Title: The Zimmerman Telegram
Author: Barbara Tuchman
Publisher: The Folio Society 2004
Reviewed by: A W Sangster

This book, originally published in 1958 by The Orion Publishing Group and Scribner, is now being re-issued as a classic issue under the Folio Society banner. It is a historical gem and well worth coming to public attention after nearly 50 years.

It is a story of World War 1 (1914-1918) when the titanic struggle was taking place between the central powers headed by Germany, and the allies headed by Great Britain and France.

The war was stalemated on the trenches of the Somme in France, and Britain was close to collapse with the loss of its supply ships to the German U-boat assault. Help from America with its resources was desperately needed, but President Wilson was in no mood to commit to arms and war. He was in fact trying to establish a cessation of the conflict.

But neither side would have any of that. It had to be victory at all costs. The German Military High Command, now dominating the central powers and Germany itself, saw a strategic opportunity. If it could knock Britain out of the war, it was unlikely that France and the other allies could continue the fight. The strategy was to use an expanded U-boat fleet to attack all merchant shipping going across the Atlantic (including US ships) and so to cripple Britain.

This was a risk that the high command were prepared to take, for attacks on American shipping would run the risk of bringing America in on the war on the allies side. This is the context of the Zimmerman Telegram and the main actors in the struggle.

British Naval Intelligence and Room 40. In some ways this was the key to unlock the gate that opened the Zimmerman telegram. Some critical dates need to be noted.

On August 4, 1914, Britain had declared war on Germany following the latter's invasion of Belgium and early on the following morning the English cable ship Telconia moving in the darkness at a point in the North Sea near the German coast cut the five transatlantic cables linking Germany to the rest of the world.

For a short time only one cable was open to Germany, and this was the one between West Africa and Brazil, which was largely American owned. Shortly after, the American cable company also cut this cable.

Thus, for the duration of the war Germany had to rely on wireless messages for its communication system. Very soon wireless messages began streaming into the rooms of British Naval Intelligence (BNI). No one knew how to deal with these German code messages, so Room 40 was born.

First, with the significant number of German wireless messages being intercepted - some 200 every day - the then Director of Naval Intelligence (BNI) Admiral Oliver, was overwhelmed and sent for a Scot Alfred Ewing, a former professor of mechanical engineering and director of naval education. He was asked to deal with the problem.

Ewing soon found that he needed help desperately and recruited a band of university dons, linguists and others to the task. Painstaking review of the messages began to give some headway but they were in luck for a copy of the German code was rescued from a scuttled German ship.

Eventually Room 40, with its skills being developed, was able to crack the German code and read the changes that were done from time to time. The flow of German traffic was being constantly monitored by the team at Room 40 which eventually numbered several hundred people.

January 17, 1917 was a special day in Room 40. This was the day that the Zimmerman telegram was intercepted. It was a cable from the German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman addressed to Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador in Washington. The intercept fell into two parts.

The first and longer part informed the Ambassador of Germany's intention to resume 'unrestricted' submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, a decision expected and dreaded by the allies for many months.

The second part was a message to be transmitted to the German Ambassador in Mexico. The Ambassador in Washington was instructed not to deliver the notice to the United States government until February 1, the very day the torpedoes would be let loose.

Admiral Hall who had previously replaced admiral Oliver as head of Room 40 realised that he had dynamite in his hands. At the same time there was the question as to how to handle the message.

Was he to release the telegram and risk the code breaking system which had been painfully developed over two-and-a half years of precious work or withhold the telegram which meant throwing away the greatest triumphal possession of the code that the Zimmerman message could bring. Perhaps the German U-boat threat would bring the US president into war with Germany.

He had two weeks' grace period and locked the message in his private safe. It turned out that he did not release the telegram till after the February 1 deadline and the subsequent actions of the US president justified Admiral Hall's decision.

President Wilson. The president who had been elected on the ticket of 'Keeping America out of the war' kept making attempts to stop the fighting. On December 18, 1916, he asked the two sides for a declaration of their war aims from which a settlement could proceed.

Both sides rejected the idea. Subsequently, Wilson with the obsession of peace allowed the Germans to use the American system to transmit messages not known to itself. Wilson allowed this to proceed under protest from his senior aids.

It was to be a conduit of treachery, and also the escape that Admiral Hall would later use when the telegram was released. He could say it had been passed through the American system.

On January 31, at the last possible moment, allowing less than eight hours notice, the German ambassador delivered the message about the U-boat war. Washington was taken by surprise. In Berlin everyone asked the question, "What will the United States do?"

On February 3rd. after vacillating for three days, diplomatic relations with Germany were broken off. But it was not war yet and the allies were discouraged at Wilson's ongoing reluctance. On February 5th Admiral Hall felt the time had come - he unlocked the safe, took out the telegram and gave it to the Foreign Secretary's office.

After a great deal of back and forth between the Foreign office, the US Embassy and Admiral Hall of BNI, the cable was sent to the US for President Wilson's eyes. Wilson was astounded at its contents and became angry at what he saw as a great betrayal.

It was later released to the press and caused a storm of protest. But there were many in high levels in the US who called the telegram a fake. What if the Germans denied the telegram?

Zimmerman inexplicably admitted his authorship and settled the question in American minds. He also threw away an opportunity to find out how America had obtained the message.

The fall-out from the authenticity of the telegram was great. The pacifists were routed and the German-American lobby retreated in disgrace.

The president reconvened Congress for April 2, 1917. Packed into the chamber, the members of both Houses, the Supreme Court, The Cabinet, the diplomatic corps, the press, and the visitors who filled the gallery listened with every nerve to the words as the President declared the "The German government was a 'natural foe of liberty'..."

A roar like a storm greeted the President's address wrote one reporter. But the author raises the question:
"The man who made the April 2 speech was the same man who wished to settle for peace without victory in January and who refused to believe that the Germans were hostile to America in February."

It was probably the disclosure of the Zimmerman telegram which finally pushed Wilson, according to England's outspoken Lord Chancellor Lord Birkenhead who said, "The United Sates were in fact kicked into the war against the strong almost frenzied efforts of President Wilson".

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