Struggle For A Continent: The Diplomatic History Of South America, 1917 1945 PDF
Preview Struggle For A Continent: The Diplomatic History Of South America, 1917 1945
Glen Barclay STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT The Diplomatic History of South America 9 7“ 945 i i i NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK 1972 Copyright © 1972 New York University Library of Congre.s Catalogue Card Number t 79-166505 SBN 8147-0969-9 Printed in Great Britain TO ELIZABETH Acknowledgements I wish to record my appreciation of the absolutely invaluable assistance rendered by Dr Claudio Veliz, Professor of Inter national Relations, University of Santiago, Chile; Professor Cleantho de Paiva Leite, Executive Director of the Instituto Brasileiro de Relacoes Intemacionais ; and the staffs of the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Councils, Canning House, and of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London. Contents Acknowledgements 7 Prelude The Position it Deserves (1917-1919) 11 Chapter I A Temple of Honour, Right, and Justice 25 (1920-1930) Chapter II The Wings of the Dove (1931-1939) 41 Chapter III Shadow athwart a Continent (1939-1941) 89 Chapter IV A Place of Ambiguity (1942) 131 Chapter V Guns across the Atlantic 147 Chapter VI The Mandate of Noble Principles 175 (1944-1945) Conclusion 203 Bibliography 207 Index 210 Prelude THE POSITION IT DESERVES (1917-1919) The Republics of Latin America had been practising their diplomatic skills industriously ever since they had gained indepen dence. But it was not until the First World War that they had the opportunity to exercize these talents significantly outside the limits of their own hemisphere. This was not to say that they had been quite isolated from world events before 1914. They had not, indeed, made much impact upon the world outside; but the world outside had made considerable impact upon them, most conspicuously by way of a series of forays against Latin independence made by Britain, France, Spain, and latterly the United States. As the Great War across the Atlantic became more extensive in its scope, the world outside began to threaten their sovereignty and welfare again. This time, however, the relation ship was not an essentially one-sided affair. The Latins had found the will and the opportunity to impose their own wishes upon Europe and North America. Canning’s rhetoric had come true after ninety years. A new world was making its presence felt in the international community. But the form that Latin intervention would take was something that not even the most prescient of statesmen could possibly foretell. There was certainly no indication at first that a new era of Latin American independence was at hand. Events seemed to follow the traditional pattern of the Latins being assailed by Europe, and called to order by the United States. The crisis was, of course, precipitated by the declaration of the German Imperial 11 12 STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT Government on 31 January 1917 that unrestricted submarine warfare would be enforced around the coasts of the Western Allies. This in itself had serious implications for Latin American commerce. But what was far more significant in every way was the reaction of the United States. The economic recovery of that country had come to depend on its developing to the utmost its sea-borne trade with the Western Allies. In their attemps to safe guard these economic links President Wilson and his advisers had manoeuvred themselves into a position in which their only consistent response to the German challenge would have been to sever diplomatic relations. Even this most drastic of international actions short of war was not necessarily going to secure the other vital United States interest, the right to participate in the reordering of the world once peace had been restored in Europe. The only reasonable presumption was, therefore, that the United States would regard the re-introduction of the submarine blockade as an occasion for entering the war against Germany as a full belligerent. The only real question for the other American Republics was whether they had any option but to do the same. Wilson certainly lost no time in presenting this question to the Latins as directly as he could. The United States severed diplomatic relations with Germany on 1 February; four days later, Wilson expressed the hope, quite unmistakable in its implications, that ‘other neutral powers will find it possible to assume the same position’;1 and on the same day, the United States Minister in Ecuador, the weakest of the South American Republics and therefore the one most likely to be influenced by pressure of this kind, asked the government of that hapless country to state clearly whether or not it was disposed to accede to Wilson’s wishes.1 2 Countries even weaker and more vulnerable than Ecuador did not need such a reminder of where their true interests lay. The ‘banana belt’ of Caribbean vassals was already hastening to fall in line with Washington. Cuba, whose economy was almost totally controlled by United States capital, whose export trade was, for all practical purposes, dependent upon the United States market, 1 Benson to Muller, Foreign Relations of the United States, 5 February 1917 2 Hartman to Tobar, Informe que el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores presenta a la Nación en 1917, p. 235
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