Talk:Zimmermann Telegram
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Capitalisation
Explanation for capitalization:
Unless the term you wish to create a page for is a proper noun or is otherwise almost always capitalized, do not capitalize second and subsequent words. (Wikipedia:Naming conventions)
This is the case here. It is almost always referred to as the Zimmermann Telegram. --Eloquence 05:31 17 May 2003 (UTC)
==The correct sequence of events? Extraordinary! I should not have thought it would be possible to write an entry on the Zimmermann Telegram that managed to entirely fail to set out the key sequence of events: i.e., that it was the British who decrypted it, and then found a way to leak it to the US - thus exposing their ability to break German codes. This was, of course, a serious breech of good security, but the message the telegram contained was judged so important that normal security rules were thrown out the window - and quite correctly so, as it turned out. There is any amount of information available on this topic. I am astonished that the 'pedia community could make such a hopeless mess of such an easy task.
(Doubtless, now that Eloquence has started on this entry, he will sort it out with his usual competence before too long; I'll stay out of the entry for the time being so as not to joggle his elbow.) Tannin
- Sorry about the mixup. I would have had no objections if you had fixed it yourself, though. That's what "Edit this page" is for. --Eloquence 06:36 17 May 2003 (UTC)
- I saw your new illustrations, figured you might be in progress on a major expansion, and I know only too well how frustrating it is to go off line for an hour or two to research and write something, polish it up so that it's just so, then come back to paste it in and discover that someone else has aleady done it. (Grrr! Whichever version we wind up keeping, it's a waste of soeone's effort.) So I usually try to work on something that no-one else is working on right now :) NP: I'll get right on to it. I read up on it in detail at one stage, but that was 5 or 10 years ago, so I better bone up a bit first.Tannin
Allegations of forgery
There needs to be something adressing the allegations that the telegram was actually a forgery by British Intelligence to stir up USA opinion against Germany. -- Infrogmation 06:18 17 May 2003 (UTC)
Eloquence has already addressed that. By making it clear that its capture and decoding were an all US affair, he has implied that there is no way that it could be a British forgery. After all, according to the version of events in the article, not only did the UK have nothing to do with the decoding, it didn't even allow the telegram to be sent over its communication network.
Of course that doesn't rule out the possibility that the Marines forged it because they were annoyed at missing out on the Great War but that's another story (and hardly any more unlikely than the one in the current article)! -- Derek Ross 06:39 17 May 2003 (UTC)
Who is Zimmermann?
Who is Zimmermann? The article does not say, nor does it link to him. The only way I even know Zimmermann was a player in this story is the sentence that says he confirmed the telegram was authentic.
I realize this is probably common knowledge, but surely some people are as ignorant (or more) as me, and at the least the article should provide a link. Jdavidb 14:05, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- eh? it links to Arthur Zimmermann in the first sentence, surely? — Matt 14:23, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I stand corrected. :) Jdavidb 22:12, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- And so do I, Matt. Quite right to remove separate "see also" link I had added. Dieter Simon 00:02, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
inapt category
There's a problem with the propaganda category tag. The telegram was secret (or intended to be) between Mexico and Germany. So it was not intended to be propaganda in the sense of public opinion manipulation. What happened after it was decrypted and disclosed is sufficiently not the article's brief that propaganda doesn't apply there as well. And finally, is not truth a defense to the allegation of 'just propaganda'? Zimmerman publicly admitted, at the time, that it was his telegram. The Germans did not disclaim it; though one wonders why not, after all.
I suggest that this category tag be removed. ww 18:14, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- It certainly changed public opinion; maybe you could argue that the US public was manipulated by the UK government? Is there a school of thought along those lines? "On February 24, 1917, U.S-German relations take a turn for the worst when British intelligence reveals the Zimmermann telegram—a communiqué sent by the German Foreign Ministry to the German ambassador in Mexico that allegedly exhorts an immediate German-Mexican military alliance against the United States (Nelson 38). All these facts were revealed to the American people after the end of the war, and this exposé only fueled their growing belief that the propaganda machinery of the Allied governments had duped them into fighting." — [1] (http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Tidepool/8194/index8.html) — Matt 18:31, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Matt, We are dealing with will-o-the-wisps here. Yes, there is a school of thought along those lines. Nevertheless, consider:
- You take a poke at me and miss. I return the poke at you and connect. You, or someone else, later claim my contact was unprovoked and thereby blacken my reputation. Have I been the victim of prop? I would think so as the claim would have been false in the Goebbels 'big lie' sense. Was it intended to do so? Probably as I can think of few other reasons to do so deliberately, although I suppose it could happen as an incident toward some other purpose -- as 'demonstrating' the ineffectiveness of British pugilism or the viciousness incident to US urban gang experience.
- Not all allegations are deserving of equal weight and some are deserving of none whatsoever. Observers in this world are responsible for evaluating their input for bogosity, and when they fail to do so, I do not think one can claim prop has occured as a result of that failure. An after the fact claim that the Z tele was prop misses now (and missed then) the point that it was not only true but was then admitted to be so by the perp in this case. Your comment crystallizes my conviction that this was not an example of prop.
- Now, whether the UK gov should have risked exposing its crypto expertise merely to make the enemy look bad is another question, not addressed in this article. In any case, not all strategms of war = prop. I'm going to remove it unless there is more discussion on point. Comment? ww 15:49, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Note that the most effective propaganda is that which uses the shocking truth. The reason that the Zimmerman Telegram made such good propaganda was that it was shocking; it said what the UK government claimed it did; and it was acknowledged as genuine by the German government. There was no need on the UK's part even to exaggerate. Having said that, people normally associate propaganda with lies or at the least exaggeration, so putting an article into that category seems to imply that it describes something untrue. For that reason I would hesitate to put this article into the category, although objectively I would agree that the telegram was the basis of a propaganda coup. -- Derek Ross | Talk
- Derek, Yup, that's just about my point. ww 15:25, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
frequency analysis citation dubious
Having just reread the article in full, I was struck by the claim that it was fa which Room 40 used (in part) to decrypt. Since this was a diplomatic code, fa would seem to be irrelevant. Does someone know specifically whether this was a code? If so, the fa comment will have to be corrected. ww 15:55, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Yes it was a code. However you can apply a form of frequecy analyisis to codes. At the most basic you can normaly work out wheather a code word is a noun or a verb etc by looking at the frequecy with wich the work apears in various parts of sentances. It's use is rather limited but it still has a place.Geni
- I thought so! As for that use of the term, it's not the common cryptanalytic use. For what you describe, I seem to recall something like linguistic analysis or something. I'll make a change to reflect the common usage. ww 16:52, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)