German interest in the Caribbean

German interest in the Caribbean was a series of unsuccessful proposals made by the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) during the late nineteenth century to establish a coaling station somewhere in the Caribbean. Germany was rapidly building a world-class navy but coal burning warships needed frequent refueling and could only operate within range of a coaling station. Preliminary plans were vetoed by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. By 1900 American "naval planners were obsessed with German designs in the hemisphere and countered with energetic efforts to secure naval sites in the Caribbean."[1] German naval planners in the 1890-1910 era denounced the Monroe Doctrine as a self-aggrandizing legal pretension to dominate the hemisphere. They were even more concerned with the possible American canal in Panama, because it would lead to full American hegemony in the Caribbean. The stakes were laid out in the German war aims proposed by the Navy in 1903: a "firm position in the West Indies," a "free hand in South America," and an official "revocation of the Monroe Doctrine" would provide a solid foundation for "our trade to the West Indies, Central and South America."[2]

History

In the mid-1860s Prussian military and naval leaders considered building a coaling station in the Caribbean, and proposed to purchase the island of Curaçao from the Netherlands. However Chancellor Bismarck was strongly opposed; he wanted to avoid difficulties with the U.S. and nothing happened. Bismarck was ousted from power in 1890 and German naval strategists again turned their attention to the Caribbean but failed to establish a naval base at Margarita Island (Venezuela).[3]

In the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903 the United Kingdom and Germany sent warships to blockade Venezuela after it defaulted on its foreign loan repayments. Germany intended to land troops and occupy Venezuelan ports, but U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt forced the Germans to back down by sending his own fleet and threatening war if the Germans landed.[4]

By 1904 German naval strategists had turned their attention to Mexico where they hoped to establish a naval base in a Mexican port on the Caribbean. They dropped that plan. In 1917 they proposed a military alliance in a war against the United States in the Zimmermann Telegram, which accelerated American entry into World War I.[5]

Further reading

  • Bönker, Dirk. Militarism in a Global Age: Naval Ambitions in Germany and the United States before World War I (Cornell UP 2012) online; online review
  • Morris, Edmund. Theodore Rex (2001) ch 13, on President Roosevelt & Germany, 1902-03

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lester D. Langley (1983). The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934. p. 14.
  2. ↑ Dirk Bönker (2012). Militarism in a Global Age: Naval Ambitions in Germany and the United States before World War I. Cornell U.P. p. 61.
  3. ↑ David H. Olivier (2004). German Naval Strategy, 1856-1888: Forerunners to Tirpitz. Routledge. p. 87.
  4. ↑ Edmund Morris, "'A Matter Of Extreme Urgency' Theodore Roosevelt, Wilhelm II, and the Venezuela Crisis of 1902," Naval War College Review (2002) 55#2 pp 73-85
  5. ↑ Friedrich Katz, Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States and the Mexican Revolution (1981) pp 50-64
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