The Easter Rising of 1916

The history of Ireland is not for the faint of heart, the island has a past that is so tragic and depressing, few nation states can compare. From Oliver Cromwell’s brutal subjugation, numerous English invasions, to genocidal famine, Ireland has been the subject, or target, of almost any historical category of catastrophe that can be applied. However harsh its history though, the Irish spirit has never diminished and tales of resistance and hope can be found peppered between the tragedy and repression. While not a tale of hope, the Easter Rising of 1916 is one of resistance against the English 700-year occupation. Although the uprising itself failed, it can be argued that it convinced the powers in London that it was time to sunset its domination over the Emerald Isle. No longer able to see the benefits of control in the aftermath of the uprising, London eventually agreed to relinquishment of a majority of the Island to the “Irish Free State” in 1922, finally granting Ireland its independence (after a war of independence). This article will detail the failed 1916 uprising, its aftermath, and how it fits into the broader struggle of Irish independence.

To understand the uprising of 1916, one must also understand that this was far from the first uprising against English dominance, nor was it surprising to those who were aware of the feelings in Dublin at the time. Three rebellions in just the 19th century proceeded the 1916 event, also all failures. But with each rebellion, England was reminded of the cost it had to pay in order to maintain its hegemony over the island. What made the 1916 action different was that it arrived at a time of a global war, a war that England was a leading participant in, tying up British resources and manpower away from its dominions both close to home and remote. The British Empire’s armies, made up of subjects and citizens from its domestic and colonial possessions – including Ireland, were suffering tremendous casualties in the First World War, stoking factions that advocated for independence from Britain in Ireland and in other colonial nations. The longer that Britain fought in WWI, the more Irish independence and republican factions used the mounting casualties to advocate separation from their colonial overlords, calling attention to the irony of Irish men dying for a British government that actively repressed their homeland. These factions, seeking to use the distraction of WWI to their advantage, made the bold step of asking Britain’s enemy in the war, the German Empire, for its help.

The planning for the rebellion began in 1915, principally led by a teacher and lawyer named Patrick Pearse, and a lifelong Irish revolutionary named Thomas J. Clarke. While far from the only leaders, Pearse and Clarke are the most commonly known names associated to the event but other leaders include James Connolly, Eamon de Valera (future president of Ireland), Seán Mac Diarmada, Eamonn Ceannt, and Joseph Plunkett – amongst others. Most of the men involved in the uprising were from the Irish Volunteers, essentially a precursor to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) - a more radical group within the Irish Volunteers, and The Irish Citizen Army. The Rising of 1916 also saw the involvement of a radical republican political party and group called Sinn Féin, which would go on to be a household name in British and Irish 20th century history. The IRB advocated for full independence of the entire island of Ireland and aimed to achieve it through armed means while the Irish Volunteers were more focused on only resorting to violence if the situation called for it, like a full conscription movement by the British of Irish men to bolster their ranks in WWI.

The IRB had begun secret talks with the German Imperial government in as early as 1914 to determine German appetite towards support of the Irish cause, and successfully convinced the Germans to declare their support behind Irish Independence. The IRB drafted plans to recruit Irish POWs from the British ranks being held by the Germans into a unit, calling it the “Irish Brigade.” This brigade was to launch an assault of liberation on Ireland, supported by a German “expeditionary force” (GEF) to take Dublin, with IRB and the Volunteers rising up from within the island. Of course this Irish Brigade, nor a German expeditionary force, ever materialized or came to fruition but the Germans did agree to supply arms and ammunition to the IRB and the Volunteers. Additional support was courted from groups of American sympathizers, Irish expats, and descendants of Irish immigrants, securing about $100,000 from one of these groups. With the promise of arms and ammo from Germany, the amassing of Irish domestic arms and ammo, and monetary support from American sympathizers, by early 1916 it was decided that a rebellion would be launched on Easter Sunday that same year.

Patrick Pearse, as one of the principal leaders of the Irish Volunteers and IRB council member, declared that three days of parading (after a period of increased training) would begin on Easter Sunday. Those IRB members within the Volunteers aware of the plans knew this meant the rebellion would begin, while those without knowledge of the plans would take these parading orders as no more than what they appeared to be. At the same time, in early April, a German ship disguised as a Norwegian vessel, set sail for Dublin with 20,000 rifles, over a million bullets, and a large number of explosives. One of the Irish revolutionaries that had been negotiating with the Germans since 1914, Roger Casement, was separately dispatched to Ireland aboard a German U-boat, however he had intentions of trying to delay or stop the rebellion due to the lack of an Irish Brigade or GEF.

British Intelligence had suspected an action could occur for some months, realizing that tensions were extremely high in the Irish capital. They had been able to find out about the German ship, the planned rising date, and the return of Roger Casement through radio cables between Ireland and Germany. When the German ship, the SS Libau, arrived in late April off the coast of Ireland, it was intercepted by the Royal Navy, causing the captain of the Libau to destroy or scuttle the ship, with Roger Casement captured when he landed in Ireland. With the loss of the German arms and the capture of Casement, the uprising was cancelled for the time being. After reviewing the situation further and realizing that, due to British knowledge of events, their window to act was rapidly closing, the military council within the Volunteers (made of up almost all IRB members) informed the IRB and the Volunteers again that the rebellion would move forward but now for the Monday after Easter, using the arms they had available.

When Easter Monday, April 24th, arrived, the call to muster went out to the IRB, The Irish Volunteers, and the Irish Citizen Army. 1,200 men and women responded and mustered at several locations, dressed in various uniforms and civilian attire, and armed with rifles, revolvers, some semi-automatic pistols, shotguns, and explosives. This 1,200 was less than anticipated due to the changing of orders and the short notice. The plan involved taking this force and occupy the main city center of Dublin, with groups spreading out and hitting different locations simultaneously.

A large group of about 400 Irish rebels, led by Pearse, Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, and Joseph Plunkett, targeted and occupied the General Post Office (GPO), making it their new headquarters while the rebellion unfolded. Other groups of rebels dug trenches and created defensive positions, set up check points and barricades, captured various buildings, bridges, communication, and government structures such as a telegraph station, using the station to declare that an Irish Republic has been created. A small group was able to secure the city hall of Dublin and attempted to capture Dublin Castle but were unsuccessful, killing a British solider in the process. While rebels were able to size key locations quickly, due to a lack of man power they were unable to gain full control of the city center and failed to cut off communications in its entirety, leaving the British government able to contact loyal forces within the city and elsewhere. Another failure on the rebel’s part was that they did not cut off transportation routes into and out of the city center, with rail lines and bridges remaining open.

Combat began in pockets around the seized areas, such as gun fire exchanging between the soldiers remaining in Dublin Castle and the captured buildings around it, leaving one rebel dead. Civilians also tried to resist some of the rebels, with Volunteers killing multiple civilians after they attempted to overpower barricades. But a coordinated British response was lacking, even though they were aware of planning and an imminent rebellion. It is now considered a tremendous intelligence failure that the British assumed that any real threat was delayed due to the seizing of the Libau. Due to a lack of offensive action by the British, combat was light on the first day, with isolated fighting breaking out between scattered Unionist (British or Irish loyal to the Crown) and rebel forces, killing small numbers on both sides, as well as some innocent civilians and unarmed police officers. Unionist forces didn’t push back further for the remainder of the day.

Tuesday, April 25th, saw British forces in the area starting to take offensive action to retake the buildings seized. Their first efforts were focused on securing the area around Dublin Castle, which they believed the rebel headquarters to be near, successfully retaking Dubin city hall in the process. However, the British were unable to advance in some areas, being pushed back by heavy rebel fire as they tried to advance from the railway station, with some British soldiers captured. The British brought in artillery and began to shell rebel positions, forcing a rebel retreat from some of the previously established barricades. On Tuesday evening, martial law was officially declared, with Unionist reinforcements being called to muster from Belfast and other parts of Ireland and England, using the rail stations that the rebels had failed to secure. Pearse was able to speak to a large gathering of Dublin residents and implored them and all Irish to rise up in support of the rebels and the newly declared republic.

On Wednesday, April 26th, British artillery moved into position and fired on rebel positions around the city center, shocking the rebel command staff who did not believe that the British would actually shell Dublin. The British began to either shell or advance on rebel positions scattered all over, with some positions surrendering to the British after heavy fighting or burning their occupied buildings as they retreated, rather than let the British take them. More British forces arrived from England, now with thousands of unionist forces either in Dublin or arriving shortly. The rebels, while surrendering in some areas, were able to successfully resist in others, inflicting heavy casualties on the British, with one British unit suffering 240 casualties as they made repeated attempts to cross the Grand Canal, with just 4 rebels being killed in that fighting.

Over the next three days, from Thursday, April 27th to Saturday the 29th, the Brits steadily captured rebel position after rebel position. However, the urban fighting was brutal, with the British having to employ the use of armored cars, machine guns, and artillery to make gains against the entrenched rebels, at some points only able to secure buildings by tunneling through the walls of neighboring buildings to break into occupied structures. Innocent civilians trapped in the city center were caught in the crossfire, with groups being killed and outright executed by the British army for suspected assistance to lthe rebels.

Finally, the GPO was evacuated by the rebels on the 28th, after heavy shelling and gunfire made the position untenable. The decision to surrender was made by Pearse and the rest of the IRB council (except for Clarke) on the 29th, realizing rebel forces were surrounded and outgunned, ordering all rebel positions to give up. By the surrender, 260 civilians, 143 Unionist or British soldiers, and 82 rebels were dead, with thousands of civilians and hundreds on each side wounded. Nearly 3,500 people were arrested, some for looting in the chaos of the rebellion, but around half were rebels. The British tried just under 200 people in secret military courts, against British law, with conflicts of interest being outright ignored. 29 of the around 200 were sentenced to death, some of which were not leaders or did not kill anyone. Due to tension and growing outcry, bordering on levels of further rebellion, the British executed only 16 out of the 29 by firing squad or hanging, commuting the rest to prison, in an attempt to quiet the dissent. Of the 16 executed, most of the leadership of the Rising were among them, including Pearse, Clarke, and the rest of the aforementioned leadership, except Eamon de Valera due to his possessing of American citizenship.

While the British hoped to crush anti-unionist sentiments with the execution of the Easter Rising leadership, the opposite effect occurred. The Irish people were originally outraged by the violence and disruption of daily life caused by the uprising and turned against the rebels but as British atrocities during the rebellion, like massacres of unarmed male citizens, the use of human shields, summary executions, and the executions of the leadership after secret trials with no chance of defense came to light, public opinion shifted towards the rebels with massive public outcry occurring after the executions. Post execution of the leaders, support for republicanism and independence in Ireland grew, instead of declining like the British intended. These growing political feelings in the aftermath of the Rising, further stoked by the massive loss of Irish born soldiers in the Battle of the Somme later that year, are credited with leading directly to the Irish war of Independence in 1919-1921, which resulted in Irish victory and full independence from the British after 700 years.

The Boston Molasses Disaster

What is one of the worst ways you can think of dying? I bet you didn’t have drowning in syrup on that list. 21 people of Boston, Massachusetts, USA didn’t either in 1919, but unfortunately, they still met this sticky fate. So how did 21 people die in the molasses flood? Believe it or not, fermented Molasses is used to create ethanol, a key component in creating alcohol and munitions. Molasses was a hot commodity during the First World War and with the impending implementation of Prohibition in the United States, Boston had storage tanks of molasses in the North End of the Boston to keep the valuable syrup safe. A tank of this molasses, built in 1915, burst on the 15th of January 1919, causing a title wave of molasses to spill into the Boston Street. This wave of syrup, reported to be about 8m (25ft) high, moved at a speed of around 56 km/h (35 mph) destroying whole buildings by sweeping them off their foundations. The wave flooded several city blocks with about 2 feet (60 cm) of molasses, drowning or killing 21 people and injuring 150. How did this happen and what was the aftermath? Let us get into it.

              Molasses, as previously stated, was instrumental in the munition production process due to its ability to create ethanol when fermented. The First World War made storage along the water instrumental, with ships regularly depositing more molasses in the storage tanks. The tanks used to store this syrup in Boston’s North End wharfs were massive, standing at over 50 feet tall (15 meters). The tank that burst stored up to 2.5 million gallons of molasses and was built and managed by a subsidiary of The United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA), the Purity Distilling Company. From the very beginning, residents and workers near the tank had concerns, claiming the tank was built too quickly, with leaking and noises emitting from the tank. Although the war ended in 1918, USIA, with a continued focus on alcohol production, continued to use the tank due to the impending implementation of Prohibition. The belief on why the tanks burst is due to rising temperatures in Boston on Jan 15, 1919, coupled with a transfer of more molasses at higher temp the day before. In the previous days, the temperatures were below freezing, but on Jan 15, the temperatures climbed into the 40s Fahrenheit (4 Celsius). Molasses is thick and thickens the colder it gets. Owing to warmth, the viscosity decreases, causing expansion and with rapid expansion, structures like quickly built tanks, burst. To increase this expansion, a ship had deposited its load of molasses into the tank on the 14th, at a higher temp to facilitate the transfer, adding to the rising temperature in the tank. Finally, at 12:30 on the 15th, the tank burst. People nearby the bursting tank reported hearing noises like a loud rumble, similar to a train passing overhead on tracks, automatic weapon fire (the rivets bursting), and the ground shaking. The air rushing out of the burst tank picked up and threw people, hard and far enough to cause injury. Once the tidal wave of molasses spread out, causing chaos and destruction, destroying cable cars, automobiles, and sweeping buildings away, the molasses started to thicken being exposed to the cold Boston air. This thickening of the molasses severely hampered the rapid response efforts, dooming people, and animals alike, swallowed up in the wave. Some were killed instantly when debris swept by the wave hit them, but most drowned or suffocated in the sticky liquid. The more people and animals struggled, the more they became entombed. Rescue efforts were quick, with Red Cross nurses, naval cadets, military personnel, and police officers arriving on the scene minutes after the tank burst. Despite these efforts, some people were too buried to be helped and some were swept out to sea, with their bodies only being found months later.

              In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the cleanup took weeks, and occurred all over the city, not just at the harbor, as bystanders traveled to see the disaster, then trekked molasses all through the city as they went home. The harbor itself was stained brown for months after and even some residents reported that the harbor smelled of molasses for decades on hot days. A class action lawsuit was filed against USIA, claiming that the poorly built tank was responsible and that USIA should pay a large sum to the victims. USIA instead, and we are not making this up, claimed that a terrorist or anarchist climbed on top of the tank and dropped a bomb into the fermentation vent. They of course had no evidence to back this claim up, and the judge ruled in favor of the victims. USIA was forced to pay over $650,000, equivalent to $11 million in 2023. The lasting legacy of the flood is the improvement in construction safety that we enjoy today. The tank explosion led to new constructions being inspected and made sure that the construction met code in Boston, which eventually spread to other parts of the United States (sped along thanks to other disasters).

Operation Catapult

One obscure part of World War Two history is what happened to French forces immediately after their defeat to the Nazis. When the French surrendered to the Nazis in the Second World War, these forces didn’t just turn in their weapons and go home, France as an entity still existed in some form and needed forces to defend her from Allied and Axis threats alike. Would French military assets be neutral or now used against the Allies? In the immediate and chaotic aftermath of French capitulation to the Germans, British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made a decision that is still derided in France today, and resulted in the death of nearly 1,300 French sailors, attacking the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir. Churchill himself would write “this was the most hateful decision, the most unnatural and painful in which I have ever been concerned.” This article will detail the events around this attack, and the context around the Allied decision.

With the collapse of the French in 1940, the Nazis occupied northern France but left southern France and most of the French Colonial possessions “unoccupied.” These unoccupied and colonial areas were organized under a new government known as Vichy France, named after the new capital city of Vichy, which took a collaborationist stance with the Nazis. The Nazis also sent around two million French prisoners of war (POWs) into forced labor camps throughout Nazi controlled Europe. However, not all French armed forces accepted this new government and Nazi rule; a French general, Charles de Gaulle, successfully fled to England and set up the “Free French” forces and government in exile, vying against Vichy France to be the legitimate government of France. The free French forces consisted of French African colonial forces, escaped French forces, the French foreign legion, and fragmented resistance groups.  These Free French forces would serve alongside the Allies for the duration of the war and even against Nazi allied Vichy forces. As the war waged on, and the Allies invaded places like North Africa and Italy, Vichy forces routinely joined the Allies, and the numbers of Free French forces swelled to 1.2 million by the war’s end. But our story takes place in 1940, just after the capitulation of French forces to the Nazis.

As the new armistice went into effect between Germany and France, the British government feared that the Nazis would take control of the French navy, even though the armistice directly referenced that the Germans would make no demands of the French fleet, with a similar statement in the armistice with the Italians. The British doubted that the Italians and the Germans would hold to their world and leave the French fleet neutral, and their fears (in their minds) started to be realized when the Italians requested the French to “temporarily” relocate the bulk of their fleet to North African ports, within reach of Italian forces. The British feared this move could lead to the Italians/Germans taking control of the fleet, and with a combined Italian, German, and French fleet against the lone British Royal Navy, the balance at sea would swing towards the Axis powers, leaving the British position untenable for the long term. To the British, an allied or neutral French fleet could be the difference between victory or total defeat. To counter the potential threat of a French fleet being used against them, the British devised an operation known as Operation Catapult, the main objective being the securing of French naval assets in multiple locations such as Egypt, French Algeria, and England.

However, before the British launched Operation Catapult, negations were opened with their former allies to secure a peaceful transition of French naval vessels around the world into British hands. These negotiations were not successful, so the British delivered an ultimatum to the French admiral in charge of the most powerful group targeted in Operation Catapult, Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul, at Mers-el-Kébir, in French Algeria. The British fleet to deliver this ultimatum and use force if necessary to secure the ships at Mers-el-Kébir, was known as Force H. Force H, in communications back to the British high command, indicated their wish to avoid hostilities and predicted that hostile action would alienate French forces everywhere. The Admiralty, earlier directed by Churchill, were insistent on hostilities if the French did not agree to the demands, saying “firm intention of His Majesty’s Government that if the French will not accept any of your alternatives, they are to be destroyed.” The task force arrived off the Coast of French Algeria on 3 July. Also, on 3 July, British forces boarded French ships and submarines moored in Plymouth and Portsmouth, England. There was light resistance to this surprise boarding action, resulting in the death of three British Navy personnel and one French sailor. In Alexandria, Egypt, the French navy surrendered their five ships to the British peacefully.

A British Captain who spoke French, Cedric Holland, was selected to deliver the ultimatum, while the insulted Gensoul, who resented negotiating with a junior officer to him, sent his subordinate in his stead, causing confusion on who was empowered to make a decision. The ultimatum contained 3 options for the French: 1. join the British and continue the fight against the Germans and Italians, 2. Sail to a British port and the crews will be repatriated to France and the ships returned (with compensation if damaged) at the conclusion of the war, 3. Sail to the West Indies to be demilitarized in a French port or entrusted to the United States (neutral at the time) to remain safe until the conclusion of hostilities. If these options were refused or no response received, the French were informed they would be attacked (with regret) in 6 hours. Gensoul saw no acceptable options and readied his fleet to defend themselves, stating “given the form and substance of the veritable ultimatum which has been sent to Admiral Gensoul, the French ships will defend themselves with force.”

Although there was hope that the French would change their minds or the British would back down, the six hours passed and hostilities commenced, with the HMS Hood opening fire first, followed by Force H fully engaging. After ten minutes of sustained bombardment, the French surrendered. 1 battleship was fully sunk, 2 heavily damaged, 3 destroyers damaged, and a few smaller ships damaged. In all, 1,297 French sailors lost their lives with 350 wounded, though some ships escaped to Toulon, receiving a hero’s welcome upon their arrival.

In 1942, the Germans did try to capture the French fleet, now mainly based out of Toulon, in violation of the Armistice, but the French successfully destroyed any ship of value prior to the arrival of the Germans, showing the French resolve to keep the navy out of Axis’ hands. The legacy of Operation Catapult and the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir is mixed, with historians debating that the attack, although uniting the Vichy French in opposition against Britain, was a tactical success, and others debating that its military success did not outweigh the propaganda value against Britain. Further, there is debate that with the successful scuttling of the French navy in Toulon in 1942, were the British fears unfounded and did Britain attack a former ally for no reason? We will leave that up to you to decide.

The Zimmermann Telegram

In 1917, Europe, along with swaths of Asia and parts of Africa, were three years in to tearing themselves apart due to a confluence of technology, destruction, and outdated tactics known to us as the First World War. The Central Powers, made up of the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Bulgaria were battling the Allied Powers, made up of The French Republic, Italy, The British Empire, Japan, and The Russian Empire. Noticeably absent and “neutral” was the United States. I put neutral in quotes there because the U.S. was anything but. America shipped war material, ammunition, and other supplies to the Allies but due to a large German immigrant population and a population with an intense isolationist worldview, remained on the sidelines. This all changed in 1917, while the U.S. had run ins and near conflicts with the Central Powers due to Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare on Trans-Atlantic shipping, it was a telegram sent to the German ambassador to Mexico, by the German Secretary of State that pushed America to the Allies. The telegram, intercepted and decrypted by the British, and turned over to the Americans, coupled with German submarine sinking of American vessels, brought the United States into the conflict on the side of the Allied Powers, tipping the scales decidedly into the Allies’ favor. This article is about that telegram and how it was a major factor in the loss of the war for the Central Powers.

To understand why it took the Americans three years to enter the war, we must first understand the reasons for staying neutral. First, while most Americans had cultural sympathies or full ties to Britain, France, and the rest of the Allied Powers, the U.S. had 10% of its population who ethnically identified as German. These Americans, for obvious reasons, did not want their adopted country to declare war on the land of their birth or their ancestral home, and for the first couple years of the war, the wider population of the United States agreed. Second, the American people saw WW1 as a strictly European affair and felt that it should stay that way. They believed it was folly to involve American soldiers in a war across the ocean that did not directly affect the American sphere of influence. Lastly, the United States was profiting immensely off the war, from an industrial and agricultural standpoint. Owing to the destruction or a shift to full war production of European industrial capability, military mobilization of the European population away from their places of employment, and blockades, the demand for American goods and food soared. However, in 1915, the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania, killing 1,200 people, 128 of which were Americans, started a public opinion shift toward American intervention on the side of the Allies. For those unfamiliar, Germany pursued a policy of total war in the Atlantic Ocean, sinking both merchant and passenger vessels alike, in order to starve out the allies and curb their ability to wage war. So sharp was the outrage over the sinking of the Lusitania, that the Germans temporarily backed off their policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.

In 1917, a major political event occurred, turning the war toward a Central Power victory - the Russian Communist Revolution. The revolution took the Russian Empire out of the war and turned a two-front war, into a one front conflict. This freed up large numbers of Central Power soldiers to be rerouted to the western front, causing the war to start a swing against the Allies. To maximize further on this shift, Germany resumed its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, causing more American losses, leading the United States to cut off diplomatic ties with Germany a few days after the policy resumed. Now enters our star, the Zimmermann telegram. The telegram was sent by Arthur Zimmermann, the Secretary of State/Foreign Secretary for the German Empire, to his ambassador in Mexico, essentially instructing the ambassador to propose a German-Mexican alliance, should the United States enter the war. Weirdly, Zimmermann also proposed the Japanese to be in this alliance, even though they were already on the side of the Allies, and the likelihood of them switching sides was nil. In this alliance, Germany would provide financial and material support to the Mexicans to invade the U.S. and even offered to support Mexico’s annexation of the U.S. states of New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. While the telegram was sent in a coded format, it was intercepted by the British rather quickly. This is because Britain had cut Germany’s ability to send cables without a third-party allowing usage of their undersea telegraph cables, forcing Germany to rely on Sweden and the United States to transmit messages to overseas German ambassadors (like the one stationed in Mexico). The version of the message that went via the Swedes went from Stockholm to Buenos Aires over British telegraph cables, on to Mexico via the United States. Due to the usage of these British undersea cables, the plucky Brits were able to intercept it.

However, even with the message decoded quickly, the British were put in a precarious position. First, they had to convince the United States it was genuine. This on paper should be easy, but the U.S. was wary of efforts by the Brits to bring them into the war. Second and probably more important to British Secret Intelligence, it would also reveal that they had the ability to decode secret German telegraph cables. Ultimately, and after much angst, they passed it along to their American counterparts and convinced them that it was a genuine message. Understandably, the American public, holding now anti-German sentiments due to the unrestricted submarine warfare policy, and more historically, anti-Mexican sentiments, were outraged.

The United States did not take the Zimmermann threat of a Mexican-German alliance as a militarily viable threat. The U.S. was in the very final days of the Pancho Villa expedition; a military invasion of Mexico to track down Mexican revolutionary figure, Pancho Villa, after he launched a boarder raid on U.S. territory (the last U.S. invasion in a series of military actions against Mexico that showed the U.S. was far stronger militarily than their southern neighbor). Additionally, Mexico was in the midst of a civil war and the current president, Venustiano Carranza, was not in a place logistically, militarily, or politically to mount such an action, although he did ask a military commission to assess the proposal, which they found to be unwinnable.

The ultimate consequence of the Zimmermann telegram was the slow defeat of the Central Powers in the First World War, ending in November 1918, due to the U.S. declaring war and siding with the Allies, following the admission of Arthur Zimmermann to the genuine nature of the telegram. At one point, following the U.S. entry into the war, 10,000 U.S. soldiers a day were arriving in Europe. Germany and the Central Powers couldn’t counter the U.S. surge of material and manpower, allowing the new combination of the United States, the British Empire, France, and the other Allies, to press home and defeat the Central Powers by the end of 1918.