Battle of Coyotepe
The Battle of Coyotepe ( Spanish : Batalla de Coyotepe , English : Battle of Coyotepe Hill ) took place on 3/4. October 1912 in the area of the fortress Coyotepe near Masaya and formed the climax of the US military intervention in Nicaragua 1909-1925 . Conservative Nicaraguan government troops led by General Emiliano Chamorro Vargas fought against liberal insurgents led by General Benjamin Zeledón with the support of the US Marine Corps and landing forces of the US Navy . With the defeat of the liberal troops and the death of Zeledón, the resistance of the Liberal Party against the US intervention ended and secured the rule of the Conservative Party under President Adolfo Díaz , which was favored by the US government Taft .
Overall political and military situation in Nicaragua in 1912
After the War Minister Luís Mena Solórzano , who was in uprising against the Díaz government, declared himself sick on September 22 and officially resigned from his office on September 25, Zeledón took over the further military leadership of the rebellion with the aim of that of the US government Taft backed Conservative government to overthrow Díaz. At this time, seven American warships (USS California, USS Colorado, USS Cleveland, USS Annapolis, USS Tacoma, USS Glacier, USS Denver and USS Buffalo) were already in the Nicaraguan ports of Corinto and Bluefields . The ships and the Marines sent from the United States and the Panama Canal Zone were under the command of Rear Admiral William Henry Hudson Southerland .
Zeledón controlled the railway line from Masaya to the conservative stronghold of Nicaragua on Lake Nicaragua in the fortress of Coyotepe with its outer position La Barranca , but found himself in the face of a force of over 900 men of US marines and the landing command of the US warships, as well as the vastly outnumbered ones Conservative troops in a practically hopeless strategic position.
In addition, as a result of Mena's resignation, the supplies of the insurgents in Granada fell into the hands of the local government troops and Zeledon's troops apparently only a few hundred men without supplies. Zeledón could not expect reinforcements from the liberal stronghold of Leon , as the government troops and marines in turn controlled the Leon - Managua - Masaya railway line .
Despite the hopeless military situation, Zeledón refused an ultimatum to surrender on October 2, 1912 at the instigation of Colonel Joseph H. Pendleton , commander of the Marines in Nicaragua . He also turned down an offer of surrender from the Díaz government, brought to him by his father-in-law Jerónimo Ramírez, himself a member of the Conservative Party:
“ Señor, no se trata de mi persona, sino de un deber sagrado que tendré que cumplir hasta que muera. Yo no me pertenezco, pues sirvo a mi Patria. "
“ Lord, don't worry about my person; I have a sacred duty that I have to fulfill until death. I am not mine because I serve my country. "
A letter dated October 3 to his wife Ester shows that Zeledón was not expecting victory, but at best surviving. In this case, he intended to leave the country with her and the children, as he could not bear the shame of living in an occupied country.
Course of the battle
On October 2, 1912, a 4,000-strong conservative army marched in the Coyotepe-Masaya area under the command of War Minister Chamorro . In addition, there were a good 900 marines and sailors from the landing departments of the US warships. The government troops were commanded by Secretary of War Chamorro, the American naval troops from Pendleton. Major Smedley D. Butler acted as Pendleton's deputy . Both the figures for the conservative and the liberal troops (up to 2000 men) are possibly greatly inflated; Only the American information on the strength of its own troops is considered certain.
After Pendleton's ultimatum had expired on the morning of October 3, the marines began artillery bombardment at 8:00 am on Coyotepe and the La Barranca field position, a good 1000 m away. For unknown reasons Zeledón made by his two Krupp - field guns no use. Coyotepe and La Barranca were partially protected by trenches , barbed wire and machine guns . The Conservative forces were not involved in the assault on the fortress, although Butler said they should be:
They discreetly waited to find out first what was going on to happen to us.
Early in the morning of October 4th, Butler's units attacked from the southeast and Pendleton's marines from the east. The Americans stormed the hill after intensive preparation by artillery fire with the bayonet attached . They lost four men to a machine gun position before the crew was killed with bayonets. Another four men and five sailors were wounded. According to an estimate by Pendleton, the losses of the liberal troops amounted to a good 60 dead and a good 15 to 20 wounded. The conservative troops suffered a good 100 dead and 200 wounded. After the conquest of Coyotepe, the marines aimed the guns and machine guns found there at the Barranca and then stormed it as well.
Zeledón had already withdrawn towards Jinotepe . There are differing accounts of his death. According to one version, he was ambushed by Colonel Gabriel Garay in Masaya on October 4th, injured in the back and died. Allegedly, however, an order from Chamorros existed since September 27, 1912, that Zeledón and other rebel chiefs should be arrested and executed ( pasar por las armas ). However, the Díaz government denied that the order ever existed. According to their official account, Zeledón fell in battle. The extent to which the Marines were indirectly responsible for Zeledón's death, as the Nicaraguan historian Barbosa suspects, is questionable. However, the German historian Frank Niess states :
“ Major Butler had expressed his relief to Admiral Southerland at the course of events and expressed the hope that the inaction on the American side would give others an opportunity to hang Zeledón. So apparently he was still alive after the fall of Coyotepe. And it would have been in the power of the American commanders to save the general's life. Instead, Butler's advice was probably followed. "
Aftermath
The victory of the Conservative Army, which is largely, if not exclusively, due to the participation of US units, secured the rule of the Conservative Díaz government in the long term, especially since the Marines disarmed the last Liberal troops in Leon shortly after the battle. The Marines and US warships were withdrawn from Nicaragua. A detachment of 100 Marines remained in Managua to secure the American legation .
According to Gudmundsson, after the liberal defeat in Coyotepe from 1912 to 1924 there was peace and quiet in Nicaragua and its neighboring countries, but
" ... the protectorate put the US in the awkward position of sponsoring a government that enjoyed little in the way of support from traditional political elites. "
In his estimation, this made anyone who opposed the American-backed government a national hero ; the Battle of Coyotepe was stylized in liberal circles as the Nicaraguan counterpart of the Battle of Bunker Hill . Niess argues similarly:
“ Unlike in the past, the US no longer relied on its sporadic gunboat policy . With their constant military presence, which expanded or shrank depending on acute needs, they prescribed the Pax Americana for Nicaragua , which, under the appearance of peaceful trade and change, continued and deepened the dependence and economic deformation inherited from the times of the Conquista . "
literature
- Bruce Gudmundsson: The First of the Banana Wars. US Marines in Nicaragua 1909-12. In: Daniel Marston, Carter Malkasian (eds.): Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare. Oxford, UK / New York 2008, ISBN 978-1-84603-281-3 , pp. 55-69.
- Hans Schmidt: Maverick Marine. General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History. University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, KY 1987, ISBN 0-8131-0957-4 .
- Lester D. Langley: The Banana Wars. United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934. Lexington, KY 1985, ISBN 0-8131-1548-5 .
- Coronel Francisco Barbosa Miranda: Historia militar de Nicaragua. Antes del siglo XVI al XXI. 2nd Edition. Hispamer, Managua 2010, ISBN 978-99924-79-46-9 .
- Letter from Zeledón to his wife Ester dated October 3, 1912. in the holdings of the Archivo Historico del Centro de Historia Militar del Ejército de Nicaragua (Managua), printed as Appendix 16 in Barbosa, pp. 524f.
- Ivan Musicant: The Banana Wars. A History of the United States Military Intervention in Latin America from the Spanish-American War to the Invasion of Panama. Macmillan, New York 1990, ISBN 0-02-588210-4 .
- Frank Niess: The legacy of the Conquista. History of Nicaragua. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7609-1058-0 .
Web links
- REBELS CRUSHED, OUR MARINES DIE. Nicaraguan Revolutionaries Are Driven from Masaya in Costly Battle - 4 Americans Killed. In: New York Times . October 6, 1912. (online at: query.nytimes.com )
- Síntesis de la Historia Militar de Nicaragua (short version of the work of Barbosa Miranda, Historia militar de Nicaragua ) [1]
Individual evidence
- ^ Barbosa, p. 160.