The Taliban Triumphant

The destablisation of Afghanistan began with a Soviet influence campaign that began in the 1930’s. In text-book style, the Soviets provided the Afghani’s with military assistance and training, which resulted in the subversion of their officer corps. These efforts led to a coup in 1973, in which General Muhammad Daoud, of the Afghan National Revolutionary Party, deposed his cousin King Zahir Shah and founded a Republic. What this did was couple modernity with foreign influence. Daoud attempted to pull back from his pro-Soviet stance, but in April 1978 the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), confident in the support of the Afghan army and the Soviets, deposed Daoud in another coup.

Daoud’s pro-Soviet progressivism had not been popular with traditionalist Afghans and particularly the Islamics. In true Leninist style, the PDPA sought to resolve this problem by a program of assassination. The PDPA’s policy of assassination was primarily directed against the Mullahs, religion being main upholder of traditional society. This campaign raised foreign influence to brutal domination by an alien culture. It created the Mujahedeen and ultimately the Taliban. It did this in two ways. Firstly, as the major societal structure outside the state, Islam was the vehicle of national independence. Similarly, in Vietnam, those seeking national independence supported the Communist Party, as the most effective organization likely to achieve this aim.

Secondly, in a brutal conflict, the moderates are marginalized at best and more often go to the wall. Violence begets violence, in a cycle where only the most violent survive.

With blood in the water, sharks began to circle. In 1978-79 the Iranian Revolution had deposed the monarchy and shortly after became dominated by Islamics. It is no co-incidence that the first open rebellion against the PDPA was in Herat, the ‘pearl of Khorasan’ an old Persian province. Pakistan also had a very close interest in its neighbor. According to Politbureau reports, available at the Wilson Centre, the Soviets also suspected Chinese and US involvement. These records, show that the Politbureau had become concerned at the PDLA’s Leninism, which not only involved assassination of Mullahs and traditionalists but also the murder of even low ranking members of its communist rivals, the Banner (Parcham) Party.

The Soviet Intervention

The Soviets attempted to get the PDLA to pull back on aggressive policies, by removing their most aggressive advocate, Hafizullah Amin, but this backfired when Amin learnt of this and instead had the head of the PDLA, Nur Mohammad Taraki, killed, taking his place. Although Amin’s presidency only lasted a year before he was killed by the Soviets, as part of their intervention, the situation was now deteriorating rapidly.

The Politbureau records also show that some of the hard-headed rulers of Russia were astonished to learn, that when rebellion broke out in Herat, the PDLA could rely on no popular support at all and that elements of the army were deserting. The record of the Politbureau meeting of 17 March 1979 shows that even hard-liners, such as Andropov, saw Soviet intervention against a popular struggle as being disastrous. Gromiko, the Foreign Minister, saw intervention as being completely destructive of all the Soviet efforts at nuclear détente. They rejected Amin’s suggestion that they could disguise Soviet troops, as a ploy that could only hope to last for days and then backfire on them. Despite these misgivings, Ustinov, head of the army, continued with contingency plans . Ultimately the Soviets bit the bullet, weighing the strategic loss of Afghanistan against the cost of intervention and the troops rolled in at the end of the year. The only mitigation for this decision is that the same mistake was made 20 years later, despite the abject failure of the Soviets.

The Soviets first act of intervention was to kill Amin. Clearly they hoped to deescalate the situation, but it had gone too far and they were the ultimate cause of the destabilisation. To try and keep themselves at arms-length from military engagement with the population, the Soviets first attempted to suppress it with Afghan troops but this was a failure, similar to the failure of the Kuomintang to crush Mao’s CCP in its infancy. In fairness, the Soviets were also in damage control, as to their international reputation. The few Afghan forces they could rely on were simply inadequate to fight against a popular based guerilla campaign, in a vast and difficult terrain, which by now was receiving substantial aid from abroad.  The Soviets were soon involved in “the war of mines” to which they ultimately committed some 115,000 troops. All they achieved was to weld the  Mujahedeen into the Taliban. Violence begets violence, in a cycle where only the most violent survive.

The NWO Steps In

While no doubt the US provided the money and the muscle for the invasion of Afghanistan, it is unfair that despite this worthless sacrifice, they also get all the blame. The invasion was supported by the UN and NATO, despite Afghanistan being about as far away from the North Atlantic as you can possibly get. Fifty countries sent troops.  This alliance was essentially that of the globalist New World Order. Besides the US, the alliance was principally comprised of the old European powers, the central European initiates, conducting their rites of passage, together with Britain and its Imperial forces. Proportionately, it is the latter group that appears to have done most of the fighting, led by Canada with a 2.2% death rate, followed by the much smaller NZ elite contingent at 2.1%, compared with the US .76%. The UK death rate was 1.4%. The highest of the old European powers was Denmark’s 1.8%, the lowest was Germany’s .34%, despite it supplying the third largest contingent. Some appear to have been either relatively or completely kept out of harm’s way, although the haphazard nature of guerilla warfare means that firm conclusions cannot be made without exhaustive examination.

One thing that can be said for sure, is that the failure of the invasion demonstrates that air superiority and special forces cannot defeat a determined people, in hard terrain.

The rationale, that the invasion was to find Osama Bin Laden and stymie international Islamic terrorism is belied by NATO’s drive east. The NWO invaded Afghanistan for exactly the same reason the Soviets did and the British did before them, its strategic location vis a vi Russia. It was part of the NWO encirclement of the Russian Federation and its CIS allies. From the NWO point of view this was a rational strategic objective, but as General von Molke once famously observed, the best laid battle plans only last until first contact with the enemy. The Taliban was born in the wilderness and once pushed out of the cities, was in its natural element. They simply did again what they had done before to the Soviets. The NWO did again what the Soviets had done, co-op a small part of the population and antagonise the rest, for whom they were simply another invader. All that was achieved was to harden the Taliban. Violence begets violence, in a cycle where only the most violent survive.

TAMMANY HALL BALLOT STUFFING: as American as apple pie

The controversy over the last Presidential election, and more recently the New York mayoral election, are part of a long tradition of electoral fraud in America. Historically, this is best documented by Gustav Meyer’s rigorous and self-published: History of Tammany Hall.

The ‘Sons of Saint Tammany’ began as a nativist ridicule of the pre-revolutionary royalist St. George, St. Andrew and St. David societies. After the Revolution, the anti-democratic electoral property franchise, pushed by the likes of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, swung the political pendulum back in favor of the landed aristocracy. To counter this Tammany Hall was reconstituted, as a political organization of the ‘Democrat Republicans’.

The three pillars of Tammany Hall were political manipulation, corruption and the ‘regular candidate”. From the beginning Tammany Hall was run by a tiny clique which chose the “regular candidate” in various municipal and State elections. This is really the foundation stone, as widespread political disengagement or superficiality meant that many took little, or no interest in local politics and voted for whoever was on the ticket as the “regular candidate” for their party of choice. While at first great men, such as Jefferson and Jackson led the popular party, this process slowly rotted out the body politic, from the base up, as corruption always works its way to the top.

The mercurial Aaron Burr was closely involved with Tammany in its early phase. Closely linked with Burr was Matthew L Davis who was Burr’s handler as much as his lieutenant. Of Davis, Myers says:

Davis’s influence on the early career of Tammany was second only to that of Burr himself. He was reputed to be the originator of the time-honored modes of manufacturing public opinion, carrying primary meetings, obtaining the nomination of certain candidates, carrying a ward, a city, a county or even a State. During one period of his activity, it is related, meetings were held on different nights in every ward in New York City. The most forcible and spirited resolutions and addresses were passed and published. Not only the city, but the entire country, was aroused. It was some time before the secret was known — that at each of these meetings but three persons were present, Davis and two friends.

Myers also writes: “besides Davis, Burr’s chief protégés, all of whom became persons of importance in early New York, were Jacob Barker, John and Robert Swartwout, John and William P. Van Ness; Benjamin Komaine, Isaac Pierson, John P. Hall and Jacob Hayes. Nearly every one of the Burr leaders, as will be shown, was guilty of some act of official or private peculation.”   In 1840 scandals involving the Manhattan Bank, which Burr had played a signal and devious role in founding, were made public. Meyer wrote:
           It was now shown that for years it had loaned large sums to Tammany leaders and to family connections of its directors and officials, and that it had spent other large sums for political purposes. The total of its worthless loans and political expenditures reached the enormous sum of $1,344,266.99.

However, these revelations had little impact on systemic corruption. Meyer observed:

The discoveries of gold in California and Australia created in all classes a feverish desire for wealth. …. Newspapers and magazines were filled with glowing accounts of how poor men became rich in a dazzlingly short period. The desire for wealth became a mania, and seized upon all callings. The effect was a still further lowering of the public tone; standards were generally lost sight of, and all means of “getting ahead” came to be considered legitimate. Politicians, trafficking in nominations and political influence, found it a most auspicious time.

What this phenomenon also suggests is that those, who might well punch you on the nose if caught stealing their wallet, considered public funds fair game. This indicates that significant part of the population had no conception of there being a public good or perhaps even of the abstract concept of the “public”, seeing the world purely in the terms of their own concrete needs and desires.

Choice of candidate soon became sale of candidatures, the proceeds of which paid for pork barrel politics. Those who brought their positions expected a return on their investment. Graft became the norm. A change of political party resulted in the wholesale turning out of office of those who had bought their positions and their replacement by new investors, a process still typical of American regime change. Meyers wrote:

If before 1846 nominations were sold it was not an open transaction. Since then the practice of selling them had gradually grown, and now the bargaining was unconcealed. Upon the highest bidder the honors generally fell. Whigs and Tammany men were alike guilty. If one aspirant offered $1,000, another offered $2,000. But these sums were merely a beginning; committees would impress upon the candidate the fact that a campaign costs money; more of the ” boys ” would have to be ” seen; ” such and such a “ward heeler ” needed ” pacifying”; a band was a proper embellishment, with a parade to boot, and voters needed persuading.” And at the last moment a dummy candidate would be brought forward as a man who had offered much more for the nomination. Then the bidder at $2,000 would have to pay the difference, and if the office sought was a profitable one, the candidate would be a lucky man if he did not have to disgorge as much as $15,000 before securing the nomination. Some candidates were bled for as much as $20,000, and even this was a moderate sum compared to the prices which obtained a few years later.

This uncertainty promoted making hay while the sun shone and with so much to lose, all means of ensuring re-election were resorted to. Of the first Jackson election Myers states:

Cases of fraud and violence had hitherto been frequent; but nothing like the exhibition at the primaries and polls in November 1827, had ever been known. Cart-loads of voters, many of whom had been in the country less than three years, were used as repeaters in the different wards. An instance was known of one cart-load of six men voting at six different places. Other men boasted of having voted three and four times. In an upper ward, where the foreign population had full sway, an American found it almost impossible to appear or vote at all. If he tried the experiment, he was arrested immediately, his votes were taken from him and Jackson votes put in his hands.

In regard to the immigrant vote, which later become central to Tammany’s power, Meyer observed that for a significant proportion of immigrant voters: To them political rights meant the obtaining of money or the receiving of jobs under the city, State or national government, in return for the marshalling of voters at the polls. Regarding issues, they bothered little, and knew less.

Of the ensuing Presidential election campaign between Jackson and the Bank’s ‘National Republicans’, Myers wrote:

Both sides were guilty of election frauds. Votes were bought at the rate of $5 each, most of the buying being done by the National Republicans, who were supplied with abundant resources. The National Republicans, moreover, had sought to bribe certain men with the promise of offices, and on the three election days they foisted upon the voters a Jackson electoral ticket containing forty-three names, instead of the legal number, forty-two, thereby invalidating each of these ballots voted. This trick, it was calculated, lost to Jackson more than a thousand votes. Of a total of 30,474 votes, Tammany carried the city by 5,620 majority. The Wigwam for many successive nights was filled with celebrating crowds. Jackson gave a conspicuously public display of his recognition of Tammany’s invaluable services, when, on the evening of June 13, 1833, he visited the society, attended by the Vice-President, Secretary Woodbury, Gov. William L. Marcy, the Mayor, and the members of the Common Council.

Of the following local elections. Meyer claims:

In the Fall election of 1838 the Whig frauds were enormous and indisputable. The Whigs raised large sums of money, which were handed to ward workers for the procuring of votes. About two hundred roughs were brought from Philadelphia, in different divisions, each man receiving $22. Gen. Robert Swartwout, now a Whig, at the instance of such men as Moses H. Grinnell, Robert C. Wetmore and Noah Cook, former Wigwam lights, who left the Hall because the ” destructionist ” Anti-Monopolists captured it, arranged for the trip of these fraudulent voters. After having voted in as many wards as possible, each was to receive the additional compensation of $5. They were also to pass around spurious tickets purporting to be Democratic. The aggregate Whig vote, it was approximated, was swelled through the operations of this band by at least five to six hundred. One repeater, Charles Swint, voted in sixteen wards. Such inmates of the House of Detention as could be persuaded or bullied into voting the Whig ticket were set at large. Merritt, a police officer, was seen boldly leading a crowd of them to the polls. Ex-convicts distributed Whig tickets and busily electioneered. The cabins of all the vessels along the wharves were ransacked, and every man, whether or not a citizen or resident of New York, who could be wheedled into voting a Whig ballot, was rushed to the polls and his vote was smuggled in. The Whigs were successful, their candidate for Governor, William H. Seward, receiving 20,179 votes, to 19,377 for William L. Marcy.

This blatant abuse of the electoral process lead to legislation requiring registration of voters in New York City. Meyer wrote:

… the Tammany ward committees declared against it on the pretexts that it
interfered with constitutional rights ; that it was an odious attempt to take from the poor man either his right of suffrage or to make the exercise of that right so inconvenient as practically to debar him from voting. The Common Council, on March 16, 1840, denounced the proposed law as inquisitorial, tyrannical and disfranchising in its effect, as well as unjust, because they (the Aldermen) ” know of no sin which she (New York City) has committed to make her worthy of the signal reproach now sought to be cast upon her.

Subsequently, when Tammany was in control of the State legislature, the Act was annulled.

Ostensibly Tammany was the ‘party’ of the people but Meyer observed:

That neither Tammany nor the Native Americans had enacted any competent reforms in the matter of the taxation of property, was conclusively shown in an Aldermanic report of 1846. It appeared from this report that thirty million dollars’ worth of assessable property escaped taxation every year, and that no bona fide efforts were being made by the officials to remedy this state of affairs.

On the other hand, Tammany did nothing to extend suffrage or act in matters of pressing interest for the working class, such as imprisonment of debtors. With little job security and pawnbrokers interest often at 25%, it was working people who bore the brunt of imprisonment without trial, many being imprisoned for minor debts. Tammany did nothing about this until the founding of the rival ‘Workingman’s Party’ by Dale Owens. Tammany saw of the Workingman’s party, by fomenting divisions within the Workingman’s Party, so that at the next election, there were three Workingmen’s parties on the field.  Tammany subsequently allowed an amendment to the legislation it had proposed, which excepted debts below $50, rendering the legislation irrelevant to the working class.

Tammany Hall was formed to organize the opposition to the aristocratic land-owners, matching up the latter’s superior resources with a political machine. However, it came to function as a political block which dominated the popular political landscape and acted vigorously to quash any real opposition. For this service, the ruling class was prepared to look the other way when it came to Tammany’s corruption, as long as they stayed within bounds. When Boss Tweed got a bit too enthusiastic with his own remuneration, the New York Times published articles, miscreants fled or were prosecuted and Boss Tweed was followed by a more circumspect Boss.

The Zimmermann Telegram: a failure of American scholarship Part 1

Introduction

The Zimmermann Telegram was a telegram which in January 1917 was sent by the German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German ambassador in Mexico. As set out below the telegram offered German financial support for a Mexican attack on the United States of America, to regain its lost territories.  Also referred to is the possible involvement of the Japanese.

This affair has been the subject of two books, Barbara Tuchman’s, The Zimmermann Telegram published in 1959 and Thomas Bogart’s The Zimmermann telegram: intelligence diplomacy and America’s Entry into World War I published in 2012. The central thesis put forward here is that both these works are ideologically interventionist and that the writer’s political agendas blind them to obvious inconsistencies inherent in the affair. Of the two Tuchman is by far the most crass. In a work hailed at the time as ‘an obeisance to evidence’ by the New York Times she falsifies, by truncation, the telegram itself in order to support her analysis. This outright re-writing of history is but the worst of many distortions that typify a piece of propaganda that is almost Stalinist in its crudity but which is still today recommended reading and described as a ‘classic’.

Bogart’s work is far less blatant and appears to be more of a work of history than a polemic.  Bogart’s militarist, rather than liberal, interventionism position blinds him to the obvious inconsistencies inherent in the affair and particularly to the possibility that the telegram was not deciphered, in a triumph of illegal surveillance as is officially claimed, but was always intended to be publicised.

Tuchman’s book, the accepted historical account from 1959 to 2012, is oblivious to the fact that it was impossible for the alliance, suggested by Zimmermann in his telegram, to be realised and so does not raise the question: why was the Telegram sent? Despite widespread belief that the telegram was an invention of British propaganda, particularly by the highly influential Hearst press, Zimmermann publicly admitted sending the telegram, and this at a time when American intervention in World War I hung in the balance. This hugely significant facet of an affair, which can only be described as bizarre, that Tuchman utterly fails to engage with. As Tuchman’s work is at such divergence with reality this essay commences with setting out the issues inherent in the affair. In Part 2 it then embarks on a critique of Tuchman’s book and concludes with an analysis of Bogart’s.

 The Telegram

On 11 January 1917 the German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmermann, sent a telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico which stated:

We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal or alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the President’s attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace.” Signed, ZIMMERMANN[1]

[1] https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=60&page=transcript

Timeline

11 January 1917 Zimmermann telegram sent to German Embassy in Mexico

I February 1917 Germany resumed unrestricted U boat attacks

3 February US breaks of diplomatic ties with Germany

1 March Telegram published in press

3 & 29 March 1917 Zimmermann states publicly that telegram sent by him

9 March US Executive order arming merchant ships

2 April 1917 US Pres Woodrow Wilson seeks congressional support for declaration of war on Germany

6 April 1917 US declares war on Germany

Background – the German military situation

By late 1916 the British blockade was throttling Germany and the poor were beginning to starve. On the Western front the Entente was getting the upper hand, British invention of the tank and Monash’s Australian troops’ tactics gaining ground in the trenches. To have any hope of a negotiated peace, let alone victory it was crucial for the Germans that the Americans were kept out of the conflict, which conversely the British were doing everything they could to achieve.

The prime strategic consideration of keeping America from siding with Britain was directly at odds with the prime strategic objective of counter blockading Britain by means of the U-boat. The U-boat blockade, entailing attacks on American shipping and American civilian casualties, was highly controversial and a rich source of British propaganda against the Germans. When the Americans had threatened that this issue could bring them into the war, after the sinking of the Lusitania, Germany had limited its U-boat campaign. By late 1916 Germany’s ability to wage war was so reduced that unlimited attacks on shipping was seen by the German military as the only way to knock Britain out of the war and so prevent defeat.

Analysis

The telegram begins with informing that Germany intends unrestricted submarine warfare as of 1 February 1917. It says Germany will endeavour to keep the US neutral but in the event that this is not successful it proposes a military alliance by which Germany will provide “generous financial support” on the basis that Mexico “is to reconquer their lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona”, “settlement in detail” being left to Mexico.

The question must be what financial support could the Germans have offered which would enabled Mexico to defeat America and take back these territories. To be able to do so Germany, with its armies bogged down in a stalemate on the Western Front and grinding away on the Eastern Front, blockaded, now chancing desperate moves to avoid defeat, would have to simultaneously provide “financial support” at least equivalent to that of America, the greatest economic power of the time. In addition it is at this time that Zimmerman and the German military were in the process of adopting Israel Helphand’s plan to fund the Russian Bolsheviks, ultimately to the tune of 50 million Gold Marks. The answer must be that there was not the slightest possibility that Germany could have offered financial support to the Mexicans in the magnitude required and that Zimmerman knew this at the time.

On receipt of the telegram the Mexican president Carrenza set up a military commission to consider the offer. One wonders why he didn’t reject it out of hand as being plain crazy but we must be grateful to him as the Commission’s findings are a primary resource of the first order and a welcome expression of common sense in what is otherwise an illogical and incoherent landscape. It should be noted that Tuchman does not reference or cite in any way this core historical document. The Commission of course rejected the alliance on every ground. In regard to the offer of financial support it noted that the Germans had not even been able to provide the gold necessary for the establishment of a Mexican national bank.

The next oddity stated in the telegram is that the above message was to be given to the Mexican president when the German ambassador in Mexico “is certain” that America is about to enter the war against Germany. This is an incredibly heavy responsibility to place on a person in what would not be thought of as being in a top level diplomatic post. So the German ambassador in Mexico was being asked to commit his country to a military alliance against the most powerful nation in the world, when he thought the time was right? This cannot be right and in fact was not what happened, the Telegram was merely passed on directly to the Mexican president on receipt.

The telegram goes on to say to the German ambassador:

“add the suggestion that he [the Mexican President] should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves”

It is Tuchman’s core proposition that the real and substantial threat to America, inherent in the telegram, was the threat from Japan. When looked at closely this is completely illusory. If we take the first line of the above extract it is of course a logical impossibility that the Mexican president could do something on his own initiative, when this is being suggested to him by another. What is being asked is that the Mexican president engage in subterfuge, intended to conceal the fact that Germany is the instigator of this proposed alliance.

In the context that Germany is about to recommence unrestricted U-boat warfare with the very likely result that America will forthwith declare war on Germany, it is not at all clear why this subterfuge is necessary. In regard to Zimmermann’s attitude in a somewhat similar situation, the sinking of the Lusitania Boghardt relates the following exchange between Zimmermann and a journalist in which  Zimmermann “remarked cheerfully”:

“Now, this will have quite an effect! The hatred towards us can’t possibly increase, they will always hate us, but in this situation the only thing we can do is lash out at all sides, we have no room for any consideration whatsoever”.[1]

Leaving aside the claim that these words are spoken “cheerfully”, if this is Zimmermann’s attitude at the time of the Lusitania, then why is he not talking directly to the Japanese when according to the Telegram the Japanese are to be invited to immediately enter mediations with Germany, which is clearly the major party. It makes no sense to ask the Mexicans to invite in Japan.

The issue of Japanese involvement raises an enormous problem for the proposition that the telegram was intended for the purpose it claimed and that is the problem of time. The telegram was sent on 11 January 1917. Zimmermann knew that Germany would recommence unrestricted U-boat attacks on 1 February 1917. He knew that as Germany had restricted its attacks on neutral and specifically American shipping because America had threatened to enter the war, that renewal of unrestricted attacks will probably bring America into the war. To prevent this, any attack on America by a third party such as Mexico, should be made before America declared war on Germany. America declared war on 6 April 1917. Realistically then there were about three months in which to launch the attack. If the Japanese have not yet been invited to join this alliance and nor had they previously been engaged in discussions, then there had been no planning or preparation by them and if they were only being invited subsequent to Mexican agreement then not enough time to do so.

The part the Mexicans were called upon to play was to invade America with the intention of retaking of its lost provinces. On their own the only response that the Mexicans could realistically expect from America was for Mexico to go the way of the lost provinces and be wiped off the map. The only way that such a response could possibly be avoided would be for the Mexicans to receive military support on a massive scale, and this just to avoid total defeat, still more would be required to actually achieve the outcomes sought.

To provide such military support Japan would have to do three things. It would have to raise a large army. As the Americans raised a force of approximately 2.8 million men for the war in Europe and as it could not be argued that the Americans would expend less effort defending their own soil, the force the Japanese would have to have raised would be of the same order. Japan would then have to be ready to transport this enormous military force across the Pacific and be able to supply it. At some point the Japanese would have to destroy the larger American Pacific Fleet. It would then have to be be able to maintain and supply this huge force on continental America and be able to repel counter attack by the American Atlantic Fleet and the British Navy.

This run down does not even consider the difficulties in deploying and forward supplying these forces in an area with limited communications infrastructure. There are immense logistical and planning preparations that are absolutely necessary for any such plan to become a reality, we are talking many months if not years. By comparison America declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917 but it was not until 1918 that the Americans began landing substantial forces in Europe.

Such an undertaking must be contrasted with Japan’s effort in World War II. Then, faced with the existential threat of the American oil embargo, the high point of the Japanese effort vis-a-vis ‘Continental’ America, was to junk some obsolete battleships in Pearl Harbour and provide the Americans with an excuse for going to war with Germany. It is true that the Japanese did manage to extend the scope of their atrocities beyond Korea and China for a while but after the battle of Midway in June 1942 the threat to America was so insubstantial that American forces were concentrated on Europe. Importantly this later period is the dawn of the power of the aircraft carrier and in this development Japan ranked second in the world, behind America. The period at issue is the era of the dreadnought and here the British Navy was pre-eminent.

It is correct that an attack could have been launched after America entered the war, obviating the necessity of prior planning and mobilisation. The difficulty here is the advantage a surprise attack would have had, as isolationist America had a small standing army and some initial success might have been hoped for. Once America declared war it began mobilising its enormous forces, forces large enough to contend with anything that Japan could put in the field, without significantly detracting from the forces it committed to Europe, as it did in World War II.

All this does not even take account of the fact that at this time the Japanese were a British ally and a contingent of their Navy was engaged in the Mediterranean, in action against the Austrian fleet.

A possible interpretation is that the words ‘invite Japan to immediate adherence” conveys that the Japanese were already on board the alliance with Germany and was only awaiting Mexico’s agreement. The proposition of prior Japanese involvement raises a fundamental problem. There is not a single shred of evidence in any archive document, memoir or biography of what would had to have been an enormous amount of military planning and mobilisation on the part of the Japanese. The single most important factor which counts against there being any treaty between Germany and Japan, agreeing to a joint attack on the US, is the absence of any record which indicates that this existed. While it is highly improbable that all records of any such agreement have been lost, it is inconceivable that the Japanese could have engaged in the enormous planning and preparation that an attack on the US would have entailed and there not be a single document left which suggest this. And this after Japan’s unconditional surrender in World War II and American occupation.

The possibility of prior Japanese involvement being discounted one must return to a literal interpretation of the telegram and conclude that at the time the telegram was sent there was no Japanese involvement in Zimmermann’s plan. This interpretation is supported by what is an almost fantastical facet of this affair. Prior to the telegram being sent Zimmermann did not consult or have sanction from the government, the Kaiser, or the military high command. Considering that he was apparently attempting to form a military alliance in time of war this is truly incredible.

It is also important that during the recriminations by German politicians that followed exposure of the telegram, Zimmermann claimed he was merely acting in accordance with the Kaiser’s policy of forming alliances against the Entente. While policy was discussed there was never any mention of any agreement with Japan still less a treaty.

Conclusion

It follows from the above that:

(a)       it was not possible for Germany to make good the offer of financial support of the magnitude required;

(b)       it is highly unlikely that the timing of the offer would be left to the German ambassador;

(c)        the suggestion that Mexico invite Japan to join in this attack on America, admits of two possibilities. First that prior to the telegram the Germans had come to an understanding with the Japanese but wanted Mexico to broach tripartite negotiations, for no obvious reason. It this was the case then to be an actual strategy, immense planning and mobilisation by the Japanese was required. In the absence of any record of such a huge undertaking this possibility can be discounted. Second  the Japanese were not already on board but if not then there was simply not enough time to mount the invasion prior to American mobilisation and the prospects of success post American mobilisation were zero.

All the above indicates that it could never have been thought by Zimmerman that the telegram could have accomplished what it purported to.  The question then becomes “is this treason or is it stupidity”. Two things point to the former. If one discounts the idea that the telegram intended to put in train a Mexican invasion of America then the only point of the exercise was to threaten the possibility. At best this might have meant the commitment of some US forces to America’s Mexican border. It may have sowed distrust with Japan, which was engaged in an important theatre of the war.

The official story is that the telegram was intercepted by British intelligence, illegally, as it was sent via the US ambassador, all German telegram services having being cut by the Entente powers. As such the interception and decoding is held up as an example of the virtue of illegal military action. The point is that you cannot threaten someone if they are not aware of the threat. Looked at this way the alleged interception must have been intended by Zimmerman, as the only way you can have a secret treaty that becomes public knowledge and hence a threat, is to have it revealed.

This theory is reinforced by the fact that a widespread American reaction to the publication of the telegram was one of incredulity. The perfidious nature of British propaganda was well known and the conflict between reality and assumptions made in the telegram were ridiculed, importantly by the enormously influential Hearst press. Despite ‘plausible deniability’ Zimmermann publicly acknowledged responsibility for the telegram, twice. In doing this he must’ve been conscious that he was contributing to his nation’s military defeat, which the Entente had made clear would only be on unconditional surrender.

On the other hand some folks do really dumb stuff, although such is not generally expected of Foreign Ministers of major powers. It is possible that Zimmerman thought that the Americans could be threatened because he mistakenly conflated isolationism with weakness, which ironically is the position both Tuchman and Boghart take. It is possible that Zimmermann’s gambit reflected the mindset apparently exemplified in the above comments he made on the sinking of the Lusitania but for myself there is a question mark over the accuracy of that quote as I find it very difficult to equate the words used with the claim that they were cheerfully spoken. It may have been that Zimmerman was certain unrestricted U-boat warfare would bring America into the war and thought it didn’t matter what he did. However the Telegram itself says that he will be doing all he can to keep America neutral, which is what one would think was the German Foreign Minister’s job description.

It should be mentioned that in Woodrow Wilson’s speech to Congress seeking that America declare war on Germany, very little mention is made of the Zimmermann telegram and the great bulk of that speech focuses on Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare. However, it could be seen that the effect of the telegram was to attack American isolationism, particularly in Congress, by linking Germany with the spectre of war on American soil.

It appears then that the reason why the Telegram was sent and Zimmermann admitted to sending it, was possibly one of the following:

(a) Zimmermann was an incompetent fool who didn’t know what he was doing;

(b) Zimmermann was an incompetent fool who didn’t know what he was doing, he expected the proposed alliance to be revealed and intended for it to operate as a threat rather than a reality. Quite how he thought this would advance German interests is unclear and we probably return to (a) above;

(c) Zimmermann was an incompetent fool who didn’t know what he was doing. He was manipulated by British intelligence into sending the Telegram and the interception story is a myth. This sounds pretty wacky but the cue bono, or ‘who benefits’ approach is often the right one. Certainly the British were the only ones who benefited from the Zimmermann telegram and that the interception was bogus was a widely held view at the time. There is some foundation. Boghart writes that the idea was not Zimmermann’s own and that Zimmermann was a man who was easily manipulated by lobbyists. Unfortunately  Boghart’s  does not or could not drill deep enough and we do not learn who these lobbyists were. What cuts against this theory is Zimmermann’s public acceptance he sent the telegram, as it is hard to see him as being that stupid.

(d) Zimmermann was a traitor. He was part of a British plot to undermine American isolationism and bring America into the war against Germany.  He sent the telegram knowing it would be revealed and antagonise America. He admitted responsibility for it so as to hasten American involvement in the war and the defeat of Germany.

[1] Zimmermann telegram: intelligence diplomacy and America’s entry into World War I p31