page_title: Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903
section_title: Preparations
hierarchical_section_title: Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 / Preparations
caption_attribution_description: Cipriano Castro at the Presidential Office. Cropped version/
context_page_description: The Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 was a naval blockade imposed against Venezuela by Great Britain, Germany and Italy from December 1902 to February 1903, after President Cipriano Castro refused to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European citizens in recent Venezuelan civil wars. Castro assumed that the American Monroe Doctrine would see Washington intervene to prevent European military intervention. However, at the time, US president Theodore Roosevelt and his Department of State saw the doctrine as applying only to European seizure of territory, rather than intervention per se. With prior promises that no such seizure would occur, the US was officially neutral and allowed the action to go ahead without objection. The blockade saw Venezuela's small navy quickly disabled, but Castro refused to give in, and instead agreed in principle to submit some of the claims to international arbitration, which he had previously rejected. Germany initially objected to this, arguing that some claims should be accepted by Venezuela without arbitration.
context_section_description: It remains disputed to this day how the Anglo-German cooperation on Venezuela came about, with varying opinions as to the source of the initiative. In mid-1901, with the distraction of the Boxer Rebellion gone, Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow decided to respond to the German concerns in Venezuela with some form of military intervention, and discussed with the German navy the feasibility of a blockade. Admiral Otto von Diederichs was keen, and recommended occupying Caracas if a blockade didn't succeed. However, disagreements within the German government over whether a blockade should be pacific (permitting neutral ships to pass) or martial (enabling them to be seized) caused delays, and in any case Kaiser Wilhelm II, German Emperor was unconvinced about the military action. Nonetheless, in late 1901 a renewed demand for reparations was backed up by a show of naval strength, with SMS Vineta and Falke sent to the Venezuelan coast. In January 1902 the Kaiser declared a delay to any blockade due to the outbreak of another civil war in Venezuela (led by financier Manuel Antonio Matos) which raised the possibility of a more amenable government.  Complicating matters were rumours "rampant in the United States and in England" that Germany wanted Margarita Island as a South American naval base; however a May 1900 visit by the German cruiser SMS Vineta had concluded it was unsuitable, and the German navy had become more conscious of how vulnerable such far-flung bases would be. In late 1901, the British Foreign Office became concerned that Britain would look bad if it failed to defend its citizens' interests while Germany took care of theirs, and began sounding out the Germans about a possible common action, initially receiving a negative response. By early 1902, British and German financiers were working together to pressure their respective governments into action. The Italians, who had begun to suspect the existence of plans to enforce debts, sought to be involved too, but Berlin refused. Their participation was agreed to by the British "after Rome had shrewdly pointed out that it could repay the favor in Somalia". The Italians quickly sent the armoured cruiser Carlo Alberto and the protected cruisers Giovanni Bausan and Etna toward the Venezuela coast.
  In June 1902, Castro seized a British ship, The Queen, on suspicion of aiding rebels, in another phase of the Venezuelan civil war. This, together with Castro's failure to engage with the British through diplomatic channels, tilted the balance in London in favor of action, with or without German cooperation. By July 1902, the German government was ready to return to the possibility of joint action, with Matos' insurrection having led to further abuses against German citizens and their property, including by government forces. In mid-August, Britain and Germany agreed in principle to go ahead with a blockade later in the year. In September, after the Haitian rebel ship Crête-à-Pierrot hijacked a German ship and seized weapons destined for the Haitian government, Germany sent the gunboat SMS Panther to Haiti. Panther found the ship and declared that it would sink it, after which the rebel Admiral Hammerton Killick, after evacuating the crew, blew up his ship and himself with it, assisted by fire from Panther. There were concerns about how the United States would view the action in the context of the Monroe Doctrine, but despite US State Department legal advice describing the sinking as "illegal and excessive", the State Department endorsed the action, and the New York Times declared that "Germany was quite within her rights in doing a little housecleaning on her own account". Similarly, the British acquisition of the island of Patos, in the mouth of the Orinoco between Venezuela and the British dependency of Trinidad and Tobago, seemed to cause no concern in Washington, even though as a territorial claim it "skirted dangerously close to challenging the Monroe Doctrine".
  On 11 November, at a visit of Kaiser Wilhelm's to his uncle King Edward VII at Sandringham House, an "iron-clad" ag
caption: Venezuelan President Cipriano Castro (1903)
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