Pros: Great prose, excellent characterization of people and events, much detail
Cons: Short - will leave you hungry for more
The Bottom Line: The Zimmermann Telegram is the real reason the USA entered into World War I, contrary to what you and I were probably taught. Must read!
George_Chabot's Full Review: Barbara Tuchman - Zimmermann Telegram
The Zimmermann Telegram, by Barbara Tuchman
What we now know as World War I was originally called "The Great War" or "The War to End All Wars." The USA under President Woodrow Wilson steadfastly maintained neutrality and the war dragged on and on with a deadly stalemate between the Allies and Central Powers that was paid for in millions of lives.
Like most Americans, I was taught - in the fifteen minutes or so my high school history class spent on WWI - that the sinking of the Lusitania was the event that brought the USA into the war on the Allied side. Not so, as The Zimmermann Telegram, a finely crafted history that reads like a mystery novel, reveals.
The British early on realized the value of intelligence and had established a code breaking operation called, with typical British understatement, Room 40. When the war erupted in August 1914, a British trawler cut the five undersea cables that carried telegrams from Germany to all points overseas. From that point on, all German message traffic came over British controlled cables and the code breakers in Room 40 began their work in earnest.
In early 1917 German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent an encoded telegram offering Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to Mexico in return for their declaration of war on the United States and promise to try to involve the Japanese, who also had territorial ambitions. The Germans felt they needed this diversion in order to counteract their scheduled return to unrestricted submarine warfare in which they estimated they could starve Britain into submission before the Americans could mobilize and come to their aid.
The British decoded the cable, but were at a loss of how to reveal the information to the USA without revealing the existence of their code breaking operation. With characteristic Teutonic belief in their technological superiority, the Germans had never changed their code since they considered it unbreakable.
The British finally hit upon the scheme of showing the Americans their code breaking operation, giving them the telegram and their code book and allowing them to decode it themselves. The story was leaked to the New York Times that the Americans had intercepted the message themselves, thus preserving the secrecy of Room 40. Zimmerman, in one of the colossal blunders of diplomatic history, confirmed the provenance of the document, rather than denying it. An indignant United States soon declared war.
As an amateur historian, Barbara Tuchman, was never beholden to the group-think that infests formal academia. Nevertheless, her books are acclaimed histories that put together small scraps of hard won information into a compelling story that reads like a mystery novel. The scene shifts from the palaces of Europe to the dusty environs of Mexico - where a revolution was taking place; New York, London, Washington, and various places in between.
Tuchman's narrative nails her characters to the page, with terse descriptions of all the players great and small; Intelligence Chief Admiral Reginald Hall, a man whose incessant blinking belied his incisive mind; Kaiser Wilhelm II, who worried that he might appear ridiculous to the British he envied; President Woodrow Wilson, who wanted to broker peace between the belligerents; the agents and saboteurs on both sides. Tuchman has a marvelously wry sense of humor that reveals the absurdity of the situations she illustrates but it is all the more strange because it is true. Every character is well-rounded and presented warts and all.
The book is short, about 200 pages, and is a quick but complete depiction of one of the little known secrets of history upon which great events turn. All who love history or like a good mystery story will certainly benefit by learning of the true events detailed in The Zimmermann Telegram.
Additional reading about World War I I highly recommend -
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