Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles

by A. T. Mahan

On the 19th of May the Department received probable, but not certain, information that the enemy's division had entered Santiago. This, as is now known, had occurred on the early morning of the same day. Singularly enough, less than twenty-four hours before, on the 18th, the auxiliary steamer St. Louis, Captain Goodrich, lately one of the American Transatlantic liners, had been close in with the mouth of this port, which had hitherto lain outside our sphere of operations, and had made a determined and successful attempt to cut the telegraph cable leading from Santiago to Jamaica. In doing this, the St. Louis, which, like her sister ships (except the St. Paul), had not yet received an armament suitable to her size or duties, lay for three-quarters of an hour under the fire of the enemy, at a distance of little over a mile. Fortunately a six-inch rifled gun on the Socapa battery, which was then being mounted, was not ready until the following day; and the St. Louis held her ground without injury until a piece had been cut out of the cable. In this work she was assisted by the tug Wompatuck, Lieutenant-Commander Jungen. The two vessels then moved away to Guantanamo Bay, having been off Santiago nearly forty-eight hours. It may certainly be charged as good luck to Cervera that their departure before his arrival kept our Government long in uncertainty as to the fact, which we needed to know in the most positive manner before stripping the Havana blockade in order to concentrate at Santiago. The writer remembers that the captain of the St. Louis, having soon afterwards to come north for coal, found it difficult to believe that he could have missed the Spanish vessels by so little; and the more so because he had spent the 19th off Guantanamo, less than fifty miles distant. By that time, however, our information, though still less than eye-witness, was so far probable as to preponderate over his doubts; but much perplexity would have been spared us had the enemy been seen by this ship, whose great speed would have brought immediate positive intelligence that all, and not only a part, had entered the port. On this point we did not obtain certainty until three weeks later.

In yet another respect luck, as it is commonly called, went against us at this time. The Wompatuck was sent by Captain Goodrich into the mouth of the harbor at Guantanamo to attempt to grapple the cable there. The tug and the St. Louis were both forced to retire, not by the weight of fire from the coast, but by a petty Spanish gunboat, aided by "a small gun on shore." Could this fact have been communicated to Commodore Schley when he decided to return to Key West on the 26th, on account of the difficulty of coaling, he might have seen the facility with which the place could be secured and utilized for a coaling station, as it subsequently was by Admiral Sampson, and that there thus was no necessity of starting back some seven hundred miles to Key West, when he had with him four thousand tons of coal in a collier. When the lower bay was occupied, on the 8th of June, our attacking vessels were only the naval unprotected cruiser Marblehead and the auxiliary cruiser Yankee, the former of which was with the Flying Squadron during its passage from Cienfuegos to Santiago, and throughout the subsequent proceedings up to Sampson's arrival off the latter port. No resistance to them was made by the Spanish gunboat, before which the vulnerable and inadequately armed St. Louis and Wompatuck had very properly retired.

Although the information received of Cervera's entering Santiago was not reliable enough to justify detaching Sampson's ships from before Havana, it was probable to a degree that made it imperative to watch the port in force at once. Telegrams were immediately sent out to assemble the four auxiliary cruisers—St. Paul, St. Louis, Harvard, and Yale—and the fast naval cruiser Minneapolis before the mouth of the harbor. The number of these ships shows the importance attached to the duty. It was necessary to allow largely for the chapter of accidents; for, to apply a pithy saying of the Chief of the Naval Bureau of Equipment,—"the only way to have coal enough is to have too much,"—the only way to assemble ships enough when things grow critical, is to send more than barely enough. All those that received their orders proceeded as rapidly as their conditions allowed, but the Department could not get hold of the St. Louis. This failure illustrates strongly the remark before made concerning the importance of knowing just where cruisers are to be found; for of all the five ships thus sought to be gathered, the St. Louis was, at the moment, the most important, through her experience of the defenceless state of the harbor at Guantanamo, which she could have communicated to Schley. The latter, when he arrived off Santiago on the evening of the 26th, found the Minneapolis, the St. Paul, and the Yale on the ground. The Harvard had already been there, but had gone for the moment to St. Nicolas Mole, with despatches that the Commodore had sent before him from Cienfuegos. She joined the squadron again early next day, May 27th.

On the morning of the 25th, the St. Paul had captured the British steamer Restormel, with 2,400 tons of coal for the Spanish squadron. This vessel had gone first to Puerto Rico, and from there had been directed to Curaçao, where she arrived two days after Cervera had departed. When taken she reported that two other colliers were in Puerto Rico when she sailed thence. This would seem to indicate that that port, and not Santiago, had been the original destination of the enemy, for it would have been quite as easy for the colliers to go to Santiago at once; probably safer, for we were not then thinking of Santiago in comparison with San Juan. This conjecture is strengthened by the fact that there were only 2,300 tons of Cardiff coal in Santiago, a condition which shows both how little the Spanish Government expected to use the port and how serious this capture at this instant was to the enemy.

The intention of Commodore Schley to return to Key West precipitated the movement of Admiral Sampson, with his two fastest ships, to Santiago; but the step would certainly have been taken as soon as the doubt whether all the Spanish division had entered was removed. The Department, under its growing conviction that the enemy was there, had already been increasingly disturbed by the delay of the Flying Squadron before Cienfuegos. This delay was due to the uncertainty of its commander as to whether or not Cervera was in the latter port; nor was there then known reason to censure the decision of the officer on the spot, whose information, dependent upon despatch vessels, or upon local scouting, was necessarily, in some respects, more meagre than that of the Department, in cable communication with many quarters. Nevertheless, he was mistaken, and each succeeding hour made the mistake more palpable and more serious to those in Washington; not, indeed, that demonstrative proof had been received there—far from it—but there was that degree of reasonable probability which justifies practical action in all life, and especially in war. There was not certainty enough to draw away our ships from before Havana,—to the exposure also of Key West,—but there was quite sufficient certainty to take the chance of leaving Cienfuegos and going off Santiago; for, to put the case at its weakest, we could not close both ports, and had, therefore, to make a choice. Against the risk of the enemy trying to dash out of Santiago and run for some other point, provision was made by a telegram to the Yale to inform every vessel off Santiago that the Flying Squadron was off Cienfuegos, and that orders had been sent it to proceed with all possible despatch off Santiago. If, therefore, the enemy did run out before the arrival of Schley, our scouts would know where to look for the latter; that is, somewhere on the shortest line between the two ports.

The embarrassment imposed upon the Department, under the telegram that the Flying Squadron was returning to Key West, was increased greatly by the fact that the five cruisers ordered before the port were getting very short of coal. If the squadron held its ground, this was comparatively immaterial. It would be injurious, unquestionably, to the communications and to the lookout, but not necessarily fatal to the object in view, which was that Cervera should not get out without a fight and slip away again into the unknown. But, if the squadron went, the cruisers could not stay, and the enemy might escape unobserved. Fortunately, on second thoughts, the Commodore decided to remain; but before that was known to the Department, Sampson had been directed, on May 29th, to proceed with the New York and the Oregon, the latter of which had only joined him on the 28th. The telegram announcing that the Flying Squadron would hold on came indeed before the two ships started, but it was not thought expedient to change their orders. Word also had then been received that two of the Spanish division had been sighted inside from our own vessels, and though this still left a doubt as to the whereabouts of the others, it removed the necessity of covering Key West, which had caused the Department, on the first knowledge of Schley's returning, to limit its orders to Sampson to be ready to set out for Santiago the instant the Flying Squadron returned. By the departure of the New York and the Oregon, the Indiana was left the only battleship to the westward. Her speed was insufficient to keep up with the two others, and it was determined to employ her in convoying the army when it was ready,—a duty originally designed for Sampson's division as a whole.

Admiral Sampson with his two ships arrived off Santiago on the 1st of June at 6 A.M., and established at once the close watch of the port which lasted until the sally and destruction of Cervera's squadron. "From that time on," says the Spanish Lieutenant Muller, who was in the port from the first, as second in command of the naval forces of the province, "the hostile ships, which were afterwards increased in number, established day and night a constant watch, without withdrawing at nightfall, as they used to do." Into the particulars of this watch, which lasted for a month and which effectively prevented any attempt of the enemy to go out by night, the writer does not purpose to enter, as his object in this series of papers is rather to elicit the general lessons derivable from the war than to give the details of particular operations. It is only just to say, however, that all the dispositions of the blockade,—to use the common, but not strictly accurate, expression,—from the beginning of June to the day of the battle, were prescribed by the commander-in-chief on the spot, without controlling orders, and with little, if any, suggestion on the subject from the Department. The writer remembers none; but he does well remember the interest with which, during the dark nights of the month, he watched the size of the moon, which was new on the 18th, and the anxiety each morning lest news might be received of a successful attempt to get away on the part of the enemy, whose reputed speed so far exceeded that of most of our ships. It was not then known that, by reason of the methods unremittingly enforced by our squadron, it was harder to escape from Santiago by night than by day, because of the difficulty of steering a ship through an extremely narrow channel, with the beam of an electric light shining straight in the eyes, as would there have been the case for a mile before reaching the harbor's mouth.

The history of the time—now nearly a year—that has elapsed since these lines were first written, impels the author, speaking as a careful student of the naval operations that have illustrated the past two centuries and a half, to say that in his judgment no more onerous and important duty than the guard off Santiago fell upon any officer of the United States during the hostilities; and that the judgment, energy, and watchfulness with which it was fulfilled by Admiral Sampson merits the highest praise. The lack of widely diffused popular appreciation of military conditions, before referred to in these papers, has been in nothing more manifest than in the failure to recognize generally, and by suitable national reward, both the difficulty of his task, and that the dispositions maintained by him ensured the impossibility of Cervera's escaping undetected, as well as the success of the action which followed his attempt at flight. This made further fighting on Spain's part hopeless and vindicated, if vindication were needed, the Department's choice of the commander-in-chief; but, as a matter of fact, the reply of that great admiral and experienced administrator, Lord St. Vincent, when he sent Nelson to the Nile, meets decisively all such cases: "Those who are responsible for results"—as the Navy Department (under the President), was—"must be allowed the choice of their agents." The writer may perhaps be excused for adding, that, having had no share, direct or indirect, in this selection, which entirely preceded his connection with the Department, he can have no motive of self-justification regarding an appointment for which he could deserve neither credit nor blame.

The office of the Navy Department at that moment, so far as Santiago itself was concerned, was chiefly administrative: to maintain the number of ships and their necessary supplies of coal, ammunition, and healthy food at the highest point consistent with the requirements of other parts of the field of war. During the month of June, being, as it was, the really decisive period of the campaign, these demands for increase of force naturally rose higher in every quarter. A numerous convoy had to be provided for the army expedition; the battle fleet had to be supplemented with several light cruisers; it became evident that the sphere of the blockade must be extended, which meant many more ships; and in the midst of all this, Cámara started for Suez. All this only instances the common saying, "It never rains but it pours." Our battle fleet before Santiago was more than powerful enough to crush the hostile squadron in a very short time, if the latter attempted a stand-up fight. The fact was so evident that it was perfectly clear nothing of the kind would be hazarded; but, nevertheless, we could not afford to diminish the number of armored vessels on this spot, now become the determining centre of the conflict. The possibility of the situation was twofold. Either the enemy might succeed in an effort at evasion, a chance which required us to maintain a distinctly superior force of battleships in order to allow the occasional absence of one or two for coaling or repairs, besides as many lighter cruisers as could be mustered for purposes of lookout, or, by merely remaining quietly at anchor, protected from attack by the lines of torpedoes, he might protract a situation which tended not only to wear out our ships, but also to keep them there into the hurricane season,—a risk which was not, perhaps, adequately realized by the people of the United States.

It is desirable at this point to present certain other elements of the naval situation which weightily affected naval action at the moment, and which, also, were probably overlooked by the nation at large, for they give a concrete illustration of conditions which ought to influence our national policy, as regards the navy, in the present and immediate future. We had to economize our ships because they were too few. There was no reserve. The Navy Department had throughout, and especially at this period, to keep in mind, not merely the exigencies at Santiago, but the fact that we had not a battleship in the home ports that could in six months be made ready to replace one lost or seriously disabled, as the Massachusetts, for instance, not long afterwards was, by running on an obstruction in New York Bay. Surprise approaching disdain was expressed, both before and after the destruction of Cervera's squadron, that the battle fleet was not sent into Santiago either to grapple the enemy's ships there, or to support the operations of the army, in the same way, for instance, that Farragut crossed the torpedo lines at Mobile. The reply—and, in the writer's judgment, the more than adequate reason—was that the country could not at that time, under the political conditions which then obtained, afford to risk the loss or disablement of a single battleship, unless the enterprise in which it was hazarded carried a reasonable probability of equal or greater loss to the enemy, leaving us, therefore, as strong as before relatively to the naval power which in the course of events might yet be arrayed against us. If we lost ten thousand men, the country could replace them; if we lost a battleship, it could not be replaced. The issue of the war, as a whole and in every locality to which it extended, depended upon naval force, and it was imperative to achieve, not success only, but success delayed no longer than necessary. A million of the best soldiers would have been powerless in face of hostile control of the sea. Dewey had not a battleship, but there can be no doubt that that capable admiral thought he ought to have one or more; and so he ought, if we had had them to spare. The two monitors would be something, doubtless, when they arrived; but, like all their class, they lacked mobility.