19191776 Club
Marines go ashore in Honduras; Bertrand's grip on power breaks
Seven weeks of civil war end with an American landing and a president's departure.
By September 1919, Honduras had spent seven weeks at war with itself. President Francisco Bertrand had refused to allow a free election to pick his successor, and General Rafael López Gutiérrez led the Liberal Party opposition from Tegucigalpa into open fighting that spread across the west and center of the country. On September 11, 1919, United States Marines landed in Honduras, and the combined weight of that intervention and American diplomatic pressure forced Bertrand to resign and leave the country. An interim government under Francisco Bográn took power, promising the elections Bertrand had denied…
