The Zimmerman Telegpate In World War I

On April 6th, 1917, the United States entered the war, but the Great War had been going on for three years already. The Allies was made up of England, France, Russia, and in 1917, the United States. However, many Americans were against entering the war and they wanted to remain neutral. President Wilson’s second campaign slogan was, “He kept us out of war.” Clearly, that had changed. We entered the war for many reasons like; the sinking of Lusitania, financial issues, and the Russian Revolution. The most common reason is that America kept claiming it was neutral. One of the reasons America had joined the war was financing the Allies. Italy and Russia were economically unstable and with rich, Northern France occupied, it became apparent that the United Kingdom had to fund the Enete war effort. The United Kingdom loaned Italy, Russia and France around $680 billion. That plus their own war effort was an enormous strain on the British Exchequer. It became obvious that other methods of funding were required. Germany was printing large sums of money, however the Entente wanted to avoid as much inflation as possible, so turned to the international markets. The United Kingdom had borrowed money from the United States, not only for itself, but for it’s allies.William Jennings Bryan sent President Wilson this message, “Morgan Company of New York have asked whether there would be any objection to their making a loan to the french Government… [I would question] whether it would advisable for this Government to...approve...any loan to a belligerent nation...Money is the worst of all contraband because it commands everything else…” (Doc 1) At first these loans were secured on British investments in North America, however by around mid 1916 these had all been used. The Wilson administration was still keen to support the Entente however, so leaned on the Federal Reserve to approve unsecured loans. This gave the United States a greater vested interest in an Entente victory, since the repayments of the unsecured loans were reliant on an Entente victory. Also we were sent them ships with tons of supplies. Senator George Norris spoke against joining the war claiming, “War brings prosperity to the stock gambler on Wall Street- to those who are already in possession of more wealth than can be realized or enjoyed… Their object in having war and in preparing war is to make money.”(Doc 6) Before any this we also were sending supplies to Germany as well as the Allies, but Britain had created a blockade on the route to Germany preventing the United States to get to where they needed to go. In document two, it shows the amount of exports that were delivered between the years of 1912 to 1916. Germany had little to none exports delivered …show more content…
In the Zimmerman Telegram, that the German foreign minister had sent to the Mexican Government, claimed that, “In the event [ that the United States drawn into the war] we make Mexico a proposal of 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.” (Doc 4) This telegram was intercepted and deciphered by British Codebreakers. When United States officials had heard about this many of them ( including the Britain foreign Minister) were all in shock of the brazenness of Zimmerman sending that to the Mexican Government. Zimmerman flashed other signs of brazenness when he told U.S. journalists that he did indeed send the coded telegram, and that he assumed U.S. officials would understand he was simply making strategic moves to help secure a German victory. Prior to learning about the Zimmerman telegram, U.S. citizens had fairly strong anti-Mexican, anti-British and anti-German sentiments. In fact, press coverage of World War I did not portray any “side” as being morally superior to any other “side.” Upon decoding the Zimmerman telegram, U.S. citizens’ attitudes toward the British softened, while their attitude toward Mexicans and Germans hardened. Many United States citizens began to see the British as allies, and Germans as enemies. This shift in public sentiment helped ease the United States’ entry into World War