South America and the War

In estimating the bearings of the great war upon these countries, it is necessary to review certain political forces and currents of public thought, which the Germans have attempted to divert to diplomatic or bellicose ends. Since these influences date in part from the era of independence or even from an earlier date, clearness of vision demands some historical retrospect.

When, upon the achievement of independence, schemes of Latin-American or of South American union were found impracticable, it was inevitable that frontier disputes and national rivalries should lead to tension and sometimes to wars between states. When it is remembered that every one of the ten South American republics was divided from several neighbours by frontiers partly traversing half-explored and imperfectly mapped regions, it is perhaps surprising that such questions have been on the whole so amicably settled, and that those which are still pending do not appear to be menacing or dangerous. Owing to the paucity of population on the ill-defined and remote interior frontiers, many of these questions did not become urgent until the latter part of the nineteenth century, when the increasing seriousness of political interests, the steadying influences of material growth, and the pressure of outside opinion favoured peaceful settlement, usually by means of arbitration. It would be possible to compile a formidable list of such disputes. Most of them are questions concerning historical and geographical delimitation, of great local interest, but hardly of world-wide significance, although for a time the world was alarmed lest the frontier dispute of Argentina and Chile should excite a conflict between the two peoples engaged in the development of the south temperate zone, the natural seat of an important trans-Atlantic European civilisation.

A good example of the character of such frontier questions, of their mode of settlement and of their possible exploitation for Teutonic purposes is to be found in the long-protracted dispute concerning the boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana-a dispute which only became acute when gold was discovered in the region under debate. In deference to external influence, the whole question was submitted to arbitration, and was decided according to historical evidence concerning the early course of settlement. This example is of further interest as illustrating the German method of seizing opportunities. For, today, German propaganda seeks to revive the bitterness of this episode, and cultivates the favour of Venezuela by holding out the prospect of the enlargement and enrichment of that republic through the absorption of British Guiana and Northern Brazil; just as the neighbouring Republic of Colombia is assured that German victory and the humiliation of the United States will mean the return of Panamá to Colombia. It would be unwise to dismiss such persuasive lures as too fantastic even for the tropical atmosphere of the Spanish Main. Wherever opportunities occur, similar efforts are made to turn to account national jealousies, resentments and ambitions, and particularly to exacerbate the relations between Brazil and Argentina, between Peru and Chile, between Mexico and the United States.

The rivalry between the Portuguese and Spanish elements in South America dates from early colonial times; and, as often happens in disputes between members of the same family, has been perhaps more warmly felt than the historic rivalry between Anglo-Saxon and Latin in America. The feeling was kept alive after emancipation by a dispute concerning the possession of the Banda Oriental (now the Uruguayan Republic), which geographically belonged rather to the Portuguese or Brazilian system, historically to the Spanish or Argentine system. During the eighteenth century Spaniards and Portuguese had disputed its dominion in a series of rival settlements, of wars and treaties, which finally left Spain in possession. The struggle for emancipation reopened the question. For three years (1825-28) Argentina and Brazil fought for possession. The quarrel was adjusted, through the mediation of British diplomacy, by the recognition of the Banda Oriental as a sovereign republic. Twenty years later, Rosas, dictator of Buenos Aires, attempted to reverse this decision by force of arms. His fall, partly brought about by Brazilian intervention, settled the question. But it has left traces upon the vivacious local sentiment of those young countries.

Again, the war which Chile waged in 1879-83 against Bolivia and Peru ended in the occupation by Chile of Western Bolivia and also of the two southern provinces of Peru. The ultimate possession of these two provinces is still under discussion. Meantime, they remain in Chilian hands; and, although a friendlier atmosphere now prevails, diplomatic relations have never been resumed between Peru and Chile.

In these inter-state questions Germany seeks her opportunity for fishing in troubled waters. German diplomacy and propaganda have striven to reopen these old sores and to impede Latin-American consolidation by setting state against state, and by fomenting or reviving latent ambitions of hegemony or aggrandisement. Those who favour Germany are to win great territorial rewards, at the expense of their misguided neighbours, upon the achievement of that German victory which is represented as certain. Particular efforts have been made to embroil Argentina with her neighbours; a prominent feature of this programme is the dismemberment of Brazil.

But the most important of these political movements and the one which seemed to offer most promise to German schemes, is the long dispute between Mexico and her northern neighbour. This is a part of that process which since the beginning of the nineteenth century has radically altered the map of the Caribbean lands and has shifted the whole weight of political influence in that region. The chief effort of Germany is to exploit the historic rivalry between Anglo-Saxon America and Latin America, and to separate north from south by reviving the smart of past incidents and by stirring up apprehensions as to the future.

Here, again, it is necessary to glance back and summarise the chief actual events of that history[2]. When Latin-American independence was achieved, between 1820 and 1824, the United States had already become the dominant power on the Mexican Gulf by the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida, and in 1826 she exercised the privileges of that position by prohibiting Mexican and Colombian designs for the emancipation of Cuba. In 1845 Texas, which nine years before had seceded from Mexico, was admitted to the Union, and in 1846-48 half the territory of the Mexican Republic was transferred to the United States by a process of conquest confirmed by purchase.

A pause in advance followed, until events showed that Isthmian control was a national necessity to the United States. It suffices here to note the conclusion of a long diplomatic history. In 1903 the United States, having failed to obtain concessions of the desired kind from Colombia, supported the province of Panamá in her secession from Colombia, and speedily obtained from the newly formed republic a perpetual lease of the canal zone, together with a practical protectorate over the Republic of Panamá. The United States then proceeded to construct and fortify the canal. She also procured from Nicaragua exclusive rights concerning the construction of any canal through Nicaraguan territory, and erected in fact a kind of protectorate over that republic.

Meanwhile, in the Antilles events were shaping towards control from the north. A long-standing trouble concerning Cuba culminated in the Spanish-American War of 1898, which brought about the annexation of Porto Rico and the Philippines to the United States, while Cuba became a republic under the tutelage of that Power. Five years later the United States, in order to save the Dominican Republic from European pressure, undertook the administration of the revenues of that state. In 1915 she interposed to suppress a revolution in Haiti. Finally last year (1917) she purchased from Denmark the islands of St Thomas and Santa Cruz. Recent rumours as to a proposed further purchase-that of Dutch Guiana-have been officially denied.

These advances have not gone beyond the Caribbean area, where geographical conditions place the United States in a dominant position. Her relations with the more distant southern countries, not touching the Mediterranean Sea of the New World, fall into a different category and do not directly concern the immediate topic.

But in the Caribbean area the United States has established a Sphere of Influence, not indeed explicitly defined as such, but recognised in effect by other governments and accepted by some at least of the republics occupying that region. The events of the last twenty years further indicate that the United States is undertaking the obligation, usual in such cases, of imposing a "Pax Americana." As in similar instances elsewhere, this Pax Americana has not quite clearly marked its geographical limit, nor is it guided by any theoretical consistency, but rather by the merits of the case and the test of immediate expediency in each instance. Thus, whereas the United States enforces peace in Haiti and definitely undertakes to maintain internal tranquillity in Cuba, she has on the other hand withdrawn from interposition in Mexico. The outside world has, on the whole, treated these matters as the concern of the United States and respected the working of the Pax Americana.

Meanwhile, geographical proximity has favoured North American commerce, and in recent years more than half the trade of Central America was carried on with the United States.

It has been necessary to define the situation, because it is accepted by the Allies, while it is at the same time jealously assailed by Germany.

For Germany, too, has won a remarkable position in the same region by her economic efforts, which have also their political side. On the one hand Central America is in a kind of dependence upon the United States: on the other hand, it has been said, with obvious exaggeration, but with some epigrammatic truth, that Guatemala before the war had become a dependency of Germany in everything but the flag. German intelligence and industry had seized the opportunity offered in the recent development of a comparatively backward region. Peaceful penetration was a work of methodical effort, of organised combination. German firms, mostly of recent origin and sprung from small beginnings, always preferred to import from Germany in order to favour German trade. Indeed they were bound to do so by the terms of the credit granted to them by German banks or Hamburg export firms for starting their business. Young men came out from Germany-serious, plodding youths, working for small pay, taking few pleasures and immersed in business. German retail houses, either newly established or formed by the insinuation of Germans into native families or native firms, worked in close contact with the importing houses. The shipping companies worked with these latter and with the Hamburg firms. The chief German achievement in this region was the control of the coffee industry, which was acquired by the usual German combination of admirable industry, patience and intelligence with unscrupulous greed and cunning. Germans advanced money to the grateful owners of coffee estates on such terms that the native owner in course of time found himself bound hand and foot by ever-increasing debt; and the properties usually passed into the hands of the exacting foreign creditor, the former owner being often kept on as paid manager. In this way, besides doing a good stroke of business for himself, the German served Germany by increasing German interests in the country, providing cargo for German ships and helping to secure for Hamburg the coffee market of Europe. Every little advantage gained by an individual German was reckoned as a national gain, as the starting-point for another German step forwards. Nor was German advance confined to Guatemala: it penetrated all Central America as well as Mexico and the Antillean Republics, especially Haiti.

But the maritime war, the British blockade and Black List and, finally, the participation of the United States have shaken the fabric thus laboriously raised. German ingenuity had overreached itself. For it was the insidious and cruel method of German land-grabbing in Guatemala which more than anything determined that republic to declare war, in order to escape from this ignominious economic dependence, this foreign control of a national industry. For it would be difficult to define a clear casus belli. But in the peculiar form of her declaration of war she told the world under which system she chose to live. For in April 1918 Guatemala announced that thenceforth she occupied the same position as the United States towards the European belligerents.

The iniquity of North American intervention in Nicaragua and the implied menace to other states were insistently preached by Germany throughout Central America; yet, a month later, Nicaragua also declared war, proclaiming at the same time her solidarity with the United States and with the other belligerent American Republics.

In Costa Rica the Germans represented the non-recognition by the United States of President Tinoco, who owed his position to a coup d'état, as a menacing insult to that Republic. Then, the same Germans intrigued to overthrow Tinoco on account of a Government proposal to tax coffee stored for future export. The upshot was that, in May 1918, Costa Rica declared war. Two months later Haiti took the same decisive step, and also Honduras.

The significance of these additions to the belligerent ranks is perhaps hardly realised in Europe. Every one of them is a serious reverse in the economic war which Germany is waging, and every one makes it more difficult for Germans in America to keep up communication with Hamburg.

Indeed, the tale of recent events reads like a mere series of German reverses, snatching away advantages already gained. In 1912, the treaty for the American purchase of the Danish Antilles was all but complete, when German influence in the Upper House of the Danish Parliament prevented ratification and thwarted, for the time, the plans of the United States. During the present war, the purchase was completed, Germany being impotent. Again, Germany, having acquired a strong position in Haiti, designed that the Haitian Republic should become a Teutonised base of activity, repudiating the Pax Americana and threatening the security of American sea-paths. The United States put out a hand, and this highly-coloured vision faded away. Cuba, Panamá, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Haiti, Honduras-all of these in turn struck at Germany through the declaration of war[3].

Yet Germany, beaten from point to point, still holds her ground in Mexico. One of the curious side-scenes of the great war was the attempt of the German Foreign Office to contrive an offensive alliance of Japan and Mexico against the United States. Mexico was to be rewarded by the recovery of Texas. This underhand plot against a neutral nation at peace with Germany collapsed at its inception. Yet the present German menace in Mexico is not to be despised. The rulers in the Mexican capital exhibit an ostentatious cordiality towards Potsdam and sometimes an almost petulant impatience towards the Allies. The German is the favoured one among foreigners in the republic. Supported by the German Legation, the German banks, and the countenance of the Mexican authorities, Germans are strengthening their economic hold, particularly through the acquisition of oil and mining properties. This advance has its political side: for hopes seem to be entertained that a militant power, inspired by Germany, may press upon the long southern frontier of the United States, disturb her pacific influence in the Antilles, threaten the security of her maritime routes, and interpose a barrier between her and her scientific frontier on the Isthmus of Panamá. Such schemes may sound fanciful, and no doubt in their entirety they are impracticable. But it would be a mistake to regard Germany as powerless or to undervalue her tenacious and intelligent opportunism. And, in any case, the economic position demands attention.

A word may here be said about the German effort to hold up before the eyes of all South America the spectre of the "Yankee peril." These German efforts have not succeeded, as will be shown later. Yet it would be rash optimism to assume that they have won no temporary success. Correspondence published by the Washington authorities shows that the German Minister at Buenos Aires succeeded in inducing the Argentine Government to approach Chile and Bolivia with a view to a combination against the United States-a scheme which, if carried through, might have produced a split in the political system of the South American Republics. A similar tendency appeared in President Irigoyen's attempt to convoke a conference of neutral American states, an attempt which has had no result except the dispatch of Mexican missions to Buenos Aires. Such incidents cannot be ignored: they illustrate a movement which is not quite effete.

From what has been said above it is obvious that German designs in Central America and the Antilles are not quite recent in their inception. The same is true of another field which for a generation past has attracted German ambitions. The flourishing self-contained German-speaking communities in Southern Brazil offered an attractive goal to an empire which was feverishly building ships, pursuing a maritime future and hunting for colonies. Here was a German colony in existence and almost constituting already an imperium in imperio. German emigrants, brought out by the Brazilian Emperors between 1825 and 1860, had by thrifty and intelligent industry done much to develop the south; and their descendants-now estimated to number 400,000-inhabited German towns, with German schools, newspapers and churches, where even proclamations of the Brazilian Government were published in German. Although not a product of the modern German Empire, this Deutschtum im Ausland has been studiously cultivated by that empire through every possible agency, and especially by imperial grants to German schools, whose pupils were taught that they were Germans owing a prior allegiance to Germany. Some hope was entertained of carving a Teutonic state out of Brazil, perhaps to form nominally, at all events for a time, an independent republic. The disturbances in the south which followed the establishment of the Brazilian Republic appeared to favour this chance, which depended however on one condition, the countenance of Great Britain in order to cope with the opposition of the United States. But in any case the vigour and increase of the German element was to dominate Southern Brazil and help to bring that region into moral dependence upon Germany. That these designs were not viewed in South America as wholly imaginative, is proved by a recent incident. The Uruguayan Government, after revoking neutrality and seizing the interned German ships, asked and obtained an assurance of Argentine support, in case Uruguayan soil should be invaded by Germans from Southern Brazil. It may be added that recent German commercial penetration has been particularly active in Brazil.

Owing to their remoteness and lesser numbers, the German communities in Southern Chile-whose first founders emigrated from Germany after the troubles of 1848-did not invite such large political designs, although there is reason to think that in the earlier part of the war, when a German war fleet still kept the sea, the manifold activities of Germany included some notion of obtaining a permanent footing in the Pacific. These German-speaking settlements have been carefully cultivated, by the same methods as those used in Brazil, to become a Germanising force in Chile and a German outpost on the west coast. In 1916 a Chilian-German League was established, to include all persons in Chile of German origin and language, with the intention that the members should use their influence as Chilian citizens, especially at election time, on behalf of German interests.

Another influence which Germany strives to turn to account is the recent movement represented by the Unión Ibero-Americana, which seeks to draw together Spain and the Spanish-American republics. The German efforts to give a Teutonic tinge to the present Spanish movement of national revival look also towards Latin America, in the hope that friendship with Spain may tell against French and North American influence; and attempts are being made to exploit for that purpose the Ibero-American celebration which is to be held in Madrid in October, 1918.

Lastly, in estimating political forces which have to be reckoned as factors in the conflict, some mention should be made of the very warm sentiment towards France which has prevailed for generations among educated South Americans-a sentiment which passes the bounds of mere private or even semi-official relations. This feeling is not universal, and would hardly be admitted in clerical and military circles. But it is sufficiently strong and general to be remotely compared to the sentiment which a Greek ?ποικ?α usually entertained towards the mother-city. French thought permeates the work of Latin-American historians and political writers. French example and theory mould the form and the action of governments. Paris is felt to be the capital and the centre of inspiration for Latin civilisation. The debt of South America to France has been generously, and indeed affectionately, avowed by a succession of Argentine writers. A recent German semi-official utterance openly admits and deplores the historic attachment of South America to France. This attitude towards France can hardly fail to have some public weight; and there is no doubt that the course pursued by Brazil has been partly inspired by love of France.

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