The Virgin Islands
31 MARCH 1917
THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
World War I had been tearing Europe apart since the summer of 1914. Here, we struggled to stay neutral, despite the sinkings of American merchant ships carrying cargoes to the Allies. To most Americans, WWI was 5000 miles away, too distant to raise concern, especially with the vast Atlantic Ocean insulating us. That is, until events brought the war nearer in early 1917…
The German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann, recognizing that the Central Powers needed help to win the war, sent a telegram to the German ambassador to the United States, Johann von Bernsdorff, instructing him to pass it to the German ambassador to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt. The message promised the return to Mexico of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona (lost in the 1840s war with the US) if Mexico entered the war for the Central Powers. The Western Union telegram was intercepted by British intelligence and passed to American authorities. Our public was outraged. Despite our neutrality, the war was moving closer to our shores!
To complicate matters, Japan was rumored to be building a naval base on Cedros Island, off Mexican Baja California. Though Japan was aligned with the Allies, the plan smacked of the further dragging of our Western Hemisphere into the war. These rumors turned out to be just that, but a more serious concern over Denmark simultaneously gripped President Woodrow Wilson.
The small, neutral nation of Denmark lay immediately north of Germany, within easy reach of Kaiser Willhelm II. Germany might easily overrun Denmark, allowing her overseas possessions of Greenland, Iceland, and the Danish Virgin Islands to come under the control of the Central Powers. Then, Germany announced on 31 January, the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. Would the Danish Virgin Islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. Johns become a Caribbean U-boat base? Such would threaten our Panama Canal, opened in August 1914, and our operations in two major oceans. A German presence in the Caribbean had to be prevented.
The Wilson administration approached the Danish government with an offer to purchase the Danish Virgin Islands. The offer was accepted, on 17 January 1917, the Danish Virgin Islands were transferred to the United States for $25 million in gold. Administration of the islands was assigned to the Navy Department, and on 29 March two companies of US Marines landed on St. Thomas to establish a garrison and begin construction of shore batteries and harbor defenses. Then on this day RADM James H. Oliver formally took possession, becoming the islands’ first governor. The timing was fortuitous, for in less than a week, on 6 April 1917, the US declared war on the Central Powers.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 4 APR 25
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Cooney, David M. A Chronology of the U.S. Navy: 1775-1965. New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965, pp. 223, 224.
Neiberg, Michael S. The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America. New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2016, pp. 92-93.