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The Zimmerman you may be referring to likely relates to Arthur Zimmerman, associated with the Zimmerman Telegram during World War I. There are several assumptions that Arthur Zimmerman made regarding the Zimmerman Telegram that ultimately played a significant role in the broader context of the war.
1. **Neutrality Assumptions**: Zimmerman assumed that the United States, which had been neutral up to that point, would continue to remain non-committal and not enter the war, even if Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. However, this was a miscalculation.
2. **Interception Assumptions**: He assumed that the telegram he sent would remain secret and would not be intercepted or deciphered by the British, who at the time had a very advanced code-breaking operation. Against his assumption, the British did intercept and decipher the message.
3. **Mexico's Cooperation**: Zimmerman assumed that Mexico would be willing to enter into an alliance against the United States if promised financial support and recovery of the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. There was an overestimation of Mexico's capabilities and willingness to engage in such an agreement.
4. **Impact Assumptions**: He also assumed that the potential engagement between Mexico and the United States would keep America busy and prevent it from sending troops to Europe, allowing Germany more freedom to pursue its objectives there without American interference.
These assumptions turned out to be incorrect, and the interception and publication of the Zimmerman Telegram contributed to the United States' decision to enter the war on the side of the Allies.
Extra: The Zimmerman Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico in the event that the United States entered World War I against Germany. The proposal was made during Germany's escalation of submarine warfare in the Atlantic.
The British were able to intercept and decrypt the message due to their highly skilled codebreakers working in an intelligence operation known as Room 40. The British government handed over the decrypted message to the United States in late February 1917. The release of the telegram outraged American public opinion and helped to galvanize the country to support entering the war. It also demonstrated the importance of codebreaking and signals intelligence in modern warfare, a concept that has only expanded in relevance through subsequent conflicts.
Zimmerman's miscalculations and underestimations of the Allies’ capacity for intelligence gathering and the US’s willingness to enter the war were critical errors that influenced the course of history. Understanding such strategic missteps is important in the study of diplomacy and military history.