Portugal announces cooperation with Britain

On 23 November 1914 the Congress, the parliament of the Portuguese Republic, met in an extraordinary session. Prime Minister Bernardino Machado presented a bill authorising the government to intervene militarily in the ongoing war “when and how it deems necessary” for the interests and duties of Portugal as a free nation and an ally of England. Congress granted the government this authority. It also agreed to hand over to the British, at their request, 20,000 rifles with ammunition and 56 guns. A British chronology of the war recorded this as an announcement of Portugal’s future cooperation with Britain.

Neither neutral nor belligerent

Portugal and England were bound by the oldest alliance in Europe, dating back to the 14th century. On 7 August 1914 the government declared in parliament that the country would honour its alliance obligations. At London’s request, however, Lisbon announced neither neutrality nor entry into the war. The British did not want to take responsibility for the poorly armed and politically divided Portuguese army. Influential republicans, especially from the Democratic Party of Afonso Costa, hoped on the other hand that taking part in the war would strengthen the young republic and protect its African colonies from the designs of the great powers.

In the autumn the situation changed. France, in need of artillery, took an interest in the guns it had earlier sold to Portugal, and in time also in the participation of a Portuguese division on the Western Front. On 10 October the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, formally invited Portugal to abandon its existing stance and take an active part in the war. A Portuguese military mission went to London to discuss the details. The war plans met with opposition at home: on 20 October monarchists staged a revolt in Mafra and Bragança, quickly suppressed by the government. Meanwhile in Africa there had already been clashes with the Germans. After the Naulila incident, troops from German South West Africa attacked Portuguese posts in Angola.

No declaration of war

The resolution of 23 November did not mean a declaration of war on Germany or the dispatch of troops to France. The government began preparing an expeditionary division, but the army was not ready to fight in Europe, and the British quickly lost their enthusiasm for accepting it. On 12 December Machado’s cabinet fell. In January 1915 a protest by officers against the war brought down the next government, and power was taken by General Joaquim Pimenta de Castro, who opposed intervention.

Portugal entered the war only more than a year later. When in February 1916, at Britain’s request, it requisitioned the German ships lying in its ports, Germany declared war on it on 9 March 1916. From 1917 the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps fought on the Western Front.