THE BUTCHER'S CAMPAIGN.
Now let us go back to the making of history, to the time when the
butcher Weyler came to Cuba to assume the governor-generalship.
By this time the Cuban question had been brought authoritatively before
the United States Senate, the people were beginning to be strongly
roused with indignation at the state of affairs in Cuba, and there was
considerable excitement when the news of Weyler's appointment became
known.
Strange to say, the insurgents rejoiced rather than grieved at this
appointment, the cause of which is not far to seek. They knew thoroughly
well Weyler's character, and what his policy was more than likely to be.
They thought that it would drive all the Cubans, who were wavering, into
their ranks and would at last force the United States, whose people,
when all is said and done, were their natural allies and defenders, to
intervene.
After the battle of Coliseo, Gomez and Maceo made their way through
Madruga, Nueva-Paz and Guines. Then they destroyed, at a large number of
points, the very important railway which connected Havana with Batabano,
and also cut the telegraph wires. When they had accomplished this, the
two leaders separated, Gomez to advance in the direction of Havana, and
Maceo to invade Pinar del Rio, which is in the extreme west of the
island.
Gomez succeeded in burning several more or less important suburbs of
Havana.
Almost the first military movement that Weyler made was an attempt to
cut off Maceo and prevent his communication with the other detachments
of the Cuban army. It seemed to be his chief purpose to compass the
death of the mulatto leader, a purpose which at last was most
unfortunately accomplished, but then only through treachery.
In emulation of his predecessor, Weyler also tried his hand at trocha
building. He constructed a fence of this description across Cuba between
the port of Artemisa and the bay of Majana, about twenty-five miles from
Havana.
It may be of interest to describe this particular trocha, as it was one
of, if not the most important, and a good example of the others.
As its name, trocha, signifies, it was a ditch, or rather two ditches,
some three yards wide and the same in depth, with a road between them
broad enough to allow cavalry to pass. On each bank was a barbed wire
fence, to stop the assailants' progress. Beyond the two ditches, were
trous-de-loup, or wolf-traps, from twenty to seventy feet apart. At
every hundred yards or so there were fortifications. After night fell,
this fortified line was lighted by electricity. Twelve thousand men
comprised the garrison, besides outposts of half as many more.
Weyler prided himself greatly upon this trocha, which was intended to
keep the rebels at a distance.
But, in spite of all the precautions taken, the wily Maceo and his men
more than once crossed the trocha, and the Spanish were not the wiser
until it was too late to prevent them.
Once, when they had passed the obstruction without a shot being fired,
the insurgents tore up some distance of a railway line on the further
side of the trocha, the Cuban leader remarking:
"We did this just to show the enemy that we noticed their plaything."
The headquarters of the insurgents was and is up to the present writing,
a place called Cubitas, the top of a mountain, something over a score of
miles from Puerto Principe. It is practically impregnable, only a very
narrow spiral path leading up to it. A handful of men could defend it
against a large army. The little plain on top of the mountain has an
area of more than a square mile. It is arable land, and many food
products are raised there. The insurgents have constructed here quite a
number of wooden buildings, and they have also a dynamite factory. It
would take a long time to capture the place by storm or to starve the
defenders out.
The Cubans have had one great advantage, that is, they are acclimated.
Quite the contrary is true of the Spanish army of invasion, and their
ranks have suffered far more from the climate than they have from the
bullets of the foe. Added to this, their wages are greatly in arrears
and the rations provided for them are unwholesome and insufficient. The
surgeons have a very small supply of quinine and antiseptics, both of
which are absolutely essential.
The strength of the two armies, at the time of Weyler's arrival in Cuba
was about as follows: The government has 200,000 men, including the
60,000 volunteers, while the insurgents numbered not much more than a
fourth of this, some fifty or sixty thousand men, which were scattered
among the various provinces, the largest proportion being massed in
Santiago de Cuba.
There were twenty-four generals in the Cuban army, nineteen being white,
three black, one a mulatto, and one an Indian; of the thirty-four
colonels, twenty-seven were white, five were black, and two were
mulattoes.
The record of the mortality among the Spanish soldiers is an appalling
one, something simply ghastly to contemplate.
Harper's Weekly has published statistics concerning Spanish losses in
Cuba, which were obtained from a source that it was forbidden to
disclose. In two years from March, 1895 to March, 1897, 1,375 were
killed in battle, 765 died of wounds, and 8,627 were wounded, but
recovered. Ten per cent. of the killed and fatally wounded were
officers, and 5 per cent. of the wounded died of yellow fever, while 127
officers and about 40,000 men succumbed to other maladies.
Another authority gives the following rates of losses: Out of every
thousand, ten were killed, sixty-six died of yellow fever, two hundred
and one died of other diseases, while one hundred and forty-three were
sent home, either sick or wounded.
Out of two hundred thousand men sent to Cuba in two years, only in the
neighborhood of ninety-six thousand, capable of bearing arms, were left
the first of March, 1897.
During our own civil war one and sixty-five one-hundredths per cent. of
all those mustered into the United States service were killed in action
or died of their wounds; ten per cent. were wounded, and a little less
than two per cent. died of wounds and from unknown causes.
That we lost during the civil war, 186,216 men from disease is terrible
enough, but to equal the percentage of the Spanish losses from the same
cause, during twice the time that our war lasted, would bring the total
up to a million and a half of men.
From the very beginning, the insurgents held possession of the two
eastern provinces, Santiago and Puerto Principe. It was only by
unremitting efforts and the loss of many lives that the Spaniards
retained their hold on the district about Bayamo.
Late in 1890 General Calixto Garcia, now second in rank to Gomez, and
playing an important part in the aiding of the American troops, landed
on the island with strong reinforcements. Garcia, who was also a veteran
of the Ten Years' War had several more or less important engagements
with the Spanish, in almost all of which he was victorious.
Antonio Maceo, in order to consult with Gomez, crossed the trocha on
the night of December 4, 1896. The next day, at the head of five hundred
men and within an hour's ride of Havana, he was killed in a skirmish,
just as he had made the declaration that all was going well. A young son
of Gomez, who was suffering from an old wound, and who refused to leave
the ground until his chief was carried away, was also killed.
There is not the shadow of a doubt but that this double catastrophe was
due to the treachery of one of Maceo's companions, a certain Dr.
Zertucha.
One of Maceo's aides tells the story as follows: "Firing was heard near
Punta Brava, and Zertucha, who had ridden off to one side of the road,
came galloping back, crying: "Come with me! Come with me! Quick! Quick!"
Maceo at once put spurs to his horse, and, followed by his five aids,
rode swiftly after the physician, who plunged into the thick growth on
the side of the road.
The party had only ridden a few yards, when Zertucha, bent low in his
saddle, and swerved sharply to one side, galloping away like mad.
Almost at the same moment, a volley was fired by a party of Spanish
soldiers hidden in the dense underbrush, and Maceo and four of his men
dropped out of their saddles, mortally wounded."
The single survivor, the man whose words are quoted above, contrived to
get back to his own party and brought them to the scene of the tragedy.
The Spaniards were driven away, Maceo's body was found stripped, and
young Gomez had been stabbed, and his skull was broken.
The traitor Zertucha surrendered to the Spanish by whom naturally he was
treated with the utmost kindness and consideration.
Afterwards Zertucha attempted to blacken Maceo's memory by declaring
that he was disheartened and desperate, and that his death was the
result of his own folly.
Senor Palma says of this:
"General Maceo was loved and supported by all men struggling for Cuban
independence, whether in a military or civil capacity. If a man was ever
idolized by his people, that man was General Maceo. Dr. Zertucha knows
that, but perhaps he has an object in making his false assertions."
An object? Of course he had an object--the currying of favor with the
Spaniards, the saving of his own wretched carcass and the obtaining of
the blood-money due him.
So perished the last of the Maceos, eight brothers, all having died
before him in the cause of Cuban liberty.
The following poem on Maceo's death appeared in the New York Sun:
Antonio Maceo.
"Stern and unyielding, though others might bow to the tempest;
Slain by the serpent who cowered in hiding behind thee;
Slumber secure where the hands of thy comrades have laid thee;
Dim to thine ear be the roar of the battle above thee.
Set now is thy sun, going down in darkness and menace,
While through the thick-gathering clouds one red ray of vengeance
Streams up to heaven, blood red, from the place where thou liest.
Though the sword of Death's angel lies cold on thy forehead,
Still to the hearts of mankind speaks the voice of thy spirit:
Still does thine angry shade arrest the step of the tyrant.
"V. B."
Maceo's death was a terrible blow to the insurgents, but, with
indomitable spirit they rallied and plunged with renewed energy into the
fray.
Maceo was succeeded by General Rius Rivers, who does not seem to have
been in any way the equal of his predecessor.
Having accomplished by low treachery what he had not succeeded in doing
by open, honorable warfare, Weyler increased his efforts to put down the
rebellion in Pinar del Rio, where Maceo had been in command.
The trochas now became of advantage, and Weyler succeeded in confining
Rivera's scattered bands to the province. Early in 1897, Rivera was made
a prisoner, and since then nothing of importance, from a military
standpoint, has occurred in Pinar del Rio.
In 1897 there were but few incidents of interest in the war. The Cubans
were holding back, evading conflicts wherever they could, and waiting
for the long-delayed interposition of the United States.
Guines, however, was taken by them, and General Garcia captured the
fortified post of Tunas after a fight of three days. The Spanish
commander and about forty per cent. of his force were killed. Finally
the remainder of the garrison surrendered. The spoils which fell into
the hands of the Cubans comprised a large amount of rifles and
ammunition, besides two Krupp guns.
The victory was a notable one, especially as Weyler had cabled his
government that Tunas was impregnable. Its fall gave rise to much harsh
criticism and bitter feeling in Spain.
Weyler was constantly proclaiming the "pacification" of certain
provinces, statements that were most transparently absurd and false. He
even immediately followed up his proclamations by the most severe and
brutal measures in those very provinces.
Finally even Madrid, to whom it would have mattered little if the policy
had proved a success, became convinced that Weyler's savage procedure
was a failure.
The butcher had gained absolutely no advantage, but had simply been the
cause of untold and undeserved suffering.
The insurrection, taking it all for all, was just as strong, if not
stronger, than it was the day Weyler arrived in Cuba.
So, in October, 1897, he was withdrawn from his post, and summoned back
to Spain.
It is to be hoped that the world will never again witness such a
shameful and shameless exhibition as was his administration.
Before dismissing him from these pages, let us quote from Stephen
Bonsal, with whose words no unprejudiced person can quarrel.
Mr. Bonsal says:
"Should they be wise, and they will have a moment of clairvoyance soon,
or they will disappear as a nation, the Spaniards should seek to cast a
mantle of oblivion and forgetfulness about the wretched name of Weyler
and all the ignoble deeds that have characterized his rule. While it
cannot be expected that the bishop will be displaced by the butcher,
there is one whom Weyler will displace upon his unenviable pinnacle of
prominence in the temple of infamy, and that is Alva. His name is
destined to become in every tongue that is spoken by civilized people a
synonym of bloody, relentless and pitiless war waged upon American soil,
upon the long-disused methods of the Vandals and the Visigoths; and
Alva, who had the cruel spirit of his age and a sincere fanaticism as
his excuse, will step down and out into an oblivion which will doubtless
be grateful to his shade, and most certainly so to those who bear his
execrated name.
"I could ask no more terrible punishment for him (Weyler) than many
years of life to listen to the voices of despair he has heard ring out
upon his path through Cuba; to hear again and ever the accusing voices
which no human power can hush, and to review the scenes of suffering
which he has occasioned which no human power can obliterate from his
memory."