Guatemala breaks off relations with Germany

On 27 April 1917 the government of Guatemala broke off diplomatic relations with the German Empire. The German minister, Curt Lehmann, who was accredited in the capital to the governments of Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua as well, was handed his passports, and the German consul’s exequatur was withdrawn. The Foreign Minister, Luis Toledo Herrarte, instructed the minister in Washington, Joaquín Méndez, by telegram to inform the United States government. Méndez added in a note to the State Department that Guatemala had from the start supported the American position in defence of the rights of nations, the freedom of the seas and international justice, and took great pleasure in placing its territorial waters, ports and railways at their disposal for the common defence.

The step had been settled for weeks. Guatemala had been ruled dictatorially since 1898 by President Manuel Estrada Cabrera, who based his power on good relations with Washington and American capital, especially the United Fruit Company. When in February the United States broke off relations with Germany, his government gave assurances that in due course it would take a similar position. On 7 March it protested in Berlin against unrestricted submarine warfare, declaring it a violation of the rights of nations. According to a later memorandum of the Pan American Union, neither the German government nor its minister paid any attention to this protest.

After the United States declared war, Estrada Cabrera wrote to Méndez on 10 April that, as a sign of solidarity, he had suspended civil liberties in the border departments so that no one could cross into neighbouring countries with hostile intentions, and that he was awaiting American guidance. On 18 April the State Department assured the minister of its full support for whatever Guatemala did. On 25 April Méndez passed on to the president Washington’s suggestion: in view of German plots threatening the security and independence of Central America, Guatemala should break off relations with Germany and place its waters, ports and railways at the disposal of the United States. The Americans still had fresh in their minds the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Berlin had offered Mexico an alliance against them, and Guatemala bordered on Mexico. Estrada Cabrera replied the next day that he was doing all this “without any prompting and entirely spontaneously”, and asked only that Washington confirm that it accepted this participation and define the terms of a defensive alliance.

The break with Germany was no small matter for Guatemala. From the middle of the 19th century German colonists had settled there and founded coffee plantations, especially in the department of Alta Verapaz around Cobán. By the end of the 19th century two thirds of the coffee production there was in their hands, and Guatemala had become the main centre of German investment in Central America. According to some accounts, the Estrada Cabrera government began seizing German property as early as 1917.

On 1 May Secretary of State Robert Lansing wrote back to Méndez that Guatemala’s step opened “a new era in the relations between the nations of America”, and gratefully accepted the offer of its waters, ports and railways. Guatemala later went further. By a decree of the National Assembly passed on 20 April and signed by the president on 23 April 1918, it adopted towards Germany the same position as a belligerent as the United States. In many lists 23 April 1918 is given as the date of the declaration of war.