The Zimmermann Telegram arrives in Mexico

19 January 1917 Count von Bernstorff transmits the Zimmermann telegram to von Eckhardt, the German envoy in Mexico City in the older and simpler German 13040 code. The newer code 0075 was being sent to German embassies one at a time, and von Eckhardt in Mexico City did not yet have the newer diplomatic code.

This was a break for the British because they had completely broken the 13040 code earlier in the war (the code had been in use since 1908). And since the 13040 code was older and known to the Americans, if they could intercept Bernstorff's telegram to Mexico City, the British could safely show the telegram from Bernstorff to von Eckhardt to the Americans without giving away the fact that they'd also nearly broken code 0075.

Later, in early February, this is exactly what the British did.

The British begin work on the Zimmermann Telegram

17 January 1917 The intercepted telegram sent by Alfred Zimmermann in the German Foreign Office to the German embassies in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City is delivered to the British Naval cryptographic office, Room 40.

The message itself is in two parts; the first part are instructions to Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador to the United States on how to forward the message in the second part to the German Envoy in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt and also informs von Bernstorff of the German's intention to resume unrestricted submarine warfare. The second part is the Zimmermann Telegram everyone knows.

The British codebreakers in Room 40, William Montgomery and Nigel de Grey, immediately begin to decrypt the message, although because they have not completely solved the new German code, No. 0075, the decryption remains incomplete for several weeks. Code 0075, introduced in mid-1916, is a two-part code of 10,000 code groups. Despite this the British learn that its message outlines plans for an alliance between Germany and Mexico against the United States. According to the scheme, Germany would provide tactical support while Mexico would benefit by expanding into the American Southwest, retrieving territories that had once been part of Mexico.

The Zimmermann Telegram, Part I

I'll be writing a number of blog entries related to the 100th anniversary of the American participation in World War I. We'll start at the logical place - with the Zimmermann Telegram.

16 January 1917 The Germans send the Zimmermann Telegram from Berlin to the German Ambassador to the United States, Count Johann von Bernstorff via the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. (Yes, the Americans sent the actual telegram from Berlin to Washington. How ironic.) The telegram apparently also goes via wireless from the German radio transmitter at Nauen outside of Berlin to the American receiving station at Sayville, Long Island, NY (although William Friedman and Charles Mendelsohn, in their monograph on the Zimmermann telegram dispute this),  and also via the Swedish government to South America and thence to Washington. It is intercepted via all three routes by the British. When decrypted, the telegram reads:

"We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare.  We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral.  In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis:  make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.  The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves.  Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace."  Signed, ZIMMERMANN.

100th Anniversary of the Kingsland Munitions Factory Fire and Explosion

Kingsland Burns (an excerpt from Codes, Ciphers and Spies by John F Dooley)

The Canadian Car and Foundry Company was based in Montreal, Canada and in early 1915 the company signed a contract with Russia for $83,000,000 to supply artillery shells for the Russian army. Because they didn’t have enough capacity at their Canadian plants for this contract and all their other war work, the company built an assembly plant in Kingsland, (now Lyndhurst) New Jersey. The Kingsland plant opened in the spring of 1916 and by early 1917 had 38 buildings on the site, all surrounded by a six-foot high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. All the employees entered and exited the plant through a single gate and searches were common. Explosives, shell casings, shell warheads, and fuses were shipped to the plant and assembled there and ultimately loaded on transports in New York harbor and shipped to Russia. By 1917 the plant could produce upwards of 3,000,000 shells per month. (Landau 1937, p. 93)

A little after 3:00PM on the afternoon of January 11, 1917 Theodore Wozniak was at his bench working on cleaning shells. He apparently spilled some gasoline and suddenly a small fire broke out. The fire spread quickly across Wozniak’s bench and leapt to adjacent benches. The men in the building ran as the fire engulfed the entire building within minutes. The fire spread to other buildings, setting off the explosives stored there in a series of titanic explosions heard in New York City and as far north as Westchester County and as far east as Long Island. The fire and explosions went on for more than four hours. According to Witcover, “The Kingsland plant itself was completely destroyed, with estimated damages of seventeen million dollars. A later inventory indicated that 275,000 loaded shells and more than a million unloaded shells, nearly half a million time fuses, 300,000 cartridge cases, and 100,000 detonators, plus huge amounts of TNT were destroyed in the fire.” (Witcover 1989, p. 193) The only saving grace was that no one was killed. All 1,400 workers managed to get through the fence and escape across a frozen marsh to safety.

Suspicion that the fire was intentionally set surfaced immediately. Several of Wozniak’s co-workers in Building 30 testified that the fire had started at his workbench. Wozniak himself admitted as much, but claimed that a spark from a rotating machine designed to hold the shell casings while they were being cleaned was the culprit. No one, however, could say whether Wozniak had deliberately started the fire, so he was never charged. Wozniak disappeared shortly after the fire and was not found again until more than a decade later when the American and German Mixed Claims Commission was looking for evidence of complicity in the fire. And it would be a decade after that, in 1939, that the German-American Mixed Claims Commission would finally decide that Hilken, Hinsch, Herrmann, and Wozniak were indeed responsible for the devastation at Kingsland. (Mixed Claims Commission 1940, pp. 308-310) The key evidence in their decision was not any documentation written before the event, but a message that Fred Herrmann sent to Paul Hilken from Mexico City in April 1917. This message was in code and written in two parts. First Herrmann wrote the text of his message on several consecutive pages of the January 1917 issue of Blue Book magazine using lemon juice as an invisible ink. The lemon juice disappears when dry and can be revealed using heat; Hilken used a hot iron to reveal the message. (Macrakis 2014, p. 25) In the message Herrmann used a numerical book cipher to hide the names of various people mentioned in the message. These numbers embedded in the cipher message were always four digit numbers and were constructed as follows. The first digit of the number was dropped. The remaining three digits were then reversed and these numbers indicated a page in the magazine. On these pages, over certain letters were tiny holes made with a pin that spelled out the name of the person or place in the message. If one holds the page up to a bright light, the pinpricks can be read and the rest of the message deciphered. The entire deciphered and translated message is:

Have seen 1755 [Eckardt] he is suspicious of me Can't convince him I come from 1915 [Marguerre] and 1794 [Nadolny] Have told him all reference 2584 [Hinsch] and I 2384 [Deutschland], 7595 [Jersey City Terminal], 3106 [Kings- land], 4526 [Savannah], and 8545 [Tonys Lab] he doubts me on account of my bum 7346 [German] Confirm to him thru your channels all OK and my mission here I have no funds 1755 [Eckardt] claims he is short of money Send by bearer US 25000. Have you heard from Willie. Have wired 2336 [Hildegarde] but no answer Be careful of her and connections. Where are 2584 [Hinsch] and 9107 [Carl Ahrendt} Tell 2584 [Hinsch] to come here I expect to go north but he can locate me thru 1755 [Eckardt] I don’t trust 9107 [Carl Ahrendt], 3994 [Kristoff], 1585 [Wolfgang] and that 4776 [Hoboken] bunch, If cornered they might get us in Dutch with authorities See that 2584 [Hinsch] brings with him all who might implicate us. tell him 7386 [Siegel] is with me. Where is 6394 [Carl Dilger] he worries me Remember past experience Has 2584 [Hinsch] seen 1315 [Wozniak] Tell him to fix that up. If you have any difficulties see 8165 [Phil Wirth Nat Arts Club] Tell 2584 [Hinsch] his plan O.K. Am in close touch with major and influential Mexicans Can obtain old 3175 [cruiser] for 50000 West Coast What will you do now with America in the War Are you coming here or going to South America Advise you drop everything and leave the States regards to 2784 [Hoppenburg] Sei nicht dum mach doch wieder bumm bumm bumm. Most important send funds Bearer will relate experiences and details Greetings (Landau 1937, p. 245)

           

The Kingsland explosion was the last big effort of the German spy network in Baltimore. Less than a month after the Kingsland explosion, on February 1, 1917, Germany would resume unrestricted submarine warfare and the United States would break diplomatic relations with Germany. Later, in March, the Zimmerman telegram would be released and the United States would declare war on Germany on April 6, 1917. The saboteurs would all disappear soon after that.

References

Landau, Captain Henry. 1937. The Enemy Within: The Inside Story of German Sabotage in America. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Macrakis, Kristie. 2014. Prisoners, Lovers, & Spies: The Story of Invisible Ink from Herodotus to Al-Qaeda. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Mixed claims commission (United States and Germany). 1940. Opinions and Decisions in the Sabotage Claims Handed down June 15, 1939, and October 30, 1939 and Appendix. Washington D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015073384821.

Witcover, Jules. 1989. Sabotage at Black Tom: Imperial Germany’s Secret War in America - 1914 - 1917. New York, NY: Algonquin Books.

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Verdun

Today in 1916 marked the end of the Battle of Verdun. It's chalked up as a French victory because the Germans didn't achieve their strategic objectives, but with over 1 million casualties on both sides and nearly 300,000 killed over 10 months, it's a Pyrrhic victory at best.

The Germans attacked the French in the area of Verdun on 21 February 1916. The German objective was not to acquire territory (although that would have suited them just fine), but to defeat the French in a battle of attrition and cause so many casualties that the French would just give up. It would have worked except that the Germans vastly underestimated the French attachment to the area around Verdun. This area, in the northeast of France, was a natural corridor through which invasions had come since the Dark Ages. The French, starting in the 1880s had continually improved the fortifications in and around Verdun and were determined that no one would ever break through there again. The French were willing to throw in many of their reserve divisions in order to keep Verdun. They also took some lessons from the Germans and became much more proficient at defense in depth.

Verdun was in many ways a battle of artillery. Both sides used large numbers of artillery from small 75mm field guns up to 440mm siege weapons. During many assaults, both sides would regularly throw more than 1 million shells against their enemy in just a few days. Most of the casualties during the 10-month battle were the result of artillery.

For the first few months of the battle, from February through June 1916, the French were just hanging on. If the Germans had had more infantry and artillery their plan may have worked. But on 1 July 1916, the British and French attacked further north and west on the Somme River - a battle that would last 5 months and cause another 1 million casualties - and this caused the Germans to draw off both guns and troops from Verdun to bolster their defenses along the Somme. At this point the French began a series of offensives that gradually pushed the Germans back until the last offensive from 15 - 18 December settled the front roughly back where it was in February.

While Verdun was largely a stalemate in the end, it marked a turning point in strategies on both sides. For the first time the Germans used their newly trained stormtroopers to break through trenches and open holes in the French lines. The French, for their part, began perfecting the use of the creeping artillery barrage that would eventually be one of the ways to open up the Western Front and turn it from a static affair and back into a war of movement.

The Kingsland (NJ) Fire and Explosion - Prelude, December 1916

The Kingsland (NJ) Explosion and Fire - Prelude

The Canadian Car and Foundry Company was based in Montreal, Canada and in early 1915 the company signed a contract with Russia for $83,000,000 to supply artillery shells for the Russian army. Because they didn’t have enough capacity at their Canadian plants for this contract and all their other war work, the company built an assembly plant in Kingsland, (now Lyndhurst) New Jersey.

The plant opened in the spring of 1916 and by early 1917 had 38 buildings on the site, all surrounded by a six-foot high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. All the employees entered and exited the plant through a single gate and searches were common. Explosives, shell casings, shell warheads, and fuses were shipped to the plant and assembled there and ultimately loaded on transports in New York harbor and shipped to Russia. By 1917 the plant could produce upwards of 3,000,000 shells per month.

Because of the security at the plant, Hinsch and Herrmann (two German spies based in Baltimore; they were also believed to be involved in the Black Tom Island explosion the previous summer) decided they needed operatives inside the plant itself. Hinsch had met a man named Carl Thummel, a German national who had emigrated to the United States in 1902. Using the name Charles Thorne, he had joined the U.S. Coast Guard in 1913; shortly after that he met Hinsch in Baltimore and they became friends. Thorne resigned from the Coast Guard in May 1916 and Hinsch began using him as a courier, sending him back and forth to England several times during the summer of 1916. In September 1916, Paul Hilken (head of the German spy network in Baltimore) arranged for Thorne to get a job as an assistant employment manager at the Canadian Car & Foundry plant in Kingsland. Thorne was responsible for hiring men who would be assembling shells and hired a number of men sent to him by Hinsch.

One of these men was Theodore Wozniak, an Austrian national. Wozniak was hired in December 1916. He met regularly with Fred Herrmann who was paying him for information on the Kingsland plant. Herrmann also gave Wozniak several pencil bombs. (chemical explosives hidden inside cast iron pipes with a copper plug between them. The thickness of the plug acted as a timer for the acid on one side. When the acid finally ate through the plug, the bomb would ignite.)

Wozniak’s job in Building 30 of the plant was to clean out newly arrived shell casings. The cleaning was a multi-step process, involving wiping out the shell casing, cleaning a coating of grease applied to the casing before shipping using rags soaked in gasoline and denatured alcohol, and then drying off the shell casings. There were forty-eight benches lined up side-by-side in Building 30 and the gasoline soaked rags piled up during a workers shift. Hermann and Wozniak continued to meet regularly through December 1916 and into January 1917 (to be continued).

Voynich and Yale

Recently the Beinecke Library at Yale University has published a limited edition volume of facsimile's of the Voynich Manuscript (see http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/voynich-manuscript).

Blogger and excellent Voynich researcher Nick Pelling has written a blog post that links to a number of the reviews of the new volume. Nick, as always, has interesting things to say and also lists the links of the reviews. Enjoy!
http://ciphermysteries.com/2016/12/10/voynich-reviews-summarized