1937, December 4–14: (The Garde Politicizes: The Thomonde Raid, Armand Withholds Ammunition, and the Private Army in the Palace Basement): The frontier still…

1937, December 4–14: (The Garde Politicizes: The Thomonde Raid, Armand Withholds Ammunition, and the Private Army in the Palace Basement): The frontier still swarmed with vagabond robbers ready to raid either side, but given the tensions following the massacres it seemed strange that on December 4, 1937, a mixed band of some hundred Haitians and Dominicans swarmed down on Thomonde, twenty miles inside Haiti, chased off the corporal and three soldiers of the avant-poste, and took over the town before retiring back into Santo Domingo. Ten days later, the same crew augmented to 200 made a swoop on Hinche, where the Garde had strength to resist and pursue them to the border, capturing several wounded Dominicans. One Excellent Desrosiers, calling himself general, a Haitian exile among several whom Trujillo had been harboring, led the raiders. What was even more puzzling was that after the Thomonde raid, when Colonel Calixte alerted one of the Garde’s mobile companies to reinforce Hinche and press pursuit, Major Armand refused to issue ammunition from the palace basement and thus held up the column forty-eight hours until Calixte appealed personally to the president. Trouble lay within the Palais and its instigator was Armand — mulâtre intriguer and Vincent relative who had not only carved out a private army in the Garde Présidentielle, which by 1938 numbered 550 picked men, but had control of the heavy weapons and ammunition reserves, the fighting sinews of the Garde. At least since early 1937 and probably before, Armand had been undercutting his commandant Colonel Calixte by intimating to Vincent that Calixte was disloyal.