Nicaragua breaks off relations with Germany

On 18 May 1917 the Congress of Nicaragua passed a resolution under which relations between Nicaragua and the German Empire ceased. The same resolution authorised the president to offer the United States the country’s ports and territorial waters for the duration of the war. The next day the chargé d’affaires in Washington, Joaquín Cuadra Zavala, on the president’s instructions, informed Secretary of State Robert Lansing. He added on his own account that he was glad to see his government supporting the struggle for freedom and democracy which the United States was waging so nobly. In the American publication of diplomatic documents the break is listed under the date of this note, 19 May.

The president since 1 January 1917 had been the conservative Emiliano Chamorro Vargas, formerly minister in Washington and a man who owed the Americans a great deal. The United States had backed the conservatives since the overthrow of the Liberal president José Santos Zelaya in 1909, and since the intervention of 1912 a detachment of US Marines had been stationed in Managua. Chamorro had negotiated with Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan a treaty signed on 5 August 1914 and ratified in 1916. For 3 million dollars Nicaragua granted the Americans the exclusive right to build an interoceanic canal across its territory, a lease of the Corn Islands in the Caribbean and the right to establish a naval base on the Gulf of Fonseca. Costa Rica and El Salvador challenged the treaty before the Central American Court of Justice, and in 1916–1917 the court found in their favour, but Managua and Washington did not comply with the rulings.

Given such dependence, a break with Germany was only a matter of time. On 18 April, after the United States declared war, the foreign minister, on Chamorro’s behalf, assured the American legation of “complete sympathy” with the Americans. When Guatemala broke off relations with Germany and placed its waters, ports and railways at the Americans’ disposal, the State Department gave the Nicaraguan diplomat to understand that it expected a similar step. On 10 May Chamorro summoned the American minister, Benjamin Jefferson, and asked for confirmation and for guidance on what the decree should contain, since Congress was due to adjourn the following week. Lansing replied on 11 May that Washington would welcome action like Guatemala’s. A week later Congress passed the resolution.

Nicaragua had neither an army capable of taking part in the war nor a navy. Its ports and waters on the Pacific and the Caribbean were, however, of some importance for the defence of the approaches to the Panama Canal. On 25 May the foreign minister accepted Argentina’s invitation to a conference of Latin American states on the war, but at once informed Buenos Aires of the policy adopted “in favour of the United States”. On 2 June Lansing accepted the Nicaraguan offer and conveyed his thanks to Chamorro. Nicaragua declared war on Germany on 8 May 1918, according to some lists at the same time also on Austria-Hungary.