Ypiranga incident Ypiranga incident The "Ypiranga" Incident occurred on April 21, 1914, at the port of Veracruz in Mexico. The SS "Ypiranga" was a German steamer that was commissioned to transport arms and munitions to the Mexican federal government under Victoriano Huerta. The United States had placed Mexico under an arms embargo to stifle the flow of weaponry to the war-torn state, then in the throes of civil war, forcing Huerta's government to look to Europe for armaments. "Ypiranga" tried to enter the harbor at Veracruz to unload on the first day of the US occupation but was detained by US troops
21-gun salute bloodshed of the revolution at its border, Mexico was forced to seek arms from European, and to a lesser extent Asian countries. During the occupation, a large German arms shipment aboard the SS Ypiranga was illegally seized, before being released and turned away by the U.S. occupation force. These events ultimately drove a wedge between Mexican-U.S. and German-U.S. relations, and after the start of World War I on 28 July 1914, would cause Germany to seek to influence Mexico into declaring war on the United States, in order to halt U.S. arms shipments to the Allies, and attempt to prevent