The grave events that unsettled the world in the years preceding the Great War were also felt in Latin America. One of the violent eruptions played out in the region in the form of the Mexican Revolution, which shook the confidence of Latin America's Europeanized upper strata. After the war broke out in Europe in early August 1914, the cycle of violence took on a new global dimension. The governments of Latin America wanted to stay neutral, putting their hopes in the quick end to the war that the strategists on both sides of the conflict had boastfully promised. The war, however, soon took on unprecedented dimensions: It neither passed by quickly, nor could the Latin Americans remain on the sidelines. Much to the contrary, the economic war and wartime propaganda that reached unprecedented scope made the consequences of the conflagration felt throughout the region from the beginning.

A HARBINGER OF VIOLENCE: THE REVOLUTION IN MEXICO

With a circulation of around 90,000, the publication Caras y Caretas in Buenos Aires was the largest and most professional Latin American magazine of the time. For its first issue after the outbreak of war in Europe on August 8, 1914, it printed a pictorial narrative with the title “The War: Children's Fairy Tales with Fatal Consequences for the Grown Ups.” Within its pages, the reader could see how the god of war, Mars, was bored with the peace conference at The Hague and therefore invented new weaponry (see Figure 2.1). After testing the arms and achieving the desired effect in Turkey, the Balkans, and Mexico, Mars embarked on even greater challenges, inciting panic across Europe. Apart from the fact that the series of images was a sample of the comic's immediate antecedents from the pen of Manuel Redondo, the publication is notable because the illustrator here draws what was an apparently obvious parallel between the eruptions of violence in prewar Europe and in Mexico.

Redondo's thinking is partly explained by a look at the historical developments in Europe and Latin America. Recent research shows that the Great War in Europe actually began before August 1914 with the fighting in the Balkans and in Africa. At the same time, the Mexican Revolution in Latin America marked an outbreak of violence that fit into the larger global context of the time.

It is strangely still on the harbor and in the markets. And for several days already, the theater and cinemas have been empty. The noise levels, however, have increased in front of the offices of the major newspapers, where masses of people have come together already at the crack of dawn to hear the latest news. When sirens sound to announce important news off the wire, orators spontaneously stand up to either condemn the war or take sides with one of the two parties. Streetcars are no longer able to pass through the streets. The air pulsates with rumors, as word spreads that the Austrian Emperor has fallen prey to an assassination attempt. Huddling together before the closed gates of banks, frustrated customers curse loudly. How was one to pay the exploding prices if you couldn't get to your money, or if your job was all of a sudden at risk like never before? All over, unemployed from the lower classes flock together, with more coming each day from the countryside. There, large foreign mining and plantation companies dismissed thousands overnight.

Meanwhile, uniformed marines and reservists from various countries march through the streets in formation. They intend to report to their consulates for military service. A few streets away, demonstrators singing the Marseillaise and “God save the Queen” tramp toward the diplomatic embassies of the Allies to proclaim their sympathy. At about the same time, vocal socialists demonstrate in favor of restoring peace. The faithful follow suit in their own way by joining pilgrimages for peace. Politicians, business owners, and bankers gather in the ministries to consult with each other about what to do next, without however finding an answer. A sense of unrest prevails far and wide, as the police institute measures to maintain public order. It is as if people are simply waiting for the storm, whose rumbling thunder is heard in the distance, to unleash a bolt of lightning and inflict unimaginable devastation.

According to the press of the time, similar scenes played out with greater or lesser intensity throughout the cities of Latin America in August 1914. When news broke of the war in Europe, there was talk of a catastrophe that, because of the close-knit global entanglements, would embroil the world in an unprecedented crisis.

In January 1915, when it was already obvious that the war would take much longer than originally anticipated, the Argentine daily La Nación commented: “It is highly unlikely that this continent will be pulled into the vortex.” Two years later, this estimation would prove false. Actually, the war emanating from Europe had expanded into a global conflagration long before 1917. Latin America, which contributed to the conflict by exporting war-critical raw materials, was impacted in a variety of ways due to the economic and propaganda war. Nevertheless, the year 1917 would turn out to be an important milestone for the subcontinent: The United States, but also many Latin American countries, officially entered the war, which until then had taken place (if only officially) outside of their own hemisphere. Thereby Americans broke with the more than 100-year-old principle of Pan-American foreign policy to avoid entangling alliances. As a consequence, the war's ongoing pull on the whole of Latin America became much stronger. The political and socioeconomic problems apparent since August 1914 were exacerbated and the emotional character of the public debates gained in intensity. In addition, the events of 1917 gave rise to new fundamental questions about the relationship with the United States and the individual treatment of national minorities. Above all, however, Latin American countries faced the serious decision about whether to enter the war on the side of the Allies or to maintain their neutrality.

SUBMARINE WARFARE AND THE UNITED STATES

The fact that this decision had to be made was due mainly to the radicalization of the German war effort by means of unrestricted submarine warfare against merchant ships in general. In 1915 and 1916, the German Reich had once again limited its use of submarines, primarily because of pressure from the U.S. government. When the hardliners prevailed in the German high command at the end of 1916 and not only ignored President Wilson's peace initiative in December, which had received wide approval in Latin America, but also once again took up a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, the United States made good on its threat by breaking off diplomatic relations with the Reich two days later.

Although this was still not a declaration of war, the U.S. diplomats gave an unambiguous signal to their counterparts in Latin America of what they now expected from them.

This book has been long in the making, and its history reflects the historiographical developments of the past two decades. When in the early 1990s I wrote my doctoral thesis on Weimar Germany and Latin America, transnational history was still a very new approach. In the meantime, the transnational perspective has arrived at the mainstream of the profession. I have profited from the rising production along the years, and my concept for a book on Latin America during the First World War that originated back then has changed quite radically. The result of this process is this book, which has benefited from discussions with many colleagues and students around the world.

The concept of global consciousness plays an important part in this study. In using it, I follow an approach developed in our Berlin research group “Actors of Cultural Globalization.” A further stimulating context was Freie Universität's project 1914–1918-online: The International Encyclopedia of the First World War. In order to finish this book, I was honored with a research fellowship by the Einstein Foundation. Both the Foundation and the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin that hosted me deserve gratitude for their generosity.

My thanks also go to those who have directly supported me in finishing this book, especially my former research assistant and now PhD student Karina Kriegesmann. I appreciate the advice of my teacher and friend Hans-Joachim König, who years ago prevented me from writing a chapter on the war into what had become a much-too-long doctoral dissertation. I am also very grateful to the many people in the libraries and archives in Latin America and elsewhere who helped me, and to my family, who missed me when I was there and supported me when I was back.

The hope for a rapid end to the war, which some Latin Americans thought possible after the United States entered the conflict, dissipated by the end of 1917. The war was now a world war in every respect and no resolution was in sight. Latin America found itself increasingly more dependent on its demands. In many places, there were supply shortages. This gave way in 1918 to unrest that spread across the entire subcontinent. The revolt not only had domestic causes, for the threat posed by the revolutionary wave in Russia was increasingly felt in the region, too. The radicalization of social conflicts influenced the attitude toward the end of the war, which Latin Americans far and wide certainly welcomed enthusiastically. At the same time, the war's culmination in the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations also soon gave way to a sense of disillusionment.

THE “SUBTLE WAR” FOR REGIONAL HEGEMONY

“South America today is a vast battleground in which a subtle war is being fought for public opinion and commercial supremacy.” When the officials of the U.S. Creel Committee arrived at this conclusion in its activity report in mid-1918, they highlighted two dimensions that in fact remained critical for Latin America's involvement in the war. In the propaganda war, the Allies kept the upper hand in most countries of the region and drove out German activities. In the warring countries of Latin America, this propaganda was intended to stoke hatred of the Central Powers in order to divert attention from the hardships that the war brought with it or to make them more palatable. On the other hand, in those countries where governments had only severed relations or remained neutral in 1917, campaigns on behalf of entering the war persisted. Especially in the neutral countries, German propaganda continued to fight back intensively even in the last year of the war. The Allies were thus in no way able to realize their ambitious goal of motivating all of Latin America to enter the war.

The work of the Creel Committee was undoubtedly an asset for Allied propaganda in Latin America. Apart from the dissemination of its own material, which the committee boosted significantly in 1918, the monitoring and influencing of the Latin American media had top priority.

With only a few exceptions, the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America reached their independence in the first third of the nineteenth century. The Latin American wars of independence marked the end of the series of the Atlantic revolutions that had begun with the revolt of the colonists in New England. They were closely tied to these events, as well as to those initiated by the French Revolution and the developments that came on the heels of the Napoleonic expansion in Europe. The independent republics remained intimately involved with this Atlantic context, which contained new opportunities, but also new risks and dependencies. In Latin America's long nineteenth century, it remained the most important reference point for the integration of the region into the global context.

During this period, the now formally independent successor states of the Iberian colonial empire faced numerous challenges. Throughout the entire region, the absence of functioning state institutions, the continuation of internal power struggles, the militarization of public life, and the rise of caudillos were among the most difficult obstacles that had to be overcome on the path toward stability. The difficulties of state formation were due not least to the skepticism about a political system that had failed to adequately explain who the new sovereign was. Officially, the concern was with the formation of democracies, and yet it remained unclear as to who belonged to the demos, the “constitutive people.” Not wanting to run the risk of inciting social upheaval, the new elites defined this more broadly or narrowly according to their own interests. While the rhetoric espoused universal values, day-to-day practice nonetheless remained socially discriminatory. In the ethnically heterogeneous societies of Latin America, where the non-white populations presented a clear majority, the gap between the language of liberty and equality and the social reality was significant. The challenging state of affairs the early republics faced was also related to developments that took shape outside of the region.

FROM COLONIES TO INDEPENDENT STATES

The Americas belonged, at least in theory, to the monopoly the Spanish and Portuguese crowns had held since 1494. While the advances of European rivals had contested this claim since the fifteenth century, the claim remained, despite the fact that the British, French, and Dutch settlements established in the Caribbean and elsewhere caused reality to look quite different.