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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

Melvin Small
Melvin Small*
Affiliation:
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
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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?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , January 1972 , pp. 252 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1972

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References

1 See Lippmann, Walter, U. S. Foreign Policy (New York, 1943), 34–36, 68–69.Google Scholar

2 Chambers, Julius, “The Monroe Doctrine in the Balance,” Forum 46 (November, 1911), 535 Google Scholar; Hale, Albert, “The Germans in South America,” Reader, 9, 6 (May, 1907), 631 Google Scholar; Coolidge, Archibald Cary, The United States as a World Power (New York, 1910), 211.Google Scholar

3 One student of the period comments, “The more a person examines the record the more he’s convinced that the old fear of Germany was still a real factor in determining the Caribbean policy of the State Department” [in the two years before Sarajevo]. Callcott, Wilfrid H., The Caribbean Policy of the United States, 1890–1920 (Baltimore, 1942), 425–26.Google Scholar For his part, Francis M. Huntington Wilson (Under secretary of State under Philander C. Knox) wrote “Their [German] plans for crippling the United States centered around the Isthmus and the Caribbean. Their dreams of vast empire envisaged the southernmost republics of South America. We had reason to be wary.” Wilson, Huntington, Memoirs of an Ex-Diplomat (Boston, 1945), 196.Google Scholar For the period prior to 1905 see Vagts, Alfred, Deutschland und die Vereinigten Staaten in der Weltpolitik (New York, 1935).Google Scholar

4 W. W. Witherspoon, Memorandum, January 16, 1911; Cordier to War College, October 15, 1912, National Archives, Army Department Record Group 165, 6370–71, 14. See also editorials in the Boston Transcript, January 12, 1911, 12, and December 31, 1913, 16, for comments on the German military missions. For another sensational report on Latin America, see Samuel G. Shartle (military attaché in Berlin) to Chief of War College, May 8, 1912, Army Department Record Group, 165, 6370–14.

5 Perkins, Dexter, The Monroe Doctrine, 1867–1907 (Baltimore, 1937), 450–51Google Scholar; Townsend, Mary E., The Rise and Fall of Germany’s Colonial Empire, 1884–1918 (New York, 1930), 205–08.Google Scholar Clement, Wilhelm concurs with this view in “Die Monroe doktrine und die deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen im Zeitalter des Imperialismus” Jahrbuch für Amerika Studien, 1 (1956), 167.Google Scholar

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7 United States Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries, 1911 (Washington, 1913), 71–114. 1911 was selected as a representative year for the decade. These figures are not always accurate. See Morgenstern, Oskar, On the Accuracy of Economic Observations (Princeton, 1963), 163–77.Google Scholar In some of these countries, where England had long been the primary importer, Germany was beginning to challenge her supremacy.

8 In Haiti, for example, while the Germans were a poor third in exports, they owned most of the major commercial and shipping interests in the cities.

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.

10 For discussion of a proposed Anglo-German entente against American competition see Gerard, James W., My Four Years in Germany (New York, 1917), 59 Google Scholar; Kessler, Harry, Walter Rathenau (New York, 1928), 142.Google Scholar

11 Feis, Herbert, Europe the World’s Banker, 1870–1914 (New Haven, 1930), 193 n.Google Scholar For a listing of major German holdings, see J. Rippy, Fred, “German Investments in Latin America,” Journal of Business of the University of Chicago, 21, 2 (April, 1948), 65.Google Scholar

12 United States Senate, Hearings of the Select Committee on Haiti and Santo Domingo, I, 67th Con., 1st and 2nd sess., (Washington, 1922), 110–12 (testimony of Roger Farnham, vice-president of the National City Bank of New York). This theme of misegenation for profit also appeared at the Convention of the National Association of Manufacturers in 1910. Proceedings of the National Association of Manufacturers of the United States of America, 1910 (New York, 1910), 111. See also Munro, Dana G., Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900–1921 (Princeton, 1964), 246 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schmidt, Hans, The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1934 (New Brunswick, 1971).Google Scholar

13 Henry W. Furniss (American minister in Haiti) to Root, February 26, 1908; William E. Meyer (United Fruit Company) to Robert Bacon (Assistant Secretary of State), March 18, 1908; Furniss to Root, March 16, 1908; Furniss to Root, April 2, 1908, SD, 2126/154, 183, 187, 235.

14 Furniss to Root, April 2, 1908; Commander John Hood to the Secretary of the Navy (copy to Root), August 28, 1908; Furniss to Root, December 4, 1908, SD, 2126/235, 295, 394.

15 Knox to Furniss, August 7, 1911, SD 838.00/633. See also the testimony of L. Ton Evans, a missionary, who was in Haiti during the Leconte revolution. Hearings on Haiti and Santo Domingo, I, 175.

10 Furniss to Knox, August 12, 1911, SD, 838.00/668; Furniss to Knox, December 22, 1911, telegram, SD, 838.61/296. See also Finance Minister Leger’s complaint to Furniss about the Germans. Furniss to Knox, February 16, 1912, SD, 838.51/305.

17 Furniss to Knox, August 10, 1912, telegram, SD, 838.00/692.

18 Smith to Bryan, February 20, 1914, telegram, February 16, 1914, SD, 838.00/852, 857. See also Smith to Bryan, February 21, 1914, SD, 838.00/872.

19 Montague, Ludwell Lee, Haiti and the United States, 1714–1938 (Durham, 1940), 205–06Google Scholar; Edgar Haniel von Haimhausen (German chargé in Washington) to William Phillips (Undersecretary of State), July 25, 1914, SD, 838.5/354; Arthur Bailly-Blanchard (American minister to Haiti), to Bryan, July 20, 1914, SD, 838.00/960. See also the interesting letters about the German threat to the Monroe Doctrine from an exile in Jamaica. Tribonnier St. Juste to Bryan, May 21, 1914, June 18, 1914, SD, 838.00/928.943.

20 Furniss to Knox, May 6, 1912, SD 838.51/309; “German Intentions in Haiti,” Literary Digest, XCVIII, No. 22 (May 30, 1914), 1303; Bryan to Smith, February 26, 1914; Smith to Bryan, February 28, 1914, telegram, SD, 838.00/855, 864. See also Munro, , Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy, 335 Google Scholar; Montague, , Haiti, 204, n. 26.Google Scholar

21 Egan, Maurice Francis, Ten Years Near the German Frontier (New York, 1919), 240.Google Scholar

22 Christopher H. Payne (consul in St. Thomas) to Third Assistant Secretary of State, June 5, 1905, U. S. State Dept., Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FR), 1917, 545; Jarvis, Jose, Brief History of the Virgin Islands (St. Thomas, 1938), 97–98.Google Scholar See also Henry Cabot Lodge’s fears of a German coaling station in St. Thomas in 1905. Lodge to Roosevelt, June 10, 1905; Lodge, Henry Cabot, Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 2 (New York, 1925), 136.Google Scholar

23 Egan to Secretary of State, August 9, 1909, SD, 6993/6; September 10, 1910, SD, 711.5914/14. See also Egan, , Ten Years, 240.Google Scholar

24 Egan to Knox, November 2, 1911, SD, 711.5914/16; Egan, , Ten Years, 224 Google Scholar; Nevins, Henry White, 205.

25 Egan, , Ten Years, 243.Google Scholar

26 Tansill, Charles Callan, The Purchase of the Danish West Indies (Baltimore, 1932), 373–453.Google Scholar

27 Germans may have given some thought to purchasing lower California in 1902. Tuchman, Barbara, The Zimmennan Telegram (New York, 1958), 28.Google Scholar

28 Schifi, Warren, “German Military Penetration into Mexico During the Later DíazPeriod,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 34, 4 (November, 1959), 575–76.Google Scholar

29 After the onset of World War One, German intrigues posed even more problems for America. See Grieb, Kenneth J., The United States and Huerta (Lincoln, 1969) 182–86.Google Scholar

30 Wilson, Henry Lane, Diplomatic Episodes in Mexico, Belgium, and Chile (Garden City, 1927), 183, 344.Google Scholar In his farewell to Ambassador Wilson, von Hintze wrote, “We have had a jolly good time in Mexico.” Ibid., 344. The German changed his tune in 1914, when he offered aid to Huerta in exchange for a promise to shut off oil to England in case of war. Tuchmann, Zimmerman Telegram, 46–47. See also Katz, Friedrich, Deutschland, Díazund die Mexiktmische Revolution (East Berlin, 1965).Google Scholar

31 Grew to Bryan, August 16, 1913, telegram, SD, 812.00/8401. See also Grew to Bryan, August 16, 1913, SD, 812.00/8818.

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.

35 Gerard to Bryan, December 21, 1913, telegram, SD, 812.00/10276; Tuchmann, , Zimmerman Telegram, 53,Google Scholar Grieb, , The United States and Huerta, 125–41.Google Scholar

36 William W. Canada to State Department, April 18, 1914, telegram; April 20, 1914, telegram, SD, 812.00/11547, 11563. See also, Meyer, Michael C., “The Arms of the Ypiranga,” HAHR, 50, 3 (August, 1970), 543–56.Google Scholar

37 Quirk, Robert, An Affair of Honor (Lexington, Ky., 1962), 98–99 Google Scholar; Daniels, Josephus, The Wilson Era, 1 (Chapel Hill, 1944), 200–01.Google Scholar

38 Quirk, , Affair of Honor, 150–52Google Scholar; New York Times, May 29, 1914, 1.

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

49 An interesting, if somewhat shallow treatment of the Germans in Brazil is Baum, Loretta, “German Political Designs with Reference to Brazil,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 2, No. 4 (November, 1919), 586–610.Google Scholar

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