotiate with us. On the other hand, it addressed itself immediately to all the neutral powers to induce them to join the United States and break with us.
Every unprejudiced person must see in this the hostile attitude of the American Government, which seemed to consider it right, before being at war with us, to set the entire world against us. It cannot deny us the right to seek allies when it has itself practically declared war on us.
Herr Haase [ed. note: a German socialist] says that it caused great indignation in America. Of course, in the first instance, the affair was employed as an incitement against us. But the storm abated slowly and the calm and sensible politicians, and also the great mass of the American people, saw that there was nothing to object to in these instructions in themselves. I refer especially to the statements of Senator Underwood. Even at times newspapers felt obliged to admit regretfully that not so very much had been made out of this affair.
The Government was reproached for thinking just of Mexico and Japan. First of all, Mexico was a neighbouring State to America. If we wanted allies against America, Mexico would be the first to come into consideration. The relations between Mexico and ourselves since the time of Porfirio Diaz have been extremely friendly and trustful. The Mexicans, moreover, are known as good and efficient soldiers.
It can hardly be said that the relations between the United States and Mexico had been friendly and trustful.
But the world knows that antagonism exists between America and Japan. I maintain that these antagonisms are stronger than those which, despite the war, exist between Germany and Japan.
When I also wished to persuade Carranza that Japan should join the alliance there was nothing extraordinary in this. The relations between Japan and Mexico are long existent. The Mexicans and Japanese are of a like race and good relations exist between both countries.
When, further, the Entente press affirms that it is shameless to take away allies, such reproach must have a peculiar effect coming from powers who, like our enemies, made no scruple in taking away from us two powers and peoples with whom we were bound by treaties for more than thirty years.
The powers who desire to make pliant an old European country of culture like Greece by unparalleled and violent means cannot raise such a reproach against us.
When I thought of this alliance with Mexico and Japan I allowed myself to be guided by the consideration that our brave troops already have to fight against a superior force of enemies, and my duty is, as far as possible, to keep further enemies away from them. That Mexico and Japan suited that purpose even Herr Haase will not deny.
Thus, I considered it a patriotic duty to release those instructions, and I hold to the standpoint that I acted rightly.
Japanese Prime Minister Count Terauchi on the Zimmermann Telegram
The revelation of Germany's latest plot, looking to a combination between Japan and Mexico against the United States, is interesting in many ways.
We are surprised not so much by the persistent efforts of the Germans to cause an estrangement between Japan and the United States as by their complete failure of appreciating the aims and ideals of other nations.
Nothing is more repugnant to our sense of honour and to the lasting welfare of this country than to betray our allies and friends in time of trial and to become a party to a combination directed against the United States, to whom we are bound not only by the sentiments of true friendship, but also by the material interests of vast and far-reaching importance.
The proposal which is now reported to have been planned by the German Foreign Office has not been communicated to the Japanese Government up to this moment, either directly or indirectly, officially or unofficially, but should it ever cone to hand I can conceive no other form of reply than that of indignant and categorical refusal.
Commentary by Charles F. Horne, published in Volume 5 of Source Records of the Great War, 1921
Time clears our perspective upon many matters.
The Zimmermann note was an official letter sent secretly by Zimmermann, Germany's Secretary of Foreign Affairs, to her Minister in Mexico, directing him to attempt to unite Mexico and Japan with Germany in war against the United States.
This document was captured by the United States secret service upon the Texas border, and was disclosed to the American public on February 28th, at the height of the brief interval of indignation and uncertainty between America's breaking of diplomatic relations and her declaring war.
Thus revealed, the note had a profound psychological effect. More than anything else, it hardened the peace-loving American people to the conviction that war with Germany was an absolutely necessary step.
Many Americans regarded the note as another piece of German treachery, like the blowing up of their factories and placing bombs upon their ships; and they voiced their renewed anger against the false foe who encouraged secret murder while wearing the mask of peace.
Today, however, most statesmen would agree that the note lay well within Germany's rights. It expressly stated that the alliance against the United States was only to be attempted if and after the fact was certain that there was to be "an outbreak of war".
The deeper influence of the note upon Americans, therefore, depended not so much upon its evidence of Germany's evil methods of attack, but upon its revelation that she had no intention whatever of limiting her U-boat warfare so as to placate them. She had "counted the cost".
If she could coax or frighten them into submitting to this U-boat destruction, good; if not, she meant to fight. Of America's backing down from the diplomatic stand of 1916, with all its background of American patience and German violence and subterfuge, there was no possibility whatever.
Americans knew that surely; though Germany apparently did not, Hence the Zimmermann note told them that the war, the Great War, had come to them at last.
What strikes one most about the Zimmermann note today is not its perfidy, but its folly, its utter folly and futility. Mexico knew well that no German ship, no aid in men or in munitions, could possibly reach her. She delighted much in annoying the United States; but what chance was there that she would deliberately invite destruction by declaring war to oblige Germany?
Or, even if we conceive Mexico guilty of such murderous madness, what effect could it have upon the United States beyond the holding of a few thousand troops upon the southern border, while the rest of the nation turned with increased anger and determination to Germany's overthrow?
When to this we add the absurdity of supposing that Mexico could at all sway the policy of Japan, the Zimmermann note becomes so monumental a stupidity that many men did not believe it could possibly be genuine, until Herr Zimmermann himself acknowledged it.
It would seem more logical to assume that Germany meant the note for just what it achieved, meant it, that is, to be revealed and thus to confirm America's intent for war.
References
- Charles F. Horne, ed. Source Records of the Great War, Vol. V, National Alumni, 1923.