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In 1925, a coalition government was formed in Nicaragua upon the election of
President Carlos Solorzano (fl. 1920s), a conservative, and Vice President Juan
Bautista Sacasa (1874-1946), a liberal; shortly the US Marines left the country
after 13 years of occupation. On October 25, 1925, General Emiliano Chamorro
Vargas (1871-1966) and Adolfo Diaz (1874-1964) seized power by a coup d'etat,
driving Sacasa and other liberals out of the government; after Solorzano's
resignation, Chamorro became president in January 1926, but he was not
recognized by the United States, which sent gun-boats and troops to Nicaragua
after a liberal revolt broke out under General Augusto Cesar Sandino
(1893-1934), whose supporters seized US property. A truce was arranged; Chamorro
resigned and left the country in October 1926; and the Nicaraguan congress
elected the conservative Diaz president.
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A moderate conservative, Carlos Solórzano, was elected president in open
elections in 1924, with liberal Juan Bautista Sacasa as his vice president.
After taking office on January 1, 1925, Solórzano requested that the United
States delay the withdrawal of its troops from Nicaragua. Nicaragua and the
United States agreed that United States troops would remain while United States
military instructors helped build a national military force. In June, Solórzano's
government contracted with retired United States Army Major Calvin B. Carter to
establish and train the National Guard. The United States marines left Nicaragua
in August 1925. However, President Solórzano, who had already purged the
liberals from his coalition government, was subsequently forced out of power in
November 1925 by a conservative group who proclaimed General Emiliano Chamorro
(who had also served as president from 1917 to 1921), as president in January
1926.
Fearing a new round of conservative-liberal violence and worried that a
revolution in Nicaragua might result in a leftist victory as happened a few
years earlier in Mexico, the United States sent marines, who landed on the
Caribbean coast in May 1926, ostensibly to protect United States citizens and
property. United States authorities in Nicaragua mediated a peace agreement
between the liberals and the conservatives in October 1926. Chamorro resigned,
and the Nicaraguan Congress elected Adolfo Díaz as president (Díaz had
previously served as president, 1911- 16).
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