The Zimmermann Telegram: America Enters the War, 1917-1918; Barbara W. Tuchman's Great War Series

by Barbara W. Tuchman

Book Overview

"A tremendous tale of hushed and unhushed uproars in the linked fields of war and diplomacy" (The New York Times), from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Guns of August

In January 1917, the war in Europe was, at best, a tragic standoff. Britain knew that all was lost unless the United States joined the war, but President Wilson was unshakable in his neutrality. At just this moment, a crack team of British decoders...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345324250
• ISBN13: 9780345324252
• Release Date: March 1985
• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

The E-Mail That Created World War I

History wasn't supposed to be this readable in 1958, but when Barbara Tuchman published "The Zimmermann Telegram" it was not only an advancement of scholarship about the roots of World War I but a terrific example of how real life could work better than fiction when in the right hands. The book covers what is still often wrongly described as a minor episode. As Tuchman explains, this served as the World War I equivalent of Pearl Harbor, an overture by Imperial Germany intercepted by England inviting Mexico to join the Axis and attack the United States as a means of keeping U.S. troops from refreshing the Allied cause in Europe. When a copy of the telegram was delivered to President Woodrow Wilson, it shook him from his studied neutrality and brought about the American entry into the war, essentially turning a European struggle into a global one. I once worked with a guy at a newspaper who told me Tuchman couldn't be trusted because she was anti-German. Frankly, it's hard to write a fair history of either World War that doesn't come down hard on Germany in some way, though Tuchman pulls no punches. According to her book, not only did Zimmermann (the German foreign minister whose appointment was ironically welcomed by Washington because he was seen as a liberal) offer Mexico three of its former territories, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona, in exchange for a sudden attack on the United States, he didn't even wait for the United States to declare war on Germany first in response to the unrestricted submarine offensive Germany planned to launch. Then, when the press got hold of the telegram, Zimmermann didn't deny it was his because he still held out hope the Mexicans might launch an offensive across the Rio Grande. Well, of course, I can hear that guy back in my old office saying, we were giving England and France the supplies with which to fight Germany. Why shouldn't Germany do what it could to stop that? However in keeping with the nation that coined the term "realpolitik," it amounted to a fatal miscalculation, marked by the German hubris of sending its fatal telegram on a special line the U.S. let them use for the purpose of helping negotiate a European peace. Like the Japanese ambassadors a war later, the Germans kept up the pretence of peace talks while planning their sucker punch, though the Japanese stopped short of actually using the diplomacy itself to sow the seed for U.S. destruction. Tuchman's thesis in short puts a different construct on the popular historic view of World War I as a war we didn't need to get involved in. Yet she isn't a conservative, instead taking all parties to task in a critical, engaging way many historians to come would emulate with far less success. About Wilson, she writes: "He held political office and would not acknowledge that politics is the art of the possible. He obeyed the injunction that a man's reach should exceed his grasp; it was his tragedy that he reached too high." Tuchman on the other hand rea

Classic Story of Intrigue

This is one of my favorite Barbara Tuchman works. It is the story of the Zimmermann Telegram, a message sent by the German Foreign Minister to the Mexican Government in early 1917. In essence the Telegram was an attempt to make Mexico a German ally in the event of the US entering World War I on the Allied side, with the bait being the possibility of Mexico reclaiming the states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. When British Intelligence intercepted and decoded the Telegram they made certain that the US government and public heard about it quickly in the hopes of bringing the US into the war.The book is more than just the story of the Telegram itself. It includes a run through of the various German espionage efforts in the US before and during World War I and a good description of the unease felt by the US at the mysterious German machinations, including possibly collusion with Japan and an attempt to take control of the Panama Canal.Like all of Tuchman's works, The Zimmermann Telegram is scholarly without being dull, and a real delight.

History as Thriller, Drama and Comedy

The story of the Zimmermann Telegram is a gem of history that literally is a ripping good yarn.The nutshell: In the middle of WWI, German foreign minister Zimmermann -- worried about how to keep America occupied on our side of the Atlantic and out of the Allied camp -- sent a telegram instructing his Mexican envoy to propose an alliance between Mexico, Japan and Germany. The payoff for our southern neighbor: the restoration of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico to the country of Mexico.This very fine book is many facets tightly woven in 200 pages: British code breakers. German diplomatic efforts. President Wilson's unshakable will for neutrality. Mexican and Japanese intrigue. Submarine warfare. Mexican revolution and America's chase for Pancho Villa. The story has drama (the fight to persuade Wilson that US interests lay with the Allies and not in being a neutral broker of peace), excitement (British code breaking efforts and the intrigue to get the telegram published / into American hands), and near comedy (German bungling with codes, diplomatic missions and high strategy)written by the masterful Barbara Tuchman.The author takes all these elements -- which are almost Shakespearean in their complexity and interplay -- and crafts a terrifically exciting history. A very fine read.

Excellent history of sadly forgotten episode

While the Zimmerman Telegram is one of the most important documents in history, and is perhaps the greatest result of code breaking in history, it is nonetheless frequently overlooked. Most people have at least heard "Remember the Lusitania" which had essentially nothing to do with the U.S. entering WWI. Few, however, are familiar with this short telegram that is truly a hinge on which history turned. One cannot blame Barbara Tuchman for this, however, as this work brings alive the intrigue of the time like no other. Reading like a spy novel, and yet all the more chilling because it's true, Tuchman navigates the reader through the murky waters of WWI intrigue. We learn how, in a misguided effort to distract the U.S. from Europe, Germany sought to foment trouble on the U.S./Mexican border. We learn how the British scrambled to inform the Americans of this, without comprimising their sources. And we learn how a tortured President Wilson was forced to take the steps towards war. "The Zimmerman Telegram" is history as it should be written; loaded with primary sources, and with the breathless pace that events really unfolded. While better known for "The Guns of August", it is this work that makes me rank Barabara Tuchman as one of the best historians of the 20th Century. Jake Mohlman

Insightful events leading to American involvement in WWI.

The story that Barbara Tuchman tells in The Zimmermann Telegram is one of international diplomacy in the period just before World War One. Tuchman centers her story on the apex of a single article of communication (the telegram) and expands from there. The story begins in the North Sea just before the British declaration of war on Germany. The British cable ship Telconia dredges the sea searching for five cables at the bottom connecting Germany's communication with the of the European and North American continents. All five cables are cut. Furthermore, Britain coaxed Eastern Telegraph, the American owner of the only other cable to North America (running from North Africa to Brazil), to pull the cables that would allow German communication with the world. Germany was now bound to wireless communication for the duration of the war. This is significant because it allowed the British to secretly intercept all German communications, and begin to decode them in the British Naval Intelligence office referred to as "Room 40". Inside Room 40, Britain learned to crack the German code. This is how the British, and consequently the Americans, were able to learn about the Zimmermann Telegram. The Telegram put the British in a precarious position. They desperately needed the United States to become a belligerent and enter the war against Germany if Britain hoped to win the war. At the same time if the British gave the Americans the Telegram and it was released, the Germans might deduce the existence of Room 40 and discover that their code had been unraveled, thereby compromising all British ability to "listen in" on the Germans for the rest of the war. Additionally, the Telegram was no guarantee that the United States would declare war against Germany or that the Americans would even believe the authenticity of the Telegram. It is the analysis of U.S., German, and British players and the revelation of how The Zimmermann Telegram was eventually delivered to the U.S. Government (without compromising Room 40, and at the same time successfully brought the U.S. into war against Germany) that Tuchman wrote about. Tuchman's style was objective in construction by use of factual evidence from many sources. She wrote the book fairly, comparing both the British and German sides. She illustrated that there were supporters on both sides in the United States. Through all of the descriptions she portrayed Woodrow Wilson as neutral until the end, and discussed the external forces on Wilson that tried to persuade him in all directions. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and former President Theodore Roosevelt supported the side of Britain and war; Robert LaFollette and other isolationist senators on the side of non-intervention. Tuchman centered all events on the final outcome-would the Americans be persuaded to believe the authenticity of the Zimmermann Telegram? Would they declare war on Germany because of it? Tuchman was per