Central America and the Treaty of Versailles

By Michael Streeter

They were in the United States' backyard, and in some cases under her direct protection. So in many ways it was little surprise when Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama and Honduras joined the war on the Allied side in 1917 and 1918. Their involvement in the war was minimal, indeed scarcely noticeable, but it was enough. It earned these small relatively powerless nations—in Haiti's case barely a functioning state—an invitation to sit alongside the Great Powers at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and sign the Treaty of Versailles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Haus Publishing
• Release date: Jun 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781907822278

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Preface

In 1890 the American naval officer and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan published a book that was to have a strong impact on the way that American leaders viewed their place in the world strategically and militarily. It was also to have a profound knock-on effect on the countries of Central America and the Caribbean. As its name suggests, The Influence of Sea Power upon History highlighted the importance of a powerful navy in a state’s rise to power. Britain and the role of its Royal Navy were held up as a shining example of this.

To a country that was still absorbed in its own land-based expansion westwards, Mahan’s emphasis on the role of the navy required a major shift in outlook for Washington, one it was nonetheless ultimately willing to adopt. But Mahan’s influence did not end there. For decades, there had been talk in America about building a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, via the isthmus, linking those two giant bodies of water. Such a route would have a major impact on trade routes, lessening reliance on the long and dangerous journey around Cape Horn. There had been considerable discussion about the possible location for such a crossing, with Panama and especially Nicaragua the most likely countries for it.

However, Mahan warned that the building of such a canal would change not just trade routes but the geopolitics of the entire region. In addition to the benefits it would bring, such a waterway could herald ‘latent and yet unforeseen dangers to the peace of the western hemisphere’. Mahan noted, ‘… it is evident that … this now comparatively deserted nook of the ocean will, like the Red Sea, become a great thoroughfare of shipping, and attract, as never before in our day, the interest and ambition of maritime nations.’ He then warned that ‘the United States is woefully unready … to assert in the Caribbean and Central America a weight of influence proportioned to the extent of her interests’.¹

In the following years leaders in Washington were to show vividly that they had taken these warnings to heart as they began to take far greater interest in the affairs of Central American and Caribbean states. This increased attention was to have a dramatic impact on the countries in that region. Not only would a number of them experience direct intervention by the United States and its troops, they would also find themselves catapulted onto the world stage; first, when war broke out in Europe, and then, secondly, during the subsequent attempts to broker the peace in Paris.

I

The Lives and the Land

1

Origins 1800–1900

The influence of geography upon history is always an important one. Nowhere is this truer than for the six Central American and Caribbean countries that were invited to take part in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The Central American states of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama are on the narrow strip of land that joins the two land masses of North and South America. This places them strategically between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a factor that has played a role in their development and history in the last 200 years. The island states of Haiti and Cuba, meanwhile, lie at the gateway between the Caribbean and the Atlantic. Between the two countries the stretch of water known as the Windward Passage is a major shipping route.

There is also another key factor that affects all six countries, which has been crucial not just in their modern history in general but specifically also in their involvement in the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. That crucial quirk of geography is their proximity to the United States of America. It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the United States to the recent history of these six states. Their invitation to join in the Peace Conference, for example, was almost entirely due to the desire of Washington to have them present. This can be seen from the fact that another Central American state, Costa Rica, which had fulfilled precisely the same ‘entry requirement’ for being at Paris as these six – joining the First World War on the Allies’ side – was specifically excluded because the United States did not want it there. The story of these six small countries is thus intimately entwined with the foreign policy of the Great Power to the north.

Of the six, the four from Central America inevitably share many similarities in geography as well as history. Visitors to this isthmus have usually commented on its remarkable natural beauty, from its Pacific and Caribbean coastlines, many lakes, fertile lands, exotic flora and fauna to its plunging valleys. Linking all the region’s countries from Guatemala in the north to Panama in the south is a range of volcanic mountains, adding different climatic and soil variety to the area. The abundance of life and fertility of the land, its stunning landscapes and the temperate climate of much of the highland interior, coupled with its strategic position, have long held out the prospect that the region would become a prosperous area that could rival other, larger regions of the world.

Yet there are geographical as well as more human reasons why Central America remains one of the poorer and, to a large extent, least developed parts of the world. The presence of its tall mountains, some of which reach as high as 14,000 feet, give a striking clue to one of the recurring obstacles to development in past centuries – volcanic eruptions and above all earthquakes. The region suffers from substantial tremors on a regular basis. In the 20th century destructive earthquakes occurred on average around once every two-and-a-half years. In February 1976, for example, an earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale in Guatemala killed around 23,000 people and injured more than 75,000 others. The region is also regularly hit by hurricanes and suffers from torrential rain and mudslides, and on the Caribbean coast in particular has been plagued by a variety of tropical diseases. In addition, it lacks major navigable rivers and its remarkably few deep-water ports mean that communication both within the region and with the outside world has not always been easy.

Central America’s location has, however, made it a meeting point of different cultures, from the north and south and also from the Caribbean. In pre-Conquest times the dominant culture was Mayan, which reached its peak around 600 AD to 900 AD. However, the Mayan culture had relatively little influence in the lands that are today Panama and Costa Rica. Moreover, even where Mayan culture was dominant, it was never centrally organised, such as is seen, for example, with the Aztecs in Mexico. Though they shared a common cultural identity, many Mayan communities lived in considerable autonomy. After the Conquest the population mix of the region contained Amerindians, whites – mostly from Spain – and mixed-race ladinos (the local word for mestizos).

Of the four Central American countries who sent delegates to Paris, the nation with the biggest indigenous influence is Guatemala, with Amerindians making up around 40 percent of the population. In Honduras, by contrast, ladinos and whites of European background make up 90 per cent of the population. In Nicaragua Amerindians make up just 5 per cent of the total population while in Panama that figure is 6 percent. Across the region there is also now a sizeable black population, either from slave populations brought in to work on plantations or descendants of freed or runaway slaves. In all of these countries the most widely spoken official tongue is Spanish, though in Guatemala in particular up to 40 per cent of people speak Amerindian languages.

Cuba, which is part of the Greater Antilles island group in the Caribbean, lies 90 miles south-west of Key West in Florida. The island stretches about 750 miles from its western tip near the Mexican mainland, to the eastern end which points towards the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cuba is far less mountainous than Central America, consisting mostly of low rolling plains, apart from the Sierra Maestra range of mountains in the south-east of the country where the Pico Turquino reaches 6,466 feet (1,971 metres). It, too, is often hit by hurricanes. The original population of the island when it was visited, then conquered, by Europeans in the late 15th and early 16th century were the Ciboney and Taíno native Americans. However immigration from Europe – mostly Spain – and the importation of slaves from Africa to work the country’s plantations means that for several 100 years the population has been a mixture of white, black and mixed race (mulattos). Its official and main language is Spanish.

Across the Windward Passage to the south-east, and also part of the Greater Antilles, is Haiti. This country occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola; the rest of the island is the independent country of the Dominican Republic. A mountainous country, Haiti is noted for its beauty, even if its physical attractions are often overshadowed by its reputation for political turbulence. It, too, is hit by hurricanes, mudslides and, as was seen in January 2010, devastating earthquakes. Haiti is unique among the six Central American and Caribbean countries invited to Paris in not having a predominantly Spanish heritage. Before independence it was a French colony and to this day French remains one of its two official languages. The other is a French-based Creole, spoken mostly by the majority black population who were originally brought to the island as slaves; the minority mixed race (mulattos) and whites generally speak French. The original inhabitants of the island were the Taíno people who were all but wiped out by diseases brought to the island by Europeans. However some survived and eventually intermarried with runaway slaves on the island to create a defined mixed race group known as zambos.

There are significant differences between the modern histories of the six countries. For, while the four Central American states occupy the same stretch of land, they do not have a common past. The odd one out is Panama, which has a very different story from Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. These last three were all part of what was known under Spanish rule as the Kingdom of Guatemala, which in turn was subject to the Viceroyalty of New Spain – Mexico today – as part of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. In practice the Kingdom enjoyed a considerable amount of autonomy from New Spain. Even among its constituent parts there were strong ‘regional’ identities in what would become Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Guatemala. This may in part have been due to the fact that the pre-existing Mayan civilisation was decentralised; other factors that were certainly contributing causes were the political rivalries that grew up between the different areas and poor communications within the region generally.

The key events in the modern history of Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua occurred in the early 19th century, with the start of the revolutions that would eventually see most of South and Central America independent from Spain by the end of the third decade of that century. In much of South America the revolution was accompanied by bitter fighting and bloodshed. In Central America there was considerable unrest and discontent – many white Central Americans, or creoles, were unhappy about restrictions placed on them by Imperial Spain – but there was little real fighting. As would happen so often later in the region’s affairs, events were dictated by events to the north; though in this case, it was Mexico rather than the United States that influenced the outcome. Mexico was going through its own independence birth pangs and Central Americans feared that its army would soon be heading south to ‘free’ the region from the Spanish. In order to avoid this undesirable form of help, the various regions of Central America jointly declared their own independence from Spain on 15 September 1821. The affair did not end there, however, as the new Mexican leader Agustín de Iturbide was busily creating a new empire. Rather than be forcibly annexed to this, a majority of Central American leaders agreed to join voluntarily with Mexico on 5 January 1822.

This subservience to Mexico did not last long, however. By early the following year Iturbide had abdicated, and on 1 July 1823 the Central Americans declared themselves fully independent, calling themselves the United Provinces of Central America. The only province to opt to stay with Mexico was Chiapas, which had formerly been part of the old Central American Kingdom. The new unified state consisted of Guatemala – the biggest and dominant partner, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. It was a time of great optimism in the region, which had a total population of around 1.2 million people (65 percent of whom were Amerindian). A few years earlier, in 1815, no less a figure than the great Liberator of South America, Simón Bolívar, had predicted – or at least hoped for – great things for the ‘states of the isthmus’ when he declared: ‘This magnificent location between the two great oceans could in time become the emporium of the world … Perhaps some day the capital of the world may be located there, just as Constantine claimed Byzantium was the capital of the ancient world.’¹

While few in Central America perhaps went so far as to share such lofty expectations for their backwater in 1823, there was nonetheless considerable optimism about the region’s future based on its geographical location, the fertility of its soil and the opportunity it now finally had to join the world of international trade free from the restrictions of Imperial Spain.

Reality, however, soon set in. From the very birth of the United Provinces, Central American politics was beset by a political divergence that was to dominate – and rarely healthily – the region’s politics for the rest of the century and well into the next. This was the bitter split between the Liberals and the Conservatives. In the ensuing decades it would not always be easy to distinguish between Liberals and Conservatives simply by their actions, as personal favouritism, corruption, abuse of power and dictatorships often tended to blur the lines of policy. Moreover both sets of politicians were generally drawn from the elites of societies, usually white/creole in the case of the Conservatives with some ladinos among the Liberals. Yet there were important philosophical differences between them.

The Conservatives wanted to retain what they saw as the continuity and tradition of old Hispanic institutions, including the Church, and above all wanted stability and order and the maintenance of the ruling classes in power.The Liberals, meanwhile, were anti-clerical, opposed to what they considered excessive old ‘Spanish’ taxes, championed the abolition of slavery and determined to both modernise the country and boost trade. They also drew support from a slightly wider circle that included the professional classes, among whom were ladinos – though many would later turn against Liberal rule and policies. Crucially, the Liberals also supported the idea of a unified Central America, based on the one created in 1823. This was important because when the Liberals later lost power across the region, the idea of unity was jettisoned with them and remained out of favour for decades to come.

The main author of the downfall of the Liberals in Central America was himself a ladino. José Rafael Carrera was from the eastern mountains of Guatemala and has variously been described as a swineherd, bandit and peasant hero. He was certainly a shrewd military and political leader, and despite his modest background was to dominate the isthmus’s politics for many years. Carrera led a revolt from his mountainous stronghold in 1837 and his ferocious peasants’ army eventually seized power in Guatemala, the dominant part of the confederation of states. His main grievances, and those of many Conservatives, included recent judicial reforms, the anti-clerical measures brought in across the region, and a new ‘head tax’ – a tax per person – brought in by the Liberals. A serious outbreak of cholera and anti-Liberal preaching by Catholic priests added to the charged atmosphere across the region, and by 1840 Carrera had come to dominate not just Guatemala but also the other states of the United Provinces. The political clock was turned back, the Liberal reforms dismantled, education placed once more back in the hands of the Church and the head tax abolished to be replaced by the old tithe