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Second Nicaragua campaign (1926–33)

Civil war broke out in Nicaragua during the first months of 1926, and U.S. naval landing parties went ashore to establish a neutral zone for the protection of American citizens. From 1927-1933, U.S. marines stationed in Nicaragua engaged in a running battle with rebel forces led by renegade Liberal general Augusto Sandino, who rejected a 1927 negotiated agreement brokered by the United States to end the latest round of fighting between Liberals and Conservatives. Once order was restored, sailors and Marines monitored elections and organized and trained the National Guard. After the departure of U.S. troops, National Guard Commander Anastasio Somoza Garcia outmaneuvered his political opponents, including Sandino, who was assassinated by National Guard officers, and took over the presidency in 1936. Somoza, and two sons who succeeded him, maintained close ties with the US.

The second Nicaragua campaign (1926–33) ended the classic period of the Banana Wars. In 1926, a vicious civil war broke out in Nicaragua between the country's two rival political parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives. Washington responded, as it so often had in the past, by sending Marines to Nicaragua to establish neutral zones and protect U.S. lives and property.

The Marine Corps had been dispatched to Nicaragua to aid the Conservative government of Adolfo Diaz and to protect Americans and their property from Liberal opposition forces led by Dr. Juan Sacasa. The Liberal army had disintegrated as a unified force but was replaced by small bands of guerrillas, the most prominent of which was led by Augusto C. Sandino. Although in rebellion against the government, Sandino also set about to rid the country of the American presence that had dominated it since the Taft administration. Waging a ruthless guerrilla war, Sandino presented the Marine Corps with an unprecedented challenge.

On 25 October 1925, General Chamorro seized the fortress dominating Managua and informed the American Minister that it was his express purpose to drive the Liberals from the cabinet and restore the Conservative Party to the power which it enjoyed before the last election. Being named General in Chief of the Army. Chamorro gained complete control. The middle of November 1925 he sent 1200 men to Leon and stated that they would be held there until Vice President Sacasa who was then in hiding should resign and he intimated that if milder means could not produce Sacasa’s resignation sterner measures might be adopted toward relatives and friends of the Vice President. Sacasa escaped to the United States. the United States would not recognize any Government headed by him since such a government would be founded on a coup d’etat and hence is debarred of recognition under the General Treaty of Peace and Amity of 1923.

The chief exports of Nicaragua were coffee, sugar, bananas, and cocoa. Steamers sailed regularly to Bluefields on the Carribean Sea and Corinto on the Pacific Ocean. The average time from New York to Bluefields is 12 days; from New Orleans to Bluefields, 6 days; and from New York to Corinto, by way of the Panama Canal, 20 days. Bluefields, situated at the mouth of Bottom River, 4 miles from the bluff, is the capital of the Mosquito Reservation, and the residence of the governor, a Nicaraguan official appointed by the President of the Republic, who has charge of a large district called Siquia. The population was about 5,000, most of whom speak English. The town is not particularly healthful; there is generally a fresh sea breeze blowing across the lagoon. Mosquitoes are prevalent and sleeping nets are necessary. Bluefields is rapidly developing an important fruit trade with the United States. Steamers run frequently between this port and New Orleans, chiefly with bananas. The principal exports are bananas, india rubber, mahogany, and coconuts. The imports are nearly all from the United States. Escondido (Bluefields) River is the largest that enters the Bluefields Lagoon. The banks of the river are lined with banana plantations for a distance of 40 miles below Rama or Las Dos Bocas; below this the banks become swampy and cultivation ceases.

United States ship Galveston arrived 26 August 1926 and landed naval force. Bluefields was declared neutral zone because jefe político in a decree issued 25th informed noncombatants that in view of critical condition they would be compelled in the event of a battle to defend their own lives and property. Bluff threatened with bombardment tomorrow morning. Puerto Cabezas captured by Liberals after bombardment 28th. Several combatants injured according to a report. Manager of the company requests intervention of the Navy. Pearl Lagoon also in the hands of Liberals.

Whereas in earlier conflicts in Central America and the Caribbean, the Marine Corps had faced nominally guerrilla formations ranging from organized criminals to politicized, disgruntled elements of society, in Nicaragua it faced a different kind of guerrilla opponent—one schooled and educated by Mexican Marxists and enjoying international support. The Marine Corps, therefore, was among the first regular forces in the 20th century to face the “revolutionary guerrilla.” Whereas in Haiti and the Dominican Republic the Corps functioned as an occupation force, invoking martial law and having a free hand in the conduct of military operations in the field, in Nicaragua it supported the extant government and was thus constrained by political limitations that its predecessors in the Caribbean as well as British and French counterparts would have regarded as unthinkable.

Neutrality soon gave way to active combat operations as Sandino deliberately attacked Marine Corps patrols and garrisons as well as other Americans and their property. As the American role in Nicaragua became wider and deeper, operational constraints on the Corps were loosened but never approximated the freedom its aviators enjoyed in the Caribbean—and certainly bore no similarity to the freedom of European air arms in their air-policing roles. For example, despite the fact that Marine Corps authors argued for the use of nonlethal chemicals such as tear gas (in contrast to the French use of lethal chemicals), U.S. policy forbade such usage.

It became clear to diplomats and Marine Corps commanders in Nicaragua that direct and even indirect infliction of casualties on the civilian population was not only contrary to policy, but also carried negative value. Whereas British and French aviators routinely bombed villages and strafed collections of suspicious men — as well as women, children, and animals — the Corps clearly understood that this was counterproductive and modified its tactics. All of the above is not to say that innocent civilians did not die in Nicaragua as a result of air action. In his classic account of the Marine Corps fight with Sandino, Neill Macaulay described the service's tactics as “aerial terrorism.”

At the time of the intervention, the Miskito made up the largest and most important population group along the Rio Coco. As a people, they have a singular and proud history. Unlike other Central American Indian groups, the Miskito successfully resisted Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Later, in the 1600s they made common cause with British buccaneers who found them useful allies in raids against the Spanish for their canoeing and maritime skills. The Miskitos were inculcated from the time of their birth with a hatred of the Nicaraguans whom they called 'Spaniards' and were potential allies if properly approached and handled. Sandino, too, had recognized the Indians' importance and had taken steps to win their trust. In addition, the people of the coast had historically supported the Liberal Party, of which Sandino was a member, albeit a dissenting one. Thus, the miniwar for the Rio Coco quickly became less a contest for territory and more a political one for the loyalty of people whose skills either side would need to control the region.

Along with the Marines came Special Presidential Envoy Henry Stimson in May 1927. Stimson put forward a plan to get the warring factions to move their struggle from the battlefield to the ballot box. U.S. Marines would both train a new, nonpartisan Nicaraguan army, the Guardia Nacional, and would supervise a free election. Under pressure from Stimson, Liberal and Conservative leaders agreed to the American representative's plan—all save one. In May of that year, Liberal General Augusto C. Sandino rejected the U.S. sponsored scheme as unwarranted Yankee interference in his country's affairs and retreated into the mountains of the Nicaraguan north with about 200 men to launch an early "war of national liberation" against what he called Nicaragua's vendepatria (country-selling) elites and the U.S. Marines.

Within a year, the conflict had become a stalemate, locking itself into a pattern familiar to students of counterinsurgency. The Marines easily controlled the cities and towns of western Nicaragua. Sandino and his men, however, were masters of the rugged hills of Nueva Segovia. Utley, Edson, and about 150 other Marines came ashore in January 1928. Almost immediately, Edson and several of Utley's other officers began a series of riverine penetrations, an experience that gave Edson the chance to try out his ideas about navigating the Coco. These first efforts became a test that his Marines would fail decisively. The “can-do” attitudes of his men clashed with the realities of Central America's most formidable river.

The Marines recognized the military significance of the Atlantic Coast and moved into this zone in 1928, establishing the Eastern Area, under the command of Major Harold H. Utley. Working under Utley was an innovative young captain named "Red Mike" Edson. In the weeks before landing, Edson and his shipmates aboard the USS Denver eagerly followed the campaign in Nicaragua by studying a Christian Brothers map of the country that hung from the bulkhead of the ship's mess. At that time, Edson noted how the Rio Coco dominated the northern part of the country. A kind of Nicaraguan Mississippi, the Coco begins in Nueva Segovia, in the heart of what was then Sandinista territory, and runs more than 300 miles to empty into the Caribbean Sea at Cabo Gracias a Dios. Edson reasoned that the Marines might use the mighty Central American waterway to penetrate Nicaragua's difficult terrain and blindside Sandino, hitting him from a previously secure flank.

Marines treated Sandinista “collaborators" in Nueva Segovia on the other side of Nicaragua. There, the burning of the houses of guerrilla sympathizers and the loss of many prisoners “shot while attempting to escape" took place frequently enough that it compelled the Marine command to issue orders in 1928 and 1931 asking for restraint in dealing with the locals and prohibiting the destruction of homes.

The patience of the Eastern Area Marines would pay off handsomely in strategic terms. After foiling an ambush by Sandinista guerrillas on 7 August, Edson and his men captured Sandino's headquarters at Poteca 10 days later and sent the Nicaraguan guerrilla forces scattering into the interior of the country. This action not only threw the Sandinistas off balance, it also prevented them from massing to disrupt the U.S. supervised election in the fall of 1928.

Washington, however, viewed the problem from a different perspective. The administration hoped to wrap up an unpopular intervention as soon as possible and so the planned withdrawal of the Marines took place. Soon after, the Sandinistas regained control of Bocay and used this as a staging area to rebuild their position along the upper reaches of the Rio Coco.

The United States' precipitous pullback combined with the effects of the global economic depression set the stage for a devastating guerrilla retaliation. In April 1931, the Sandinistas launched an offensive against the Atlantic Coast. Striking down the Rio Coco, they captured Cabo Gracias a Dios and assaulted Puerto Cabezas, the headquarters of the Standard Fruit Company and the home of hundreds of its American employees. The Sandinista raids caused panic within the city and disrupted Indian communities all along the river.

Although Sandino's lieutenants would still enjoy the help of some Indians from deep inside the Rio Coco region, 26 they abandoned the guerrilla general's earlier careful treatment of the inhabitants and resorted to terrorism in dealing th the Indians and bamboo whites. They beheaded a Moravian missionary for allegedly operating as a Guardia spy and burned his village because its inhabitants had helped Edson. In addition. Sandinista guerrillas roved the Rio Coco with hit lists of bamboo whites condemned to death for having aided the Marines. Finally, the insurgents captured and killed a number of employees of Standard Fruit, dismembering their bodies with machetes.

Despite their violence, these measures would do the guerrillas little good. Far from their logistical base, they became vulnerable to Marine counterattacks by aircraft and by ground patrols. After one of Sandino's top lieutenants, Pedro Blandon, was killed in the attack on Puerto Cabezas, the insurgents had to retreat back up the river. In the end, the depredations they carried out only turned the inhabitants against the insurgents and earned the earlier Sandinistas a reputation as “bandits" among the Indians, a perception that persists to this day and helps explain Miskito resistance to the Sandinista Government of the 1980s.