The influence of technology on diplomacy can be illustrated by leaked and misunderstood telegrams, which shaped the history in unexpected ways. For example, the 1917 Zimmermann telegram (sent by German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Mission in Mexico and intercepted by the British) instructed the German representative to start negotiating Mexico's entrance into World War I as a German ally by offering Mexico control of the US states of New Mexico, Utah and California after the war. The Zimmermann telegram was leaked at a time when the American public were still neutral and not ready to join World War I. It prompted the United States to join the Allied forces. The most illustrative case study of the influence of the telegraph on diplomacy was the 1914 July crisis that led to the beginning of the World War I. Telegraph messages were being sent between St. Petersburg, Berlin, Belgrade, Vienna, Paris and other countries involved in the conflict. However, there was little awareness of how to use the telegraph properly. The Russian czar sent a conciliatory note to Germany, but the German kaiser had already sent a note that was not conciliatory at all, thus creating communication confusion and mistrust that contributed toward escalation and ultimately war. A new technology coupled with human failure led to an unfortunate outcome.