The History of Cuba, vol. 4

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Instead, Gomez decided first to effect the reduction of Arroyo Blanco. This was a small and unimportant town in the Province of Camaguey, near the Santa Clara border; containing a Spanish garrison under Captain Escobar. Gomez first summoned Escobar to surrender,[{83}] in order to avoid the destruction which would be caused by the bombardment of the place with a dynamite gun, which he threatened to begin forthwith. Escobar defied him, and the bombardment was undertaken, but proved ineffective, and before Gomez could capture the place strong Spanish reenforcements arrived and the attempt had to be abandoned. Thereafter Gomez contented himself with sending several strong bands westward, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Spaniards wherever they could, while he himself remained near Sancti Spiritus, also engaging in irregular operations.

There he was presently menaced by Weyler himself. That formidable foe had practically achieved the conquest of Pinar del Rio. After Maceo's death the Cuban forces in that province had largely dispersed, some abandoning the struggle altogether as hopeless, and others going to the east, to join themselves with Gomez, Garcia or other surviving leaders. Only a few roving bands remained. Accordingly Weyler announced that the western province was pacified. That was sufficiently true; but it was conspicuously true in the sense expressed by Tacitus, and Byron. They had made a solitude, and called it peace. Seldom had any comparable region been so thoroughly devastated and desolated. Then Weyler felt himself free to lead his army elsewhere.

He set out from Havana with an imposing array of troops, and marched through the heart of the province and of Matanzas, into Santa Clara. On the way there was little fighting to do, not even to beat off guerrilla bands. His attention was given, therefore, to devastating the country, and to driving the inhabitants into "concentration camps," where they were doomed to starve to death by thousands. By the end of February he was triumphantly encamped at the foot of the Guamuhaya[{84}] Mountains, between Santa Clara and Trinidad, and had the satisfaction of having wrought vast destruction upon the property of Cubans and upon the essential supplies of the Cuban army.

A few weeks later Quintin Bandera with a small force came from Camaguey and, by wading through the shallow water of the Bay of Sabanabamar, got around the trocha and joined Gomez. The latter directed him to continue westward, and to harass the Spaniards with guerrilla attacks. This was done, and Bandera proceeded as far as Trinidad. Then failing to receive necessary support he turned back, and on July 4 was killed in a skirmish at Pelayo. East of the trocha Calixto Garcia continued his formidable career against such Spanish forces as remained in that region. He captured Las Tunas after forty-eight hours of almost incessant fighting. In Matanzas and Havana the revolutionary bands were badly broken up by the Spaniards, and they seemed to lack efficient leadership. Their leader, General Lacret, fell into an unfortunate controversy with Gomez over his treatment of Cubans who disregarded government orders, especially in their attitude toward the Spaniards. Gomez, remorseless, would have had them shot as traitors, but Lacret insisted upon more lenient treatment of them, realizing that they were almost literally "between the devil and the deep sea" and were therefore entitled to sympathetic consideration. The outcome was that Gomez relieved Lacret of his command and appointed Alexander Rodriguez in his place, in Matanzas. That officer failed to command the loyalty of his troops, and the result was that the latter generally deserted and dispersed. Mayia Rodriguez was then ordered to the scene, but was unable to collect a sufficient force, and remained in Santa Clara, hemmed in by the[{85}] Spanish. General Jose Maria Aguirre, who died in December, 1896, was succeeded in command in the Province of Havana by Nestor Aranguren, who performed some creditable minor operations, particularly against Spanish railroad communications, but achieved nothing of real importance. His lieutenant, General Adolfo Castillo, in the southern part of the province, was killed in battle, in September, and was succeeded by Juan Delgado. The Spanish General Parrado in October marched without opposition as far as Los Palos, and there received the surrender of a small Cuban band; and in November General Pando with a powerful army made his way without serious opposition from Havana to the western part of Oriente.

It was during this year that Weyler's ever infamous "concentration" policy, which was really a policy of extermination, reached its infernal climax and was then repudiated and abandoned. This system, as already related, was decreed on October 21, 1896. It required all Cubans, men, women and children, to leave their homes in the rural regions and enter concentration camps. These were simply huge pens, enclosed with fences and barbed wire and guarded by Spanish soldiers. There the hapless prisoners were huddled together, without shelter from the elements, and with little or no food save such as could be procured by stealth. There was none to be had within the enclosures, of course, and the prisoners could not go out to get any, even if any was to be found in the devastated country around them. Their friends outside seldom dared approach the camps to bring them food, because as they had not themselves surrendered as commanded by Weyler, they were liable to be shot at sight.

Elsewhere Cubans by thousands were driven into towns[{86}] and cities which were still under Spanish control, and were there kept prisoners within the Spanish lines. They were not quite so badly off as those in the concentration camps, though the difference was not great. They had no means of obtaining food, save as the municipal authorities, more merciful than Weyler, opened "soup kitchens" and thus in charity kept some of them from starvation. As it was the mortality from starvation, disease and exposure was appalling. As it was reported that many of these sufferers were American citizens, the President of the United States asked Congress to appropriate $50,000 for their relief. This was done, and the sum was sent to the Consul-General at Havana. He was, however, able to reach only a small proportion of the sufferers, and thus was presently compelled to report that he had been unable to expend more than a fraction of the sum at his disposal. This monstrous policy of waging war against non-combatants, including women and children, did more perhaps than anything else to crystallize public opinion throughout the United States against Weyler and against the Spanish government which he represented and which was responsible for him, and to strengthen the demand that was being made for intervention in behalf of humanity.

This demand was made not merely by the "yellow press," which was inspired by sordid and sinister motives, but also by the most thoughtful, disinterested and upright men of America. Fitzhugh Lee, the highly competent and trustworthy consul-general at Havana, officially reported in December, 1897, that in the Province of Havana alone there had been 101,000 of the "reconcentrados," of which more than half had died. About 400,000 innocent and unoffending persons, chiefly women and children, had been transformed into imprisoned[{87}] paupers, to be sustained by charity or to die of disease and famine. Senator Proctor, of Vermont, one of the foremost members of the United States Senate, made a personal tour of investigation in such parts of the island as were accessible, and reported to his colleagues that "It is not peace, nor is it war; it is desolation and distress, misery and starvation." The people of the United States thus came to the conclusion that the Spanish were unable to subdue the Cubans, and that the Cubans were unable to expel the Spanish, and that the war was therefore nothing but a campaign of destruction and extermination, which would end only when one side was exhausted or extirpated. It was impossible that a civilized and humane nation should regard such a spectacle at its very doors with indifference. We have hitherto quoted the significant remarks of President Cleveland on the subject in his message of December, 1896, clearly foreshadowing intervention. His successor, President McKinley, in his message of just a year later, in December, 1897, expressed in slightly different language the identical convictions and purposes. He said:

"The near future will demonstrate whether the indispensable conditions of a righteous peace, just alike to the Cubans and to Spain, as well as equitable to all our interests so intimately involved in the welfare of Cuba, is likely to be attained. If not, the exigency of further and other action by the United States will remain to be taken. When that time comes, that action will be determined in the line of indisputable right and duty....[{88}] If it shall hereafter appear to be a duty imposed by our obligations to ourselves, to civilization, and to humanity, to intervene with force, it shall be without fault on our part, and only because the necessity for such action will be so clear as to command the support and approval of the civilized world."

If McKinley, a less aggressive and more conciliatory man than Cleveland, spoke a little less positively than his predecessor, in that he employed the hypothetical form, the purport of his words was the same. The one a Democratic President, the other a Republican President, long before that incident of the Maine which has incorrectly been regarded by some as the cause of the American war with Spain, openly and in the most explicit manner contemplated the prospect of forcible intervention in Cuba and of consequent war.