Zimmermann Telegram Quotes

Had all the world been a school and Wilson its principal, he would have been the greatest statesman in history.

Koerver reports another example of delusional thinking within the German navy. Adm. Edouard von Capelle said, on Feb. 1, 1917, “From a military point of view I rate the effect of America coming on the side of our enemies as nil.” Tuchman, Zimmermann Telegram, 139; Koerver, German Submarine Warfare, xxxiii.

But Zimmermann surprised him. On Friday, March 2, during a press conference, Zimmermann himself confirmed that he had sent the telegram. “By admitting the truth,” Lansing wrote, “he blundered in a most astounding manner for a man engaged in international intrigue. Of course the message itself was a stupid piece of business, but admitting it was far worse.

The German military were equally unenthusiastic, because they were oblivious to the damage caused by their insecure ciphers during the Great War. For example, they had been led to believe that the Zimmermann telegram had been stolen by American spies in Mexico, and so they blamed that failure on Mexican security. They still did not realize that the telegram had in fact been intercepted and deciphered by the British, and that the Zimmermann debacle was actually a failure of German cryptography.