29 July 1915 · Haitian
France approves the occupation on condition it is not half hearted
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On the morning of 29 July 1915, with American marines one breakfast old in Haiti, the French ambassador in Washington sent his first secretary down to the State Department. Jules Jusserand's message was that France wanted the United States to act energetically in Haiti, that France would approve and support such action provided French claims were properly recognised, and that halfway measures would earn no French approval. Wilson had already spoken of a long programme. Haitians with something to lose had been saying similar things for months. In April the Liberal leader Auguste Bonamy had told his countrymen they stood at the edge of an abyss and that the country was slipping out of their hands. The American chargé Beale Davis reported that the better element among the Haitians and all the foreign residents favoured intervention, that most public men shared the view, and that they would state it in private and never officially. They wanted the occupation on condition that nobody could say they had asked for it.
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