The Naval History of the United States. Volume 2

by Willis J. Abbot

CHAPTER I.

THE STATE OF CUBA. — PERTINACITY OF THE REVOLUTIONISTS. — SPAIN'S SACRIFICES AND FAILURE. — SPANISH BARBARITIES. — THE POLICY OF RECONCENTRATION. — AMERICAN SYMPATHY AROUSED. — THE STRUGGLE IN CONGRESS. — THE ASSASSINATION OF THE "MAINE." — REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. — THE ONWARD MARCH TO BATTLE.

short time after the inauguration of William McKinley as President of the United States in March, 1897, it became apparent that the disordered condition of Cuba under Spanish rule was destined inevitably to become an issue which the United States must help to settle. For two years a great part of the island had been in open and determined revolt against Spanish rule. Though the forces of the King had been able to hold the seaports, thus cutting off the insurgents from regular communication with the outer world and making impotent their efforts to secure recognition from foreign powers, the patriots under Maceo and Gomez held control of the interior, established a government of their own, enforced order, and levied taxes. Enormous sacrifices were made by the Spanish people to re-establish sovereignty in the island. More than 300,000 troops were sent thither to be cruelly cut down by plague and pestilence. A nation, long on the verge of bankruptcy, incurred uncomplainingly prodigious additional indebtedness to save for its boy king—Alphonso XIII. was at this time but twelve years old—its most precious possession in the west, the Pearl of the Antilles. Queen Isabella of Spain pawned her jewels that Columbus might have the means to press his voyage of discovery into unknown seas, but in the closing years of this century the people of Spain pawned their national assets, put even themselves and their posterity in pawn to hold for Spain the last relics of the empire which Columbus won for her.

Though we were forced to draw the sword upon Spain in the cause of humanity and human liberty, the man of reason, and of a sense of justice, will not withhold from the people of that sorely chastened nation admiration for their loyalty and the sacrifices they made in their national cause.

But the Spanish people were cruelly betrayed by their own rulers. The generals whom they sent to Cuba gave less thought to the suppression of the insurrection than to filling their own pockets. Out of the millions and millions of pesetas set aside by an already impoverished people for the needs of war, a great part was stolen by generals and by army contractors. The young conscripts, sent from Spain to a land where the air is pestilential to the unacclimated, were clothed and shod in shoddy; their food invited disease, and when they fell ill it was found that the greed of the generals had consumed the funds that should have provided sufficient hospital service. Comparatively few fell before the bullets or machetes of the insurgents—for, as we shall see, the revolutionists adopted the tactics of Fabius—but by thousands they succumbed to fevers of every kind. Death without glory was the hapless lot of the Spanish conscript.

The Patriot generals, Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo, met this situation with consummate skill. The military problem which confronted them was one which chiefly demanded self-restraint. They were lamentably destitute of arms and munitions of war. Cartridges were a dearly prized acquisition, and it is worth noting, as an indication of the venality which corrupted the Spanish army, that a considerable share of the insurgent ammunition was obtained by direct traffic with the Spanish soldiers. But in the main the Patriots were armed with heterogeneous firearms and the machete—a heavy, sword-like knife, used, in peace, for cutting cane. The latter at close quarters was a formidable weapon, and the insurgents became singularly proficient in its use; developing a style of machete play almost as exact and scientific as the school of the rapier in ancient France.

This disparity in weapons, however, made it imperative that the insurgents should avoid pitched battles with the invaders, who were armed with Mauser rifles, that do deadly work at two miles' distance. Accordingly, Gomez and Maceo confined themselves to harrying the Spanish army of occupation on every side and destroying all vestiges of Spanish authority outside the large towns. Warfare of this sort inevitably develops into the most cruel, the most barbarous of conflicts. So it was in this case. That Cuba might be made desolate, unable to pay anything toward the price of its own subjection, the insurgents relentlessly destroyed standing crops, burned great fields of standing sugar cane, destroyed mills, dynamited railroads, tore up roads, and demolished aqueducts. That the peaceful inhabitants—the pacificos—might not give aid or comfort to the revolutionists, General Weyler caused them to be driven from their farms and herded in the towns still under Spanish rule. There they stayed, in squalid huts or under thatched sheds, AND STARVED. Systematically, with devilish ingenuity, Spain planned to crush Cuba, not by fighting the revolutionists, but by starving women and children, old men and peaceful farm hands. It is estimated, and conservatively, that more than 500,000 people had been starved to death before the United States interfered.

Indeed, it was upon the hapless pacificos that the horrors of war chiefly descended. They were ruined, but that was the least. Their property, the honor of their women, and their lives were held to be the legitimate spoil of any Spanish soldier, and the tacit legalization of loot, rapine, and murder was taken full advantage of. More inhuman even than the regular soldiery were the guerrillas, licensed free companions, who roamed the island ever in search of spoil. The deeds of these wretches beggar description, and so foul was the repute of their corps that prisoners from their number taken by the Cubans were instantly put to death. It is just to say here that the testimony of Americans who served with Gomez and Maceo proves that those leaders enforced humane and orderly conduct upon their followers. The death penalty was more than once imposed upon useful and brave soldiers, who had been guilty of outrage. Nothing could more vividly indicate the moral difference between the Cuban and the Spaniard than the contrast between their methods of prosecuting the war. Though outlawed, the Revolutionists observed with scrupulous exactness the rules of civilized warfare, while the Spaniards murdered helpless prisoners, even killing the wounded in their beds, had recourse to torture and to nameless mutilation, in order to wreak their hatred, and let loose a swarm of bandits and ruffians to prey upon the defenseless people of the island.

Out of warfare such as this, waged on an island only a few hours' sail from our coast, and in which were heavy American interests, it was inevitable that invasion of American rights should proceed, and the wrath of the American people be awakened. Our citizens owned large plantations in Cuba, which were destroyed either by the Spaniards or the insurgents. Many Americans living in the island or visiting there, were arrested by the Spanish authorities, and one, at least, Dr. Ruiz, was murdered in Morro Castle, while another a newspaper correspondent, was cut to pieces by guerrillas. For Spanish outrages upon the lives or property of American citizens, claims aggregating $60,000,000 were on file with the United States Department of State before the declaration of war. The general sympathy of the American people with the insurgents, as well as the hope of profit, led to repeated efforts by our citizens to smuggle arms and munitions of war to the Cubans, and in time it became necessary to employ a great part of the United States navy in police duty on the high seas for the purpose of stopping the filibusters. This service in behalf of Spain was exceedingly repugnant to the American mind, and contributed greatly to the growing feeling of irritation toward Spain.