US military intervention in Nicaragua 1909–1925

The US military intervention in Nicaragua 1909–1925 was the first US military intervention in Nicaragua . It lasted from September 10, 1909 to 1925 and was in the context of the US banana wars from 1898–1934 in the Central American - Caribbean region.

prehistory

Beginnings of gunboat politics off Nicaragua

Because of the uprising of July 12, 1893 in León , which led to the takeover of power by José Santos Zelaya in Managua , the US ambassador Lewis Baker advised his government to send warships to Nicaragua.

At the end of April 1895, 400 British soldiers occupied the customs house in the port of Corinto to enforce demands by the British government on behalf of some British citizens expelled from Nicaragua. To protect US citizens, the screw steamer USS Alert and the armored cruiser USS Atlanta were ordered to Corinto.

When President José Santos Zelaya of Nicaragua tried to overthrow President Manuel Bonilla of Honduras in late 1906 / early 1907 , US President Theodore Roosevelt landed marines under the command of Captain William F. Fullam in Bluefields on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua to serve US interests to protect.

US investment

US companies began to plant extensive banana plantations on the Miskito coast in 1882 , and by 1900 they controlled almost all trade there. In view of this development, President José Santos Zelaya issued the decree of reintegration (namely the Miskito coast) in 1894 , after which it was occupied by Nicaraguan troops under General Rigoberto Cabezas. The Nicaraguan Department of Zelaya emerged from the Miskito coast.

One of the US companies on the Miskito Coast was La Luz y Los Angeles Mining Company , which exploited gold deposits near Siuna . La Luz y Los Angeles Mining Co. was from Co. The Rosario and Light Mines acquired. The accountant for the Rosario Mining Company was Adolfo Díaz . José Santos Zelaya wanted to collect taxes from the Rosario Mining Company . Rosario Mining passed the corresponding notification to its legal advisor , Philander C. Knox , and at the same time financed an uprising against the government led by Emiliano Chamorro Vargas , chairman of the Partido Conservador . On March 4, 1909, Philander C. Knox became US Secretary of State under William Howard Taft .

The US military intervention

The uprising against President Zelaya

Zelaya had installed General Juan José Estrada as governor of the Mosquito Coast. The US consul in Bluefields , Thomas P. Moffatt, encouraged Estrada to revolt against Zelaya and let him know that Estrada could count on the support of the US government in this case. Thomas P. Moffatt was also in contact with Emiliano Chamorro Vargas. The uprising began on September 10, 1909.

To protect US citizens, the US warships USS Paducah and USS Dubuque had already been ordered to Bluefields to land troops. US citizens were part of the mercenary force who led the Partido Conservador's uprising funded by the Rosario Mining Company . The New York Times named eight of them, including an arms dealer and a member of the Panama Constabulary, the protection force involved in the construction of the Panama Canal . Two US citizens with Honduran citizenship, Lee Roy Cannon and Leonard Groce, were caught trying to set up mines on ships carrying Nicaraguan troops on the San Juan River . The two mercenaries were sentenced to death on November 14, 1909 along with about 300 other insurgents and executed two days later.

Secretary of State Knox's Note and the Pactos Dawson

A note from Philander C. Knox is dated December 2, 1909, with which the US government officially ended relations with the José Santos Zelaya government.

“The United States government believes that the current revolution is more in line with the ideals and aspirations of the majority of Nicaraguans than President Zelaya's government, and that their peaceful control extends almost as far as the control that the government is in Managua previously tried to enforce it in such a strict way. On top of all this, official reports from various sources indicate that an uprising is taking place in the western provinces of Nicaragua for a presidential candidate linked to the previous regime. Obviously, new elements are striving for a state of anarchy, which leaves the United States government no point of contact with whom it can arrange reparation for the deaths of Messrs. Cannon and Groce and the protection of American citizens and interests in Nicaragua. In these circumstances, the President of the United States no longer feels the government of President Zelaya with the respect and trust appropriate to cultivating diplomatic relations, namely the will and ability to respect and ensure what one state owes another is.

The Government of the United States is convinced that the revolution represents the ideals and the will of a majority of the Nicaraguan people more faithfully than does the Government of President Zelaya, and that its peaceable control is well nigh as extensive as that hitherto so sternly attempted by the Government of Managua. There is now added the fact, as officially reported from more than one quarter, that there are already indications of a rising in the western provinces in favor of a Presidential candidate intimately associated with the old régime. In this it is easy to see new elements tending toward a condition of anarchy, which leaves at a given time no definite responsible source to which the Government of the United States could look for reparation for the killing of Messrs. Cannon and Groce, or, indeed, for the protection which must be assured American citizens and American interests in Nicaragua. In these circumstances the President feels no longer for the Government of President Zelaya that respect and confidence which would make it appropriate hereafter to maintain with it regular diplomatic relations, implying the will and the ability to respect and assure what is due from one State to another . "

- Philander C. Knox

On December 17, 1909, Zelaya resigned and went into exile in Mexico , Belgium and finally New York .

After the US had helped General Juan José Estrada to the presidency on August 29, 1910, US President Taft sent the diplomat Thomas Cleland Dawson to Nicaragua. After days of negotiations on a US warship, on October 27, 1910, Juan José Estrada, Foreign Minister Adolfo Díaz, War Minister Luís Mena Solórzano and Emiliano Chamorro Vargas signed a series of commitments that became known as the Pactos Dawson (Dawson Pacts). In it Nicaragua submitted to US demands regarding the protection of US investments and the future political order of the country.

"Mena's War"

On May 8, 1911, Juan José Estrada had his Minister of War, Luís Mena Solórzano, placed under arrest. On May 9, 1911, Juan José Estrada resigned in favor of his Vice President Adolfo Díaz. Adolfo Díaz appointed Emiliano Chamorro Vargas Minister of War, but Luís Mena Solórzano's influence on the military remained unbroken.

On May 31, 1911, there was an explosion in the barracks on Loma de Tiscapa , the then official residence of the President. The US Navy took this as an opportunity to pull together ships off the Atlantic and the Pacific coast of Nicaragua.

On October 10, 1911, the Asamblea Nacional elected Luis Mena Solórzano for the legislative period from 1913 to 1916 as president instead of Adolfo Díaz, whom the USA had favored. To keep Adolfo Díaz in office, US President Taft deployed eight warships with 412 marines, 2,600 infantrymen and 125 officers under the command of Major Smedley D. Butler . The US troops landed in Corinto on August 15, 1912.

On September 14, 1912, US Ambassador George Weitzel gave President Luís Mena an ultimatum in Granada, Nicaragua . He referred to the damage to US property during the riots, including a. Damage to railway lines of the Ferrocarril de Nicaragua and to steamers of the Compañía del Pacífico , which had brought Mena's troops. Weitzel threatened the occupation of the country by US troops if the US demands were not satisfied within three days.

This is how La Guerra de Mena ( Mena's War ) began. Luís Mena was sick and confined to bed in Granada, Nicaragua ; he was unable to organize the resistance. On September 24, 1912 Mena surrendered with his 700 soldiers to Admiral William Henry Hudson Southerland. General Mena and his son Daniel were exiled to Panama .

The capture of Coyotepe fortress

El Coyotepe 1

Coyotepe

The battle of Coyotepe took place on 3rd / 4th October 1912. General Benjamin Zeledón , who had been Minister of War under President Zelaya, had entrenched himself with artillery in the fortress Coyotepe near Masaya and controlled the railway line Managua - Granada from there. On October 3, 1912, Zeledón suffered serious injuries in an attempted escape, which he succumbed the following day. The United States Marine Corps shelled the fortress on October 3, until it no longer returned fire. At dawn on October 4, 1912, Coyotepe was stormed. Four Marines were killed and five wounded in the attack; 40 of the defenders were killed and 18 seriously injured.

The end of the occupation

The political foundations for a withdrawal of US troops were laid under President Bartolomé Martínez González . The US troops were only withdrawn in 1925 under President José Carlos Solórzano Gutiérrez .

See also

• History of Nicaragua

literature

• Alan McPherson: The invaded. How Latin Americans and their allies fought and ended US occupations , Oxford u. a. (Oxford University Press) 2014. ISBN 978-0-19-534303-8
• Alan McPherson: A short history of US interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean , Chichester, West Sussex, UK / Malden, MA (Wiley-Blackwell) 2016. ISBN 978-1-118-95399-0 . ISBN 978-1-118-95400-3
• Michel Gobat: Confronting the American dream. Nicaragua under US imperial rule , Durham, NC a. a. (Duke University Press) 2005. ISBN 0-8223-3647-2 . ISBN 0-8223-3634-0
• James Fred Rippy: The Caribbean danger-zone , 3rd edition New York (GP Putnam's Sons) 1940.
• Ivan Musicant: The banana wars. A history of United States military intervention in Latin America from the Spanish-American War to the invasion of Panama , New York (Macmillan) 1990. ISBN 0-02-588210-4 .
• Lester D. Langley: The Banana wars. United States intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934 , revised edition, Chicago, IL (Dorsey Press) 1988. ISBN 0-256-07020-2 .
• Lester D. Langley / Thomas Schoonover: The banana men. American mercenaries and entrepreneurs in Central America, 1880-1930 , Lexington, KY (University Press of Kentucky) 1995. ISBN 0-8131-1891-3 .
• Major Bruce Gudmundsson (ret): THE FIRST OF THE BANANA WARS: US Marines in Nicaragua 1909-12 , in: Daniel Marston / Carter Malkasian (ed.): Counterinsurgency in modern warfare , New York (Osprey Publishing Ltd) 2008, p. 55-69. ISBN 978-1-84603-281-3

Individual evidence

1. ↑ New York Times , July 16, 1893 More naval vessels on the Pacific (English)
2. ^ New York Times , April 26, 1895 Four hundred sailors to land (English)
3. ^ New York Times . March 28, 1895 Ultimatum to Nicaragua (English)
4. ^ New York Times , April 30, 1895 Alert and Atlanta are ordered to protect American citizens (English)
5. ^ Lester D. Langley: The Banana Wars. United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934 . University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 2nd ed. 1985. ISBN 0-8131-1548-5 . P. 53.
6. ^ Alfred Vagts : Germany and the United States in world politics . Dickson @ Thompson, London 1935, vol. 2. p. 1786.
7. ↑ Rigoberto Cabezas: de las armas y las letras ( Memento of the original from June 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , El Nuevo Diario (Managua), March 1, 2000 (Spanish) 
8. ↑ Nicaragua: Elections and Events 1907-1924 ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
9. ^ Lester D. Langley: The Banana Men. American Mercenaries and Entrepreneurs in Central America, 1880-1930 . University Press of Kentucky, Lexington 1995. ISBN 0-8131-0836-5 . Pp. 82-83.
10. ↑ New York Times , January 2, 1910 Americans in the fight - Eight of them giving valuable aid to Estrada (English)
11. ↑ Heribert von Feilitzsch: In plain sight: Felix A. Sommerfeld, spymaster in Mexico, 1908 to 1914 . Henselstone, Amissville 2012. ISBN 978-0-9850317-0-1 . P. 113.
12. ↑ New York Times , December 2, 1909 Taft breaks with Zelaya (English)
13. ↑ New York Times , December 4, 1913 Zelaya released (English)
14. ↑ Nicaragua: Elections and Events 1907-1924 ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
15. ↑ New York Times , August 25, 1912. How Mena, dismissed War Minister and Man of Iron, raised the standard of revolt (English)
16. ↑ Benjamin R. Beede (ed.): The War of 1898 and US Interventions, 1898-1934. To Encyclopedia . Garland, New York 1994. ISBN 0-8240-5624-8 . P. 377.