The violent and unstable politics in Mexico since its revolution in 1910 had challenged both the Taft and Wilson administrations. Tensions between the United States and the dictatorship of General Victoriano Huerta led to fighting in Veracruz in April 1914, in which nineteen U.S. Marines and sailors and more than 150 Mexican soldiers were killed. On March 9, 1916, the Mexican rebel Pancho Villa, angered by American support for Huerta’s successor, Venustiano Carranza, raided Columbus, New Mexico, killing eighteen American soldiers and civilians. Wilson responded by sending General John J. Pershing across the border with 5,000 men in what would prove to be an unsuccessful attempt to capture Villa. The expedition, which lasted until early February 1917, angered Carranza and led to two skirmishes between Pershing’s troops and Carranza’s soldiers. German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann sought to exploit the situation by sending a coded telegram containing a highly provocative proposal to the German ambassador in Mexico. British naval intelligence intercepted and decrypted the telegram and then presented it to Ambassador Page in London on February 24, 1917. Wilson released it to the press four days later.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 28.—The Associated Press is enabled to reveal that Germany, in planning unrestricted submarine warfare and counting its consequences, proposed an alliance with Mexico and Japan to make war on the United States, if this country should not remain neutral. Japan, through Mexican mediation, was to be urged to abandon her allies and join in the attack on the United States.
Mexico, for her reward, was to receive general financial support from Germany, reconquer Texas, New Mexico and Arizona—lost provinces—and share in the victorious peace terms Germany contemplated.
Details were left to German Minister von Eckhardt in Mexico City, who by instructions signed by German Foreign Minister Zimmermann at Berlin on January 19, 1917, was directed to propose the alliance with Mexico to General Carranza and suggest that Mexico seek to bring Japan into the plot.
These instructions were transmitted to von Eckhardt through Count von Bernstorff, former German Ambassador here, now on his way home to Germany under a safe conduct obtained from his enemies by the country against which he was plotting war. Germany pictured to Mexico by broad intimation England and the Entente Allies defeated, Germany and her allies triumphant and in world domination by the instrument of unrestricted submarine warfare.
ZIMMERMANN’S INSTRUCTIONS
A copy of Zimmermann’s instructions to von Eckhardt, sent through von Bernstorff, is in possession of the United States Government. It is as follows:
Berlin, January 19, 1917.
On the 1st of February we intend to begin submarine warfare unrestricted. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep neutral the United States of America.
If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and together make peace. We shall give general financial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement.
You are instructed to inform the President of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President of Mexico, on his own initiative, should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate between Germany and Japan.
Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few months.
ZIMMERMANN.
(Signed)
UNITED STATES KEPT DOCUMENT SECRET
This document has been in the hands of the government since President Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. It has been kept secret, while the President has been asking Congress for full authority to deal with Germany, and while Congress has been hesitating.
It was in the President’s hands while Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg was declaring that the United States had placed an interpretation on the submarine declaration “never intended by Germany” and that Germany had promoted and honored friendly relations with the United States “as an heirloom from Frederick the Great.”
Of itself, if there were no other, it is considered a sufficient answer to the German Chancellor’s plaint that the United States “brusquely” broke off relations without giving “authentic” reasons for its action.
There was an intimation that Germany’s astounding proposal that Japan turn traitor to her Allies had been answered by Tokio.
The document supplies the missing link to many separate chains of circumstances, which until now have seemed to lead to no definite point. It sheds new light upon the frequently reported but indefinable movements of the Mexican government to couple its situation with the friction between the United States and Japan.
It adds another chapter to the celebrated report of Jules Cambon, French Ambassador in Berlin before the war, of Germany’s world-wide plans for stirring strife on every continent where it might aid her in the struggle for world domination, which she dreamed was close at hand.
It adds a climax to the operations of Count von Bernstorff and the German Embassy in this country, which have been colored with passport frauds, charges of dynamite plots and intrigue, the full extent of which never has been published.
It gives new credence to persistent reports of submarine bases on Mexican territory in the Gulf of Mexico; it takes cognizance of a fact long recognized by American army chiefs—that if Japan ever undertook to invade the United States it probably would be through Mexico, over the border and into the Mississippi Valley to split the country in two.
It recalls that Count von Bernstorff, when handed his passports, was very reluctant to return to Germany, but expressed a preference for asylum in Cuba. It gives a new explanation to the repeated arrests on the border of men charged by American military authorities with being German intelligence agents.
Last of all, it seems to show a connection with General Carranza’s recent proposal to neutrals that exports of food and munitions to the Entente Allies be cut off, and an intimation that he might stop the supply of oil, so vital to the British navy, which is exported from the Tampico fields.
What Congress will do, and how members of Congress who openly have sympathized with Germany in their opposition to clothing the President with full authority to protect American rights will regard the revelation of Germany’s machinations to attack the United States, is the subject to-night of the keenest interest.
Such a proposal as Germany instructed her minister to make to Mexico borders on an act of war if, actually, it is not one.
MEXICANS KNEW OF PLOT
No doubt exists here now that the persistent reports during the last two years of the operations of German agents not alone in Mexico, but all through Central America and the West Indies, are based on fact. There is now no doubt whatever that the proposed alliance with Mexico was known to high Mexican officials who are distinguished for their anti-Americanism. Among them are Rafael Zubaran, Carranza’s Minister to Germany, and Luis Cabrera, Carranza’s Minister of Finance.
It is apparent that the proposal had taken definite form when Zubaran returned to Mexico City from Berlin recently. His return from his foreign post was covered by the fact that Carranza had called in many of his diplomats for “conferences.” Some time before that Cabrera while still at Atlantic City in the conference of the American-Mexican Joint Commission, had suggested in a guarded way to a member of the American section that he regretted that the commission had not succeeded fully in settling the difficulties between Mexico and the United States, for, he said, he had hoped it might continue its work and make peace for the world.
When pressed for some details of how the commission could restore world peace, Cabrera suggested that the American republics controlled the destiny of the war by controlling a large part of its supplies. Mexico, he intimated, might do her part by cutting off exports of oil. The American commissioners dismissed his ideas as visionary.
Almost coincident with Zubaran’s return from Germany Cabrera returned to Mexico City, open in his expressions of anti-Americanism. Zubaran, before being sent abroad, had represented General Carranza here while the Niagara mediation conferences were proceeding, and was no less avowedly anti-American than Cabrera.
VON SCHOEN SENT TO MEXICO
Meanwhile, Baron von Schoen, secretary of the German Embassy here, was transferred to the legation in Mexico City. No explanation could be obtained of the reason for his transfer, and such investigation as was possible failed to develop why a secretary from the United States should be sent to the German Legation in Mexico.
Baron von Schoen’s association with the moves, if any at all, does not appear. The only outward indication that he might have been connected with them is found in the fact that he recently had been detached from the German Embassy in Tokio and was well acquainted with the Japanese Minister in Mexico City.
Carranza’s peace proposal was openly pronounced an evidence of German influence in Mexico by officials here, who declared it was intended only to embarrass the United States. Then, apparently, some influences showed their effect on the course of the Mexican government, and on February 25 Cabrera, the Minister of Finance, issued a statement describing the “amazement” of the Mexican government that the American newspapers should have interpreted General Carranza’s proposal to cut off exports of munitions as a suggestion that he might cut off shipments of British oil. They were, Cabrera declared, “entirely groundless,” and that feature of the situation ended.
AMBASSADOR DIRECTED SCHEME
Count von Bernstorff’s connection with the plot, further than serving as the channel of communication, is intensified by the fact that the German Embassy here was not merely the medium of delivering a message in this instance, but was really a sort of headquarters for all the German missions to Central and South America.
The German naval attaché, Captain Boy-Ed, and the military attaché, Captain von Papen, whose recall was forced by the State Department because of their military activities in this country, also were accredited to Mexico, and between the outbreak of the war and their departure from this country made at least one visit there.
For months many naval officers here have believed that the mysterious German sea raiders of the South Atlantic must have found a base somewhere on the Mexican coast, and that such a base could not be maintained without the knowledge and consent of Mexican officials. Last November the British charge at Mexico City presented to the Carranza Foreign Office a notification that if it was discovered that the Mexican neutrality thus had been violated the Allies would take “drastic measures” to prevent a continuance of that situation.
MEXICO SENT INSOLENT REPLY
In a note almost insolent in tone, Foreign Minister Aguilar replied to the charge that, in effect, it was the business of the Allies to keep German submarines out of Western waters, and that if they were not kept out Mexico would adopt whatever course the circumstances might commend.
To German influences also have been attributed in some quarters the vigorous steps taken by the de facto Finance Minister to force loans from the Banco Nacional and the Bank of London and Mexico, owned by French and British capital. The institutions were closed by the Mexican officials and some of their officers imprisoned and held for weeks, despite repeated protests by France, Great Britain and the United States.
ENVOY ON “SECRET MISSION”
Reports of German machine guns and German gunners in the Carranza army also have been persistent. It is recalled tonight, too, that last November, when the Mexican-American Joint Commission was making its futile effort to adjust the difficulties between the two countries the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador at Mexico City, Count Kalman Votkanya, made a trip to the United States on what he described as a “secret mission.”
A suggestion interpreted by some officials as an indication that Germany might have made approaches to Mexico at that time was made by Cabrera in an address at Philadelphia on November 10.
“The foes of the United States will certainly assume to be friends of Mexico,” said Mr. Cabrera, “and will try to take advantage of any sort of resentment Mexico may have against the United States. Mexico, nevertheless, understands that in case of a conflict between the United States and any other nation outside America her attitude must be one of continental solidarity.”
GERMANS INCITE RAIDS
It has been an open secret that Department of Justice agents in their investigations of plots to violate American neutrality by setting on foot armed expeditions in Mexico more than once have uncovered what appeared to be trails of the German Secret Service.
A few days ago Fred Kaiser, suspected of being a German agent, was arrested at Nogales on charges brought under the neutrality statutes, Department of Justice agents declaring he had attempted to obtain military information on the American side of the border and had cultivated the society of American army officers with an apparent intention of promoting those efforts.
Last July, when W. H. Schweibz, who claimed to be a former Germany army officer, escaped into Mexico at Nogales after arrest on similar charges, the deputy marshal who tried to follow him was stopped by Mexican authorities.
EVIDENCE WILL AMAZE PUBLIC
The full extent of the evidence of Germany’s plotting against the United States, gathered by the American Secret Service, may become known only according to the course of the future relations between the two countries. It is known that much evidence of the operations of the German Embassy and persons who were responsible to it never has been permitted to come out, because officials preferred to guard against inflaming the public mind in the tense situation with Germany. The public amazement which a full exposition of the evidence in the hands of the government would cause cannot be overestimated.
Only to-day the Council of National Defence, created by act of Congress, issued an appeal to all Americans to show every consideration for aliens in this country.
“We call upon all citizens,” said the appeal, “if untoward events should come upon us, to present to these aliens, many of whom to-morrow will be Americans, an attitude of neither suspicion nor aggressiveness. We urge upon all Americans to meet these millions of foreign born with unchanged manner and with unprejudiced mind.”
New York Tribune, March 1, 1917