The American Prophecy: Latin America and the Great War

World War Wednesday

From 1781-1829, the European great powers lost most of their New World empires gained since 1492. From then on, most of the Western Hemisphere would be controlled by its inhabitants who wasted little time in building new states and warring against one another for domination. After 1850 the fortunes of these states diverged with the United States of America out-competing the United Mexican States, the Republic of the United States of Brazil, the United States of Colombia, the Republic of Chile, and the United Provinces of the River Plate(Argentina).

As the USA became a world power to rival the mighty European empires, the other countries were pulled into the unofficial financial empires of the French, British and Germans. European investments built infrastructure in Latin America and bought influence. However, with investment came dependence. The British in Argentina built railroads, but their purpose was to get Argentine resources to the sea to be sold to the British.

Like the rest of the world’s economic relations, the ties between Europe and the Americas were blown apart by the war. The Atlantic Ocean went from being the highway of trade to a battleground. In South America tensions had been rising for years between the Southern Cone powers of Argentina, Brazil and Chile. All three built up their navies. However, the Brazilians had a thought: what if the three of them teamed up rather than plotted against one another? In the decade before 1914, despite some setbacks, the three powers grew closer. There was urgency to their mission: American power.

The United States conquered what remained of the Spanish Empire in 1898. Earlier back in 1895 when the British disputed with Venezuela over the border with Guiana, US Secretary of State Richard Olney declared that:

Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition. Why? It is not because of the pure friendship or good will felt for it. It is not simply by reason of its high character as a civilized state, nor because wisdom and justice and equity are the invariable characteristics of the dealings of the United States. It is because, in addition to all other grounds, its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable as against any or all other powers.
—The Olney interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine

It was the feared Spanish prophecy come true.

The Americans were that powerful: by 1910 the USA nearly matched the industrial output of Britain, France and Germany combined.

Geopolitically, the biggest winner of the American Revolution was King Carlos III of Spain. However, allegedly his ambassador to France, the Count of Aranda who negotiated the end of the war for Spain, felt uneasy about the win. It passed into legend that Aranda—or someone forging his name on a document after the fact—wrote that:

Esta república federal nació pigmea, por decirlo así, y ha necesitado del apoyo y fuerzas de dos estados tan poderosos como España y Francia para conseguir la independencia. Llegará un día en que crezca y se torne gigante y aun coloso temible en aquellas regiones. Entonces olvidará los beneficios que ha recibido de las dos potencias, y sólo pensará en su engrandecimiento. La libertad de conciencia, la facilidad de establecer una población nueva en terrenos inmensos, así como las ventajas de un gobierno naciente, les atraerá agricultores y artesanos de todas las naciones; y dentro de pocos años veremos con verdadero dolor la existencia tiránica de este coloso de que voy hablando.

El primer paso de esta potencia, cuando haya logrado engrandecimiento, será el apoderarse de las Floridas a fin de dominar el golfo de México. Después de habernos hecho de este modo dificultoso el comercio con la Nueva España, aspirará a la conquista de este vasto imperio, que no podremos defender contra una potencia formidable establecida en el mismo continente y vecina suya.

This federal republic was born a pygmy, so to speak, and has needed the support and forces of two states as powerful as Spain and France to achieve independence. A day will come when it will grow and become a giant, and even a fearsome colossus in those regions. Then it will forget the benefits it has received from the two powers, and will only think of its own aggrandizement. Freedom of conscience, the ease of establishing a new population on immense lands, as well as the advantages of a nascent government, will attract farmers and artisans from all nations to them; and within a few years we will see with true pain the tyrannical existence of this colossus of which I am speaking.

The first step of this power, when it has achieved aggrandizement, will be to possess itself of the Floridas in order to dominate the Gulf of Mexico. After having made commerce with New Spain difficult for us in this manner, it will aspire to the conquest of this vast empire, which we will be unable to defend against a formidable power established on the same continent and neighboring it.
— attributed to Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea y Jiménez de Urrea, 10th Count of Aranda (bold added)

In the 19th century the Prophecy of Aranda articulated the fear Spain and Latin America felt about rising American demographic and industrial strength. A fear made real in 1914 because the Great War removed any European counterbalance to US power. While there were pros and cons to European involvement in Latin America, without them, the region would effectively be under American fiat.

Argentina, Brazil and Chile were shook when in April 1914 the new American President Woodrow Wilson, an aggressive racist with global ambitions, occupied Veracruz in Mexico. The three South American states offered to mediate and urgently hoped to avoid a war that would lead to the conquest of Mexico by the United States. Niagara Falls, Canada was chosen as a neutral site with the Canadians playing host but Britain and Canada did not formally participate in the talks. It worked the A.B.C. powers pulled off the Niagara Falls Peace Conference of May 1914. The American colossus was contained, for now.

Then the Great War broke out in July.

The A.B.C. powers moved to solidify their alliance. A year after their triumph at Niagara Falls they announced the Pact of Non-Aggression, Consultation, and Arbitration establishing a framework between them to resolve future conflicts that could not be settled through standard diplomacy or existing arbitration agreements. It mandated that all such disputes be submitted to a new, Permanent Commission—based in neutral Montevideo, Uruguay—for a thorough investigation, while strictly binding all three nations to peaceful military relations for up to one year while the commission drafted its report.

It seemed like a breakthrough to create new counterweight to the Americans in the absence of the Europeans: a fraternity of South American republics.

However, domestic partisan calculations and lingering territorial ambitions killed it. Only the Brazilian Congress ratified the pact and the effort failed.

They could not predict that the result of the First World War would make the American colossus even mightier, and they would be evermore under the dominion of Uncle Sam.

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Photo by Colin White on Unsplash