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The Venezuelan crisis of 1902–03 was a naval blockade from December 1902 to February 1903 imposed against Venezuela by Britain, Germany and Italy over President Cipriano Castro's refusal to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European citizens in the recent Venezuelan civil war. Castro assumed that the United States' Monroe Doctrine would see the US prevent European military intervention, but at the time the U.S. saw the Doctrine as concerning European seizure of territory, rather than intervention ''per se''. With prior promises that no such seizure would occur, the US 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, particularly as it felt some claims should be accepted by Venezuela without arbitration. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt forced the Germans to back down by sending his own larger fleet under Admiral George Dewey and threatening war if the Germans landed.〔Edmund Morris, "'A Matter Of Extreme Urgency' Theodore Roosevelt, Wilhelm II, and the Venezuela Crisis of 1902," ''Naval War College Review'' (2002) 55#2 pp 73–85〕 With Castro failing to back down, US pressure and increasingly negative British and American press reaction to the affair, the blockading nations agreed to a compromise, but maintained the blockade during negotiations over the details. This led to the signing of an agreement on 13 February 1903 which saw the blockade lifted, and Venezuela commit 30% of its customs duties to settling claims. When the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague subsequently awarded preferential treatment to the blockading powers against the claims of other nations, the US feared this would encourage future European intervention. The episode contributed to the development of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting a right of the United States to intervene to "stabilize" the economic affairs of small states in the Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their international debts, in order to preclude European intervention to do so. ==Background== At the turn of the nineteenth century, German traders dominated Venezuela's import/export sector and informal banking system. Most of these, however, had little influence in Berlin—rather it was German industrialists and bankers, including those associated with building railroads, who had connections and influence.〔Mitchell, Nancy (1999), ''(The danger of dreams: German and American imperialism in Latin America )'', University of North Carolina Press. p65〕 The revolutionary turmoil of the last decade of the 19th century in Venezuela saw these suffer, and send "a stream of complaints and entreaties for protection" to Berlin. Matters were particularly bad during the Venezuela civil war of 1892 which had brought Joaquín Crespo to power, which saw six months of anarchy with no effective government,〔Forbes (1978:320-1)〕 but the civil war of 1898 again saw forced loans and the taking of houses and property.〔Forbes (1978:324)〕 In 1893 the French, Spanish, Belgian and German envoys in Caracas had agreed that joint action was the best route for settling claims from the 1892 civil war, but in the event reparations in that case had been paid.〔Forbes (1978:323)〕 While German investment in Venezuela was substantially less than in countries such as Argentina or Brazil, Krupp's Great Venezuela Railway Company, valued at 60m marks, was "individually one of the more valuable German South American ventures",〔 and despite a renegotiation of the concession terms in 1896, payments were irregular after 1897 and stopped in August 1901.〔Forbes, Ian L.D. (1978), "The German Participation in the Allied Coercion of Venezuela 1902–1903", ''Australian Journal of Politics & History'', Volume 24, Issue 3, pages 317–331. p320〕 In addition, Cipriano Castro, one of a succession of Venezuelan ''caudillo''s (military strongmen) to seize the Presidency, halted payment on foreign debts after seizing Caracas in October 1899.〔Greene, Jack and Tucker, Spencer C. (2009), "(Venezuela Crisis, Second )", in Tucker, Spencer (ed), ''The encyclopedia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars: a political, social, and military history, Volume 1'', ABC-CLIO, pp676-7〕 Britain had similar grievances, and was owed the bulk of the nearly $15m of debt Venezuela had obtained in 1881 and then defaulted on.〔 In July 1901 Germany urged Venezuela in friendly terms to pursue international arbitration〔Hill, Howard C. (2008), ''(Roosevelt and the Caribbean )'' University of Chicago Press. p110〕 via the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.〔 Between February and June 1902 the British representative in Venezuela sent Castro seventeen notes about the British government's concerns, and did not even receive a reply to any of them.〔 Castro assumed that the United States' Monroe Doctrine would see the US prevent European military intervention. Theodore Roosevelt (US President September 1901 – March 1909), however saw the Doctrine as concerning European seizure of territory, rather than intervention per se.〔 As Vice-President, in July 1901, Roosevelt said that "if any South American country misbehaves toward any European country, let the European country spank it,"〔Kaplan, Edward S. (1998), ''U.S. imperialism in Latin America: Bryan's challenges and contributions, 1900–1920'', Greenwood Publishing Group. p16〕 and reiterated that view to Congress on 3 December 1901.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Venezuelan crisis of 1902–03」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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