History of the United States Navy the Panama Canal, which was completed in 1914. The Great White Fleet required almost 50 coaling ships, and during the cruise most of the fleet's coal was purchased from the British, who could deny access to fuel during a military crisis as they did with Russia during the Russo-Japanese War. When United States agents discovered that the German merchant ship "Ypiranga" was carrying illegal arms to Mexico, President Wilson ordered the Navy to stop the ship from docking at the port of Veracruz. On 21 April 1914, a naval brigade of marines and sailors occupied Veracruz. A total of 55
German interest in the Caribbean President Theodore Roosevelt forced the Germans to back down by sending his own fleet and threatening war if the Germans landed. By 1904 German naval strategists had turned their attention to Mexico where they hoped to establish a naval base in a Mexican port on the Caribbean. They dropped that plan. In 1917 they proposed a military alliance in a war against the United States in the Zimmermann Telegram, which accelerated American entry into World War I. German interest in the Caribbean German interest in the Caribbean was a series of unsuccessful proposals made by the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche