Nicaragua MILITARY HERITAGE
Augusto Cesar Sandino
Triumphant Sandinstas greeted by crowds in Managua, July
19, 1979
Courtesy Susan Meiselas/Magnum
During a prolonged period of political turmoil after
the
collapse of the United Provinces of Central America in
1838,
Nicaragua was rent by power rivalry between conservative
and
liberal political factions. The private armies of the main
political factions, composed of white officers commanding
illiterate mestizos pressed into service, were the only
organized
military forces in the country. The new country's main
threat to
its borders arose from Britain's continuing efforts to
exercise
domination over Nicaragua's Caribbean coast area, but the
risk of
armed confrontation with the United States persuaded the
British
to retreat from their attempts to formalize control of the
area
(see National Independence
, ch. 1).
In 1855 bloody fighting between liberal forces, aided
by
neighboring Honduras, and conservatives, aided by a
conservative
government in Guatemala, provided an opening for the
United
States adventurer William Walker, who landed in Nicaragua
with a
small band of followers
(see
Foreign Intervention (1850-68), ch. 1).
Walker's power quickly grew, but after he installed
himself
as president, both contending political factions joined
together
with the armies of other Central American nations to drive
Walker
out. The conflict was prolonged and bitter, but in 1857,
finally
facing defeat, Walker and his remaining followers were
evacuated
under a truce organized by the United States Navy.
The first effort to build a professional military
establishment did not occur until the long administration
of
liberal president José Santos Zelaya (1893-1909). The plan
was to
raise an army of 2,000 regulars organized into sixteen
infantry
companies, augmented by cavalry, artillery, and
engineering
units. A flotilla of five armed vessels was also
assembled. The
envisaged strength was never reached, and the size of the
army
dwindled to fewer than 500 in the years following the
arrival of
United States Marines in 1912 to suppress a revolt.
After the marines' last contingent, the legation guard,
was
withdrawn in 1925, a small United States training mission
was
introduced to organize a National Constabulary intended to
replace the army and National Police. However, a coup and
the
outbreak of full-scale civil war led to a revival of the
Nicaraguan army. The renewal of fighting precipitated
another
intervention by the United States that lasted from 1926 to
1933
(see United States Intervention
, ch. 1).
Data as of December 1993
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