The Zimmermann Telegram-Part 2: What Did Mexico Do?

  In my last post, I wrote about the Zimmermann Telegram and the role it played in convincing the United States to enter World War I. A couple of days later as I talked to a friend about the subject, I realized I had no idea how Mexico responded. It had never occurred to me…

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The Zimmermann Telegram, or How A Campaign Promise Lost Its Punch*

Woodrow Wilson campaigned for re-election in the 1916 presidential campaign on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” He won by the thinnest of margins because of the implicit promise that he would continue to keep American out of the war that had ravage Europe for two years. The United States was neutral, isolationist,…

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1916: A Year in Review

In 1916, what was then known as the war to end all wars still dominated the headlines. Losses on all sides were heavy and dispiriting. On the western front, French forces repulsed a major German offensive at the Battle of Verdun.* In July, after two years of stalemate in the trenches the British and French…

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