(Or the fascinating way all topics end up related).
Well, this is me, jumping late into a fandom wagon. I have been hearing about some TV series, recently born sagas that have captivated the attention of many people I know. Due to many reasons (maybe being a nomad during the last 3 years and deliberately refusing to get a new TV set) have increased my reluctancy of becoming again any given series follower, perhaps since I reckon I refuse to create an attachment to a TV program that can be finished anytime at the producers' will. (It happened back with "Cold Case"). However, I decided to contradict this former behavior by starting watching Downton Abbey. I have read many good comments about it, and I tried to channel my tendency to crave anything even remotely related to Britain by watching the first episode of Season One. And I immediately fell onto a slightly obsession around the Crawleys, and their world one hundred years ago.
Maybe now that I am almost done with the three seasons (actually holding to the last episode since I already know what happens and I will not discuss it any further since I hate being a spoiler!) I reckon that one of the things that I really like about this drama is how the temporality of life is portrayed. For many of us, war is just an idea. We might try to simulate it by playing videogames, watching epic sagas, etc. But our perspective is not entirely affected by the awareness of clear and present danger. We take life and most of its commodities for granted. We might repeat as parrots that life is short, and you might not be here tomorrow, but there is not a high percentage of probability of having a dangerous situation that can give additional weight to our words (or so we perceive).
The thing is, that at first I was not that interested since the time period when the series is developed (right after the Titanic sinking and then during the First World War) was not exactly my cup of tea. Personally, I have been strangely attracted to either the Regency period (i.e. early XIX century, when Jane Austen wrote her masterpieces) or the Plantagenet-Tudors hegemony (XV-XVI centuries). However, the dramatic plot moved me into looking for more information about it. I knew the main facts about The Great War (or World War I, as we call it across the Atlantic) but not really a great deal of it. I knew some events, like the sinking of the British passenger ship named "Lusitania" where a number of Americans were killed, and from my first source of knowledge about this particular event, I was told that due to this, United States entered the war. But reading more about the topic, it seems like this sole event was not the main reason.
And here is how Mexico appears on stage. During the second decade of the twentieth century, this country was engaged in the Mexican Revolution, a civil war started to overthrone Porfirio Diaz, who had become a dictator ruling the country for 30 years. There were a lot of external interests regarding the outcome of this armed conflict, due to the foreign investments done in Mexico during the Porfiriato. And obviously, these external interests tried to engage the fighting nation into their side of the conflict. So here is where Arthur Zimmermann, Germany foreign secretary, saw his attempts of creating a German-Mexican alliance frustrated. The "Zimmermann Telegram" was sent to the Mexican government led by Venustiano Carranza, in order to offer German support to Mexico to recover the lost territory back in the war against US, in exchange of Mexican support against the Allied Forces, led by the British. This telegram was intercepted by British naval intelligence and then sent to the United States embassy in London. When it was published on the Spring of 1917 in the States, this was interpreted as a direct German threat to the United States. Then the American forces joining the European conflict was something that followed right soon afterwards.
There has been some claims that Mexican government even analized the proposal, but it was immediately rejected based on the current situation of the country, already torn down due to seven years of conflict, as well as the unfeasible scheme of providing armed support in both ways (either Mexico to German, or viceversa) due to the British naval strategies that could block the supplies in both directions. Also reconquering the lost territories (from Texas to California) would imply severe adaptation schemes for the Americans already settled and already used to the American laws.
Obviously, this topic sounds quite interesting and it seems like scholars have already analyzed if the Zimmermann telegram was nothing more than something used by the British in order to drag the United States into the war to secure the Allied triumph. And for me it is quite funny how you can link a modern British drama series with the Mexican revolution. It keeps my belief that somehow all topics end up related one to another.
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