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The Zimmermann Telegram: Intelligence, Diplomacy, and America's Entry into World War I . By Thomas Boghardt . Annapolis, MD : Naval Institute Press , 2012. Pp. xiii + 322. Cloth $36.95. ISBN 978-1612511481 .
Book Reviews
The leaking of a highly confidential telegram from Arthur Zimmermann, the German Foreign Secretary, to Heinrich von Eckardt, the German envoy in Mexico, on January 16, 1917, is one of the most written-about events in the history of international relations during World War I. Yet, Thomas Boghardt's excellent new study provides fresh details and interpretations while also opening up broader insights into the relationship among intelligence, diplomacy, and the rise of the secret state in the early twentieth century.
With Germany about to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, the telegram instructed Eckardt to offer an alliance to Mexico in the event of America entering the war on the side of the Allies. Mexico would have the prospect of "reconquer[ing] the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona," and Japan--though at war with the Central Powers since 1914--would be invited to join the new coalition. Astonishingly, it was sent via the German embassy in Washington using U.S. diplomatic cables that had been made available by the American government after Germany's own transatlantic wires had been cut by the enemy. It was intercepted and decoded by British naval intelligence on January 17, and, having been passed to the U.S. State Department a month later, was printed in the American press on March 1, 1917. On April 6, the United States declared war on Germany.
Interpretations of this episode have tended to polarize around three conflicting claims. First, the telegram has been taken seriously as an indication of German war aims and an example of how "Kaiserism" threatened the freedoms of the Western world. Second,...