1916 Events
January 1916 - Santa Ysabel, Chihuahua & El Paso, Texas
In early January, villístas hauled 16 American mining engineers from a train near Santa Ysabel and executed them. The arrival of their caskets at El Paso’s train station ignited a riot of white violence against Hispanics in the streets. State Department intelligence officer Zach Cobb acted behind the scenes to quell racial tensions in Texas as violence south of the border simmered. He reported increasing villísta involvement with German agents after the Santa Ysabel massacre, leading up to the attack on Columbus, New Mexico in March.
January 1916 - New York City In mid–January, State Department Counselor Leland Harrison (left) attended the 2nd Pan American Congress in New York City with former counselor Frank Polk and Secretary of State Robert Lansing (himself a former Counselor), and former intelligence officer Leon Canova, then chief of State's Mexican Affairs Division. Lansing had recently proposed to President Wilson that he issue an executive order placing all intelligence activities under State Department's Office of Counselor. Lansing believed that he would only need "a thoroughly trustworthy stenographer and, if the work is unusually heavy, a filing clerk." The Office of Counselor increasingly became a de facto clearinghouse for national intelligence as the war progressed. But centralized control of US intelligence and counterintelligence would remain a quixotic goal for several decades. (Photo: NARA) |
January-February 1916 - Bahia, Brazil
German saboteurs conducted at least two operations in Bahia in early 1916. On January 27, Fritz Duquesne shipped a “case of potter’s earth samples” weighing about 175 pounds to New York from Bahia on the cargo ship SS Verdi. Fortunately for the Verdi, Duquesne’s explosives did not detonate. He corrected his errors in a shipment that he sent aboard the SS Tennyson, an Admiralty ship bound for Liverpool via New York. The explosion made news and scored a black eye against the Admiralty, but did not sink the ship. British investigators eventually unmasked Duquesne’s hand in the Tennyson sabotage, and he fled to Buenos Aires. Yet, Duquesne had the gall to file an insurance claim for his cargo that was lost on the Tennyson.
German saboteurs conducted at least two operations in Bahia in early 1916. On January 27, Fritz Duquesne shipped a “case of potter’s earth samples” weighing about 175 pounds to New York from Bahia on the cargo ship SS Verdi. Fortunately for the Verdi, Duquesne’s explosives did not detonate. He corrected his errors in a shipment that he sent aboard the SS Tennyson, an Admiralty ship bound for Liverpool via New York. The explosion made news and scored a black eye against the Admiralty, but did not sink the ship. British investigators eventually unmasked Duquesne’s hand in the Tennyson sabotage, and he fled to Buenos Aires. Yet, Duquesne had the gall to file an insurance claim for his cargo that was lost on the Tennyson.
February 1916 - Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima
British diplomats published the first of the infamous economic Black Lists. German firms in Argentina and Chile organized to present a common front against Allied economic warfare. For expatriate German businessmen like Hugo Ries in Lima, black list evasion--and cooperation with German intelligence--became crucial to commercial survival. For Germany, black list evasion became crucial to national survival as the Allied blockade choked daily diets to 1,000 calories. (Photo: NARA, RG 165) |
March 6, 1916 - Santos, Brazil
SS Principe de Asturias struck rocks and exploded while trying to avoid being stopped by a British cruiser reported to be in the area of Santos, Brazil. More than 400 men, women and children drowned. (Photo: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26386414) |
March 8, 1916 - Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
On March 8, 1916, HMT Verdala, a vicious blizzard engulfs the Europe-bound ship transporting the British West Indies Regiment 4th Battalion (including its Belizean and other Caribbean British Empire volunteers--all considered part of Jamaica's 3rd War Contingent). Soldiers crammed into the unheated ship without winter uniforms or sufficient blankets suffer frostbite and a grueling situation with no water and unhygienic conditions. At least 7 soldiers died and several endured amputations.
On March 8, 1916, HMT Verdala, a vicious blizzard engulfs the Europe-bound ship transporting the British West Indies Regiment 4th Battalion (including its Belizean and other Caribbean British Empire volunteers--all considered part of Jamaica's 3rd War Contingent). Soldiers crammed into the unheated ship without winter uniforms or sufficient blankets suffer frostbite and a grueling situation with no water and unhygienic conditions. At least 7 soldiers died and several endured amputations.
March 9, 1916 - Columbus, New Mexico
400 villístas attacked the town of Columbus, killed 18 Americans, and provoked hawks in Washington to launch the Mexican Punitive Expedition, fulfilling one of German intelligence's objectives to entangle the US in intervention south of the border.
400 villístas attacked the town of Columbus, killed 18 Americans, and provoked hawks in Washington to launch the Mexican Punitive Expedition, fulfilling one of German intelligence's objectives to entangle the US in intervention south of the border.
April 11, 1916 - London
A Peruvian earned the dubious distinction of being the last spy executed at the Tower of London during World War I. Thirty-seven year old Ludovico Hurwitz-y-Zender, born in Lima to Scandinavian immigrants, was an agent for German intelligence who was exposed by a compromised maildrop and convicted by his careless tradecraft and ill-conceived cover. He calmly faced a firing squad of Scots Guards at dawn.
A Peruvian earned the dubious distinction of being the last spy executed at the Tower of London during World War I. Thirty-seven year old Ludovico Hurwitz-y-Zender, born in Lima to Scandinavian immigrants, was an agent for German intelligence who was exposed by a compromised maildrop and convicted by his careless tradecraft and ill-conceived cover. He calmly faced a firing squad of Scots Guards at dawn.
May 5, 1916 - Glenn Springs & Boquillas, Texas
First Chief Venustiano Carranza began a new Mexican campaign of terror against the US during the night of May 5, 1916. No less than sixty sediciosos under Rodríguez Ramírez fell upon Glenn Spring, Texas. They killed three and wounded four of the hamlet’s nine- man U.S. Army detail, and murdered a storekeeper’s young son. At the same time another raid under Natividad Alvarez attacked tiny Boquillas twelve miles away, robbing a mining company of its payroll and absconding with two hostages. To Carranza’s satisfaction, the US Army mistakenly held Pancho Villa responsible. A new US punitive expedition under Colonels Frederick Sibley and George Langhorne crossed the Rio Grande on May 11, pursued the raiders 168 miles into Mexico, scattered the kidnappers, recovered the hostages and returned to Texas. Nevertheless, fear gripped Texas. White vigilantes murdered any suspicious Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, Hispanic refugees fled to the relative safety of chaotic Mexico, and US troops poured into the border region. |
June 1916 - US-Mexico border
The second round of "Plan of San Diego" attacks pushed the US and Mexico to the brink of war. The attacks were orchestrated by a secret office in Mexico City staffed by high level military officers and visited by Japanese military advisors. Bands under Luis de la Rosa and Aniceto Pizaña rode into battle carrying a red and white standard. (right: New York Times, June 18, 1916) |
June/July 1916 - Laredo, Texas
On June 30, 1916, Dr. Jesse Mosley, a respected African-American physician was arrested in a Jim Crow brothel between Laredo and Camp McIntosh while “energetically exhorting a group of black soldiers to desert” from the U.S. Army. Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Tom Ross, a former Texas Ranger captain, took Mosley into custody and charged him with violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act. A search of the prisoner revealed “seditious propaganda, maps and his [Mosley’s] commission as a major in the carrancísta army.” Mosley had lived in Mexico for 18 years and built a successful medical practice in Tampico before accepting a captain’s commission to become a military doctor. Apparently, he recently transferred to Mexican military intelligence and received a promotion to major and one thousand gold U.S. dollars from General Pablo Gonzalez, in the Mexico City headquarters of the Plan of San Diego. John Forsek witnessed the transaction between Gonzalez and "a man over six feet in height and crippled in the left leg.“ Gonzalez tasked him "to secure a revolt among the Negro troops on the American side of the border.”
A few days after his arrest, Mosley was removed from Laredo jail by “Captain Ross” and vanished. His decomposed body was discovered on July 11. Ross was briefly charged with murder, then released owing to lack of evidence. Dr. Mosley’s perplexing death remained officially unsolved.
On June 30, 1916, Dr. Jesse Mosley, a respected African-American physician was arrested in a Jim Crow brothel between Laredo and Camp McIntosh while “energetically exhorting a group of black soldiers to desert” from the U.S. Army. Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Tom Ross, a former Texas Ranger captain, took Mosley into custody and charged him with violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act. A search of the prisoner revealed “seditious propaganda, maps and his [Mosley’s] commission as a major in the carrancísta army.” Mosley had lived in Mexico for 18 years and built a successful medical practice in Tampico before accepting a captain’s commission to become a military doctor. Apparently, he recently transferred to Mexican military intelligence and received a promotion to major and one thousand gold U.S. dollars from General Pablo Gonzalez, in the Mexico City headquarters of the Plan of San Diego. John Forsek witnessed the transaction between Gonzalez and "a man over six feet in height and crippled in the left leg.“ Gonzalez tasked him "to secure a revolt among the Negro troops on the American side of the border.”
A few days after his arrest, Mosley was removed from Laredo jail by “Captain Ross” and vanished. His decomposed body was discovered on July 11. Ross was briefly charged with murder, then released owing to lack of evidence. Dr. Mosley’s perplexing death remained officially unsolved.
July 1916 - Baltimore, Maryland
German commercial submarine Deutschland delivered plans for a secret long-range radio communications facility to be constructed in Mexico. It was also suspected of delivering incendiary devices and cash for covert operations throughout the Americas.
(Photo: LC)
German commercial submarine Deutschland delivered plans for a secret long-range radio communications facility to be constructed in Mexico. It was also suspected of delivering incendiary devices and cash for covert operations throughout the Americas.
(Photo: LC)
August 29, 1916 - Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
The whiff of German mischief, however faint, in the smoke of anarchic Dominican streets, gave the United States license to expand Pax Americana over the whole of Hispaniola. In May, the U.S. proconsul of Haiti, Rear Admiral Caperton, sailed into Santo Domingo and threatened defiant rebels with a naval bombardment, landed Marines and pacified the country within two months with relatively light casualties. But on August 29, 1916, a tsunami roared out of the Caribbean and pounded the USS Memphis, killing more than 40 sailors, awing anti-American vodouisants and santeros with the vengeance that they conjured from Yemayá, goddess of the sea. The tsunami swept the 14,500-ton armored cruiser a half mile from its anchorage onto the rocky shore. It remains the largest US Navy combatant vessel ever lost to natural causes. |
November 1, 1916 - Trans-Pacific Ocean Liner (probably)
A US State Department informant "M" reports rumors of "a treaty being arranged between Mexico and Japan." "M" was trailing Mexican Major Jose Maria Carpio from San Francisco across the Pacific, where Carpio hoped to purchase Japanese arms.
A US State Department informant "M" reports rumors of "a treaty being arranged between Mexico and Japan." "M" was trailing Mexican Major Jose Maria Carpio from San Francisco across the Pacific, where Carpio hoped to purchase Japanese arms.
December 1916 - Mexico City
Germany promised Mexico's First Chief Venustiano Carranza that he could keep Guatemala if he ousted the tyrant Manuel Estrada Cabrera. The Germans bankrolled and coordinated plots through Ministers von Eckardt in Mexico City and Lehmann in Guatemala City. Details of the plot were hashed out in a series of secret conferences in Mexico City in December 1916, and “backed with large funds” to raise a clandestine army in El Salvador to invade Guatemala and Nicaragua.
Germany promised Mexico's First Chief Venustiano Carranza that he could keep Guatemala if he ousted the tyrant Manuel Estrada Cabrera. The Germans bankrolled and coordinated plots through Ministers von Eckardt in Mexico City and Lehmann in Guatemala City. Details of the plot were hashed out in a series of secret conferences in Mexico City in December 1916, and “backed with large funds” to raise a clandestine army in El Salvador to invade Guatemala and Nicaragua.
Copyright 2020, Jamie Bisher