Heinrich von Eckardt was the
ambassador for the German Empire
in Mexico
, assuming
office around 1915 and spending most of his time as ambassador
during World War I. After the
departure of the more German supported
President Victoriano Huerta in 1914, German
sentiment for successor
Venustiano
Carranza was significantly negative; von Eckardt believed
Carranza's government bodies were "prototypes of vulgarity and
depravity". His attitude towards the president remained bitter
despite attempts by Carranza to suppress
anti-German publications, which he
described as "pedant mediocrity".
Von Eckardt is known for being the recipient of the
Zimmermann Telegram, a
telegram sent by
German Foreign Secretary
Arthur Zimmermann on January 16,
1917.
The
message was first sent to the German ambassador to the United States
, Johann
von Bernstorff, to deter interception. He relayed it to
von Eckardt on January 19.
However, the telegram was intercepted by the
United Kingdom
en route from von Bernstorff to von Eckardt and
decoded by Room 40. In the telegram,
Zimmermann instructed von Eckardt to approach President Venustiano Carranza with a proposition
to firstly, form an alliance with Germany, and secondly, should
Germany drop its neutrality against the United States, attack the
U.S. with it and help persuade Japan
into aiding
them with the attack. The telegram was left vague and von
Eckardt was told to work out the details himself as he presented
them to Carranza. He was also asked to call Carranza's attention to
the
Battle of
the Atlantic and the possibility that it may further attempts
to compel the UK into peace.
Despite the discovery of the telegram by the United States and
Britain, von Eckardt approached
Foreign Secretary
Cándido Aguilar and gave him
the proposal a month after the message was sent. Aguilar was
sympathetic, but both he and Carranza eventually turned Germany
down, mainly due to the premature release. Mexico feared
American influence, though, and von
Eckardt was somewhat able to sway Carranza, who ordered
pro-
Allied newspapers to reverse their stance. These
German-centric reports initially led von Eckardt to believe the
armistice
was a
propagandic myth.
Further confusion
resulted in a Guadalajaran
newspaper overlapping pro-German sentiment with von
Eckardt's instructions for pro-Carranza reports when Carranza's
anticlericalism caused the
newspaper to criticise the Catholic Church, leading to the
church's boycott and von Eckardt's
unsuccessful attempts to coax them out of it.
Von Eckardt was previously the German ambassador to the
Kingdom of Montenegro during the
Balkan Wars.
He was present on
April 27, 1913 when Austria demanded to King Nicholas that Montenegro
return Scutari
to Albania
.
References
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