Brazil breaks off relations with Germany

On 11 April 1917 the government of Brazil handed the German minister in Rio de Janeiro, Adolf Pauli, his passports, and the Brazilian minister in Berlin was instructed by telegram to ask for his. President Venceslau Brás broke off diplomatic and commercial relations with the German Empire. The largest country in South America took this step five days after the United States declared war on Germany, but the immediate cause was the loss of one of its own ships.

Paraná

The steamer Paraná, one of the finest ships of the Brazilian Companhia de Comércio e Navegação, was sailing from Rio de Janeiro to Le Havre with a cargo of coffee. According to the note that the Brazilian ambassador in Washington handed to the State Department, she was approaching Cherbourg at eleven in the evening on 3 April at reduced speed, with her lights on and the name “Brasil” illuminated on her side. Nobody called on her to stop and have her papers inspected. A submarine torpedoed her without warning, then fired five rounds at her from its gun and sailed away without helping the survivors. Several Brazilians were killed, three according to Brazilian sources. According to uboat.net, the ship was sunk on 4 April off Cape Barfleur by UB-32, commanded by Max Viebeg. In Brazil the date of the sinking is usually given as 5 April.

Rio de Janeiro had warned Berlin earlier. On learning of unrestricted submarine warfare, Brazil protested on 9 February and declared that it would not recognise the German blockade and that Germany would be held responsible for any damage done to its citizens and their property. On 13 February the Brazilian legation in Berlin informed the German government that the condition for maintaining relations was that no Brazilian ship should be attacked on any pretext, not even that of carrying contraband. That is why, as Ambassador Domício da Gama wrote, the president considered that the sinking of the Paraná left no room for explanations or negotiations.

Riots and ships in port

The news of the sinking caused a storm in Brazil. Crowds took to the streets, and the pro-Entente press and the speeches of Senator Ruy Barbosa stirred up feeling against the Germans. The violence was worst in the south of the country, in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, where many descendants of German immigrants lived. After the break in relations, a crowd in Porto Alegre looted and set fire to German shops, clubs, a hotel and the offices of a German-language newspaper. According to one study, about 300 houses were destroyed there. There were also excesses in Blumenau and other towns, and the authorities made little effort to stop them.

On 12 April the government decided to take over all the German merchant ships that had been lying in Brazilian ports since 1914 and to replace their crews with naval detachments. It was tactfully explained that the only purpose was to prevent the German sailors from damaging them themselves. There were more than forty vessels, a valuable acquisition at a time when submarines were sinking hundreds of thousands of tons of Allied and neutral shipping every month.

The fall of Lauro Müller

The break in relations was a blow to the foreign minister, Lauro Müller. The son of German immigrants from the Rhineland, he had headed Brazilian diplomacy since 1912 and was an advocate of strict neutrality. His opponents exploited his origins, and the press warned of the “German danger”. At the beginning of May Müller resigned, and his place was taken by the former president Nilo Peçanha, a supporter of closer ties with the Entente.

Brazil did not, however, enter the war at once. The sinking of further ships, among them the Tijuca in May, led the government on 1 June to revoke its neutrality in the American–German war and to put the seized ships into service. After the steamer Macau was torpedoed, Brazil declared war on Germany on 26 October 1917. It was the only South American country to do so.