SPAIN AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR.
The loss of Cervera’s fleet nearly broke the Spanish heart—at all
events, its proud and haughty spirit. For, while it was not expected
that Spain (which had not gained an important naval victory since that
of Lepanto over the Turks, in 1571) would eventually win, yet it was
thought that some meed of glory might accrue from its great armament
and expenditure for fighting machines. At the end of the war—for
this victory virtually ended it—Spain’s naval losses amounted to
thirty–seven vessels of all classes, or about one half of her entire
navy, and forty per cent of her total tonnage, valued at more than
twenty–seven million dollars. Her killed in battle numbered at least
two thousand, the wounded many more; while the total killed in the
naval engagements on the American side numbered only seventeen, with
less than one hundred wounded.
Two weeks after the fleet was destroyed Santiago surrendered, and with
it there fell to the victors the entire eastern province of Cuba, with
twenty–two thousand prisoners of war. By the terms of capitulation, all
soldiers and officers of the Spanish army in and about Santiago were
transported to Spain at the expense of the United States Government.
The thirteen hundred prisoners from Cervera’s fleet were at first
taken to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where they were well housed and
kindly cared for; the officers were confined at Annapolis, where their
treatment was such as to call forth the most lively expressions of
gratitude from the captured admiral and his colleagues. As there were
no American prisoners for whom to exchange these unfortunates, they
were finally released and sent home, about the middle of September,
1898.
Santiago surrendered on July 17th, and eight days later General Nelson
A. Miles, with several thousand troops landed at a port of Puerto Rico
and captured the important city of Ponce. His invasion was skilfully
planned and was being carried out with consummate strategy, when,
after nearly all the southern and western settlements had fallen
into his hands, operations were stopped by orders from Washington.
On the day following the landing of American troops in Puerto Rico
the United States Government had been approached by the ambassador of
France, acting in the interests of Spain, who asked upon what terms the
President would consent to peace.
Although American arms were everywhere triumphant, and American fleets
preparing to invade the Mediterranean and ravage the coasts of Spain
itself, yet the President, still consistent in his attitude—as desirous
of peace, yet determined to exact justice for the oppressed—cordially
welcomed the overtures from Spain. In view of the overwhelming
victories of the United States, and the fact that the country was
but just beginning to draw upon its vast resources, the provisions
of the preliminary protocol were liberal in the extreme. These were,
the independence of Cuba, the cession of Puerto Rico and one of the
Ladrone Islands to the United States, and the question of jurisdiction
over the Philippines, with other minor matters, to be left to a
joint commission. These terms were agreed to by Spain on the 9th of
August, and the protocol for a treaty of peace was signed on the 12th.
Immediately upon the signing of the protocol orders were sent to all
United States military and naval commanders to cease operations
against the enemy at once. The blockades of Cuban and Puerto Rican
ports were declared lifted; the war, in effect, was ended.
The American soldiers were arrested in mid–career of victory, with
swords uplifted and guns aimed at the enemy; nevertheless, though
many of them wept for very rage at being baffled in their designs,
they obeyed implicitly the commands emanating from Washington. In the
far–off Philippines, however, where brave Dewey and his sailors had
been for months awaiting the arrival of sufficient re–enforcements
to take and occupy Manila, warlike preparations still continued. On
the day following the signing of the protocol, and before the news
had reached the islands, the defences of Manila had been assaulted
and carried by our soldiers, the city taken, together with more than
seven thousand prisoners, and the capital of the Philippines became an
American possession. Owing to the difference in time between Manila
and Washington, the victory was assured but a few hours after the
negotiations looking to peace had been concluded. As there was no
direct cable from Manila to the United States, and despatches had to
be sent by vessel to and from Hong Kong, seven hundred miles away,
Admiral Dewey and General Merritt, commanding respectively the naval
and land forces in the Philippines, had acted without knowledge of the
peace proceedings, and thus fortuitously Manila was taken before the
war was officially ended. This fact had an important bearing upon the
subsequent negotiations of the peace commissioners, who were appointed
later by the Governments of Spain and the United States, and met in
Paris to arrange the final terms, as by the fall of the capital of the
Philippines the whole group was virtually conquered.
The situation was complicated by the actions of the Philippine
insurgents under General Aguinaldo, who were already in revolt against
Spain before the Spanish fleet was destroyed by Dewey’s squadron. As in
Cuba, the natives of the Philippines had suffered for centuries from
Spanish oppressions, and their condition of late years had been one of
chronic revolt; terrible atrocities had been committed on both sides,
and neither party had given evidence of a capacity for government or
for advance in the paths of progress and civilization. Upon the arrival
of the American fleet and army the insurgents had made common cause
with the United States; but each side viewed the other with distrust.
The Spaniards, hemmed in between the land forces of Aguinaldo and
the fleet and soldiers of the Americans, displayed great bravery in
a hopeless cause; but at the very last, convinced of the futility of
resistance, surrendered to the latter. They distrusted the insurgents,
but put faith in the promises of the Americans, which promises were
kept to the letter; and the transference of authority from Spanish to
American hands was accomplished without disturbance.
* * * * *
The total duration of this war between Spain and the United States
was only one hundred and fourteen days! Within that brief period this
country had raised and equipped an army of two hundred thousand men;
established camps of detention and instruction in various parts of the
land; had increased the navy by more than double its number of vessels
before the war; had provided for a war loan of two hundred million
dollars (which was entirely taken by a patriotic people); for a war
revenue, which was borne without a murmur; had blockaded the ports of
Cuba and Puerto Rico; had taken the eastern provinces of the former
and the western of the latter; and yet the American giant had but just
begun to bestir himself when the war was ended!
Still, it was no matter for boasting; for the United States,
with a population of more than seventy millions, and its immense
territory—even though poorly equipped, with a small navy and smaller
army—was certain to prevail in the end over Spain, with its population
of only eighteen millions, and two hundred thousand miles of area. But
again, at the beginning there was not so great a disparity, for the
army of Spain on a peace footing was one hundred and twenty thousand
men, and on a war footing half a million. Its navy also (on paper)
was superior to that of the United States, and at the outset it was
supposed the latter would suffer most severely, though ultimately it
might win.
What, then, was the cause of Spain’s premature discomfiture and utter
collapse? Perhaps, without arrogating to themselves any superior
virtues, the Americans may not be mistaken in ascribing it to the
corruption of her body politic, to her pride, her refusal to accept a
lesson from experience. Above all, she was fighting a forlorn hope;
her cause was foredoomed to failure, because it was the cause of
mediævalism, of the collective cruelties of ages long agone; and the
moral sense of the world was against her. She was reaping the harvest
of retributory justice—the field sown by Alva and Cortes, by Pizarro
and Philip II—yes, by Isabella the Catholic and Columbus! And what
gall of bitterness to the Spaniard, in the reflection that the greatest
nation in that hemisphere brought to the knowledge of Europe by
Columbus, should be instrumental in wresting from Spain the first among
the islands he discovered, and her last possessions in America!
In justice to Spain, we should note that she had seemed desirous of
averting the war. In response to President McKinley’s diplomatic
suggestions, through his minister at Madrid, she pledged herself
to inaugurate reforms, recalled the cruel Weyler, and substituted
the pacific General Blanco; revoked the edict which had proved
the death–knell of the _reconcentrados_, and proposed for Cuba an
autonomist government.
But all too late! She could not bring to life the thousands of starved
and murdered Cubans, could not efface from the page of history the
record of her multitudinous cruelties. It became necessary that the war
should be fought: that Spain should be punished for her ignoring of the
common rights of humanity, her trampling upon the sacred brotherhood of
man.
With a queen regent whose court will compare favourably for purity of
morals with any other in Europe, and a titular king yet an innocent
child; with public men like Castelar and Sagasta devoted to reform;
with valorous soldiers and sailors blindly obedient, and a common
people adherent to the monarchy: yet Spain’s system of government is
one of the most hideous relics of ancient despotism.
And what can be expected or predicted of a nation which, in its total
population of eighteen millions, contains at least twelve million
illiterate persons; in the Cortes of which it was recently seriously
proposed to endow a school for bull–fighters; in which cock–fighting
and bull–fighting are the national pastimes; where the successful
bull–fighter is the popular hero, and half a million dollars are
annually expended for bulls and horses to be slaughtered in the arena;
where eight millions of the people have no trade or profession, and
there are nearly one hundred thousand professional beggars; where,
though agriculture is the chief employment, the land is broken up by
means of wooden ploughs; where, though rich in mineral resources,
the mines are farmed out to foreign companies or their revenues
hypothecated to brokers abroad; and finally, where everything taxable
groans beneath its burden.
It is not inexplicable to the student of history that Spain, with a
formidable navy, yet was rendered helpless in two engagements; with
more than one hundred thousand soldiers in Cuba, yet surrendered after
but one city had been besieged and taken, and whose vast colonial
possessions fell to pieces and crumbled like a house of cards.
Was it chance alone that chose Santiago as the crucial battle
ground—Santiago, where, twenty–five years before, scores of American
sailors, men of the Virginius, were stood against the white walls of a
slaughter–house and butchered in cold blood?
Was it chance alone that directed the events of war so that the West
Indies should be the scene of final conflict—the Antilles, which Spain
had depopulated in the first century of her rule, and made desert
places of fair isles which once supported millions of innocent and
happy inhabitants?
Was it strange that a nation guilty of such enormities should lack the
moral courage, the sound heart and core of integrity, necessary to
withstand the impact of another nation goaded by the spectacle of those
iniquities to righteous indignation?
While mourning the losses of the war, with a heart still bleeding for
their sons done to death in battle and by disease—and they were not
few—the people of the United States will never regret that they went
forth to fight for a principle. They have won the commendation, they
have compelled the respect, of the world powers; yet more than that:
have given evidence of a moral and physical virility which, it was
feared, the past generation of enervating peace had impaired.
“It is gratifying to all of us,” said President McKinley, in a speech
at a peace jubilee in celebration of the cessation of hostilities,
“to know that this has never ceased to be a war of humanity! The last
ship that went out of the harbour of Havana before war was declared
was an American ship which had taken to the suffering people of Cuba
the supplies furnished by American charity. And the first to sail into
the harbour of Santiago after the war ended was another American ship
bearing food supplies to the starving Cubans. And I am sure it is the
universal prayer of American citizens that justice and humanity and
civilization shall characterize the final settlement of peace, as they
have distinguished the progress of the war.”
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