Author’s Purpose and Viewpoint in The Dark Game, Part 3 Answers

Read the excerpt from The Dark Game.As a result of the cut cables, Germany lost its most secure long-distance communications system. The Germans now had to rely on radio transmissions from their powerful wireless station at Nauen, a few miles from Berlin. Which was exactly what the British military knew they would have to do. And once the Germans began sending wireless messages, MI8, the British code breakers, began plucking them from the air. Of course, all German correspondence was sent in a complicated cipher system, so that was when the hard work began for the code breakers of MI8.

Read the excerpt from The Dark Game.Arthur Zimmermann had no idea that "Blinker" Hall had read his secret message. But now that Hall had read it, what could he do with this information? On one hand, he believed that President Wilson, faced with the information in the telegram, would declare war on Germany. On the other hand, to share the telegram with Wilson would surely alert Berlin that the British had been reading their secret messages. As he walked back to his office, Hall considered ways that he could share the intelligence in the Zimmermann telegram and establish its authenticity without letting Berlin know that Room 40 had intercepted and read hundreds of their secret messages.

Read the excerpt from The Dark Game.On February 24, when Hall sensed that the Zimmermann telegram would tip the balance in favor of the U.S. joining the Allied forces, the British home secretary presented the telegram to President Wilson. One week later, news of the Zimmermann telegram was splashed across the front page of American newspapers. On April 6, 1917, the Congress of the United States declared war on Germany and its allies.

Read the excerpt from The Dark Game.British government leaders didn't present the Zimmermann telegram to Wilson for a few weeks. Hall reminded them that outrage was growing in America over Germany's announcement late in the day of January 31 that the German navy would resume unrestricted submarine warfare. In fact, that policy provoked the U.S. government to cut diplomatic relations with Germany in February.

Read the excerpt from The Dark Game.On several occasions Room 40 received an unexpected but welcome gift when a German codebook was recovered after a sea battle and presented to the British code breakers. One such gift was a codebook from the German ship Magdeburg, a light cruiser that ran aground on an island off of Finland. When Russian ships quickly bore down on the cruiser, the captain of the stranded ship immediately did what all naval officers were taught to do: he ordered his signalman to bring him the ship's codebook so he could throw the book, wrapped in lead covers, into the sea. But before the signalman could deliver the book to his captain, he was killed by Russian guns. When the Russians recovered his body, the sailor was still clutching the codebook in his arms.