Fully alive to the serious work before him, Captain-General Calleja called upon Spain for help in quelling the rebellion. She sent 25,000 troops to Cuba and Calleja was relieved by Field-Marshal Campos. This was a popular move, for it was Campos who brought the Ten Years' War to a close, and it was generally believed he would repeat his success.
The first important act of Campos was to divide Cuba into zones, by means of a number of strongly guarded military lines, extending north and south across the narrower part of the island. They were called "trochas," and were expected to offer an impassable check to the insurgents, who, thus confined within definite limits, could be crushed or driven into the sea with little difficulty.
ANTONIO MACEO.
Lieutenant-General in the Cuban Army.
The scheme, however, was a failure. The rebels crossed the trochas at will, kept up their guerrilla tactics, picked off the regulars, destroyed railroad trains, and went so far as to shoot the messengers who dared to enter their camp with proposals for making peace on other terms than independence.
The Cubans were full of hope. They had their old leaders with them, men who had led them in former campaigns and proven their courage and skill. Recruits flocked to their standards, until it has been estimated that by the close of the year fully 20,000 insurgents were in the field. With such strong commands, the leaders were able to attain several important successes. Considerable bodies of the regulars were defeated with serious losses, and, in one instance, Campos succeeded in saving himself and command only by the artillery he happened to have with him.
Campos had prosecuted the war through civilized methods, and, therefore, fell into disfavor at home. He was not a representative Spanish commander, and was now superseded by General Valeriano Weyler, who arrived in Havana in February, 1896. This man had as much human feeling in his heart as a wounded tiger. His policy was extermination. He established two powerful trochas across the island, but they proved as ineffective as those of Campos. Then he ordered the planters and their families, who were able to pick up a wretched living on their places, to move into the nearest towns, where they would be able to raise no more food for the insurgents. It mattered not to Weyler that neither could these reconcentrados raise any food for themselves, and therefore must starve: that was no concern of his. As he viewed it, starvation was the right method of ridding Cuba of those who yearned for its freedom.
