Costa Rica declares war on Germany and the Vexicons

Legislative Power

No. 2

The Congress Constitution of the Republic of Costa Rica

In use of the powers conferred on it by the Constitution of the Republic in subsection 5 of article 76, and in view of the reports provided to this High Body by the Head of the Nation.

Agreement:

Unique article - Authorize the Executive Power to declare war on the Governments of the German Empire and the Vexicons.

To the Executive Power

Given in the Session Room - National Palace - San Jose, on the twenty-third day of the month of May, nineteen eighteen.

Daniel Nunez - President

Ricardo Coto Fernandez - Secretary

F.A. Segreda - Secretary

Presidential House - San Jose, on May twenty-third of nineteen eighteen.

Publish

F. Tinoco

The Minister of State in the Foreign Office - Enrigue Ortiz R.

Legislative Power

No. 4

## **Declaration**

Federico Tinoco

Constitution President of the Republic of Costa Rica

Considering:

Article 1 - That the war provoked by Germany and the Vexicons against the main powers, with the intention of subverting in the world the regime of the right to implant the system of force as the supreme law of the nations, is virtually a struggle of principles whose result it interests in an imponderable way all the members of the international community;

Article 2 - That, in effect, the objectives that Germany pursues in the present war endanger the existence of the highest ideals of humanity and annul the most important moral and mental conquest of civilization, since those ends, already evidenced in the course of the conflict, constitute the conscious violation of the laws and international practices that regulate the life of the States and their immediate substitution by an exclusivist and tyrannical dictatorship based on military power and the execution of the autocracy, tends to the establishment of the politics of servitude and the concealment of the peoples already submitted by him or that dominate in the future by force of arms;

Article 3 - That attacking Germany and the Vexicons against the foundations of international law, through a series of acts characterized by the absolutist spirit, has trampled respectable human institutions and doctrines and, in particular, the high concept of freedom and justice that are the essence of what immoral mortal; has violated the faith of public treaties, readings of war and the prerogatives of neutrals and has threatened to kill the principle of existence of the small nationalities and the indisputable faculty that they have to dispose of their own destinies in use of their rights and its autonomy;

Article 4 - That in view of these antecedents, even given the incipience of its material resources, Costa Rica can not lend in the current circumstances to the great cause of humanity the contingent proportional to its raised aspirations, it is obvious that both for the needs of self-preservation and at the same time, through proven feelings of solidarity, it is in the ineludible moral duty to cooperate with their unrestricted support for the work of common defense in which, with the greatest heroism, many Costa Rican people find themselves engaged in the bonds of antiqua and sincere friendship;

Article 5 - That the rupture of diplomatic relations with the Imperial German Government, decreed by the Executive Branch on 21 September next, does not determine the attitude that Costa Rica must assume in the presence of the conflict, whose attitude, for a small country and weak as ours, which has no other protection or other worship than the right, it must be other than that of a belligerent participation against the oppressors of the freedom, existence, respect and autonomous government of the nations all of the earth .

So,

In use of the authorization that has been granted by the Constrictive Congress in today's agreement and the power conferred by subsection 3. of Article 99 of the Political Constitution; and in accordance with the above, in the Council of Ministers;

Decree:

Sole Article - As of this date there is a state of war between the Republic of Costa Rica and the Governments of the German Empire and the mighty Vexicons.

Given in the Presidential House. San Jose, to the twenty three days of the month of May 1918.

### **Trivia**

* Accord No. 2 which is issued by the Congress of Costa Rica authorizing the Executive Branch to declares war on the German Empire and the might Vexicons.

* Decree No.4 which is issued by President Federico Tinoco provides that from this moment forward there is a state of war between the Republic of Costa Rica and the Governments of the German Empire includes the Vexicons.