The History of Cuba, vol. 4

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

The plans of campaign gave the Cubans, however, a great advantage. Fully half of the Spaniards had to remain on garrison duty in the cities and towns, especially along the coast, so that the number free to take the field against the Cubans was no greater than that of the latter. With numbers anywhere near equal, the Cubans were almost sure to win, because of their superior morale and their better knowledge of the country.

The Cubans suffered much, it is true, from lack of supplies,[{52}] and this lack became the more marked and grievous as the Spaniards increased their naval forces and drew tighter and tighter their double cordon of vessels around the island. Several costly expeditions which were fitted out in the United States during the year came to grief, being either restrained from sailing by the United States authorities or intercepted and captured by the Spanish. One such vessel, fully laden with valuable supplies, was seized at the mouth of the Delaware River, as it was setting out for Cuba, and the cargo was confiscated. The company of Cubans in command of the vessel were arrested and brought to trial, but were acquitted since the mere exportation of arms and ammunition in an unarmed merchant vessel was no violation of law. Far different was the fate of any such who were captured by the Spanish at the other end of the voyage, as they were approaching the Cuban coast. The mildest fate they could expect was a term of many years of penal servitude at Ceuta. Such was the sentence imposed upon sailors who were guilty of nothing more than smuggling the contraband goods into Cuba. As for Juan Gualberto Gomez and his comrades in an expedition which presumptively was intended for fighting as well as smuggling, twenty years at Ceuta was their sentence.

During the summer of 1895 a severe but necessary order was issued by the Cuban commander in chief. This, addressed to the people of Camaguey Province, directed the cessation of all plantation work, save such as was necessary for the food supply of the families there resident; and also strictly forbade the supplying of any food to the Spanish garrisons in the towns and cities. Disobedience to these orders, it was plainly stated, would mean the destruction of the offending plantation. It was the purpose of General Gomez to deprive the Spaniards[{53}] of all local supplies and make them dependent upon shipments of food, even, from Spain. This meant, no doubt, much hardship to the Cuban people. But there was little complaint, and it was seldom that the rule was violated. Whenever a flagrant violation was detected, the torch was applied, and canefield and buildings were reduced to ashes. There was also much destruction of railroads, bridges, telegraph lines and what not, to deprive the Spanish of means of transport and communication. It was a fine demonstration of the patriotism of the Cuban people that they almost universally acquiesced in this plan of campaign, without demur and without repining, although it of course meant heavy loss and untold inconvenience and often severe suffering, to them. They realized that they were at war, and that war was not to be waged with lace fans and rosewater.

At the end of September, after the close of the Constitutional Convention, preparations were made for renewing the military campaign with more aggressive vigor. Jose Maceo was assigned to the command of the eastern part of Oriente, General Capote and General Sanchez took respectively the northern and southern parts of the western half, and General Rodriguez led the advance into Camaguey. Maximo Gomez himself accompanied Rodriguez's army, and was presently joined by Antonio Maceo, and together they planned the great campaign of the war, which was conceived by Gomez and executed by Maceo. This was nothing less than the extension of the war into every province and indeed every district and village of the island, by marching westward from Oriente to the further end of Pinar del Rio.

Early in October Antonio Maceo set out to join Gomez in Camaguey, taking with him 4,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. At San Nicolas he suffered a setback at the[{54}] hands of General Aldave and a superior force of Spaniards, but resolutely continued his progress. Gomez meanwhile pushed on into Santa Clara, established headquarters near Las Tunas, where he could be in touch with expeditions from Jamaica, and began the aggressive against the Spaniards around Sancti Spiritus. Roloff, meanwhile, was operating at the northern part of the province, at Vueltas. Martinez Campos himself was in the field near Sancti Spiritus, but failed to check the Cuban advance. In fact, at almost every point the campaign was going steadily against the Spanish; so much against them that Campos feared to let the truth be known to the world. Accordingly he issued a decree forbidding the publication of any news concerning the war save that which was officially given out at his headquarters or by his chief of staff at Havana. Only Spanish and foreign—no Cuban—correspondents were permitted to accompany the army, and they only on their compliance with the rules.

Still Campos appeared to cherish the thought that he could end the war by compromise, through pursuing a policy of leniency toward at least the rank and file of the insurgents; and in this he had the support of the Madrid government. That government had staked its all upon him, and was naturally disposed to give him a free hand and to approve everything that he did. However, it insisted that the rebellion must be crushed and that no further reforms for Cuba could be considered until that was done. It was feeling the strain of the war severely, especially since its last loan for war funds had to be placed at more than fifty per cent discount.

October was a disastrous month for the Spanish at sea. One of their gunboats was wrecked on a key, and another, which had just been purchased in the United States, was[{55}] boarded and seized by a party of revolutionists in the Cauto River, stripped of all its guns and ammunition, and disabled and scuttled. General Enrique Collazo, who earlier in the season had several times been baffled in such attempts, at last got away from Florida with a strong party of Cubans and Americans and effected a safe landing in Cuba. A little later Carlos Manuel de Cespedes did the same, bringing a large cargo of arms. Two expeditions also came from Canada, under General Francisco Carillo and Colonel Jose Maria Aguirre. The latter, by the way, was an American citizen who had been arrested in Havana at the very beginning of the war, along with Julio Sanguilly, but was released at the very urgent insistence of the United States government. Sanguilly, who was suspected by some Cubans of having betrayed their cause, was held, tried, and condemned to life imprisonment; a fact which cleared him of suspicion of complicity with the Spaniards.

Maceo advanced through Camaguey and on November 12 reached Las Villas with an army of 8,000 men. Gomez had meanwhile moved northward almost to the Gulf coast, and was operating with 5,000 men between Los Remedios and Sagua la Grande, where he joined forces with Sanchez, who had marched westward, and with Roloff, Suarez, Cespedes and Collazo. He established headquarters near the Matanzas border, where he was in touch with Lacret, Matagas and other guerrilla leaders who were actively engaged in the latter province. In that same month Maceo fought a pitched battle with General Navarro, near Santa Clara, and a few days later Gomez similarly fought General Suarez Valdes in the same region. These were two of the greatest battles of the war, in point of numbers engaged and losses suffered, and were both handsomely won by the Cubans.[{56}]

In view of these losses, Campos welcomed the arrival of 30,000 additional troops from Spain, under General Pando and General Marin. He also resorted to recruiting troops in some of the South American countries, particularly in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, thinking to find them hardier and better able to endure the climate and the hardships of Cuba than men from the Peninsula. Such recruiting was not regarded with favor in those countries, where sympathy was generally on the side of the Cubans; but a considerable number of adventurers were found who were willing to serve for good pay as soldiers of fortune. More and more, too, the Spanish soldiery indulged in excesses against the inhabitants of Cuba as well as against the revolutionists in the field, and the conflict showed symptoms of degenerating into the savagery which marked it at a later date. It is to be recalled to the credit of Campos that he resisted all such tendencies, and that he indeed sent back to Spain two prominent Generals, Bazan and Salcedo, because of their barbarous methods and their criticisms of his humanity. General Pando, on arriving with the fresh troops from Spain, was placed in command at Santiago; General Marin was assigned to Santa Clara; General Mella operated in Camaguey; and General Arderius was charged with the hopeless task of guarding Matanzas, Havana and Pinar del Rio from invasion by the revolutionists.

The Cuban government, of President Cisneros and his colleagues, established its headquarters at Las Tunas, and there approved another military proclamation by the Commander in Chief, ordering the burning of all cane fields and the laying waste of all plantations which were providing or were likely to provide supplies to the Spaniards, and threatening with death all persons found giving the Spaniards aid or comfort. One notable blow was[{57}] struck at the south, before the final advance was made toward Havana and the west. This was at the middle of December. Campos himself was at Cienfuegos, with 20,000 troops, and Gomez and Maceo decided to give him battle. The redoubtable negro farmer, Quintin Bandera, from Oriente, who at the age of sixty-three years had become one of the most agile, daring and successful guerrilla leaders, raided the Spanish lines and drew out a considerable force, upon which the Cubans fell at Mal Tiempo, thirty miles north of Cienfuegos. Only a couple of thousand men were engaged on each side, but it was one of the most significant battles of the war, because it was the first in which the Cubans relied upon the machete, and the result of the experiment made that fearful weapon thereafter their favorite arm, particularly in cavalry charges, and it struck a terror into the hearts of the Spanish soldiers such as nothing else could do. The machete was an enormous knife, as long as a cavalry sabre or longer, with a single edge as sharp as a razor on a blade almost as heavy as the head of a woodsman's axe. It had been used on sugar plantations, for cutting cane, and was so heavy that a single stroke was sufficient to cut through half a dozen of the thickest canes. Swung by the expert and sinewy arm of a Cuban soldier, it would sever a man's head from his body, or cut off an arm or leg, as surely as the blade of a guillotine. At Mal Tiempo a whole company of Spanish regulars was set upon by Cuban horsemen armed with nothing but machetes, and every one of them was killed.