12 August 1915 · Haitian
Marines cordon the assembly and Dartiguenave wins on the first ballot
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The election went ahead on 12 August 1915 with Marines at every intersection and a cordon around the assembly. Senators and deputies asked to be allowed their weapons in the session, and Caperton agreed, noting that they were free to shoot themselves though not each other. Marines took a wagonload of arms off the visitors coming into the galleries. Captain Beach walked the floor of the chamber while the voting went on. Dartiguenave took it on the first ballot with 94 votes against 16 for Bobo and the remainder scattered, which means a third of the members voted against the American choice. The French minister Girard reported to Paris that Bobo's support lay among the poorest of the capital and that the men deciding the question were against him. Bobo ran straight to the British legation and begged asylum. Beach found him half dressed in a hut in the grounds, still calling himself president of Haiti and insisting men were coming to kill him. He left the country by night on a French steamer and never returned.
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