CUBA’S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.
While it may be difficult to write a dispassionate account of a war
in which the sympathies of the writer have been ardently enlisted on
one side as against the other, and to paint a picture which lacks the
perspective afforded by the lapse of time, yet an attempt will be made
to present such an account and such a picture as will stand the test of
unprejudiced criticism.
The object of the insurgents during the ten years’ war was to secure
reforms in the national administration, actual representation in the
Cortes, and amelioration of their intolerable condition. They secured
nothing, for though eventually granted the privilege of representation,
in 1878, this privilege was nullified by the representatives being
mainly selected from the ranks of the peninsulars themselves! And now,
in 1895, having in mind the duplicity by which they had been tricked,
the Cuban patriots aimed at nothing less than _independence_! This idea
of actual and complete severance from Spain they have consistently
persisted in from the very first; and when the end came, finding them
impoverished and starving, their ranks decimated by war and disease,
they still clung to the rock of independence, upon which they purposed
to found their long–cherished republic.
Dominated by this grand idea, animated by a resolve that nothing could
shake, the leaders of the revolt of 1895 were mainly those who had
survived the war of 1868–’78, such as the brothers Maceo, Gomez, and
Garcia. The veteran Gomez was their recognised chief, and under him
they withstood the assaults of Spanish arms for more than three years,
the number of Spanish soldiers at the termination of the struggle
amounting to more than one hundred thousand. Spain sent to Cuba her
best commanders and the flower of her soldiery, many thousands of
whom, fighting the cause of despotism against that of freedom, fell
victims to Spanish barbarities. The redoubtable General Campos, the
“pacificator” of the former war, was sent out with ample means and
placed in supreme control; but, though with one hundred thousand
troops at his command, after the cost of the war had mounted to more
than sixty million dollars, he was recalled, and the notorious General
Weyler sent in his place.
Whatever may be charged against General Campos, he was at least
humane, as compared with his successor. It was through no fault of
his, but owing to the perfidy of the home Government, that the treaty
of Zanjon had not been respected; and it was even charged against
him in Spain that he rather favoured than earnestly combated the
insurgents. At all events, no such charge could be brought against the
inhuman Weyler, who at once began a war of extermination, laid waste
the country, and committed such atrocities that his name will ever be
held in detestation by succeeding generations. Unable to overcome the
insurgents in honourable warfare, Captain–General Weyler inaugurated a
system of butcheries that caused a shudder to run through all civilized
communities when informed of his wanton waste of human life. Although
he had behind him the vast resources of Spain, held command of an army
four times as large as the combined forces of the insurgents, and could
have summoned to his aid a magnificent array of naval vessels, yet
he could not cope with those half–starved, ragged, and nearly naked
patriots, fighting for their lives and for their liberties.
When captured—which was not often—the insurgents were treated as
bandits, and suffered ignominious deaths; and it is no palliation
of Spanish crimes to say that the insurgents themselves adopted the
barbarous methods of their enemy. Little can be said in excuse of the
atrocities committed on either side, for the system of warfare they
were pursuing was not honourable. Yet, despite the knowledge that they
were courting certain death by their insistence, the insurgents put
forth every effort to drive the Spaniards within the towns and cities,
and were in the main successful.
General Weyler divided the whole island into departments, and across
it, from northern to southern coast, at intervals stretched a system
of rude fortifications called a _trocha_, guarded by his soldiery.
Through these _trochas_ the insurgents broke repeatedly, at one time
sweeping the island from the eastern province of Santiago to the
extreme western province of Pinar del Rio. In the spring of 1896 even
Havana felt a tremor of fear at the coming of the native hordes, which
encamped within striking distance of the forts around the city. But
though the gallant Antonio Maceo raided around Havana and ravaged Pinar
del Rio, he met death finally through treachery, and the immediate
danger was averted. There was at no time any real danger that the
capital and other strong cities like Matanzas, Cienfuegos, and Santiago
should be attacked and overcome, since the insurgents had no artillery,
little ammunition, and insufficient forces to reduce and capture the
strongholds of the Spaniards. But they made their camps in inaccessible
fastnesses, pursuing a guerrilla mode of warfare, pouncing upon the
enemy suddenly without warning, and carrying off his stores and
ammunition trains, blowing up the tracks and viaducts of railroads,
setting fire to unprotected plantations, and destroying the growing
crops of tobacco and sugar cane. And what the insurgents failed to
destroy, General Weyler seized, having determined upon a policy of
destruction and extermination that would eventually reduce this fair
island, so long known as the “Pearl of the Antilles,” from a most
fertile country to an uninhabited desert. To this end he issued his
edicts of “reconcentration,” by which all inhabitants of the country
districts were ordered to concentrate in and around the cities, and
their farms and gardens were destroyed. This was for the purpose of
depriving the insurgents, who ranged the country parts and subsisted
upon the natives who sympathized with them, of all food and supplies
whatsoever. An inhuman policy, but not original with Weyler, for
Spaniards had pursued it before, though in times when the amenities
of civilization were not recognised as they are to–day; and the whole
military world repudiated it and reprobated its authors.
No tongue, no pen, can adequately describe the sufferings, the callous
cruelties, that ensued when the _reconcentrados_—as these unhappy
victims of Weyler’s edicts were teamed—were finally gathered in the
cities, where they could be watched by the tyrant’s soldiers. For,
though they were assembled by his orders, against their inclinations,
having abandoned homes and farms, every means of subsistence, they were
left to starve and die with scarcely any effort being made for their
relief. First scores, then hundreds, then thousands, starved in the
streets, fell and died like dogs; fathers of families were compelled
to witness the agonizing sufferings of their children, without the
possibility of affording them relief; mothers lost their little ones
by slow starvation, while themselves enduring the torments of diseases
induced by their condition. One by one, family after family, finally
the inhabitants of whole villages and hamlets, perished miserably, and
it at last seemed evident to Weyler that his policy would prevail and
the insurgents succumb to starvation, if not to powder and bullets.
But meanwhile—though the author of all these torments gloated over the
miseries he had created, though he grew immensely rich from the plunder
of his victims—his soldiers could not prevail against the intrepid
insurgents. They hid in caves and swamps, they grew gaunt and weak from
starvation, but they still persisted in their determination to resist
to the death.
So far as possible, through suppression of news, through accounts
of victories never achieved, successes never gained, and reports of
insurgent atrocities never perpetrated, the Spaniards had misinformed
the world at large regarding conditions in Cuba. The Spanish queen, who
was concerned with a mother’s solicitude for the throne upon which her
boy–king sat; the Spanish people, inured to cruelty through traditions
from the past and the bullfights of modern times: the people of the
“motherland” of Cuba, gazed complacently upon these unparalleled
sufferings of a rebellious population; but the rest of the world
finally protested.
“This is not war; this is butchery; these atrocities must cease!” was
the universal protest. Still, the cause of humanity, while broad as
the world and of universal acceptation, at first found no champion.
The weeks and months went by, and the _reconcentrados_ died like wild
beasts, neglected, spurned, by their captors, apparently forgotten by
all fellow–creatures. And yet hands were stretched out to them, hearts
were bleeding for them (though vainly, perforce), in a country adjacent
to their island, from which it is separated only by a channel less than
one hundred miles in width. One hundred miles away, only a few hours’
sail, lay the borders of a nation pledged to the maintenance of human
rights and the righting of human wrongs. Why, then, could it not step
in and stay the progress of that car of Juggernaut before it was too
late?
Why, indeed? Why did not England, Russia, or Germany stay the hand of
the Turk when he was cutting the throats of helpless Armenians? of the
Moslem, when he was murdering the Christian people of Crete?
Because international diplomacy has recognised the right of a country
or nation to deal with its recalcitrant subjects as it may deem best.
When nations go to war it is seldom for the righting of real wrongs,
but on some trivial pretext like that which precipitated the conflict
between France and Germany in 1870—a country’s “injured honour,” but
rarely its injured people!
The time arrived, however, when Cuba’s neighbors in the United States
could no longer turn a deaf ear to the appeals of suffering humanity
so near to their shores. It is true that the people of the United
States had been outspoken in their sympathy long before; that a Cuban
junta had found a refuge in New York, whence it sent relief and
planned expeditions for the benefit of the insurgents. In accordance
with international usage, the Government of the United States used
every effort to frustrate the plans of the junta and to maintain an
attitude of neutrality, since the insurgents had not been accorded
belligerency—that is, their cause was not recognised by nations—and
in the eyes of the nation with which they were at war they were only
rebels against lawful authority. It was a delicate situation for the
Americans: their sympathies enlisted in behalf of the Cuban rebels, yet
constrained by their regard for the laws from giving them governmental
assistance!
For several years, and during at least two administrations, the
majority of the newspapers of the country had urged Congress to accord
the Cubans belligerent rights, by which their status as fighters would
be defined and their acts in a sense legitimized. At last the clamour
became so great that Congress could no longer ignore what was the very
evident wish of the people of the United States; yet it is doubtful if
decisive action would have been immediately taken had not an incident
occurred which shook the nation to its very centre.
The condition of things in Havana became so alarming that the
consul–general of the United States requested the presence of a war
vessel for the protection of Americans there, and the battleship Maine,
one of the finest in the navy, was sent on a friendly visit to that
port. It has since been shown that her presence was unnecessary at that
time; but, at all events, the Americans were well within their rights
in sending her there, and she was received with the usual honours.
Shortly after her arrival, however, on February 15, 1898, while lying
peacefully at the buoy to which she was shown by the Spanish captain of
the port, she was blown up and sunk, with two hundred and sixty of her
officers and crew.
Through the country shot a thrill of horror at this dastardly act,
succeeded by instant and universal demands for vengeance. Calm
counsels prevailed, however. A board of inquiry was convened by order
of the President, and after weeks of calm investigation, during which
the American public awaited the result with splendid forbearance, yet
with ever–increasing determination to punish the actual perpetrators
of this fiendish deed, it was officially announced that the explosion
which had wrecked the Maine and sent so many of her brave men into
eternity was _from without_, and presumably from a submarine mine!
Now, submarine mines of the size and power sufficient to sink a great
battleship can not be placed in position by mere individual effort; and
the instant inference was that the Spanish Government, which had caused
the harbour of Havana to be furtively mined, was, if not the actual
criminal, the cause of the crime! Still, even when this conviction was
forced home upon those most unwilling to believe in the criminality of
Spain, President McKinley refused to commit himself to hasty action.
It was not until the 20th of April, when, as he himself confessed,
he had “exhausted every effort to relieve the intolerable condition
of affairs at our doors,” that he availed himself of the authority
conferred upon him by Congress to intervene in Cuba, using the military
and naval forces of the United States, and sent an ultimatum to Spain.
He had wisely treated the Maine explosion, aggravating as it was, as an
incident merely; but as affording conclusive proof “of an intolerable
state of things in Cuba, sufficiently acute to warrant the intervention
of the United States.”
On the very day of the ultimatum to Spain, the Spanish minister at
Washington demanded his passports, and on the next day the American
minister left Madrid. War was virtually declared on the 21st of April,
1898.
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