On this day in 1916, Germany declared war on the Republic of Portugal after Portuguese forces, united with the Allies, seized German ships in the harbor of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.
Portugal had initially maintained a position of neutrality at the beginning of the First World War. For over a year and a half into the conflict, the nations of Portugal and Germany had kept up the pretense of peace despite there being multiple accounts of conflict between the two sides. The bulk of the conflict had been initiated in Africa when the British had requested Portuguese aid against colonial German forces (all three nations controlled colonies within the African continent). The Portuguese felt obliged to come to the aid of the British, relying on their colonial forces to combat the German in the south of the Portuguese Angola – a border between German and Portuguese colonies. Throughout the period of the First World War, the two nations would encounter numerous clashes with one another.
The Portuguese stance of neutrality would be broken as a result of their disruption of the German U-Boats in the Atlantic Ocean. The Germans had intended to blockade the United Kingdom from any incoming aid or trade, though in their efforts to starve out the British islands, they had removed Portugal’s contact with the most influential market for Portuguese products. In response to the German blockade, Portugal began seizing German crafts within proximity of the coast. As a result, Germany retaliated by declaring war on the Republic of Portugal, a declaration that was soon reciprocated by a Portuguese proclamation of war on Germany. And so, Portugal, on March 9th, 1916, would be forced to enter the First World War, siding with the Allied forces.
The Portuguese would eventually send approximately 50,000 troops to the Western Front , where they would begin their campaign in Belgium. Although having been victorious alongside allied forces, the Portuguese citizens and military would suffer major losses as a result of both conflict along the front, as well as starvation and disease at home. The Portuguese had been drawn into another European conflict, a conflict that would sadly give way to a new kind of warfare for years to come.
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