The 1902 Blockade of Venezuela

Looking back 60 years later at the brief episode in the winter of 1902-3, when three Powers blockaded the coast of Venezuela and seven others then joined them in insisting on a settlement of their claims, one is struck by the transformation that has come over the relations between the countries now called “developing” and those called “donor.”

At the beginning of this century, no major Powers were interested in providing technical assistance to a less highly evolved state; what they were interested in was to ensure that their nationals, traders and concessionaries were not molested in their legitimate efforts to make their living and, in the process, siphon off a share of the wealth of the country. The benefit, often immense, that was derived by the less developed country was a by-product.

At the turn of the century, Venezuela was still one of the poorer countries of Latin America. Ever since the 16th century Europeans had believed that “El Dorado” lay in this part of the continent; but none had fully grasped that it was “the black gold” that was to make Venezuela wealthy.

Nevertheless, there were profits to be made; and, during a relatively tranquil period in Venezuelan history, President Guzman Blanco had invited a number of foreign firms to enter the country and set up harbour works, electricity plants and other public utilities.

A United States shipping company had a concession to carry mails, and another had introduced the telephone; there were British and German railways, a French cable company and Belgian waterworks; holders of Venezuelan bonds were scattered through many countries—and suffered many anguished moments.

The regime of Guzman Blanco was followed by six years of military government] under General Joaquin Crespo, whose overthrow in 1898 ushered in a period of special turbulence, during which foreign interests suffered severely.

In the struggle between General Crespo and General Ignacio Andrade, the former was killed, but the latter then imprudently sought to introduce major constitutional reforms, which provided the pretext for the next revolution—the so-called Revolution of the Restoration. The leader of this revolution was Cipriano Castro, the first of the dictators from the mountain state of Tachira.

On the night of May 23rd, 1899, Castro, hitherto best known as a cattle-smuggler on the Colombian border, began his victorious eastward march, accompanied at first by no more than 60 men. He was a bullet-headed, swarthy mestizo who, though little above five-foot tall, inspired fear in those subject to his arbitrary rule.

One of his chief henchmen was Juan Vincente Gomez, who became later the most tyrannical and enduring dictator in Venezuelan history. Castro and Gomez shared, in addition to their ruthlessness, a remarkable reputation for amatory prowess, symbolized by carrying a swagger-stick made of a bull’s penis sheathed in leather. A subservient Press described Castro with indiscriminate extravagance as “El Aclamado de los Pueblos” and “El Cristo de Nuestra Redencion.”

Within five months of raising the standard of revolt, Castro was able to enter Caracas in triumph; but almost immediately he had to defend himself against scattered risings of dissident Generals. General Ducharme was defeated and forced to seek refuge in Trinidad; General Gabiras conducted two unsuccessful invasions from Colombia, accompanied by regular units of the Colombian army.

This sporadic warfare not only embroiled Castro with his British and Colombian neighbours, but gave rise to claims of a kind already painfully familiar on the part of foreign firms and residents, whose resources and services were requisitioned by one side or the other.

The most serious revolt was that of General Manuel Matos, which began in December 1901 and was not finally crushed until the summer of 1903. Matos was related to the family of Guzman Blanco; and his so-called Revolution of Liberation was supported by funds salted away by the latter in France. Castro had some grounds for suspecting that his replacement by Matos would have been welcome in Europe.

By the time that the British and Germans took the law into their own hands in December 1902, there was scarcely a single major trading nation of western Europe that did not harbour claims against Venezuela of one kind or another; the Germans had proposed arbitration in the summer of 1901 and, a year later, had staged an abortive naval demonstration.

Nor was it only the rapacious European Powers that pressed their claims; Mexico and the United States were equally exasperated to find their demands ignored, and an American naval demonstration had also been tried in vain. As Theodore Roosevelt later recorded in his autobiography:

“If any great civilised power, Russia or Germany, for instance, had behaved toward us as Venezuela under Castro behaved, this country would have gone to war at once.”

Even in the days before the United Nations came into existence, weakness could sometimes afford protection more surely than strength.

While Venezuela had few friends at this period of her history, her relations with Britain were even less harmonious than with other countries, because of the contiguity of the colonies of Trinidad and British Guiana. Guzman Blanco had broken off relations with Britain in 1887; and for ten years no diplomatic representatives were appointed.

When in 1897 relations were resumed, William Haggard was appointed British minister in Caracas. He was an experienced career diplomatist of 51, who four years earlier had inherited Bradenham Hall, a small estate in Norfolk. One of his younger brothers was Rider Haggard, author of She and other popular romances of the period.

In the time of the late Queen Victoria, Haggard had been summoned to her presence at Sandringham in the same county of Norfolk, and no doubt believed that rapid promotion was in store for him. In this he was disappointed; instead, he found himself exiled from the Courts of Europe and sent to Caracas.

From contemporary photographs he looks forth quizzically on the world through his monocle, with his trim white beard jutting out above his wing collar and stock—almost a stage English diplomatist of Edwardian days.

As Venezuela lapsed into chronic disorder, Haggard found his task far from easy. Although the frontier with British Guiana was no longer a disputed point, Venezuela claimed the small, uninhabited island of Patos which, in the eyes of Sir Alfred Maloney, the Governor of Trinidad, was part of his territory.

Whenever British goods were transhipped at Patos, the Venezuelan authorities treated them as smuggled goods, on the ground that they should have paid duty; the authorities were also suspicious that arms were being smuggled from Trinidad into the revolted provinces of Venezuela, and they interfered increasingly with British shipping.

In the early months of 1901 three vessels of British register were destroyed or confiscated and their crews marooned; but Haggard’s protests met only with counter-complaints that the Governor of Trinidad should stop the export of arms. Maloney argued, like a good lawyer, that no such export was taking place, and that, in any case, he had no legal power to stop it. He was, indeed, in an awkward situation; the rebel of today might well become the president of tomorrow.

In the summer of 1902 two more British craft were sunk, one of them by the gunboat General Crespo, while in harbour at Pedernales. These cases also formed the subject of diplomatic protests. By this time, however, the Venezuelan Ministry of External Relations was suffering a major grievance which, in their view, exempted them from any obligation to give satisfaction; they were laying at the door of the British the depredations of the gunboat Ban Righ, alias Libertador.

This vessel had been fitting out in the Port of London for her maiden voyage in the previous November, when she had attracted the attention of the customs. The Foreign Office made enquiries and received an assurance from the Colombian embassy in London that the ship, which was of about 1,000 tons displacement and mounted two swivel guns, was intended for the Colombian navy.

The Foreign Office, not fully satisfied, then asked Castro whether he considered himself to be at war with Colombia. When Castro, who had enough trouble on his hands already, replied in the negative, the Ban Righ was released.

She immediately sailed for Antwerp, loaded there substantial quantities of arms and ammunition, and at the end of December 1901, turned up at Martinique, where Captain Willis and his British crew were signed off and she was transferred to the Colombian navy under the name Libertador.

Two days earlier Castro had declared her to be a pirate and demanded that the Royal Navy take her into custody; his fears were soon justified, since the rebellious General Matos proceeded to hoist his flag on the Libertador and announce his intention of liberating Venezuela.

During March the Libertador limped into Port of Spain in need of coal and repairs, and the exchanges of notes between Haggard and Lopez Baralt, the Venezuelan Minister of External Affairs, became even more acrimonious. Lopez Baralt referred pointedly to the Foreign Enlistment Act in Britain, which reminded British politicians, and especially the Treasury, of the unfortunate case of the Confederate commerce raider Alabama, constructed and fitted out at Birkenhead.

In 1872 the American claim had finally been decided by arbitration at Geneva and had cost the British exchequer fifteen and a half million dollars. Sir Alfred Maloney was in a quandary; he could only placate Castro by offending both his rival and the Colombian government. He requested the Libertador to leave port, but then, on learning that she was not seaworthy, suspended the order. She eventually sailed for a Colombian port and out of the pages of history.

During the summer of 1902, tension built up all along the southern shores of the Caribbean. Sir James Swettenham, the governor of British Guiana, had his own unsatisfied claimants and was recommending to the Colonial Office in London that:

“...the only practical way to obtain satisfaction seems to be to extort it, as the French Government has lately done in the Orinoco River, by sending a man o’ war to enforce its demands.”

The same thought had occurred to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, who in July discussed with the German ambassador, Count Metternich, the possibilities of joint action. The German claims, though not involving injuries to sailors and insults to the flag as with the British claims, were substantial and of long standing; the property of German traders had been seized; the German-built slaughterhouse in Caracas had been confiscated and there were long arrears of payment on the 20 million pounds Great Venezuelan Railway.

Bondholders in both countries held slices of the Venezuelan external debt. It should be recognized, however, that the three-power intervention, which followed, was not undertaken on behalf of foreign bondholders; this myth was the creation of Dr. Luis Drago, a former Argentine foreign minister, and was accepted, to suit their theories, by certain international lawyers and historians.

Britain and Germany made strange bedfellows. Opinion in Britain had been aroused by the support of the Boer cause by Kaiser Wilhelm and, in general, there was growing apprehension about German ambitions as a naval and colonial power. Relations were destined, indeed, to deteriorate sadly and, after the brief episode of 1902-3, 50 years were to elapse before the two countries once more found themselves associated in a military enterprise together.

In the period with which we are dealing, however, Britain and Germany had two political interests in common. First, both nations considered that the recalcitrance of Castro had gone on long enough. Secondly, neither regarded as sacrosanct the extensions of the Monroe doctrine that had come to be regarded as sacred in Washington. Bismarck had referred to it on one occasion as “an extraordinary piece of insolence,” and on another as “that insolent dogma, which no single European Power has ever sanctioned...”

Lord Salisbury, at the time of the earlier crisis over the boundaries of British Guiana, had mortified President Cleveland by using language that was more polished, but no less incisive.

“No statesman, however eminent, and no nation, however powerful,” he wrote, “are competent to insert into the code of international law a novel principle which was never recognized before, and which has not since been accepted by the Government of any other country.”

One of the significant results of the ensuing blockade was that Britain tacitly accepted for the future the American interpretation of the Monroe doctrine, Metternich in his conversations with Lansdowne was able to assure him that, some seven months earlier, his Government had already sounded out the American secretary of state, John Hay, about the need to exert coercion on Castro.

Hay, in reply, had referred the German ambassador in Washington to a recent message to congress from President Roosevelt, who had stated that the Monroe doctrine was not intended to protect from punishment any American state deserving of it, always provided that no acquisition of territory by a non-American power was involved.

In spite of this, Lansdowne prudently decided to make his own enquiries; he was in any case in no hurry, as he had already made up his mind not to impose a blockade until after the end of the unhealthy season. He may also have wished to wait until the mid-term congressional elections were over. On November 13th Sir Michael Herbert, recently appointed British ambassador in Washington, spoke to Hay, who answered him on much the same lines as before.

He regretted the use of force by European powers on the American continent and totally excluded the acquisition of territory; but he could not object to action designed to secure the redress of injuries. He could scarcely have answered otherwise in the light of the abortive naval demonstration already attempted on behalf of American claimants against Venezuela.

The Anglo-German co-operation that was developing in London had long been in evidence in Caracas, where Haggard, homesick for the elegance of Europe, was on the best of terms with the German charge d’affaires, Count von Pilgrim-Baltazzi, and liked to converse with him in German, if only to keep matters of state from the ears of his young nephew, Godfrey Haggard.¹

The latter, who had accompanied his uncle to Caracas on his second tour of duty as clerk, translator and general factotum, has provided in an unpublished narrative a lively account of diplomatic life in Caracas on the eve of the blockade.

He pictures the British minister at the heart of the discontented circle that gathered in the evenings in the Plaza Bolivar; there, while the band played and the lanterns, encrusted with insects, swayed among the cattleya orchids, chairs were drawn closer and word was passed on about the latest outrage of Castro and the prospects of his rival, Matos.

One feature of the local Anglo-German alliance in Caracas was that it excluded the American minister, Herbert W. Bowen, who has left his own account of these events. He emerges from the pages of his memoirs as an upright New Englander of limited vision, who has recorded no evil of anyone, except his own president, Theodore Roosevelt.

Trouble started, as has happened before in diplomatic circles, among the wives. Within a month of Bowen’s arrival in Caracas in December 1901, he married a visiting American, Carolyn Clegg. She quarrelled with Countess von Pilgrim-Baltazzi and the coldness between the two legations also affected Anglo-American relations in Caracas. From that time on, the British and German ministers pursued their plans in secrecy.

Against this overcharged background of intrigue, internecine war and personal vendetta the machinery of international diplomacy was bringing on the crisis. At the last moment the Italian government, which had claims relating to the civil wars of 1898-1900 and also happened to have a warship in the Caribbean, insisted on taking part, though they lagged a week behind their British and German allies in breaking off relations with Venezuela.

On the afternoon of Sunday, December 7th, 1902, young Godfrey Haggard and a member of the German Legation roused Lopez Baralt from his siesta and delivered the final notes into his hands. The German note, which alone was accompanied by a Spanish translation, did not actually contain the word “ultimatum”; and the somnolent foreign minister seems to have been lulled into the belief that it was just another protest.

Later, Lopez Baralt, armed with the British note, which was of a more minatory character, made his way to the Plaza Bolivar, where he encountered the Belgian charge d’affaires, who over a drink supplied a free translation. Within 24 hours William Haggard and his German colleague were on the train to La Guaira.

They had not warned leading members of their national communities of their plans; they had given very brief warning to their American colleague, who was to take charge of British and German interests on the authority of the State Department.

Lopez Baralt seems not to have understood that this time the sand had run out, and that his country was on the brink of war. No measures of conciliation, or even of precaution, were taken; instead, he indited a lengthy, legal reply beginning with a reference to a matter of protocol that had already become irrelevant.

“A person whom I have not the honour to know officially called at my private residence in order to deliver... the note... A sentiment of extreme courtesy on my part induced me to receive the note under these circumstances on that day.”

But Godfrey Haggard, the unknown person, was by then on board the well-named HMS. Retribution, whose commanding officer Captain Lyon, was engaged in a council of war with Commodore Scheder, commanding Vineta of the Imperial German Navy. Scheder, who took precedence over Lyon, had three other German warships in support, including the Panther, which achieved greater notoriety some nine years later at Agadir.

The next move, which accounts for the secrecy imposed, was to eliminate opposition by cutting out the Venezuelan gunboats at anchor in La Guaira harbour; these were intended by Lyon to become the hostages of the blockading powers.

A letter written by Godfrey Haggard on board Retribution provides a first-hand picture of the reaction on shore to the bloodless rape of the greater part of the Venezuelan navy.

“Soon tremendous crowds collected and shots went off and one saw a steam engine rushing up the mountainside with the news to Caracas, but my suggestion to fire the six-inch gun at her (she made a beautiful target) was not well received. The fort then woke up and began to train guns and things on us.

I was up on the bridge when I heard the Captain yell out, ‘Clear away the six-inch gun for’ard!’ and I thought I was at last going to see a shot fired in anger. But they thought better of it in the fort, though they could have sunk us, I believe, and the Captain told me I needn’t look so disappointed, as i should have been the first person killed!”

After dark, when young Haggard was busily enciphering telegrams to the Foreign Office, the harbour was rocked by a great explosion; Scheder, who was nothing if not thorough, had blown up his prizes, the gunboats General Crespo and Totumo.

This needless act had reverberations later, since it was widely, though erroneously, believed that the ships had been blown up with the crews on board. This supposed atrocity did much to inflame feeling against the Germans, especially in Washington.

On the following day, when the blockade was declared at Puerto Cabello, the Venezuelans retaliated by seizing in the harbour the British merchantman Topaze and marching off the officers and crew of twenty at gun point to the gaol. This led to a short Anglo-German bombardment of the forts, and 24 hours later the prisoners were released.

In Caracas, Castro appealed for a united front against the enemy and released a large number of political prisoners, replenishing the gaols with British and German residents. Bowen intervened promptly and effectively, however, to secure their liberation.

His temporary ascendancy over Castro’s mind dates from this moment of crisis; and he was invited to arbitrate Venezuela’s disagreements with the blockading Powers. He was at once authorized by Hay to accept; and by December 12th the State Department had received the formal Venezuelan request, and had transmitted it to London and Berlin.

Up to this point, the course of events had given considerable satisfaction in Berlin. Effective action had been taken to assert German influence in the Caribbean, in concert with the naval Power best able, if so minded, to frustrate it. On December 9th, Chancellor von Biilow made a strong statement in the Reichstag, condemning the attitude of Venezuela, which would, he said:

“...if not punished, create the impression that Germans in Venezuela were abandoned without protection to the arbitrary will of foreigners and would be calculated to detract seriously from the prestige of the Empire in Central and South America...”

A learned Professor recalled that the whole of Venezuela had been granted in perpetuity by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to the Augsburg banking family of Welser, one of whom had been decapitated by the savage inhabitants in 1546. The announcement of strong measures was very well received.

It was quite otherwise in London; the tension in Anglo-American relations left many thinking Englishmen uneasy. To provoke the Americans on their own ground—and to do so in alliance with the nascent power of Imperial Germany—seemed to them to run contrary to the logic of British foreign policy.

If the Pax Britannica was to be maintained in distant oceans, it was going to require the combined exertion of Anglo-Saxon strength to do so. In these quarters the association with Germany was unpopular; Rudyard Kipling sent to the London Times a poem containing some of his typical invective. Why, he rhetorically asked, should Britons be called on to “...league anew with the Goth and shameless Hun.”

In the House of Commons on December 17th the Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, was forced to defend himself against the charge, sometimes resurrected since, that he was going to war on behalf of the holders of Venezuelan Bonds. He denied it hotly and inveighed against:

“...the outrageous manner in which the Venezuelan Government... have invaded the rights of British seamen and British shipowners, have insulted our nationality, have treated English sailors and English captains as no nation in the world treats us.”

American diplomatists have often been accused, mostly by their domestic critics, of being outsmarted by wily Europeans. In this instance, however, the State Department was admirably served by Henry White who, as charge d’affaires in London, skilfully exploited the government’s embarrassment by driving a wedge between the British and the Germans.

He intervened with Balfour, as well as with Lansdowne, and persuaded them to make public a decision by the cabinet that no marines or armed forces of any description would be landed on Venezuelan soil. On December 16th, Lansdowne told Metternich that he wished to allow part of the British claims to go to arbitration.

The German foreign office agreed, recognizing that it was necessary to accept American mediation to prevent Britain from gaining sole credit for showing a conciliatory attitude. Kaiser Wilhelm, however, was irritated and, apparently under the impression that in Britain Edward VII enjoyed the same degree of control over foreign policy as he did in Germany, commented acidly that “His Serene Majesty” had lost his nerve.

We know, in fact, from Henry White’s correspondence, that Edward disapproved of the whole venture. A few weeks after it was over he took White aside at a luncheon party and “...talked about the Venezuelan business, and was generally rather hostile to the ‘Ally,’ but most friendly to us... His Majesty was really very outspoken.”

Although the agreement of Germany to accept arbitration was communicated on December 19th to the State Department, this concession failed to arrest the tide of anti-German feeling in Washington. Ten days later, the British ambassador there reported to London:

“The outburst against Germany has been truly remarkable, and suspicion of the German Emperor’s designs in the Caribbean Sea is shared by the Administration, the Press and the public alike.”

It was certainly shared by the President, who appears to have been in a bellicose mood. Bowen, who bestows on him the epithet “braggart,” quotes him as saying of Commodore Scheder’s force, “If we had had to fight, I should have wanted to strike the first blow and sink all his ships right here.”

Bowen may not be an entirely unprejudiced witness—four years after these events Roosevelt requested his resignation and never afterwards employed him; but even so it seems clear that the President was in an excitable state of mind.

If Bowen’s later testimony is liable to bias, that of Roosevelt himself must be condemned even more severely. The careful researches of Allan Nevins, Dexter Perkins and other eminent American historians leave us no option but to reject the account of the events of these days bequeathed to posterity by Roosevelt himself in letters to Henry White (1906) and William Roscoe Thayer (1916).

Roosevelt claims to have had two conversations in December with the German ambassador, Dr. von Holleben, and to have threatened that, unless Germany agreed to arbitration forthwith, Admiral Dewey would be ordered to take the American fleet from Puerto Rico to Venezuelan waters to ensure that Germany did not take possession of any territory.

The popular acceptance of this story—at one time widespread—provides an excellent illustration of how quickly a myth can grow round a dramatic personality, especially if it expresses the mood of the day. In actuality, no trace of Roosevelt’s supposed intervention can be found in either American or German archives; indeed, White House records make clear that Roosevelt did not receive von Holleben during the critical period from December 6th to 31st.

The Ambassador was in any case absent from Washington from December 14th to 26th. He was cast by his emperor in the role of scapegoat and early in the new year was withdrawn from Washington at 24 hours notice.

Britain and Germany continued to maintain the semblance of joint action; and on December 27th they addressed notes to the State Department that were similar in substance. Each divided its claims into three categories: the “first-line” claims, on which immediate settlement was demanded; the “second-line” claims, on which the amount paid might be determined by arbitration after acceptance in principle; and the third category of claims, including those of the bondholders, which might be submitted to arbitration in their entirety. Both governments invited Roosevelt to undertake this limited arbitration, but alternatively were willing to take the case to The Hague.

Roosevelt would gladly have accepted; but Hay was opposed and there was also some opposition in Congress. Moreover, other countries, encouraged by the blockade, were insisting on a final settlement of their claims; and the President of the United States, which also had claims, could scarcely press these while arbitrating the claims of the blockading Powers.

This left Bowen once more occupying the centre of the stage, much to the annoyance of the British, who regarded Roosevelt as the lesser of the two evils. Hay softened the blow, however, by sending to London assurances that in the forthcoming negotiations Bowen would not be receiving instructions from the State Department.

Hay certainly knew Bowen well enough to have convinced himself that his minister at Caracas would in any case have acted only on instructions that conformed to his own preconceived intentions.

Nevertheless, there was one quarter from which new instructions were required, namely Castro, who was now confronted with the claims of the non-blockading Powers, later known as the “pacific Powers.” Bowen claims to have himself drafted these instructions and persuaded Castro to sign them. The extended responsibilities to be entrusted to him in Washington were defined as follows in a telegram from Bowen to the State Department:

“...to confer there with the Representatives of the Powers that have claims against Venezuela, in order to arrange either an immediate settlement of all claims or the preliminaries for a reference to the tribunal of The Hague or to an American Republic to be settled by the Allied Powers and Government of Venezuela.”

Bowen then sailed from La Guaira in an American warship and reached Washington on January 20th, 1903. Before discussions could begin, an unfortunate incident occurred at Maracaibo, where one of the forts fired on the Panther and was promptly demolished by the German warship. There followed a further outcry in the American and British Press; in America it was mainly directed against Germany; in London Balfour and his foreign secretary came in for a growing volume of criticism.

The British government accordingly became anxious to obtain satisfaction and lift the blockade before the reassembly of Parliament on February 17th. Castro was equally eager to see the blockade at an end, so that he could resume operations against Matos.

This meant satisfying the “first-line” claims of the blockading Powers; and, after some pressure had been exerted on the Germans to lower their demands, which were much in excess of those of Britain, a prompt settlement in cash or the equivalent was reached.

It was next agreed that the customs receipts at La Guaira and Puerto Cabello should provide security for the “second-line” claims, which were to be assessed by Mixed Commissions to sit at Caracas; but difficulty arose at this point, since the blockading Powers insisted that their exertions had earned priority for settlement of their claims. Bowen strongly objected:

“If I recognize that brute force alone can be respected in the collection of claims, I should encourage the said other nations to use force also.”

The attitude of the others (the so-called pacific powers), as revealed in the subsequent hearings at the Hague, was severely practical and untinctured by idealism. The French, for example, argued that,

“...the service rendered the others by the blockading Powers through their intervention will have been of little importance if the pacific Powers have no right to the 30% (of the customs revenue) till after the entire satisfaction of the blockading Powers.”

It was this dispute, and this only, that was finally referred to the Hague and settled in favour of the blockading powers in February 1904.

The rest is quickly told. The blockade was ended on February 14th, 1903, and the Mixed Commissions got to work. Castro resumed operations against Matos and, a few months later, finally defeated the revolt. Participants in the recent events summed them up from their different points of view. John Hay observed in a letter to Henry White,

“My advices from South America show a grateful feeling to the United States and a certain resentment toward the Kaiser...” White, equally, had no regrets about “the Venezuelan incident,” which in his view, had “served to further still more the acceptance of the Monroe doctrine, and indeed to establish it on a very firm footing...” The Solicitor to the State Department, W. L. Penfield, commenting on another aspect of the incident, described it as “a great gain to international commerce.”

Dr. Drago used it to evolve his own thesis that the forcible intervention of European Powers on the American continent to exact payment of debt was contrary both to international law and to the Monroe doctrine.

He chose to ignore the evidence that the Anglo-German intervention had been motivated by grievances much graver than those of foreign bondholders. The British bondholders were, indeed, very dissatisfied with the support given them by the Foreign Office, who had restricted themselves to requiring Venezuela to negotiate a settlement directly with the bondholders.

The settlement was not achieved until June 1905. It then formed the subject of a protest by the State Department, not because it was regarded as unduly harsh, but because, in the words of Acting Secretary of State Pierce, it would interpose “serious obstacles... to the collection by the United States Government of the claims of its despoiled citizens by a blockade, if it should become necessary, of the Venezuelan ports, and the sequestration of the Venezuelan custom-house for the satisfaction of claims of this character.” The Alliance for Progress still lay in the very remote future.

The whole episode of the blockade illustrates with unusual clarity how one and the same historical event can acquire different meanings for the various protagonists and observers. For Castro, whose approach to life was simple, it was an inconvenient and expensive interruption of his measures to suppress a rebellion; he learnt nothing from it and in 1908 was subjected to coercion by the Dutch.

For Drago, it became (after a little editing) the text for a sermon on the rapacity of European governments. To supporters of the principle of settling international disputes by arbitration, it was a reminder that even The Hague Court might on occasions find in favour of the “big battalions” of unregenerate Europe.

To Arthur Balfour, the episode showed that, even if Uncle Salisbury’s unkind words about the Monroe doctrine had been legally valid, it might be better to forget about them in future. To the Kaiser, it demonstrated that the reactions of Anglo-Saxons were unpredictable and exasperating and it was better to have the strength to go it alone.

And to Theodore Roosevelt, it became something that should have happened with more of a flourish—the flourish of a Big Stick; something, perhaps, that would have allowed a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy to pay off an old score for the cussed behaviour of Vice-Admiral von Diedrichs to Admiral Dewey in Manila Bay in June 1898.

¹ Now Sir Godfrey Haggard, K.C.M.G