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79-549: The history of the organisations dates back to the 19th century. The decryption of the Zimmermann Telegram in 1917 was described as the most significant intelligence triumph for Britain during World War I, and one of the earliest occasions on which a piece of signals intelligence influenced world events. During the Second World War and afterwards, many observers regarded Ultra signals intelligence as immensely valuable to

158-571: A copy of the message. Sir Thomas Hohler , the British ambassador in Mexico, later claimed to have been "Mr. H" or at least to have been involved with the interception in his autobiography. The coded text could then be shown to the Americans without embarrassment. Moreover, the retransmission was encoded with the older code 13040 and so by mid-February, the British had the complete text and the ability to release

237-510: A dilemma. Evidence the United States had been provided confidentially by the British informed Wilson that the message was genuine, but he could not make the evidence public without compromising the British codebreaking operation. This problem was, however, resolved when any doubts as to the authenticity of the telegram were removed by Zimmermann himself. At a press conference on March 3, 1917, he told an American journalist, "I cannot deny it. It

316-581: A further copy in Mexico City, and Balfour could obscure the real source with the half-truth that it had been "bought in Mexico". Page then reported the story to Wilson on February 24, 1917, including details to be verified from telegraph-company files in the United States. Wilson felt "much indignation" toward the Germans and wanted to publish the Zimmermann Telegraph immediately after he had received it from

395-473: A large number of other enemy systems. Winston Churchill was reported to have told King George VI , when presenting to him Stewart Menzies (head of the Secret Intelligence Service and the person who controlled distribution of Ultra decrypts to the government): "It is thanks to the secret weapon of General Menzies, put into use on all the fronts, that we won the war!" F. W. Winterbotham quoted

474-513: A military commission to assess the feasibility of the Mexican takeover of their former territories contemplated by Germany. The generals concluded that such a war was unwinnable for the following reasons: The Carranza government was recognized de jure by the United States on August 31, 1917, as a direct consequence of the Zimmermann telegram to ensure Mexican neutrality during World War I . After

553-708: Is funded within the UK's defence budget. Zimmermann Telegram see also The Zimmermann telegram (or Zimmermann note or Zimmermann cable ) was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office on January 17, 1917, that proposed a military contract between the German Empire and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany. With Germany's aid, Mexico would recover Texas , Arizona , and New Mexico . The telegram

632-435: Is our intention to endeavour to keep the United States neutral. 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 her lost territory of New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement. You are instructed to inform

711-627: Is thought that "much of the energy of the War Cabinet was devoted to the grave question of increasing the number of troops available." The British War Cabinet continued to make most strategic decisions. Smuts attended the meetings of the British War Cabinet after the disbanding of the IWC. The Imperial War Cabinet met again on 11 June 1918, with a gathering in the Royal Gallery on 21 June marking

790-562: Is true." Then, on March 29, 1917, Zimmermann gave a speech in the Reichstag in which he admitted that the telegram was genuine. Zimmermann hoped that Americans would understand that the idea was that Germany would not fund Mexico's war with the United States unless the Americans joined World War I. Nevertheless, in his speech Zimmermann questioned how the Washington government obtained the telegram. According to Reuters news service, Zimmermann told

869-492: Is uncertain how the war would have ended. The Government Code and Cypher School was renamed the " Government Communications Headquarters " (GCHQ) in 1946. The Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB) was established the same year. It was structured into a series of divisions: procurement (JIB 1), geographic (JIB 2 and JIB 3), defences, ports and beaches (JIB 4), airfields (JIB 5), key points (JIB 6), oil (JIB 7) and telecommunications (JIB 8). Wartime signals intelligence cooperation between

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948-660: The Staatssekretär (a top-level civil servant , second only to their respective minister) in the Foreign Office of the German Empire on January 17, 1917. The message was sent to the German ambassador to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt . Zimmermann sent the telegram in anticipation of the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany on February 1, which the German government presumed would almost certainly lead to war with

1027-640: The Financial Times in 2024. The Single Intelligence Account (SIA) is the funding vehicle for the three main security and intelligence agencies: the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the Security Service (MI5). Spending on the SIA was £3.6 billion in financial year 2022/23. Defence Intelligence is an integral part of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and

1106-659: The Allies of World War II . In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis , GCHQ interceptions of Soviet ship positions were sent directly to the White House . Intelligence cooperation in the post-war period between the United Kingdom and the United States became the cornerstone of Western intelligence gathering and the " Special Relationship " between the United Kingdom and the United States. The UK Intelligence Community consists of

1185-548: The Axis powers and aided local resistance movements . The 1943 British–US Communication Intelligence Agreement, BRUSA , connected the signal intercept networks of the GC&;CS and the U.S. National Security Agency . The GC&CS was based largely at Bletchley Park . Its staff, including Alan Turing , worked on cryptanalysis of the Enigma (codenamed Ultra ) and Lorenz cipher , and also

1264-574: The Cabinet Office in 1957 with its assessments staff who prepared intelligence assessments for the committee to consider. During the Cuban Missile Crisis , GCHQ Scarborough intercepted radio communications from Soviet ships reporting their positions and used that to establish where they were heading. A copy of the report was sent directly to the White House Situation Room, providing initial indications of Soviet intentions with regard to

1343-747: The Dominion of Newfoundland , New Zealand , South Africa , and the United Kingdom , the Cabinet considered many aspects of waging the First World War . It led to the United Kingdom's Dominions being considered more equal to Great Britain and Ireland. Held concurrently with the cabinet were the Imperial War Conferences of 1917 and 1918 . In 1887, the First Colonial Conference was held. It

1422-523: The First World War , the two sections underwent administrative changes so that the internal counter-espionage section became the Directorate of Military Intelligence Section 5 ( MI5 ) and the foreign section became the Directorate of Military Intelligence Section 6 ( MI6 ), names by which the Security Service and Secret Intelligence Service are commonly known today. The Naval Intelligence Division led

1501-738: The Royal Navy , formed the Foreign Intelligence Committee in 1882, which evolved into the Naval Intelligence Department (NID) in 1887. The Committee of Imperial Defence , established in 1902, was responsible for research, and some co-ordination, on issues of military strategy . The Secret Service Bureau was founded in 1909 as a joint initiative of the Admiralty and the War Office to control secret intelligence operations in

1580-757: The Second World War in 1939, the JIC became the senior intelligence assessment body for the United Kingdom government. During the War, the RAF Intelligence Branch was established, although personnel had been employed in intelligence duties in the RAF since its formation in 1918. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was operational from 1940 until early 1946. SOE conducted espionage , sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe and later in occupied Southeast Asia against

1659-559: The involved Prime Ministers were present by 20 March 1917 (with the exception of Billy Hughes of Australia), and the first meeting of the Imperial War Cabinet was held. Lloyd George said that formation of the cabinet marked "the beginning of a new epoch in the history of the Empire," and The Times wrote the following day: The new world is to redress the balance of the old .... The great European problems which fall to be settled by

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1738-593: The military invasion of Veracruz in 1914, Mexico did not participate in any military excursion with the United States in World War I. That ensured that Mexican neutrality was the best outcome that the United States could hope for even if it allowed German companies to keep their operations in Mexico open. The decryption was possible after the failure of the Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition to Afghanistan , when Wilhelm Wassmuss abandoned his codebook, which

1817-514: The police and security services. The OSCT was renamed the Homeland Security Group in 2021. The Defence Intelligence Staff changed its name to Defence Intelligence (DI) in 2009. Defence Intelligence has a unique position within the UK intelligence community as an ' all-source ' intelligence function. The National Security Council (NSC) was established in 2010, reestablishing the central coordination of national security issues seen in

1896-606: The 1914 Ypiranga incident . German Naval Intelligence officer Franz von Rintelen had attempted to incite a war between Mexico and the United States in 1915, giving Victoriano Huerta $ 12 million for that purpose. The German saboteur Lothar Witzke , who was based in Mexico City, claimed to be responsible for the March 1917 munitions explosion at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in the San Francisco Bay Area, and

1975-523: The Allies later recovered, and allowed the British to decrypt the Zimmermann telegram. Zimmermann's office sent the telegram to the German embassy in the United States for retransmission to Von Eckardt in Mexico. It has traditionally been understood that the telegram was sent over three routes. It went by radio, and passed via telegraph cable inside messages sent by diplomats of two neutral countries (the United States and Sweden). Direct telegraph transmission of

2054-583: The American Embassy in Britain. Bell was at first incredulous and thought that it was a forgery. Once Bell was convinced the message was genuine, he became enraged. On February 20, Hall informally sent a copy to US Ambassador Walter Hines Page . On February 23, Page met with British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour and was given the codetext, the message in German, and the English translation. The British had obtained

2133-651: The American subsidiary of the German entity. The Swedish diplomatic message holding the Zimmerman telegram went from Stockholm to Buenos Aires over British submarine telegraph cables, and then moved from Buenos Aires to Mexico over the cable network of a United States company. After the Germans' telegraph cables had been cut, the German Foreign Office appealed to the United States for use of their diplomatic telegraphic messages for peace messages. President Wilson agreed in

2212-413: The Americans agreed to back the official cover story. The German Foreign Office refused to consider that their codes could have been broken but sent Von Eckardt on a witch hunt for a traitor in the embassy in Mexico. Von Eckardt indignantly rejected those accusations, and the Foreign Office eventually declared the embassy exonerated. On February 19, Hall showed the telegram to Edward Bell, the secretary of

2291-427: The Americans the message was not a forgery. For the first story, the British obtained the coded text of the telegram from the Mexican commercial telegraph office. The British knew that since the German embassy in Washington would relay the message by commercial telegraph, the Mexican telegraph office would have the coded text. "Mr. H", a British agent in Mexico, bribed an employee of the commercial telegraph company for

2370-599: The British and French on the Western Front and strangle Britain with unrestricted submarine warfare before American forces could be trained and shipped to Europe in sufficient numbers to aid the Allies. The Germans were encouraged by their successes on the Eastern Front to believe that they could divert large numbers of troops to the Western Front in support of their goals. Mexican President Venustiano Carranza assigned

2449-427: The British had the ability to prove the authenticity of the message to the American government. As a cover story, the British could publicly claim that their agents had stolen the telegram's decoded text in Mexico. Privately, the British needed to give the Americans the 13040 code so that the American government could verify the authenticity of the message independently with their own commercial telegraphic records, but

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2528-494: The British, but he delayed until March 1, 1917. Many Americans then held anti-Mexican as well as anti-German views. Mexicans had a considerable amount of anti-American sentiment in return, some of which was caused by the American occupation of Veracruz . General John J. Pershing had long been chasing the revolutionary Pancho Villa for raiding into American territory and carried out several cross-border expeditions. News of

2607-459: The Cabinet's Secret Service Committee recommended that a peacetime codebreaking agency should be created. Staff were merged from NID25 and MI1b into the new organisation, which was given the cover-name the " Government Code and Cypher School " (GC&CS). The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was founded in 1936 as a sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Following the outbreak of

2686-639: The Committee of Imperial Defence. The Joint Intelligence Organisation was formalised to provide intelligence assessment and advice on development of the UK intelligence community's analytical capability for the Joint Intelligence Committee and NSC. The heads of the Five Eyes domestic security agencies gave a public presentation together for the first time in 2023. The MI6 chief and the CIA director made their first-ever joint remarks in an opinion piece in

2765-478: 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 shall on his own initiative communicate with Japan suggesting the latter's adherence at once to this plan, and at the same time offer to mediate between Germany and Japan. Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that

2844-566: The Reichstag, "the instructions...came into its hands in a way which was not unobjectionable." On April 6, 1917, Congress voted to declare war on Germany . Wilson had asked Congress for "a war to end all wars " that would "make the world safe for democracy". Wilson considered another military invasion of Veracruz and Tampico in 1917–1918, to pacify the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and Tampico oil fields and to ensure their continued production during

2923-528: The Royal Navy's highly successful cryptographic efforts, Room 40 (later known as NID25). The decryption of the Zimmermann Telegram was described as the most significant intelligence triumph for Britain during World War I, and one of the earliest occasions on which a piece of signals intelligence influenced world events. The Imperial War Cabinet was the British Empire's wartime coordinating body. In 1919,

3002-744: The UK Intelligence Community. Complaints are heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal . Other oversight is provided by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation . The following agencies, groups and organisations fall under the remit of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament: Four national centres and authorities support and complement

3081-560: The UK and overseas, particularly concentrating on the activities of the Imperial German government. The Bureau was split into naval and army sections which, over time, specialised in foreign espionage and internal counter-espionage activities respectively. This specialisation, formalised before 1914, was a result of the Admiralty intelligence requirements related to the maritime strength of the Imperial German Navy. In 1916, during

3160-580: The US naval blockade of Cuba. When the Ministry of Defence was formed in 1964, the Joint Intelligence Bureau, Naval Intelligence, Military Intelligence and Air Intelligence were combined to form the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). The DIS focussed initially on Cold War issues. As well as a mission to gather intelligence, GCHQ has for a long time had a corresponding mission to assist in

3239-590: The USA. Since World War II, the chief of the London station of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has attended the Joint Intelligence Committee's weekly meetings. One former US intelligence officer has described this as the "highlight of the job" for the London CIA chief. Resident intelligence chiefs from Australia , Canada , and New Zealand may attend when certain issues are discussed. The Joint Intelligence Committee moved to

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3318-452: The United Kingdom and the United States continued in the post-war period. The two countries signed the bilateral UKUSA Agreement in 1948. Later broadened to include Canada, Australia and New Zealand, known as the Five Eyes , as well as cooperation with several "third-party" nations, this became the cornerstone of Western intelligence gathering and the " Special Relationship " between the UK and

3397-1391: The United States. The telegram instructed Von Eckardt that if the United States appeared certain to enter the war, he was to approach the Mexican government with a proposal for military alliance with funding from Germany. The decoded telegram was as follows: Original (German): Wir beabsichtigen am 1. Februar uneingeschränkten Ubootkrieg zu beginnen. Es wird Versucht werden, Amerika trotzdem neutral zu halten. Für den Fall, daß dies nicht gelingen sollte, schlagen wir Mexico mit folgender Grundlage Bündnis vor; Gemeinsame Kriegführung, gemeinsamer Friedensschluß. Reichliche finzanzielle Unterstützung und Einverständnis unsererseits, daß Mexiko in Texas, Neu Mexiko, Arizona früher verlorenes Gebiet zurückerobert. Regelung im einzelnen Euer Hochwohlgeboren überlassen. Euer pp. wollen Vorstehendes Präsidenten streng geheim eröffnen, sobald Kriegsausbruch mit Vereinigten Staaten feststeht und Anregung hinzufügen, Japan von sich aus zu fortigem Beitritt einzuladen und gleichzeitig zwischen uns und Japan zu vermitteln. Bitte Präsidenten darauf hinweisen, daß rücksichtslose Anwendung unserer U-boote jetzt Aussicht bietet, England in wenigen Monaten zum Frieden zu zwingen. Empfang bestätigen. Zimmerman. Translated: On February 1 we intend to begin submarine warfare without restriction. In spite of this it

3476-455: The Ypiranga incident and against the advice of the British government. War was prevented thanks to the Niagara Falls peace conference organized by the ABC nations , but the occupation was a decisive factor in Mexican neutrality in World War I . Mexico refused to participate in the embargo against Germany and granted full guarantees to the German companies for keeping their operations open, specifically in Mexico City. The Zimmermann telegram

3555-483: The Zimmermann telegram which had not been declassified held by The National Archives at Kew (formerly the PRO ). Imperial War Cabinet The Imperial War Cabinet ( IWC ) was the British Empire 's wartime coordinating body. It met over three sessions, the first from 20 March to 2 May 1917, the second from 11 June to late July 1918, and the third from 20 or 25 November 1918 to early January 1919. Consisting of representatives from Canada , Australia , India ,

3634-523: The arrival of thirteen current and former Prime Ministers. The Cabinet engaged in many policy decisions, including asking Canada to send troops to Siberia, and travelling to a meeting of the Supreme War Council on 4 or 5 July and later on 3 December. The IWC decided that Prime Ministers of the Dominions had a right to communicate directly with the British Prime Minister. After six weeks, the cabinet disbanded in late July 1918. A "minister of cabinet rank" from all represented Dominions remained in London for

3713-409: The belief both that such co-operation would sustain continued good relations with Germany and that more efficient German–American diplomacy could assist Wilson's goal of a negotiated end to the war. The Germans handed in messages to the American embassy in Berlin, which were relayed to the embassy in Denmark and then to the United States by American telegraph operators. The Germans assumed that this route

3792-462: The civil war, but this time, Mexican President Venustiano Carranza , recently installed, threatened to destroy the oil fields if the US Marines landed there. The Japanese government, another nation mentioned in the Zimmerman telegram, was already involved in World War I , on the side of the Allies against Germany. The government later released a statement that Japan was not interested in changing sides or attacking America. In October 2005, it

3871-452: The cybersecurity-related aspects of the CPNI's role were taken over by the newly-formed National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a child agency of GCHQ. The CPNI evolved into the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) in 2023, taking on a remit beyond critical national infrastructure. The Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OCST) was created in 2007 and is responsible for leading work on counter-terrorism working closely with

3950-427: The disclosure would expose the German codes broken in Room 40 and British eavesdropping on United States diplomatic traffic. Hall waited three weeks during which de Grey and cryptographer William Montgomery completed the decryption. On February 1, Germany announced resumption of "unrestricted" submarine warfare, an act that led the United States to break off diplomatic relations with Germany on February 3. Hall passed

4029-488: The duration of the war. On 27 October, the IWC was called together to help discuss the peace settlement, and on 20 or 25 November the cabinet began its third session (though without representatives from New Zealand and India, and South African representatives didn't arrive until 16 December). It considered the terms of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 and on 3 December the cabinet heard French Marshal Ferdinand Foch and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau . Through

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4108-425: The earliest occasions on which a piece of signals intelligence influenced world events. The decryption was possible after the failure of the Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition to Afghanistan , when Wilhelm Wassmuss abandoned his codebook, which the Allies later recovered, and allowed the British to decrypt the Zimmermann telegram. The message came in the form of a coded telegram dispatched by Arthur Zimmermann ,

4187-452: The employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few month [ sic ]. – Zimmerman. (The signature dropped the second n of the name Zimmermann for telegraphic purposes. ) Germany had long sought to incite a war between Mexico and the United States, which would have tied down American forces and slowed the export of American arms to the Allies . The Germans had aided in arming Mexico, as shown by

4266-469: The first time under the government led by Margaret Thatcher . GCHQ and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) were placed on a statutory footing by the Intelligence Services Act 1994 under the government led by John Major . The National Infrastructure Security Coordination Centre (NISCC) and the National Security Advice Centre (NSAC) were formed in 1999. NISCC's role was to provide advice to companies operating critical national infrastructure , and NSAC

4345-402: The following. The National Security Adviser (NSA) is a senior official in the Cabinet Office , based in Whitehall , who serves as the principal adviser to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Cabinet of the United Kingdom on all national security issues. The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament oversees the policies, expenditure, administration and operations of

4424-431: The highly-provocative war proposal to Mexico, the telegram also mentioned "ruthless employment of our submarines". Public opinion demanded action. Wilson had refused to assign US Navy crews and guns to the merchant ships, but once the Zimmermann note was public, Wilson called for arming the merchant ships although antiwar members of the US Senate blocked his proposal. The Wilson administration nevertheless remained with

4503-446: The order and relaxed the wireless rules to allow coded messages to be sent. Thus the Germans were able to persuade US Ambassador James W. Gerard to accept Zimmermann's note in coded form, and it was transmitted on January 16, 1917. All traffic passing through British hands came to British intelligence , particularly to the codebreakers and analysts in Room 40 at the Admiralty . In Room 40, Nigel de Grey had partially decoded

4582-424: The protection of the British government's communications. Building on the work of James H. Ellis in the late 1960s, Clifford Cocks invented a public-key cryptography algorithm in 1973 (equivalent to what would become, in 1978, the RSA algorithm ), which was shared with the National Security Agency in the United States. The Security Service Act 1989 established the legal basis of the Security Service (MI5) for

4661-404: The same status as the mother country to discuss war strategy, and to further the cause of Imperial Federation. On 14 December 1916, Lloyd George cabled all countries in the British Empire, informing them that "Your Prime Minister will be a member of the War Cabinet." Jan Smuts arrived on 12 March 1917, to large crowds. Robert Borden secretly departed and arrived in February 1917, and all of

4740-506: The telegram by the next day. By 1917, the diplomatic code 13040 had been in use for many years. Since there had been ample time for Room 40 to reconstruct the code cryptanalytically, it was readable to a fair degree. Room 40 had obtained German cryptographic documents, including the diplomatic code 3512 (captured during the Mesopotamian campaign ), which was a later updated code that was similar to but not really related to code 13040, and naval code SKM (Signalbuch der Kaiserlichen Marine), ⁠which

4819-419: The telegram further inflamed tensions between the United States and Mexico. However, many Americans, particularly those with German or Irish ancestry, wished to avoid the conflict in Europe. Since the public had been told falsely that the telegram had been stolen in a decoded form in Mexico, the message was at first widely believed to be an elaborate forgery created by British intelligence. That belief, which

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4898-409: The telegram to the British Foreign Office on February 5 but still warned against releasing it. Meanwhile, the British discussed possible cover stories to explain to the Americans how they obtained the coded text of the telegram and to explain how they obtained the cleartext of the telegram without letting anyone know that the codes had been broken. Furthermore, the British needed to find a way to convince

4977-439: The telegram was impossible because the British had cut the German international cables at the outbreak of war. However, Germany could communicate wirelessly through the Telefunken plant, operating under Atlantic Communication Company in West Sayville, New York , where the telegram was relayed to the Mexican Consulate. Ironically, the station was under the control of the US Navy , which operated it for Atlantic Communication Company,

5056-408: The telegram without revealing the extent to which the latest German codes had been broken. (At worst, the Germans might have realized that the 13040 code had been compromised, but that was a risk worth taking against the possibility of United States entry into the war.) Finally, since copies of the 13040 code text would also have been deposited in the records of the American commercial telegraph company,

5135-429: The time of peace. Though led by the British Prime Minister primus inter pares (and in his absence the Prime Minister of Canada ), the countries involved were largely treated as equals. Between 20 March and 2 May 1917, the cabinet had 14 meetings, with involved prime ministers splitting their time between the cabinet and the concurrently running Imperial War Conferences. Proceedings of the cabinet were secret, but it

5214-422: The verdict of war . . are henceforth problems for Canada and New Zealand and the other Dominions as well as Great Britain .... The War Cabinet which is now meeting is an executive cabinet for the Empire [sic]. It is invested with full responsibility for the prosecution of the war, including questions of Foreign Policy, of the provisioning of troops and munitions and of war finance. It will settle Imperial policy as to

5293-411: The western Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower , at war's end describing Ultra as having been "decisive" to Allied victory. Sir Harry Hinsley , Bletchley Park veteran and official historian of British Intelligence in World War II, made a similar assessment about Ultra, saying that it shortened the war "by not less than two years and probably by four years"; and that, in the absence of Ultra, it

5372-439: The words: "This is the one handed to Dr Page and exposed by the President." Since many of the secret documents in this incident had been destroyed, it had previously been assumed that the original typed "decrypt" was gone forever. However, after the discovery of this document, the GCHQ official historian said: "I believe that this is indeed the same document that Balfour handed to Page." As of 2006, there were six "closed" files on

5451-400: The work of the agencies: Organised intelligence collection and planning for the Government of the United Kingdom and the British Empire was established during the 19th century. The War Office , responsible for the administration of the British Army , formed the Intelligence Branch in 1873, which became the Directorate of Military Intelligence . The Admiralty , responsible for command of

5530-414: Was a unit within MI5 that provided security advice to other parts of the UK government. The Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) was formed as a child agency of MI5 in 2007, merging the NISCC and NSAC. CPNI provided integrated (combining information, personnel, and physical) security advice to the businesses and organisations which made up the critical national infrastructure. In 2016,

5609-420: Was ill prepared upon the outbreak of World War I for land warfare , consisting of a small professional force with 247,432 regular troops. David Lloyd George was named Minister of Munitions in 1915 and played a large role helping wage the war. He became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 7 December 1916. The purpose of the Imperial War Cabinet was to bring Britain's important Dominions and India up to

5688-514: Was intercepted by British intelligence . Revelation of the contents enraged Americans, especially after German State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Arthur Zimmermann publicly admitted on March 3, 1917, that the telegram was genuine. It helped to generate support for the American declaration of war on Germany in April 1917. The decryption has been described as the most significant intelligence triumph for Britain during World War I and it marked one of

5767-608: Was not restricted to pacifist and pro-German lobbies, was promoted by German and Mexican diplomats alongside some antiwar American newspapers, especially those of the Hearst press empire. On February 1, 1917, Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare against all ships in the Atlantic bearing the American flag, both passenger and merchant ships. Two ships were sunk in February, and most American shipping companies held their ships in port. Besides

5846-507: Was organised at the behest of the Imperial Federation League in hopes of creating closer ties between the colonies and the United Kingdom. It was attended by more than 100 delegates, mostly unofficial observers, from both self-governing and dependent colonies. India, however, was not represented. Further Colonial Conferences (later Imperial Conferences) were held in 1894 , 1897 , 1902 , 1907 , and 1911 . The British Empire

5925-427: Was part of an effort carried out by the Germans to postpone the transportation of supplies and other war materials from the United States to the Allies, which were at war against Germany. The main purpose of the telegram was to make the Mexican government declare war on the United States in hopes of tying down American forces and slowing the export of American arms. The German High Command believed that it could defeat

6004-513: Was possibly responsible for the July 1916 Black Tom explosion in New Jersey. The failure of United States troops to capture Pancho Villa in 1916 and the movement of President Carranza in favor of Germany emboldened the Germans to send the Zimmermann note. The German provocations were partially successful. President Woodrow Wilson ordered the military invasion of Veracruz in 1914 in the context of

6083-464: Was reported that an original typescript of the decoded Zimmermann telegram had recently been discovered by an unnamed historian who was researching and preparing a history of the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters . The document is believed to be the actual telegram shown to the American ambassador in London in 1917. Marked in Admiral Hall's handwriting at the top of the document are

6162-436: Was secure and so used it extensively. However, that put German diplomats in a precarious situation since they relied on the United States to transmit Zimmermann's note to its final destination, but the message's unencrypted contents would be deeply alarming to the Americans. The United States had placed conditions on German usage, most notably that all messages had to be in cleartext (uncoded). However, Wilson had later reversed

6241-531: Was useless for decoding the Zimmermann telegram but valuable to decode naval traffic, which had been retrieved from the wrecked cruiser SMS Magdeburg by the Russians, who passed it to the British. Disclosure of the telegram would sway American public opinion against Germany if the British could convince the Americans that the text was genuine, but the Room 40 chief William Reginald Hall was reluctant to let it out because

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