a circumstantial account of the war of liberation would make anything but pleasant reading. aside from the fact that on one side was a down-trodden people struggling to throw off the yoke of the oppressor, there was little in the conflict to excite admiration, or even interest. barbarities of the worst kind were practised by the insurgents as well as by the spaniards, and it would be profitless to enquire where the balance of blame lay when both were so deeply guilty. from the technical point of view the protracted hostilities hardly deserved to be termed war. until the participation of the united states there was not an engagement which might be justly described as a battle. neither side displayed any extraordinary military capacity, but the plans and movements of the rebels were characterized by greater intelligence and purpose than those of their opponents. during the entire war one man?uvre{64} alone was of a high order of strategy. that was the brilliant operation in which antonio maceo, the mulatto, swept from end to end of the island, and lighted the flame of rebellion throughout its length. one of the most important features of the war was the prominent part taken in it by the black and colored elements of the population. they formed the backbone of the insurgent army, and furnished several of its most able leaders. as a result the “race of color” has secured a standing and influence in cuba which it does not enjoy in any other country where the caucasian is dominant.
on one of the closing days of 1895, the constitutional guarantees were suspended in cuba by proclamation. the government had suddenly awakened to the fact that a mine had been quietly laid beneath its feet. for months a wide-spread conspiracy, having its fountainhead in the united states, had been in existence. the cuban junta in new york had, during this time, energetically collected money and arms for the purpose of promoting a rebellion with greater determination and upon better organized lines than ever before. with some of the leaders the object entertained was{65} autonomy; with others, complete independence; and with a third element, annexation to the united states. all were united, however, in a burning desire to terminate the rule of spain over their native land.
for some time previous to the proclamation of the governor-general, arms and ammunition had been shipped to cuba from various american ports and were secreted in different parts of the island. several local outbreaks had presaged the approaching storm, which burst in march. before the close of april, the brothers maceo, jose marti, and maximo gomez had returned to cuba and resumed their respective places at the head of the rebel ranks. close upon their heels arrived martinez campos, who had effected the peace at zanjon, to take the part of governor-general.
without delay, the insurgent generals set about carrying out the shrewd design of spreading the rebellion over every part of the island. their object was not only to increase the difficulties of the spaniards, but also to give the uprising as formidable an aspect as possible, in the hope of securing the recognition, if not the intervention, of the united states.
general campos entered upon his task with{66} the hope of bringing about a cessation of the insurrection by means of conciliatory measures. one of his first acts was to issue a manifesto to the rebels, offering pardon to all such as should lay down their arms and resume their allegiance to the crown of spain. in his proclamation of martial law he enjoined upon his troops the observance of the recognized principles of humane warfare.
within a week of his arrival, general campos took command of the troops in the field. a period of desultory fighting ensued and, at length, in the middle of july, the first serious action of the war took place. the spaniards in force met a body of insurgents near bayamo. probably there were about three thousand on either side. the insurgents had the better of the engagement, which was hotly contested, and general campos narrowly escaped the loss of his life.
followed months of skirmishing, in which the rebels attacked isolated garrisons with considerable success, but avoided encounters with large bodies of troops. meanwhile, numerous filibustering expeditions disembarked with recruits and munitions of war, greatly strengthening the revolutionary movement. by the end
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view of baire, near bayamo, from the cuban trenches.
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of the summer, eighty thousand spanish regulars, besides a number of volunteers and guerrillas, were in the field. the insurgent forces did not exceed twenty thousand men, a considerable proportion of whom were armed only with machetes. but the spaniards shortly learned to dread this weapon more than the rifle.
before the close of the year dynamite and the torch were brought into play. the revolutionists began, at first with discrimination, to burn plantations and to blow up bridges. on the other side the spaniards commenced to execute insurgent chiefs who were captured.
in december the march to the west was vigorously pushed by gomez and maceo, whilst campos employed all his resources in the effort to intercept it. the result was a series of technical movements in which the spanish troops, although led by generals of experience, were usually worsted. detached bodies of insurgents harassed the royalist commands, and diverted their attention, while maceo steadily pushed westward, gathering recruits in his progress and leaving a train of active rebellion in his wake. the trochas, or trenches, strung with fortlets, to which the spaniards resorted{68} as a means of stemming the tide, proved of little efficacy. the insurgents, in large bodies, crossed them time and again. with one hundred thousand troops at his command, campos found it impossible to check or circumscribe the rebel movements.
as time went on the insurgents became more and more unrestrained in the destruction of property. cane-fields, sugar mills, residences, were given to the flames wherever they could be reached. this was done in pursuance of a definite policy which gomez had repeatedly announced in his proclamations. he declared that the readiest means of inducing the spaniards to leave the island was to make it worthless to them. if this theory was somewhat farfetched, there could be no question of the practical effect of the destruction of the sugar crop in curtailing the resources of the administration.
early in 1896, the insurgents had penetrated within a few miles of habana and the proclamation of martial law was extended to embrace the whole island. the governor-general returned to the capital, which was in a state of turmoil and panic.
gomez, however, did not for an instant enter{69}tain the idea of so rash an enterprise as an attack upon the city. his purpose was to make a spectacular demonstration for the sake of its moral effect and to concentrate the attention of the spanish commanders upon himself in order that maceo might push on to pinar del rio with less opposition. in both respects he was eminently successful.
maceo traversed the entire length of pinar del rio, and that province, in which rebellion had never before reared its head, was soon in open revolt from end to end. during january and february, maceo ranged through pinar del rio and the southern portion of habana, constantly engaged with one or another of the many detachments that were sent against him. for a brief space he transferred his operations to matanzas, but returned to pinar del rio and for eight months withstood the numerous strong bodies of troops which general weyler threw against him. toward the close of the year 1896, maceo began a march eastward and was killed in a chance encounter with a small force of spanish soldiers.
in the execution of the plan for the invasion of the western portion of cuba, which was conceived by gomez, antonio maceo performed a{70} splendid service for the insurgent cause. although inferior in intellect to his chief and some other rebel leaders, maceo was the most capable captain of them all, and his prestige among friends and foes was greater than that of any of his associates.
when general campos returned to habana, at the close of the year 1895, it was to find popular discontent and political conspiracy directed against him. already discouraged by the failure of his military campaign, and of his effort to break up the insurrection by conciliation, the disaffection at the capital completely disheartened the old soldier, who had conscientiously endeavored to do his duty according to his lights. he tendered his resignation, and the home government appointed general weyler, marquis of tenerife, to succeed him.
this man, who amply earned his sobriquet of “butcher,” was the unwitting instrument of cuba’s freedom. his atrocious barbarities, rather than the destruction of the maine, were the cause of the united states declaring war against spain. although, at the outset, it appeared as though his succession to campos was a dire blow to the insurgents, the event proved it to be a blessing in disguise. the retiring{71} general believed that spain should grant to the cubans the most liberal administrative and political reforms, even to the extent of autonomy. it is possible that he might have brought the authorities at madrid to his way of thinking and, in that case, quite probable that the rebellion would have been brought to a peaceful termination.
weyler lost no time in instituting his concentration system. it was a measure in which he and canovas, the premier of spain, had great faith as a means of subduing the insurrection, but it utterly failed in its object and had a result of which its originators little dreamed. they excused it on the ground of military necessity, but it contravened the principles of civilized warfare in important particulars. it involved making prisoners of peaceful noncombatants, and went farther in neglecting to afford them the treatment which the least humane nation concedes to military captives. indeed its brutality was such as savages would rarely be guilty of.
the people of the country districts, men, women, and children, were segregated within certain restricted bounds, sometimes defined by stockades, or trenches, and always guarded by{72} troops. sometimes they were permitted to enter neighboring towns, but, even in such cases, their movements were limited by military circumspection.
if this measure had gone no farther it might have been condoned. the british, in the boer war, resorted to such an expedient, but they made their detention camps as comfortable as possible, they fed and clothed the inmates sufficiently, and afforded them medical attention. weyler’s wretched reconcentrados were simply herded together and left to their own resources. they were reduced to begging of a people only one degree less impoverished than themselves. the townsman who gave a tortilla to a starving pacifico was usually depriving his own family. disease, unchecked, ran riot in the concentration camps.
the mortality was fearful and those who survived were unfitted for years, the men to work, the women to bear healthy children. cuba has not yet passed from the effects of weyler’s barbaric measure.
after general weyler’s arrival, spain continued to send steady re?nforcements to cuba to fill the ranks thinned by disease. he never had fewer than one hundred thousand men{73} under his command. with these he entered upon vigorous military operations, at first concentrating his forces upon pinar del rio with the object of crushing maceo. he endeavored to isolate the leader at the western end of the island by constructing a trocha, from coast to coast, across its narrowest part. the measure failed in its purpose. maceo crossed the barrier and met his death near habana in an otherwise trivial skirmish.
weyler now directed his efforts against gomez and garcia, but his task was even a more difficult one than that of campos had been. after spreading the rebellion over the entire island, gomez changed his tactics. it now became the practice of the insurgents to move stealthily about in the manigua, burning and destroying wherever they could find anything upon which to lay their hands, but avoiding contact with the spanish troops. thus weyler’s soldiers were kept constantly chasing back and forth in endless and futile pursuit of an intangible enemy. by his orders such property as had escaped destruction by the rebels was ruined by the royalists.
by the middle of 1897, the island was a mass of blackened ruins, an expanse of homeless{74} waste. and the flood of insurrection had not been stayed in the slightest degree. weyler had failed more utterly than campos. but he had done more; he had aroused in the public mind of america a realization of the stubborn opposition of the cubans to spanish rule and the hopelessness of spain’s effort to reassert it, combined with indignation at her methods. at length, but all too late, spain awoke to the futility of longer attempting repression, and the necessity of conceding to the cubans a liberal measure of justice and independence. weyler was recalled, and general blanco came to cuba, bearing in his hand the olive branch of autonomy. he arrived in november and immediately set about reversing the policy of his predecessor. amnesty was offered to all revolutionists; harsh decrees were annulled or suspended; political prisoners were released; the rigors of reconcentration were relaxed; the officials appointed by weyler throughout the island were removed and cubans invited to take their places; a cabinet was actually installed at habana and the machinery of home rule put in motion.
it was all of no avail. the insurgent leaders in the field positively refused to accept any
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street scene, santiago de cuba.
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terms short of independence. in this attitude they were encouraged by the junta in new york who, by the beginning of 1898, felt confident of the early active interposition of the united states. such a consummation was rendered more probable by the movement, started at the close of the previous year on the part of the cuban sugar planters, to secretly apprise the united states of their desire for its intervention.
the first overt act in the war with spain was the president’s call for volunteers, issued april 23rd, 1898. four days later, admiral dewey left hongkong for manila, where, on the first day of may, he captured or destroyed the spanish fleet stationed there. june 14th, the first detachment of american troops left for cuba under general shafter, and landed in the vicinity of santiago de cuba. on the first and second days of july the spaniards were defeated in the engagement of san juan, and on the third, admiral cervera’s ships were totally destroyed by the american fleet under the command of captain sampson.
august 12th, a protocol provided for a cessation of hostilities, and on december 10th, a treaty of peace between the united states and{76} spain was signed at paris, securing to cuba absolute freedom on the single condition of establishing “a stable government capable of maintaining order and observing international obligations.”
thus closed the final war of independence, which cost cuba at least twelve per cent. of her population and two-thirds of her wealth. she emerged from it weak and impoverished, with political and economic structures shaken to their bases, and helpless but for the supporting hand of the united states.
under the military government instituted by the united states pending the creation of such conditions as would be favorable to the assumption of full civil rights by the cubans, many beneficial works were carried out aside from the laying of a political foundation for the future administration of the country. the most extensive reformative measures were vigorously applied to the affairs of the island. the most thorough sanitation was planned and, to a great extent, carried out; a public school system was instituted; many miles of highway were improved or constructed; agriculture and commerce were resuscitated. a period of prosperity resulted, which was proof alike of the{77} effectiveness of the american administration and of the wonderful recuperative power of the country.
in its relation to the united states, cuba was in a position different from that of any other latin-american republic. this unique condition was due to the fact that the cubans had adopted as a part of their constitution a law enacted by the congress of the united states and known as the platt amendment, which had later been incorporated in a permanent treaty between the countries. this constitution requirement and treaty obligation bound the republic of cuba not to enter into any compact with any foreign power which might tend to impair the independence of the republic: nor to contract any public debt to the service of which it could not properly attend; to lease coaling stations to the united states; and to execute and extend plans for the sanitation of the cities of the island. it expressed the consent of cuba to the exercise by the united states of the right to intervene for the preservation of cuban independence and maintenance of a government capable of protecting life, property and individual liberty, and of discharging such obligations imposed by the{78} treaty of paris on the united states as were now to be assumed and undertaken by the government of cuba.
under its first president, dr. estrada palma, the young republic progressed in a manner gratifying to its sponsors, but as the presidential term grew to a close political dissensions arose and, in the middle of 1906, an open revolt against the government broke out, and uprisings occurred all over the country. the ostensible cause of the disaffection was undue interference with the national elections by administrative officials, but there is no doubt that the majority of the insurrectos were moved by no higher sentiment than a love of disturbance and the hope of loot.
the government was quite unprepared to cope with the situation. it had no army, very little artillery, and an entirely inadequate force of rural constabulary. efforts to organize militia met with such poor success that they were soon abandoned.
president palma appealed to the united states to exercise its right and obligation of intervention, and announced his intention of resigning in order to save the country from anarchy. president roosevelt desired, and{79} hoped, that the difficulty might be overcome without a resort to extreme measures. he begged the cuban chief executive to retain his post, and despatched mr. taft, secretary of war, and mr. bacon, assistant secretary of state, to habana in the capacity of special envoys to render all possible aid in securing an amicable entente between the administrative party and the insurgents.
the commissioners entered upon this extremely difficult task in the middle of september, 1906. they decided that the use of force or even a show of it, would be calculated to precipitate guerrilla warfare, and wisely determined to rely upon diplomacy. prominent citizens, irrespective of party affiliations, were invited to meet the commission and to express their views of the situation freely. many conferences were held with the leaders of the different political parties, and their suggestions for a settlement of the differences were given careful and impartial consideration.
a compromise arrangement, which contemplated the resignation of all the administrative officials, except the president, and the holding of a fresh election, was formulated and presented to the leaders of the three parties, but{80} it failed to meet with the necessary unanimous acceptance. the liberal party assented to the proposition without reserve. the independent nationalists approved of the general plan, but stipulated for certain modifications. the party in power, the moderates, were irreconcilably opposed to the conditions.
president palma called a special session of congress, in order to tender to it his resignation, which was accompanied by that of the vice president. the congress accepted the resignations and immediately adjourned without taking further action in the matter, so that the principal executive offices of the republic were left vacant, and the country was without a government.
at this juncture secretary taft issued the following proclamation, establishing the provisional government in cuba:
“to the people of cuba:
“the failure of congress to act on the irrevocable resignation of the president of cuba, or to elect a successor, leaves this country without a government at a time when great disorder prevails, and requires that, pursuant to a request of president palma, the necessary steps{81} be taken in the name and by the authority of the president of the united states, to restore order, protect life and property in the island of cuba and islands and keys adjacent thereto, and for this purpose to establish therein a provisional government.
“the provisional government hereby established by direction and in the name of the president of the united states will be retained only long enough to restore order and peace and public confidence, and then to hold such elections as may be necessary to determine those persons upon whom the permanent government of the republic should be devolved.
“in so far as is consistent with the nature of a provisional government established under the authority of the united states, this will be a cuban government conforming as far as possible to the constitution of cuba.
“i ask all citizens and residents of cuba to assist in the work of restoring order, tranquillity and public confidence.”
the attitude of the peace commission met with general public approval. although the in{82}surgents had thousands of men under arms, and the only american force landed was a squad of marines to protect the treasury, the provisional government was installed without the faintest show of opposition. a general amnesty was proclaimed, and the disarmament of the insurgents and newly raised militia was carried through without difficulty.
hon. charles e. magoon was appointed provisional governor, and officers of the united states army were detailed as advisers to the acting secretaries of the cuban executive departments.
a new electoral law, recommended by the provisional governor, was adopted, and under it a general election was held in november, 1908, without the least disturbance, although it had been preceded by a vigorous political campaign. the liberal candidates, general jose miguel gomez, for president, and senor alfredo zayas, for vice-president, were returned by a substantial majority and inaugurated january 28th, 1909.
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morro castle from central park, habana.
