Venezuela during World War I

During World War I, Venezuela maintained a position of neutrality in the four years of the conflict during the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez.

For its position, his government was pressured and threatened by the conflict belligerants, and Gómez was accused of having pro-German sympathies.

Gómez used the position of Victorino Márquez Bustillos as provisional president, in practice a "prime minister", to refuse to discuss changing his stance.

While the majority of them served in the French Foreign Legion, there were exceptions that enlisted in the Ottoman or German armies.

[4] The same month the student and dissident Gustavo Machado leads a demonstration in favor of Belgium that sought to condemn the pro-German attitude assumed by Juan Vicente Gómez.