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The United States and the German “Threat” to the Hemisphere, 1905–1914
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
Those who defend America's entry into the First World War often call attention to the ultimate German threat to the security of the Western Hemisphere. Through his political and economic activities in the years before the War, Kaiser Wilhelm II allegedly endangered the independence of Latin American states, and especially, the dominant position America enjoyed in the Caribbean. Hard evidence to support this position, however, is rarely presented, and with good reason, for after the celebrated Venezuelan incident of 1902-03, German-American relations in Latin America decline in saliency. Yet, during the crucial decade before the onset of World War One, Germans and Americans met one another in the hemisphere in a variety of places and under a variety of circumstances. An analysis of these relatively obscure contacts will help answer two questions: Did Germany menace American interests in the area, and, more importantly, did Americans believe that she did?
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1972
References
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9 Percentages were calculated from figures given in Almanach de Gotha for 1906, 1907, 1913, 1914, and 1915. Columbia’s figures are for 1911 and 1913.
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32 Gerard to Bryan, October 17, 1913, SD, 812.00/9259.
33 O’Shaughnessy to Bryan, October 18, 1913, telegram, SD, 812.00/9275. Highlighting the seriousness of the situation, Gerard reported in March, 1914, “that present condition of German public opinion such that if one German citizen should be killed in Mexico † [German] government would be forced to take some drastic action.” Gerard to Bryan, March 6, 1914, SD, 812.00/11206. See also United States State Department, FR, 1914 (Washington, 1922), 884–91, for other examples of the problems of German nationals.
34 Gerard to Bryan, December 20, 1913, January 2, 1914, telegram, SD, 812.00/10275, 10384.
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39 See the pro-English New York Times, April 23, 1914, 3, and April 27, 1914, 3, for stories on German cooperation and good works in Mexico.
40 In an interesting sidelight, Ambassador Gerard became agitated about the affair and felt he should hire a private detective to track down German gun-runners. Complaining to Colonel House, he wrote, “I don’t see why I was not tipped to ask Hamburg Amerika line not to land those arms. There are more ways of killing a dog than by choking him with mush.” Bryan eventually refused his request, and even his plan to employ a disguised former German army officer to act as his spy. The arms on the Y piranga had come from New York in the first place, and had been shipped to Germany only to evade a boycott. Gerard to House, June 4, 1914, House MSS Yale University; Gerard to Bryan, May 2, 1914, telegram, May 6, 1914, telegram, SD, 812.133/ 3152, 3193; Quirk, , Affair of Honor, 98.Google Scholar
41 Huntington Wilson, in an anti-German diatribe in his memoirs, begins his description of the Panama affair with, “In the early autumn of 1911 we were to have a still more amazing exhibition of the effrontry and universality of German aggression.” Wilson, Huntington, Memoirs, 195–96.Google Scholar An adequate description of the Dziuk incident is found in U. S. State Dept., FR, 1912 (Washington, 1919), 1167–1206. See also, Wright, Almon R., “Germany’s Interest in Panama’s Piñas Bay, 1910–1938,” Journal of Modern History, 27, 1 (March, 1955), 61–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
42 See Huntington Wilson’s vitriolic comments about Germany in Colombia in Wilson, Huntington, Memoirs, 298.Google Scholar Actually, the British were really the greatest threat in Colombia. See Calvert, Peter A. R., “The Murray Contract: An Episode in International Finance and Diplomacy,” Pacific Historical Review, 25, 2 (May, 1966), 203–224.Google Scholar
43 Manning to Assistant Secretary of State, October 19, 1907, SD, 9781/1.
44 Doyle to Huntington Wilson, January 9, 1912; A. M. Beaupré to Knox, January 19, 1912, SD, 862.34537/-, 862.34537/3. Of this activity, Huntington Wilson wrote, “Germans were snooping around there and required watching.” Wilson, Huntington, Memoirs, 196.Google Scholar
45 Manning to Secretary of State, August 30, 1912, CD, 862.34521; E. Robinson to Knox, February 7, 1913; L. Harrison to Bryan, April 20, 1913, SD, 821.6156/12, 14.
46 Moore to Leishman, May 27, 1913, telegram; Leishman to Bryan, June 4, 1913, telegram; Graham Kemper to Bryan, June 13, 1913; Manning to Bryan, June 20, 1913; SD, 821.6156/14, 17, 20, 26.
47 Skinner to Bryan, July 13, 1913, SD, 821.6156/25.
48 Actually, during the Rio Branco period before World War One, America had surpassed all European powers as the dominant political influence in Brazil. This fact, however, may not have been apparent at the time. See Burns, E. Bradford, The Unwritten Alliance (New York, 1966), passim.Google Scholar
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50 Dudley to Knox, March 31, 1911, SD, 723.62/2. Similar calming reports came from Lieutenant R. S. Clarke of the Army War College and from J. B. Jackson, minister to Cuba, who felt that the Germans had no political goals in Brazil and that “German ‘colonists’ in South America have always protested against any extension of the German political system.” R. S. Clark to War College, May 17, 1910, Army Department Record Group 165, RL/131, File 854; Jackson to Knox, June 27, 1911, SD, 862.56/12. See also Burns, , The Unwritten Alliance, 103–108.Google Scholar For Nicaraguan rumors, see Smith, Robert F., “A Note on the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty and German Interest in a Nicaraguan Canal,” Caribbean Studies, 9, 1 (April, 1969), 63–66.Google Scholar
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