Federico Tinoco Granados
President of Costa Rica from 1917 to 1919
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Through One-party state, World War I and Treaty of Versailles
Biography
Tinoco was born on 21 November 1868 in San José, Costa Rica. On 5 June 1898, he married María de las Mercedes Elodia Fernández Le Cappellain in San José; the couple never had children.
After a career in the army, he was appointed Minister of War in the cabinet of President Alfredo González. On 27 January 1917, he and his brother José Joaquín seized power in a coup d'état. Initially, the Tincoco regime had widespread support in Costa Rica, but it eventually developed into a repressive military dictatorship that attempted to crush all opposition. The United States, under President Woodrow Wilson, refused to give diplomatic recognition to the Tincoco regime, even though Tincoco declared war on the German Empire in May 1918 in the midst of World War I. Tincoco was unable to obtain US financial support, leading the government to print more money, which led to inflation and financial chaos.
Popular sentiment against Tinoco, which had already begun on 13 June 1919, quickly came to a head, and his brother was assassinated by early August. On 13 August 1919, Tinoco voluntarily resigned in favor of Juan Bautista Quirós, and went into exile in Europe, where he died in Paris on 7 September 1931.
Due to a dispute over the legitimacy of the Tinoco government, Costa Rica was not a party to the Treaty of Versailles and thus never unilaterally ended the state of war between itself and Germany. The technical state of war only ended after World War II, when Costa Rica was included in the Potsdam Agreement; Costa Rica did, however, issue another formal declaration of war against Germany on 11 December 1941, despite technically already being at war since 1918.