Nicaragua declares war on Germany

On 8 May 1918 the Foreign Minister of Nicaragua officially informed the United States legation in Managua that Congress had passed a decree on the war. Its first article stated: “From this day a state of war exists and is declared between Nicaragua and the Imperial Governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary”. The second stated that Nicaragua joined the United States and the other Latin American republics at war with those states. The third introduced martial law in the country and authorised the executive to take all measures it deemed proper and necessary for Nicaragua to co-operate effectively in carrying out the decree. The American minister, Benjamin Jefferson, passed the text to Washington in a telegram sent at three in the afternoon. A year after breaking off relations with Berlin, Nicaragua became a belligerent.

A decree without equivocation

Two weeks earlier Guatemala, the first of the Central American republics to do so, had announced that it was adopting towards Germany “the same belligerent attitude” as the United States. Its decree avoided the word “war” and did not mention Austria-Hungary. Nicaragua’s was more resolute. It spoke plainly of a state of war and covered both empires, like the United States, which had been fighting the German Empire since April 1917 and Austria-Hungary since December.

The date of the decision varies slightly in the sources. According to the American monthly Current History, Congress adopted the declaration of war on 7 May, at the request of President Emiliano Chamorro, with only four votes against. It also adopted a separate declaration of solidarity with the United States and the other American republics fighting Germany and Austria-Hungary. The magazine called Nicaragua the twentieth state to declare war on Germany. Most lists, like the American diplomatic documents, give the date of 8 May, when the decision was announced and notified to the Americans.

A country under American tutelage

Managua’s decision surprised no one. Nicaragua had for years been more dependent on the United States than any other country in Central America. Washington had helped the Conservatives overthrow the Liberal dictator José Santos Zelaya in 1909; in 1912 the US Marines had put down a rising against President Adolfo Díaz, and since then a detachment of about a hundred Marines had been stationed in the capital as a legation guard. The country’s finances were controlled by American bankers, and customs duties were collected by a collector they had appointed. The country belonged to the area in which the United States carried out its interventions later known as the Banana Wars.

Chamorro, a former minister in Washington and co-author of the treaty that gave the Americans the exclusive right to build a canal across Nicaragua, took office as president on 1 January 1917. According to historians, he won the election of October 1916 largely because Washington made it known that it would not support the Liberal candidate, who then withdrew from the race. Chamorro himself later explained his stance in the war by loyalty to the ideals championed by the United States. In his message to Congress in December 1918 he said that this was what had led him to side with them “without hesitation” in the war against the Central Powers and to offer, through the minister in Washington, Nicaragua’s co-operation, including military service and the organisation of the whole country to increase production of the most needed goods.

The declaration of war also strengthened Chamorro’s position in the region. In neighbouring Costa Rica power was held by General Federico Tinoco Granados, whose government President Woodrow Wilson did not recognise, even though Costa Rica had broken off relations with Germany. Costa Rican political exiles, opponents of Tinoco, had taken refuge in Nicaragua, and in May 1918 there was widespread talk in San José of demands that Managua was said to be making of him. Chamorro could present himself as Washington’s loyal ally in a region where not all the neighbours enjoyed its trust.

Congratulations from the White House

Washington received Managua’s decision with evident satisfaction. On 25 May Secretary of State Robert Lansing instructed Jefferson to deliver to Chamorro a personal message from Wilson: “It is with great pleasure and satisfaction that I have received the news of Nicaragua’s declaration of war against the Imperial Governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Such action against the common enemy of liberty, civilisation and the rights and welfare of mankind is the noblest of which any nation is capable today”. The president gave assurances that he and the American people felt “highly honoured” by the co-operation of Chamorro and his “friendly and progressive people”.

A war without soldiers

Nicaragua had neither an army capable of fighting in Europe nor a navy. It sent no soldiers to the front, and its part in the war was above all of political significance. The decree gave the government broad powers, and the country’s ports and waters, which Chamorro had already offered to the Americans for the duration of the war in 1917, lay on the approaches to the Panama Canal. In Latin America war on Germany had earlier been declared by Cuba and Panama, Brazil and Guatemala. After Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Haiti and Honduras did so later the same year. El Salvador remained neutral.

Taking part in the war secured Nicaragua a place among the victors. Its representative signed the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, and with it the Covenant of the League of Nations, to which Nicaragua belonged until the second half of the 1930s. Chamorro governed until 1 January 1921, and his successor was his uncle, Diego Manuel Chamorro Bolaños. The American Marines remained in Managua until 1925.