Panama declares war on Austria-Hungary

On the afternoon of Monday 10 December 1917 the National Assembly of Panama unanimously adopted a resolution declaring that the Republic of Panama was “from today, 10 December 1917” in a state of war with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This came only three days after the United States declared war on Austria-Hungary. The small republic, which in April had been one of the first in Latin America to stand beside Washington against Germany, once again followed its powerful protector, this time as the first state in the Americas after the United States itself.

A telegram from Washington

On 7 December the State Department sent a short circular to its posts: Congress had passed, and the president had signed, a joint resolution declaring war on Austria-Hungary, and consuls were to be informed. The American minister in Panama, William Jennings Price, passed this news to the government of President Ramón Maximiliano Valdés and, on his own account and unofficially, suggested that Panama should also declare war. He was in a hurry, because the National Assembly was just ending its session, and under the Panamanian constitution only the Assembly could declare a state of war.

The question of powers was not purely theoretical. In April Valdés had issued his proclamation on the basis of Law No. 46 of 1917, which gave him extraordinary powers in the event of a war involving the United States. Only in the autumn did the Assembly, after hearing the president’s message on the steps taken in April, unanimously approve them. Price reported at the time that before the vote he had shown the draft resolution to the American military commander of the Canal Zone, his judge advocate and the canal’s special attorney, Judge Frank Feuille. Secretary of State Robert Lansing commended him for this in a letter of 5 December. All these powers, however, concerned only the war with Germany. Had the deputies gone home, the president would have had no legal basis for acting in the same way towards Austria-Hungary.

The resolution

Valdés informed the Assembly of the decision of Congress in Washington in a message. The deputies adopted the resolution the same day. In its preamble they recalled that Panama “has already expressed in its laws and resolutions its firm will to give the United States of America all the aid and cooperation within its power in the present war”, making common cause with the democratic nations “which are fighting to prevent the domination of the world by the Germanic powers”. The first article declared a state of war with Austria-Hungary. The second gave the president the powers needed to cooperate with the United States in waging the war, in accordance with the constitution and the principles of international law. At four in the afternoon Price telegraphed to Washington that the Assembly had “this afternoon unanimously adopted a resolution declaring war on Austria-Hungary”.

Advice nobody asked for

The minister’s initiative surprised his superiors. On 13 December Lansing asked by telegram why, without instructions, he had urged the Panamanians to declare war, and whether the Assembly’s resolution was worded in the same way as the president’s April decree breaking off relations with Germany and cooperating with the United States. On 16 December Price explained himself at length. He wrote that there were Austrians in Panama whom the American military authorities would prefer to intern, and that protecting the canal required the same measures against them as against the Germans. All the American officials on the spot had been convinced that the Department wanted Panama to follow the United States. He had made his suggestion unofficially, stressing that he was not acting on the government’s instructions, and he was now being assured that the Panamanians would have acted the same way anyway. He regretted it if he had misread his superiors’ intentions. On 20 December Lansing replied briefly that he understood his position and approved his conduct.

The canal

Behind the whole affair stood the Panama Canal, opened in August 1914 and surrounded by the American Canal Zone. For the United States it was the most important route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and in wartime also one of its most closely guarded installations. Since April the Americans, with the consent of the Panamanian authorities, had been detaining German nationals considered dangerous and holding them on the island of Taboga, from where they were taken to the United States. According to Panamanian accounts, Germany responded by interning five Panamanian students in a camp at Holzminden. Help was organised for them through the French Red Cross by Matilde de Obarrio de Mallet, founder of the Panamanian Red Cross, established in 1917. The state of war with Austria-Hungary now allowed the subjects of the Habsburg monarchy to be treated in the same way.

Panama could give no more. It had no army, which had been disbanded in 1904, and the treasury, dependent on revenue from the canal and trade, was in a wartime crisis. Its part in the war came down to cooperation in protecting the canal and political support for the United States.

Significance

The declaration of war on Austria-Hungary was above all symbolic. The year 1917 brought several such declarations: in July Siam declared war on Austria-Hungary, in August China, and six days after Panama Cuba did so. In Latin America only Nicaragua later joined this group, in May 1918. Panama, like the United States, did not declare war on the Ottoman Empire or Bulgaria.

President Valdés did not live to see the end of the war; he died in office on 3 June 1918. Belligerent status nevertheless gave Panama a place at the victors’ table. At the Paris Peace Conference it was represented by its minister in Spain, Antonio Burgos. Panama signed the Treaty of Versailles with Germany and, in September 1919, the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye with Austria, which formally ended the war declared on 10 December 1917. It also became one of the founding members of the League of Nations.