CHAPTER XXVI.
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.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE TREATY OF PEACE.
No better summary of the progress and achievements of the war has been given than in the words of the President, addressed to a vast assemblage at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, in October, 1898:
“Our army had years ago been reduced to a peace footing. We had only nineteen thousand available troops when the war was declared, but the account which officers and men gave of themselves on the battlefields has never been surpassed.
“The manhood was there and everywhere. American patriotism was there, and its resources were limitless. The courageous and invincible spirit of the people proved glorious, and those who a little more than a third of a century ago were divided and at war with each other, were again united under the holy standard of liberty. Patriotism banished party feeling; fifty millions of dollars for the national defence was appropriated without debate or division, as a matter of course, and as only a mere indication of our mighty reserve power.
“But if this is true of the beginning of the war, what shall we say of it now, with hostilities suspended and peace near at hand, as we fervently hope? Matchless in its results! Unequalled in its completeness and the quick succession with which victory followed victory! Attained earlier than it was believed to be possible; so comprehensive in its sweep that every thoughtful man feels the weight of responsibility which has been so suddenly thrust upon us. And, above all and beyond all, the valour of the American army, the bravery of the American navy, and the majesty of the American name, stand forth in unsullied glory, while the humanity of our purposes and the magnanimity of our conduct have given to war, always horrible, touches of noble generosity, Christian sympathy and charity, and examples of human grandeur, which can never be lost to mankind. Passion and bitterness formed no part of our impelling motive, and it is gratifying to feel that humanity triumphed at every step of the war’s progress.
“The heroes of Manila and Santiago and Puerto Rico made immortal history. They are worthy successors and descendants of Washington and Greene, of Paul Jones, Decatur, and Hull, and of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Logan, of Farragut, Porter, and Cushing, and of Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet.
“New names stand out on the honour roll of the nation’s great men, and with them unnamed stand the heroes of the trenches and the forecastle, invincible in battle and uncomplaining in death. The intelligent, loyal, indomitable soldier and sailor and marine, regular and volunteer, are entitled to equal praise as having done their whole duty, whether at home or under the baptism of foreign fire. Who will dim the splendour of their achievements? Who will withhold from them their well-earned distinction?
“The faith of a Christian nation recognises the hand of Almighty God in the ordeal through which we have passed. Divine favour seemed manifest everywhere. In fighting for humanity’s sake we have been signally blessed. We did not seek war. To avoid it, if this could be done in justice and honour to the rights of our neighbours and ourselves, was our constant prayer. The war was no more invited by us than were the questions which are laid at our door by its results. Now, as then, we will do our duty. The problems will not be solved in a day. Patience will be required—patience combined with sincerity of purpose and unshaken resolution to do right, seeking only the highest good of the nation, and recognising no other obligation, pursuing no other path but that of duty.”
With the signing of the protocol hostilities ceased, and by the middle of August, 1898, the war had virtually ended. Each Government appointed commissioners to arrange for the evacuation of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and by the 18th of October the latter island was in exclusive possession of the United States. Owing to the presence in Cuba of so large a number of Spanish troops—more than one hundred thousand—and the great extent of that island, the evacuation proceedings were more slowly carried out, and it was not until the 1st of January, 1899, that Havana, the capital, was delivered into the sole care of the Americans.
Meanwhile, peace commissioners had been appointed by each country, five by Spain and five by the United States, who met in Paris the first week in October. After long and deliberate sessions, and not without some friction from their divergent views, a treaty of peace was concluded, which was signed by all the commissioners on the 10th of December, and presented to the Executive of the United States the day before Christmas.
Although the United States occupied the position of conqueror, and was in a situation where it could exact its own terms, still it did not presume upon its advantages, and was exceedingly generous in its treatment of the fallen foe. By the capture of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, the Americans had practically acquired possession of that vast group in Asiatic waters. Nevertheless, the United States agreed to pay the Spaniards the sum of twenty million dollars, and to repatriate all Spanish troops then on service there.
By the terms of the protocol, confirmed by the treaty, Puerto Rico and its adjacent islands in the Atlantic were ceded to the victors without reservation, and became American property. In the East the island of Guam, in the Ladrones, was ceded as a coaling station, and the vast archipelagos of the Philippines and Sulus. The island of Cuba, while freed from Spanish tyranny, did not directly become a possession of the United States, as that Government had distinctly disclaimed any intention of assuming sovereignty over it except for its pacification only. “Spanish rule,” declared President McKinley, in his message to Congress of December 8, 1898, “must be replaced by a just, benevolent, and humane government, created by the people of Cuba, capable of performing all international obligations, and which shall encourage thrift, industry, and prosperity, and promote peace and goodwill among all the inhabitants, whatever may have been their relations in the past. Neither revenge nor passion should have a place in the new government. Until there is complete tranquility in the island, and a stable government inaugurated, military occupation will be continued.”
The complete transfer of authority was not unaccompanied by disturbance, either in the Philippines or in Cuba. In the former islands the native insurgents, mistrusting the humane intentions of their new masters, manifested a spirit of turbulence which indicated that they would have to be pacified before intrusted with the full measure of freedom. In truth, it would appear that the actual war was a minor matter compared with the gigantic task the United States had undertaken of preparing the diverse peoples to walk in the paths of progress and higher civilization.
In Cuba, filling the places made vacant by the withdrawal of the Spanish soldiery, the American army gradually possessed itself of every strategic point, and by the 1st of January, 1899, the island was practically held by the Americans. At noon of that day the Spanish flag was hauled down and the Stars and Stripes hoisted in its place, above the historic Morro Castle, where the banner of Spain had floated (except for a brief intermission) for nearly three hundred years. Captain-General Castellanos, who had succeeded General Blanco in November, and was then in command of the Spanish forces, met the American commissioners at the palace in Havana, and resigned his authority over the island in the following words:
“According to the protocol of peace, signed August 12th, I, obeying the orders of the government of her Catholic Majesty, the Queen-Regent of Spain, and in the name of her son, his Majesty the King, deliver the island of Cuba to the Government of the United States, represented by your commission.”
General Wade, chief of the American commissioners, made an equally brief reply, and then gave this important trust into the keeping of General Brooke, the military governor.
As General Castellanos left the palace for the steamer on which he was to take his departure, the American soldiers drawn up in the plaza presented arms, the officers saluted with their swords, and the American military band played the royal Spanish march.
This unfortunate Spanish official, to whom had been intrusted the disagreeable duty of relinquishing into foreign hands the supreme authority over Cuba, was profoundly moved, and, as he heard the salutes being fired in honour of the American flag, which had now supplanted the emblem of Spain, he said, brokenly: “This is the most bitter moment of my life. I pray that none of you will ever suffer what I am suffering now.”
Thus he departed, carrying with him the sympathy and esteem of those who but recently had been his foes. The spirit of goodwill and fraternal feeling was never more manifest than between the Spaniards and Americans in Cuba; for with the cessation of strife disappeared all animosities of whatever nature. Only the Cubans, who had been prevented for important reasons from participating in the final demonstrations attendant upon the occupation of Havana, and who allowed themselves to distrust the motives of the conquerors, held aloof at first and seemed to cherish revengeful feelings.
But when General Castellanos advanced to General Menocal, a Cuban high in authority, and said, “I am sorry, sir, that we have been enemies, having the same blood in our veins,” the latter answered generously: “Sir, we fought for Cuba. Now that she is free, we are no longer enemies!”
All animosities seemed then to be forgotten, and it would appear that the United States had already succeeded in its pacific mission of intervention, as the air was rent with the cries of “Viva España!” “Viva America!” “Viva Cuba Libre!”
If a spirit of revenge had been cherished by the Americans, it must needs have been appeased that afternoon, at the sight of American soldiers marching through the capital city of Havana, with the former Consul-General Fitzhugh Lee at their head, and in the harbour the Stars and Stripes floating from a spar above the sunken war ship Maine.
There seems every reason to believe that the noble aspiration of the great American Executive will be realized:
“As soon as we are in possession of Cuba, and have pacified the island, it will be necessary to give aid and direction to its people to form a government for themselves. This should be undertaken at the earliest moment consistent with safety and assured success. It is important that our relations with this people shall be of the most friendly character, and our commercial relations close and reciprocal. It should be our duty to assist in every proper way to build up the waste places of the island, encourage the industry of the people, and assist them to form a government which shall be free and independent; thus realizing the best aspirations of the Cuban people.”
The city of Santiago is already a notable object-lesson of the benefits of American rule, where soldiers from the Cuban army and impoverished pacificos have been generously paid by the military governor to assist at the work of reform.
America has shown that her declaration of sympathy with suffering humanity in the Spanish islands: in the Philippines as well as in Cuba, were not idle words spoken for effect upon the outside world, but the voicing of a principle which has been consistently adhered to, not only through the din of battle but in the hush of peace. And not the least of her victories is that over herself—second only to that which has brought to her side (compelled by admiration of her deeds and inherent love for valorous performances) the “motherland” of America: England, home of the sea-kings, Drake and his colleagues who assisted at the destruction of the armada; Nelson, who buried Spanish prestige in the watery grave of Trafalgar. International comity advances to a higher plane, international obligations acquire a new significance, when nations are inspired by mutual respect and regard.
At the opening of the nineteenth century Spain’s sway extended over nearly one half the total area of the three Americas, her possessions in the western hemisphere being estimated at 6,750,000 square miles. At its close she held no territory here, and her flag had disappeared from the isles and continents discovered by Columbus and conquered by her soldiers.
At the beginning of this century the United States controlled less than a million square miles of territory; at its ending, more than 3,600,000! While it was once claimed by Spain that on her vast empire the sun never set; of the American possessions, since the acquisition of the Philippines, it is literally true.
This reversal of relative conditions at the close of the century must be apparent even to the Spanish nation, now contracted within the ancient confines of the Iberian Peninsula, shorn of prestige, glory, and colonies.
Paradoxical as it may seem, yet Spain’s losses by war may eventually become her gain; for her colonies had long been clogs upon her progress, and had devoured her substance greedily. No longer compelled to maintain a large standing army, or to send abroad the flower of her young manhood, Spain can devote to agriculture and manufactures, to art and literature, the forces that were worse than wasted in camp and on the battlefield.
She has no worse enemies than those of her own household; but still on her borders rises the fateful apparition of Don Carlos the pretender. In time, perhaps, if the lessons of the war are heeded, the Spaniard may be able to perceive the absurdity of that boastful Spanish proverb, “Whoever says Spain, says everything!”