Latin America in WWI

I'm rereading the Tripartite Alliance Earth timeline again, and noticed that they had this happen-

Despite the harsh winter of 1916-17, the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean saw a series of decisive naval battles. In an attempt to choke off the transatlantic supply lines of the Western Allies, German U-boat submarines were dispatched to torpedo merchant vessels regardless of their nationality. Although Britain ran short on matériel for a time, the U-boat attacks on South American-flagged merchant vessels finally provoked the countries of South America -- first Brazil and Chile, then Argentina, Uruguay, and Venezuela -- into declaring war against Germany in January and February of 1917.

Granted, one of the points of that timeline has Latin America both stable and prosperous enough to be of the first world (while the U.S. falls apart in the '80s), but in OTL could South America have become involved with WWI, somehow?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
I'm rereading the Tripartite Alliance Earth timeline again, and noticed that they had this happen-



Granted, one of the points of that timeline has Latin America both stable and prosperous enough to be of the first world (while the U.S. falls apart in the '80s), but in OTL could South America have become involved with WWI, somehow?

That's actually pretty close to OTL - Brazil did active submarine hunting sorties since 1916 and declared war on the germans officially in 1917, along with Cuba, Panama and the Central American Republics. 4 other South American states did nothing but nominally cut relationships with the germans in support (IIRC they lacked a navy).

In the list, the ones that were not IOTL are Argentina, Chile and Venezuela. I think Uruguay was not at war officially (one of the 4)
 
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