Central Powers reply to Wilson's note

On 26 December 1916 the State Secretary of the German Foreign Office, Arthur Zimmermann, after lunching with the American ambassador, James W. Gerard, handed him the Reich’s reply to President Woodrow Wilson’s note of 18 December. In it the President had asked all the belligerents to state on what terms they were ready to end the war. On the same day the governments of Austria-Hungary and Turkey handed similar replies to the American ambassadors in Vienna and Constantinople. Bulgaria replied on 30 December. The British chronology of the war records the replies of 26 December and the Bulgarian reply separately. All four were almost identical, and none of them contained what Wilson had asked for.

Content of the replies

The German government wrote that it had received and considered the President’s “noble initiative” in the same friendly spirit that breathed through his note. The President had indicated the goal close to his heart and had left the choice of the road open. Berlin considered “a direct exchange of views” the most suitable road. Referring to its declaration of 12 December, in which it had held out its hand for peace negotiations, it proposed a speedy meeting of delegates of the belligerent states on neutral ground. In the Germans’ view the great work of preventing future wars could be undertaken only after the end of the present “war of exhaustion”. The Reich would then gladly take up this “sublime task” together with the United States.

The Austro-Hungarian note, delivered in the form of a memorandum, repeated the same ideas almost word for word. It was one of the first matters handled by the new foreign minister, Ottokar Czernin, who had replaced Burián four days earlier. The Turkish foreign minister, Halil, handed the reply to Ambassador Abram Elkus. As early as 23 December, having heard the President’s note, he had told him that Turkey, which had been fighting for centuries and was weary, would appreciate efforts for peace more than any other country. He pointed out, however, that it was the Allies who had clearly defined their aims: England wanted to destroy Prussian militarism, and Russia was fighting for Constantinople, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. The Bulgarian prime minister, Vasil Radoslavov, replied on 30 December to the American consul general in Sofia, because the chargé d’affaires had left Bulgaria on 24 December. This note reached Washington only on 2 January 1917. The Bulgarians proposed “an immediate meeting in one place” of delegates of the belligerent states.

Why no terms

The Central Powers replied quickly, before the Entente had even responded to their offer of 12 December. As early as 21 December, on receiving Wilson’s note, Zimmermann told the American chargé d’affaires that he was sure the German terms were more moderate than the Entente’s, but Germany could not be the first to reveal them. A party to negotiations does not show its cards at the start, and besides, part of German public opinion would be dissatisfied. As his private opinion he offered only that a simultaneous disclosure of terms by both sides might be considered. The semi-official Kölnische Zeitung wrote that announcing peace terms would only confuse public opinion and push peace further away. The real reasons were not hard to find: the confidential war aims that Berlin and Vienna had exchanged in November included annexations and “guarantees” in Belgium to which the Entente would never agree.

The United States government tried once more to make the task easier. On 24 December Lansing asked that the replies to the President’s note be passed to him not publicly but in confidence, so that Washington could pass them confidentially to the other side. The request no longer mattered: the Central Powers had replied openly and named no terms. The historian Charles Seymour, editor of the papers of Colonel Edward House, the President’s closest adviser, later wrote that the Germans wanted a conference in order to negotiate on the basis of the war map, which favoured them, while a public statement of their war aims would have revealed the scale of their ambitions and only stiffened the Allies. Gerard, in a letter to House of 9 January 1917, claimed that Berlin’s aim was to break up the Entente: to make a separate peace with France and Russia and to defeat England with submarines.

The German press praised the reply for its brevity and speed. The Pan-German publicist Count Ernst zu Reventlow, however, warned against any interference by America and the other neutrals in matters of peace. In those same days another solution was already being prepared in Berlin. On 22 December the Chief of the Admiralty Staff, Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, submitted a memorandum arguing that unrestricted submarine warfare would force Britain to make peace within a few months. On 30 December the Entente rejected the German peace offer, and on 9 January 1917 at Pless the Kaiser agreed to unrestricted submarine warfare from 1 February. At the end of January the Germans, in strict secrecy, finally passed to Wilson the terms on which they would be ready to negotiate. A few days later the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.