Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Zimmerman Telegram

Zimmerman Telegram

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 6 Jan 2016 at 08:36:12 (UTC)

Original – This telegram was sent by German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the President of Mexico proposing a military alliance against the United States. In return for Mexican support in the war, Germany would help Mexico regain New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona from the United States. The British intercepted the secret message, deciphered it, and turned it over to the U.S. Government.

Reason

A Hi-res image of the undecoded Zimmerman Telegram, offering what the Imperial German Government called "generous financial support and understanding" to the Mexican government if it would enter the war as an ally of the Central Powers in World War I. Germany had a vested interest in keeping the United States tied down in order to prevent Washington from resupplying the British Empire, or worse entering World War I as an Allied Power. Ultimately, the Zimmerman Telegram would prove to a be a propaganda piece for the United States, as Mexico had determined that it was both unnecessary and unwise to intervene in the war as a Central Powers nation, all the more so since the German Empire could not guarantee sufficient funding to support an independent Mexican national bank and the territory the German Empire had thought to return to Mexican control had by this point been infested with U.S. Citizens, most of whom possessed firearms of some kind and had no trouble putting said weaponry to use in the event of a Mexican reconquest.

Articles in which this image appears

Zimmerman Telegram

FP category for this image

War, probably

Creator

No specific name is given. Broadly speaking, the creator/author would be the Imperial German Government.

• Support as nominator – TomStar81 (Talk) 08:36, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
• Comment Super-duper EV. However, this is not a scan of the telegram itself, but of a photo (possibly a transparency) of the telegram (note stapler holes top left, outside of telegram). Needs some restoration, there are some hairs and dust spots, and also a bit uneven exposure. Anyone? --Janke | Talk 11:25, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

• I'll be honest here: I though it had been restored since it was supersized and decent looking compared to some of the other photos on the article page itself. If that is not the case then I apologize. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:50, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose – An artifact of interest to historians, but I don't think the coded telegram has much EV, as the general reader can't decipher it. Sca (talk) 14:21, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Why would it matter if the reader can't decipher it? You don't have to be Alan Turing to realize its significance. I can't read the Magna Carta but its very much important. Not saying the Zimmerman Telegram is as important as the Magna Carta, but still. GamerPro64 16:52, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but to my mind this is much more interesting.

Merry Christmas! Sca (talk) 22:53, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

• Agree with Gamerpro64. Just because it can not be read per se doesn't mean that has low EV. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:50, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - Agree with Jenk. If there was restoration / standard exposure, I may support, but right now I can't. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:36, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Not Promoted --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 13:57, 6 January 2016 (UTC)