On the first of February we intend to begin submarine warfare unrestricted. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep neutral the United States of America.
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 the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement. You are instructed to inform 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, on his own initiative, should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate between Germany and Japan.
Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel England to make peace in a few months. ZIMMERMAN.
This was almost three months before the United States entered the war. As an example of German blindness and diplomatic folly it stands unrivaled in the annals of the German Foreign Office.
Plots against shipping were the deadliest in which the German conspirators engaged. Death and destruction followed in their wake. In direct connection of von Bernstorff and his tools with these outrages the following testimony by an American secret service man employed by Wolf von Igel is interesting. It refers to an appointment with Captain von Kleist, superintendent of Scheele's bomb factory in Hoboken, N. J.
"We sat down and we spoke for about three hours. I asked him the different things that he did, and said if he wanted an interview with Mr. von Igel, my boss, he would have to tell everything. So he told me that von Papen gave Dr. Scheele, the partner of von Kleist in this factory, a check for $10,000 to start this bomb factory. He told me that he, Mr. von Kleist, and Dr. Scheele and a man by the name of Becker on the Friedrich der Grosse were making the bombs, and that Captain Wolpert, Captain Bode and Captain Steinberg, had charge of putting these bombs on the ships; they put these bombs in cases and shipped them as merchandise on these steamers, and they would go away on the trip and the bombs would go off after the ship was out four or five days, causing a fire and causing the cargo to go up in flames. He also told me that they have made quite a number of these bombs; that thirty of them were given to a party by the name of O'Leary, and that he took them down to New Orleans where he had charge of putting them on ships down there, this fellow O'Leary."
About four hundred bombs were made under von Igel's direction; explosions and fires were caused by them on thirty-three ships sailing from New York harbor alone.
Four of the bombs were found at Marseilles on a vessel which sailed from Brooklyn in May, 1915. The evidence collected in the case led to the indictment of the following men for feloniously transporting on the steamship Kirk Oswald a bomb or bombs filled with chemicals designed to cause incendiary fires: Rintelen, Wolpert, Bode, Schmidt, Becker, Garbade, Praedel, Paradies, von Kleist, Schimmel, Scheele, Steinberg and others. The last three named fled from justice, Scheele being supplied with $1,000 for that purpose by Wolf von Igel. He eluded the Federal authorities until April, 1918, when he was found hiding in Cuba under the protection of German secret service agents. All the others except Schmidt were found guilty and sentenced, on February 5, 1918, to imprisonment for eighteen months and payment of a fine of $2,000 each. It was proved during the trial that Rintelen had hired Schimmel, a German lawyer, to see that bombs were placed on ships.
Schmidt, von Kleist, Becker, Garbade, Praedel and Paradies had already been tried for conspiracy to make bombs for concealment on ocean-going vessels, with the purpose of setting the same on fire. All were found guilty, and on April 6, 1917, von Kleist and Schmidt were sentenced to two years imprisonment and a fine of $500 each.
Robert Fay, a former officer in the German army, who came to the United States in April, 1915, endeavored to prevent the traffic in munitions by sinking the laden ships at sea. In recounting the circumstances of his arrival here to the chief of the United States secret service, Fay said: