“After the Spanish-American War, American foreign policy in the Western hemisphere became much more aggressive.”

By Phil Halton

THE “BANANA WARS” is a term coined for the conflicts involving the United States across Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean from 1898 to 1934.

Though little remembered today, these were seminal conflicts in shaping American military doctrine, as well as the way that the United States was viewed by its neighbours throughout the 20^th century. What’s more, these low-intensity campaigns produced many of the American commanders who would serve in World War Two, while shaping the political thinking of leaders who opposed the United States as well.

Here are some fascinating facts about this forgotten and controversial chapter of American military history.

The U.S. occupied six countries in the Americas over 30 years

After the Spanish-American War, U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere became much more aggressive, leading to a number of interventions and occupations. At various times from 1899 up to 1933, the United States occupied Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti and Honduras. In that same period, it also invaded Panama and Puerto Rico.

Several of these wars were fought for control of…fruit

The United Fruit Company was one of several major American corporations with interests in fruit plantations in Central America. Their influence was so great that they quickly became more powerful than the governments of the countries in which they operated, most notably Honduras and Nicaragua. Whenever these private interests were threatened, they called for help from the United States. In Honduras, for example, the United States invaded seven times between 1903 and 1925 to ensure that American companies maintained control of the nation’s banana exports. This was the origin of the term “banana republic,” coined to describe Honduras’ weak and corrupt government.

Guantanamo Bay was seized during the first Banana War

Following the war with Spain, the United States forced a treaty on the Cuban government that included a permanent lease on 45 square miles of land around Guantanamo Bay to be used as a naval station. The Cuban government has only cashed one of the lease payment cheques since 1959, insisting that the occupation is illegal under international law. Guantanamo is mostly known today as the location where prisoners from the American post 9/11 War on Terror are held.

The most highly decorated Marine officer of the time called himself a “gangster for capitalism”

USMC Major General Smedley Butler twice won the Medal of Honor: once in Veracruz in 1914, and then again in Haiti in 1915. Yet, he soon became disillusioned with American policy in the hemisphere and his country’s continued use of military force. In retirement wrote a famous book, War is a Racket. In it, he described himself as having been “a high-class muscle man for Big Business, Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism…”

The USMC counter-insurgency doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan was pioneered in the Banana Wars

The Marine’s analyzed its experiences in the conflicts of the early 20^th century  to produce a manual called Small Wars Operations in 1935. It was revised in 1940, and retitled the Small Wars Manual. It remained the reference on counter-insurgency, with some minor modifications, during the early portions of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, until being replaced by Counterinsurgency in 2006.

Part of Mexico was occupied over a failure to provide a salute

In 1914, Mexican authorities arrested nine American sailors in Tampico, Mexico when they strayed into an off-limits part of the city. They were released after the American naval commander demanded an apology and a 21-gun salute. When the Mexican authorities only apologized, President Woodrow Wilson ordered them to prepare to seize the port. The White House eventually authorized a full military occupation of Veracruz that lasted seven months and cost hundreds of lives.

Vera Cruz saw the most Medals of Honor awarded in a single day

The American occupation of Veracruz resulted in the award of 63 Medals of Honor – one to the Army, nine to the Marines and 53 to the Navy. By comparison, only 126 were awarded for all of World War One, and 471 in World War Two. After the occupation of Veracruz, the criteria for award of the Medal of Honor was tightened significantly.

The United States later invaded Mexico just to arrest one man

The “Mexican Expedition” was a military operation conducted inside of Mexico by the United States Army in 1916 and 1917. It was a retaliation for an attack on Columbus, New Mexico by the forces of Pancho Villa. The stated aim of the expedition was to capture Villa, dead or alive. Nearly 10,000 American soldiers spent nine months fighting and searching for him across northern Mexico, before returning home empty handed. The Mexican government had never given permission for the American troops to enter the country. Villa was assassinated in 1923.

The Panama Canal was actually Plan B

The United States had originally planned to build a “Nicaraguan Canal” to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua were existing waterways, with only a 12-mile land gap stopping them from joining the two oceans. It was only abandoned when the United States forced the Panamanian government to cede control of the canal zone to them, and then purchased the partially constructed but bankrupt Panama Canal from France. It was completed in 1914.

The “Banana Massacre” occurred to prevent an invasion

In 1928, the United States was poised to invade Colombia to protect the assets of the United Fruit Company, whose workers were striking. In order to avoid giving the Americans a pretext to intervene, the Colombian army massacred as many as 3,000 strikers. The ploy worked as the Colombian government was seen to be giving “adequate” protection to American interests, and the United States didn’t invade.

The Banana Wars ended with FDR

President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the “Good Neighbour Policy” in 1933, ending the military interventions in Latin America in favour of building friendly relations instead. The main driver of this policy was the Great Depression, which saw many Americans to lose interest in spending on military adventurism, rather than a true change of heart. Many of the same countries were again targets of American intervention or proxy wars from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Phil Halton is the author of  Every Arm Outstretched, a novel set during the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. His other works include a history of Afghanistan, Blood Washing Blood, and a novel about the rise of the Taliban, This Shall Be a House of Peace. A 25-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, he has worked around the globe as a soldier and security consultant and has spent time in Afghanistan. He holds a Masters of Defence Studies from the Royal Military College and publishes the literary journal Blood & Bourbon. He lives in Toronto.