DBWI: The Second Mexican American War Doesn't Happen?

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What if the Zimmerman Telegram is not transported by hand to Mexico as in IOTL? Would it still arrive in Mexico? If so would the Mexicans take the deal and if not would the US enter the Great War?
 
Make a civil war happen in Mexico it's then to weak but you probably need to kill Mexico's President Pancho Villa.
 
The only other way would be sending the telegram through the telegraph lines which ran through both the United States and the United Kingdom. If either one of them gets wind of it (and given that the UK was both reading those telegrams and had broken the German codes) it is pretty clear what would have happened.

No, to stop it you need to either make Mexico either more or less stable at the time. If it is more stable the president won't feel the need to direct attention outward. If less there won't be the strength to think they could seize parts of the American southwest successfully.

Either way, the situation almost certainly goes better for Mexico. Fighting the United States was suicidally stupid on the government's part. The US outweighed them so massively it was still capable of sending 500,000 soldiers to Europe after Congress declared war on Germany while also in the process of smashing the Mexican army. The only country capable of supplying Mexico for a war with the United States WAS the United States, and the Mexican government really should have realized that when the offer came.
 
In the short run, it almost certainly would have been better off without the damage that the disastrous attempt at attacking the US caused. Attacking the US was one of the worst decisions made by any nation during the Great War, and Mexico paid a heavy price for it. But on the other hand, without the war, the US probably wouldn't have taken much of an interest in establishing a stable regime in Mexico. So instead of a modern, wealthy ally to the south, we might have an unstable and corrupt state to this day*.

*I know it's hard to imagine Mexico as anything other than a stable democracy, but it was in terrible shape before, during, and immediately after the war.
 
Maybe there would be less Mexican immigration? Relations are so good today, it's the same with Canada. People come and go, intermarry, and think nothing of it.

I would say, at the very least, Spanish would still be the predominant language in Mexico. The US gave Mexico nominal independence until after WW2 in 1951, the same time they let the Philippines go. The US pretty much overturned their whole society investing much more in Mexico than the Philippines.
 
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Maybe there would be less Mexican immigration? Relations are so good today, it's the same with Canada. People come and go, intermarry, and think nothing of it.

I would say, at the very least, Spanish would still be the predominant language in Mexico. The US did even give Mexico nominal independence until after WW2 in 1951, the same time they let the Philippines go. However, the US pretty much overturned their whole society.

OOC: Ok, now this is getting kind of silly. There is no way the US would annex Mexico after a war, and there's even less of a chance that English would ever replace Spanish as the dominant language.
 
OOC: Ok, now this is getting kind of silly. There is no way the US would annex Mexico after a war, and there's even less of a chance that English would ever replace Spanish as the dominant language.

OOC: Thats what the timeline states. It's WW1. The US could mobilize and occupy all of Mexico if they want.

And too bad, they speak English just like in SIngapore!
 
You’re kidding, right? If anything we’d’ve taken the border states.

Yes, the border states. Where practically no one lived at the time. Not the densely-populated central and southern regions. So we're talking Baja California (both of them), Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Sonora. Maybe Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Durango and Sinaloa is seriously pushing it, and anything more would be too much for the US to handle.

OOC: Thats what the timeline states. It's WW1. The US could mobilize and occupy all of Mexico if they want.

And too bad, they speak English just like in SIngapore!

The timeline doesn't say that the US annexes the country. There's a huge difference between occupying a country and annexing it. And how and why would most of Mexico end up speaking English?
 
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The timeline doesn't say that the US annexes the country. There's a huge difference between occupying a country and annexing it. And how and why would most of Mexico end up speaking English?

Perhaps it could be construed to mean that occupation lasted until the time he noted?
 
Perhaps it could be construed to mean that occupation lasted until the time he noted?

A 30-year occupation? Even assuming no Great Depression, no rapid demobilization (like there was in WWI and WWII in OTL), and a long line of Presidents who all support it, how is that going to be sold to Congress and the public?
 
A 30-year occupation? Even assuming no Great Depression, no rapid demobilization (like there was in WWI and WWII in OTL), and a long line of Presidents who all support it, how is that going to be sold to Congress and the public?

About the only thing I can think of (And I can't see the Mexicans this suicidal and stupid but if they form an alliance with Germany to attack the US than they ARE suicidal, at least the government is.) is to keep causing problems every time the US begins to pull out.
 
The timeline doesn't say that the US annexes the country. There's a huge difference between occupying a country and annexing it. And how and why would most of Mexico end up speaking English?

1. It doesn't say they didn't, Mexico ATL was a territory like Philippines temporarily.

2. Speaking English is just a butterfly of the timeline. English is spoken in India among the upperclasses for example. Public schools set up by US law might have only taught English, civil service only in English, and just more cultural contact with the US means that English took over. Nowhere does it say Spanish does not exist at all, but rather English is now the common language.
 
A 30-year occupation? Even assuming no Great Depression, no rapid demobilization (like there was in WWI and WWII in OTL), and a long line of Presidents who all support it, how is that going to be sold to Congress and the public?

US attitudes would be different following a concerted Mexican invasion, which occurred ATL. Further, US was already using gunboat diplomacy and such throughout the 20s and 30s to further their interests in Latin America.
 
Mexico would be a lot bigger, since we did annex the Northern half

I can't believe people are not talking about Europe

Since it took more time for US Troops to get there, Paris fell to the Germans. Although the Allies shortly took it back, France asked for a peace.

Germany might have been punished by the Allies had they asked for a peace, but only after the Allies kick them out of France and look like they will invade Germany.
 
About the only thing I can think of (And I can't see the Mexicans this suicidal and stupid but if they form an alliance with Germany to attack the US than they ARE suicidal, at least the government is.) is to keep causing problems every time the US begins to pull out.

There's stupid/suicidal (OTL Japan), and there's flat-out ASB influenced insanity. It's possible (albeit unlikely) that the Mexican government would invade the US. The idea that they would do so repeatedly makes no sense.

1. It doesn't say they didn't, Mexico ATL was a territory like Philippines temporarily.

2. Speaking English is just a butterfly of the timeline. English is spoken in India among the upperclasses for example. Public schools set up by US law might have only taught English, civil service only in English, and just more cultural contact with the US means that English took over. Nowhere does it say Spanish does not exist at all, but rather English is now the common language.

1. That doesn't make any sense. The US couldn't afford to keep up an occupation on a country that large for 30 years. It's going to be hard enough to annex the border states (if we're assuming that the US is doing that). A short-term occupation, followed by the installation of a puppet regime in Mexico City seems much more likely (and a hell of a lot cheaper).


2. That makes even less sense. Why would the US go out of its way to antagonize the Mexicans by installing a government that speaks a foreign language? And even then, why would English become the common language? The US has controlled Puerto Rico for more than a century, and Spanish is still by far the dominant language there. Even in the Philippines (which the US held for more than 50 years), the most commonly spoken language is Filipino, not English.

US attitudes would be different following a concerted Mexican invasion, which occurred ATL. Further, US was already using gunboat diplomacy and such throughout the 20s and 30s to further their interests in Latin America.

Gunboat diplomacy is much, much, easier and cheaper than occupying a country 1/4 the size of the Continental US.
 

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We are assuming the Mexican Army and government are stronger and more stable. A raid on one or more border towns, maybe San Diego with possible authorities will get the press and the public (in that order) behind not only an invasion but an occupation of the entire country.

A lot depends on who is president. If it is TR, he may not stop until all of the land till the canal is under US protection.
 
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