

Released to American newspapers, the Zimmermann Telegram helped turn American opinion against Germany and further poisoned the atmosphere between the USA and Mexico. In 1917, British intelligence intercepted a telegram from the German foreign ministry to its embassy in Mexico City offering an alliance against the United States and assistance in the Mexican reconquest of the Southwest. troops under General John Pershing invaded Mexico in search of Pancho Villa, whose army had attacked Columbus, New Mexico earlier, American naval forces had bombarded and seized the Mexican port of Veracruz, and forced Victoriano Huerta to resign the residence. President William Howard Taft considered sending an expeditionary force to protect foreign-owned property from damage during the Mexican Revolution. This may have encouraged the Army to focus on more speculative scenarios for planning exercises.ĭuring the 1910s, relations between Mexico and the United States were often volatile. Interestingly, although the US had fought its most recent war against Germany and would fight another within twenty years, intense domestic pressure emerged for the Army to halt when it became known that the Army was constructing a plan for a war with Germany isolationists opposed any consideration of involvement in a future European conflict. Some of the war plan colors were revised over time, possibly resulting in confusion. Often, junior military officers were given the task of updating each plan to keep them trained and busy (especially in the case of War Plan Crimson, the invasion of Canada). Many of the war plans were extremely unlikely given the state of international relations in the 1920s, and were entirely in keeping with the military planning of other nation-states.


The best-known version of Black was conceived as a contingency plan during World War I in case France fell and the Germans attempted to seize French possessions in the Caribbean or launch an attack on the eastern seaboard. War Plan Black was a plan for war with Germany. The plan was kept updated as late as the 1930s and caused a stir in American–Canadian relations when declassified in 1974.
PURPLE COLOR WAR FREE
Ireland, at the time a free state within the British Empire, was named "Emerald". British territories had war plans of different shades of red-the UK was "Red", Canada "Crimson", India "Ruby", Australia "Scarlet" and New Zealand "Garnet". War Plan Red was a plan for war against Britain and Canada. Orange formed some of the basis for the actual campaign against Japan in World War II and included the huge economic blockade from mainland China and the plans for interning the Japanese-American population of Hawaii.
PURPLE COLOR WAR SERIES
The plan that received the most consideration was War Plan Orange, a series of contingency plans for fighting a war with Japan alone, outlined unofficially in 1919 and officially in 1924. As the convention of using colors took root, some were eventually reused, such as Grey, which originally referred to Italy but eventually became a plan for the capture and occupation of the Azores. Many war plans became known by the color of the country to which they were related, a convention that lasted through World War II. At the end of 1904, the Joint Board adopted a system of colors, symbols, and abbreviated names to represent countries. war planning originated from the desire for the Army and Navy to use the same symbols for their plans.
