In view of this tangible evidence of intimacy on the part of the United States with the Hawaiian Islands, Webster in 1842 brought them within the scope of the Monroe Doctrine by declaring that European powers must not interfere with their government. Marcy, Secretary of State, framed a treaty of annexation in 1853, but the Hawaiian Government withdrew its assent. Twenty years later Secretary Fish wrote: "There seems to be a strong desire on the part of many persons in the islands, representing large interests and great wealth, to become annexed to the United States and while there are, as I have already said, many and influential persons in the country who question the policy of any insular acquisition, perhaps even any extension of territorial limits, there are also those of influence and wise foresight who see a future that must extend the jurisdiction and the limits of this nation, and that will require a resting spot in the mid-ocean, between the Pacific coast and the vast domains of Asia, which are now opening to commerce, and Christian civilization."

All immediate action, however, was confined to a specially intimate treaty of reciprocity which was signed in 1875, and which secured a substantial American domination in commerce. When Blaine became Secretary of State in 1881, he was, or at least he affected to be, seriously alarmed at the possibility of foreign influence in Hawaiian affairs, particularly on the part of Great Britain. The native population was declining, and should it continue to diminish, he believed that the United States must annex the islands. "Throughout the continent, north and south," he wrote, "wherever a foothold is found for American enterprise, it is quickly occupied, and the spirit of adventure, which seeks its outlet, in the mines of South America and the railroads of Mexico, would not be slow to avail itself of openings of assured and profitable enterprise even in mid-ocean." As the feeling grew in the United States that these islands really belonged to the American continent, Blaine even invited Hawaii to send representatives to the Pan-American Congress of 1889. When he again became Secretary of State, he was prepared to give indirect support at least to American interests, for the new queen, Liliuokalani, was supposed to be under British influence. On the arrival of a British gunboat in Honolulu, J. L. Stevens, the American Minister, went so far as to write on February 8, 1892: "At this time there seems to be no immediate prospect of its being safe to have the harbor of Honolulu left without an American vessel of war."

Revolution was, indeed, impending in Hawaii. On January 14, 1893, the Queen abolished the later constitution under which the Americans had exercised great power, and in its place she proclaimed the restoration of the old constitution which established an absolutism modified by native home rule. At two o'clock on the afternoon of the 16th of January, the resident Americans organized a committee of safety; at half-past four United States marines landed at the call of Stevens. The Queen was thereupon deposed, a provisional government was organized, and at its request Stevens assumed for the United States the "protection" of the islands. Without delay, John W. Foster, who had just succeeded Blaine as Secretary of State, drew up a treaty of annexation, which he immediately submitted to the Senate.

On March 4, 1893, Cleveland became President for the second time. He at once withdrew the treaty and appointed James H. Blount special commissioner to investigate the facts of the revolt. While the report of Commissioner Blount did not, indeed, convict Stevens of conspiring to bring about the uprising, it left the impression that the revolt would not have taken place and certainly could not have succeeded except for the presence of the United States marines and the support of the United States Minister. Cleveland recalled Stevens and the marines, and requested the provisional government to restore the Queen. This Sanford Ballard Dole, the President of the new republic, refused to do, on the contention that President Cleveland had no right to interfere in the domestic affairs of Hawaii. On the legality or propriety of Stevens's conduct, opinion in Congress was divided; but with regard to Dole's contention, both the Senate and the House were agreed that the islands should maintain their own domestic government without interference from the United States. Thus left to themselves, the Americans in Hawaii bided their time until public opinion in the United States should prove more favorable to annexation.



CHAPTER VI. Venezuela

Probably no President ever received so much personal abuse in his own day as did Grover Cleveland. In time, however, his sterling integrity and fundamental courage, his firm grasp of the higher administrative duties of his office, won the approval of his countrymen, and a repentant public sentiment has possibly gone too far in the other direction of acclaiming his statesmanship. Unlike Blaine, Cleveland thought soundly and consistently; but he was more obstinate, his vision was often narrower, and he was notably lacking both in constructive power and in tact, particularly in foreign relations. In his first Administration, through his Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard, Cleveland had negotiated fairly amicably with Great Britain, and when he failed to secure the Senate's assent to a treaty on the irritating question of the northeastern fisheries, he arranged a modus vivendi which served for many years. In American affairs he opposed not only the annexation of Hawaii but also the development of the spirit of Pan-Americanism. He was, however, no more disposed than was Blaine to permit infractions of that negative side of the Monroe Doctrine which forbade European interference in America. His second Administration brought to the forefront of world diplomacy an issue involving this traditional principle.

The only European possession in South America at this time was Guiana, fronting on the Atlantic north of Brazil and divided among France, Holland, and Great Britain. Beyond British Guiana, the westernmost division, lay Venezuela. Between the two stretched a vast tract of unoccupied tropical jungle. Somewhere there must have been a boundary, but where, no man could tell. The extreme claim of Great Britain would have given her command of the mouth of the Orinoco, while that of Venezuela would practically have eliminated British Guiana. Efforts to settle this long-standing dispute were unavailing. Venezuela had from time to time suggested arbitration but wished to throw the whole area into court. Great Britain insisted upon reserving a minimum territory and would submit to judicial decision only the land west of what was known as the Schomburgh line of 1840. As early as 1876 Venezuela appealed to the United States, "the most powerful and oldest of the Republics of the new continent," for its "powerful moral support in disputes with European nations." Several times the United States proffered its good offices to Great Britain, but to no effect. The satisfactory settlement of the question grew more difficult as time went on, particularly after the discovery of gold in the disputed region had given a new impulse to occupation.

President Cleveland took a serious view of this controversy because it seemed to involve more than a boundary dispute. To his mind it called into question the portion of Monroe's message which, in 1823, stated that "the American continents... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." According to this dictum, boundaries existed between all nations and colonies of America; the problem was merely to find these boundaries. If a European power refused to submit such a question to judicial decision, the inference must be made that it was seeking to extend its boundaries. In December, 1894, Cleveland expressed to Congress his hope that an arbitration would be arranged and instructed his Secretary of State to present vigorously to Great Britain the view of the United States.

Richard Olney of Boston, a lawyer of exceptional ability and of the highest professional standing, was then Secretary of State. His Venezuela dispatch, however, was one of the most undiplomatic documents ever issued by the Department of State. He did not confine himself to a statement of his case, wherein any amount of vigor would have been permissible, but ran his unpracticed eye unnecessarily over the whole field of American diplomacy. "That distance and three thousand miles of intervening ocean make any permanent political union between a European and an American state unnatural and inexpedient," may have been a philosophic axiom to many in Great Britain as well as in the United States, but it surely did not need reiteration in this state paper, and Olney at once exposed himself to contradiction by adding the phrase, "will hardly be denied." Entirely ignoring the sensitive pride of the Spanish Americans and thinking only of Europe, he continued: "Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition."

The President himself did not run into any such uncalled-for extravagance of expression, but his statement of the American position did not thereby lose in vigor. When he had received the reply, of the British Government refusing to recognize the interest of the United States in the case, Cleveland addressed himself, on December 17, 1895, to Congress. In stating the position of the Government of the United States, he declared that to determine the true boundary line was its right, duty, and interest. He recommended that the Government itself appoint a commission for this purpose, and he asserted that this line, when found, must be maintained as the lawful boundary. Should Great Britain continue to exercise jurisdiction beyond it, the United States must resist by every means in its power. "In making these recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred, and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow." Yet "there is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor beneath which axe shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness."

Perhaps no American document relating to diplomacy ever before made so great a stir in the world. Its unexpectedness enhanced its effect, even in the United States, for the public had not been sufficiently aware of the shaping of this international episode to be psychologically prepared for the imminence of war. Unlike most Anglo-American diplomacy, this had been a long-range negotiation, with notes exchanged between the home offices instead of personal conferences. People blenched at the thought of war; stocks fell; the attention of the whole world was arrested. The innumerable and intimate bonds of friendship and interest which would thus have to be broken merely because of an insignificant jog in a boundary remote from both the nations made war between the United States and Great Britain seem absolutely inconceivable, until people realized that neither country could yield without an admission of defeat both galling to national pride and involving fundamental principles of conduct and policy for the future.

Great Britain in particular stood amazed at Cleveland's position. The general opinion was that peace must be maintained and that diplomats must find a formula which would save both peace and appearances. Yet before this public opinion could be diplomatically formulated, a new episode shook the British sense of security. Germany again appeared as a menace and, as in the case of Samoa, the international situation thus produced tended to develop a realization of the kinship between Great Britain and the United States. Early in January, 1896, the Jameson raid into the Transvaal was defeated, and the Kaiser immediately telegraphed his congratulations to President Krtiger. In view of the possibilities involved in this South African situation, British public opinion demanded that her diplomats maintain peace with the United States, with or without the desired formula.

The British Government, however, was not inclined to act with undue haste. It became apparent even to the most panicky that war with the United States could not come immediately, for the American Commission of Inquiry must first report. For a time Lord Salisbury hoped that Congress would not support the President—a contingency which not infrequently happened under Cleveland's Administration. On this question of foreign relations, however, Congress stood squarely behind the President. Lord Salisbury then toyed with the hope that the matter might be delayed until Cleveland's term expired, in the hope he might have an opportunity of dealing with a less strenuous successor.

In the summer of 1896, John Hay, an intimate friend of Major McKinley, the probable Republican candidate for the presidency, was in England, where he was a well-known figure. There he met privately Arthur J. Balfour, representing Lord Salisbury, and Sir William Harcourt, the leader of the Opposition. Hay convinced them that a change in the Administration of his country would involve no retreat from the existing American position. The British Government thereupon determined to yield but attempted to cover its retreat by merging the question with one of general arbitration. This proposal, however, was rejected, and Lord Salisbury then agreed to "an equitable settlement" of the Venezuela question by empowering the British Ambassador at Washington to begin negotiations "either with the representative of Venezuela or with the Government of the United States acting as the friend of Venezuela."

The achievement of the Administration consisted in forcing Great Britain to recognize the interest of the United States in the dispute with Venezuela, on the ground that Venezuela was one of the nations of the Western Hemisphere. This concession practically involved recognition of the interest of the United States in case of future disputes with other American powers. The arbitration treaty thus arranged between Great Britain and Venezuela under the auspices of the United States submitted the whole disputed area to judicial decision but adopted the rule that fifty years of occupation should give a sufficient title for possession. The arbitration tribunal, which met in Paris in 1899, decided on a division of the disputed territory but found that the claim of Great Britain was, on the whole, more nearly correct than that of Venezuela.

Cleveland's startling and unconventional method of dealing with this controversy has been explained by all kinds of conjectures. For example, it has been charged that his message was the product of a fishing trip on which whisky flowed too freely; on the other hand, it has been asserted that the message was an astute political play for the thunder of patriotic applause. More seriously, Cleveland has been charged by one set of critics with bluffing, and by another with recklessly running the risk of war on a trivial provocation. The charge of bluffing comes nearer the fact, for President Cleveland probably had never a moment's doubt that the forces making for peace between the two nations would be victorious. If he may be said to have thrown a bomb, he certainly had attached a safety valve to it, for the investigation which he proposed could not but give time for the passions produced by his message to cool. It is interesting to note in passing that delay for investigation was a device which that other great Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, Cleveland's greatest political enemy, sought, during his short term as Secretary of State under President Wilson, to make universal in a series of arbitration treaties—treaties which now bind the United States and many other countries, how tightly no man can tell.

While, however, Cleveland's action was based rather on a belief in peace than on an expectation of war, it cannot be dismissed as merely a bluff. Not only was he convinced that the principle involved was worth establishing whatever the cost might be, but he was certain that the method he employed was the only one which could succeed, for in no other way was it possible to wake England to a realization of the fact that the United States was full-grown and imbued with a new consciousness of its strength. So far was Cleveland's message from provoking war that it caused the people of Great Britain vitally to realize for the first time the importance of friendship with the United States. It marks a change in their attitude toward things American which found expression not only in diplomacy, but in various other ways, and which strikingly revealed itself in the international politics of the next few years. Not that hostility was converted into affection, but a former condescension gave way to an appreciative friendliness towards the people of the United States.

The reaction in America was somewhat different. Cleveland had united the country upon a matter of foreign policy, not completely, it is true, but to a greater degree than Blaine had ever succeeded in doing. More important than this unity of feeling throughout the land, however, was the development of a spirit of inquiry among the people. Suddenly confronted by changes of policy that might bring wealth or poverty, life or death, the American people began to take the foreign relations of the United States more seriously than they had since the days of the Napoleonic wars. Yet it is not surprising that when the Venezuela difficulty had been settled and Secretary Olney and Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Ambassador, had concluded a general treaty of arbitration, the Senate should have rejected it, for the lesson that caution was necessary in international affairs had been driven home. Time was needed for the new generation to formulate its foreign policy.



CHAPTER VII. The Outbreak Of The War With Spain

Before the nineteenth century ended, the Samoan, Hawaiian, and Venezuelan episodes had done much to quicken a national consciousness in the people of the United States and at the same time to break down their sense of isolation from the rest of the world. Commerce and trade were also important factors in overcoming this traditional isolation. Not only was American trade growing, but it was changing in character. Argentina was beginning to compete with the United States in exporting wheat and meat, while American manufacturers were reaching the point where they were anxious for foreign markets in which they felt they could compete with the products of Great Britain and Germany.

In a thousand ways and without any loss of vigor the sense of American nationality was expressing itself. The study of American history was introduced into the lower schools, and a new group of historians began scientifically to investigate whence the American people had come and what they really were. In England, such popular movements find instant expression in literature; in the United States they take the form of societies. Innumerable patriotic organizations such as the "Daughters of the American Revolution" and a host of others, sought to trace out American genealogy and to perpetuate the memory of American military and naval achievements. Respect for the American flag was taught in schools, and the question was debated as to whether its use in comic opera indicated respect or insult. This new nationalism was unlike the expansionist movement of the fifties in that it laid no particular stress upon the incorporation of the neighboring republics by a process of federation. On the whole, the people had lost their faith in the assimilating influence of republican institutions and did not desire to annex alien territory and races. They were now more concerned with the consolidation of their own country and with its place in the world. Nor were they as neglectful as their fathers had been of the material means by which to accomplish their somewhat indefinite purposes.

The reconstruction of the American Navy, which had attained such magnitude and played so important a part in the Civil War but which had been allowed to sink into the merest insignificance, was begun by William E. Chandler, the Secretary of the Navy under President Arthur. William C. Whitney, his successor under President Cleveland, continued the work with energy. Captain Alfred T. Mahan began in 1883 to publish that series of studies in naval history which won him world-wide recognition and did so much to revolutionize prevailing conceptions of naval strategy. A Naval War College was established in 1884, at Newport, Rhode Island, where naval officers could continue the studies which they had begun at Annapolis.

The total neglect of the army was not entirely the result of indifference. The experience with volunteers in the Civil War had given almost universal confidence that the American people could constitute themselves an army at will. The presence of several heroes of that war in succession in the position of commander-in-chief of the army had served to diffuse a sense of security among the people. Here and there military drill was introduced in school and college, but the regular army attracted none of the romantic interest that clung about the navy, and the militia was almost totally neglected. Individual officers, such as young Lieutenant Tasker Bliss, began to study the new technique of warfare which was to make fighting on land as different from that of the wars of Napoleon as naval warfare was different from that of the time of Nelson. Yet in spite of obviously changing conditions, no provision was made for the encouragement of young army officers in advanced and up-to-date Studies. While their contemporaries in other professions were adding graduate training to the general education which a college gave, the graduates of West Point were considered to have made themselves in four years sufficiently proficient for all the purposes of warfare.

By the middle nineties thoughtful students of contemporary movements were aware that a new epoch in national history was approaching. What form this national development would take was, however, still uncertain, and some great event was obviously required to fix its character. Blaine's Pan-Americanism had proved insufficient and, though the baiting of Great Britain was welcome to a vociferous minority, the forces making for peace were stronger than those in favor of war. Whatever differences there were did not reach to fundamentals but were rather in the nature of legal disputes between neighbors whom a real emergency would quickly bring to the assistance of each other. A crisis involving interest, propinquity, and sentiment, was needed to shake the nation into an activity which would clear its views.

At the very time of the Venezuela difficulty, such a crisis was taking shape in the Caribbean. Cuba had always been an object of immediate concern to the United States. The statesmen of the Jeffersonian period all looked to its eventually becoming part of American territory. Three quarters of a century before, when the revolt of the Spanish colonies had halted on the shores of the mainland, leaving the rich island of Cuba untouched, John Quincy Adams, on April 28, 1823, in a lengthy and long-considered dispatch to Mr. Nelson, the American Minister to Spain, asserted that the United States could not consent to the passing of Cuba from the flag of Spain to that of any other European power, that under existing conditions Cuba was considered safer in the hands of Spain than in those of the revolutionaries, and that the United States stood for the maintenance of the status quo, with the expectation that Cuba would ultimately become American territory.

By the late forties and the fifties, however, the times had changed, and American policy had changed with them. It was becoming more and more evident that, although no real revolution had as yet broken out, the "Pearl of the Antilles" was bound to Spain by compulsion rather than by love. In the United States there was a general feeling that the time had at last come to realize the vision of Jefferson and Adams and to annex Cuba. But the complications of the slavery question prevented immediate annexation. As a slave colony which might become a slave state, the South wanted Cuba, but the majority in the North did not.

After the Civil War in the United States was over, revolution at length flared forth in 1868, from end to end of the island. Sympathy with the Cubans was widespread in the United States. The hand of the Government, however, was stayed by recent history. Americans felt keenly the right of governments to exert their full strength to put down rebellion, for they themselves were prosecuting against Great Britain a case based on what they contended was her too lax enforcement of her obligations to the American Government and on the assistance which she had given to the South. The great issue determined the lesser, and for ten years the United States watched the Cuban revolution without taking part in it, but not, however, without protest and remonstrance. Claiming special rights as a close and necessarily interested neighbor, the United States constantly made suggestions as to the manner of the contest and its settlement. Some of these Spain grudgingly allowed, and it was in part by American insistence that slavery was finally abolished in the island. Further internal reform, however, was not the wish and was perhaps beyond the power of Spain. Although the revolution was seemingly brought to a close in 1878, its embers continued to smolder for nearly a score of years until in 1895 they again burst into flame.

War in Cuba could not help affecting in a very intimate way the people of the United States. They bought much the greater part of the chief Cuban crops, sugar and tobacco. American capital had been invested in the island, particularly in plantations. For years Cubans of liberal tendencies had sent their sons to be educated in the United States, very many of whom had been naturalized before returning home. Cuba was but ninety miles from Florida, and much of our coastwise shipping passed in sight of the island. The people of the United States were aroused to sympathy and to a desire to be of assistance when they saw that the Cubans, so near geographically and so bound to them by many commercial ties, were engaged against a foreign monarchy in a struggle for freedom and a republican form of government. Ethan Allen headed a Cuban committee in New York and by his historic name associated the new revolution with the memory of the American struggle for freedom. The Cuban flag was displayed in the United States, Cuban bonds were sold, and volunteers and arms were sent to the aid of the insurgents.

Owing to the nature of the country and the character of the people, a Cuban revolution had its peculiarities. The island is a very long and rugged mountain chain surrounded by fertile, cultivated plains. The insurgents from their mountain refuges spied out the land, pounced upon unprotected spots, burned crops and sugar mills, and were off before troops could arrive. The portion of the population in revolt at any particular time was rarely large. Many were insurgents one week and peaceful citizens the next. The fact that the majority of the population sympathized with the insurgents enabled the latter to melt into the landscape without leaving a sign. A provisional government hurried on mule-back from place to place. The Spanish Government, contrary to custom, acted at this time with some energy: it put two hundred thousand soldiers into the island; it raised large levies of loyal Cubans; it was almost always victorious; yet the revolution would not down. Martinez Campos, the "Pacificator" of the first revolution, was this time unable to protect the plains. In 1896 he was replaced by General Weyler, who undertook a new system. He started to corral the insurgents by a chain of blockhouses and barbed wire fences from ocean to sea—the first completely guarded cross-country line since the frontier walls of the Roman Empire in Europe and the Great Wall of China in Asia. He then proceeded to starve out the insurgents by destroying all the food in the areas to which they were confined. As the revolutionists lived largely on the pillage of plantations in their neighborhood, this policy involved the destruction of the crops of the loyal as well as of the disloyal, of Americans as well as of Cubans. The population of the devastated plantations was gathered into reconcentrado camps where, penned promiscuously into small reservations, they were entirely dependent upon a Government which was poor in supplies and as careless of sanitation as it was of humanity. The camps became pest-holes, spreading contagion to all regions having intercourse with Cuba, and in vain the interned victims were crying aloud for succor.

This new policy of disregard for property and life deeply involved American interests and sensibilities. The State Department maintained that Spain was responsible for the destruction of American property by insurgents. This Spain denied, for, while she never officially recognized the insurgents as belligerents, the insurrection had passed beyond her control. This was, indeed, the position which the Spanish Treaty Claims Commission subsequently took in ruling that to establish a claim it would be necessary to show that the destruction of property was the consequence of negligence upon the part of Spanish authorities or of military orders. Of other serious grievances there was no doubt. American citizens were imprisoned, interned in reconcentrado camps, and otherwise maltreated. The nationality of American sufferers was in some cases disputed, and the necessity of dealing with each of these doubtful cases by the slow and roundabout method of complaint to Madrid, which referred matters back to Havana, which reported to Madrid, served but to add irritation to delay. American resentment, too, was fired by the sufferings of the Cubans themselves as much as by the losses and difficulties of American citizens.

One change of extreme importance had taken place since the Cuban revolt of 1868-78. This was the development of the modern American newspaper. It was no longer possible for the people at large to remain ignorant of what was taking place at their very doors. Correspondents braved the yellow fever and imprisonment in order to furnish the last details of each new horror. Foremost in this work were William Randolph Hearst, who made new records of sensationalism in his papers, particularly in the New York Journal, and Joseph Pulitzer, proprietor of the New York World. Hearst is reported to have said that it cost him three millions to bring on the Spanish American War. The net result of all this newspaper activity was that it became impossible for the American people to remain in happy ignorance of what was going on in the world. Their reaction to the facts was their own.

President Cleveland modeled his policy upon that of Grant and Grant's Secretary, Hamilton Fish. He did not recognize the independence of the Cuban republic, for that would have meant immediate war with Spain; nor did he recognize even its belligerency. Public men in the United States were still convinced that Great Britain had erred in recognizing the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy, and consistency of foreign policy demanded that the Government should not accord recognition to a Government without a navy, a capital, or fixed territory. This decision made it particularly difficult for the President to perform his acknowledged duty to Spain, of preventing aid being sent from the United States to the insurgents. He issued the proper proclamations, and American officials were reasonably diligent, it is true, but without any of the special powers which would have resulted from a recognized state of war they were unable to prevent a leakage of supplies. As a result General Weyler had some ground for saying, though with characteristic Spanish extravagance, that it was American aid which gave life to the revolt.

President Cleveland energetically pressed all cases involving American rights; he offered mediation; he remonstrated against the cruelty of Weyler's methods; he pointed out that the United States could not forever allow an island so near and so closely related to be in flames without intervention. Spain, however, assumed a rather lofty tone, and Cleveland was able to accomplish nothing. Senator Lodge and other Republicans violently attacked his policy as procrastinating, and the nation as a whole looked forward with interest to the approaching change in administration.

William McKinley, who became President on March 4, 1897, was not actively interested in foreign affairs. This he illustrated in a striking way by appointing as Secretary of State John Sherman of Ohio, a man of undoubtedly high ability but one whose whole reputation rested upon his financial leadership, and who now, at the age of seventy-four, was known to be incapacitated for vigorous action. To the very moment of crisis, McKinley was opposed to a war with Spain; he was opposed to the form of the declaration of war and he was opposed to the terms of peace which ended the war. Emphatically not a leader, he was, however, unsurpassed in his day as a reader of public opinion, and he believed his function to be that of interpreting the national mind. Nor did he yield his opinion in a grudging manner. He grasped broadly the consequences of each new position which the public assumed, and he was a master at securing harmonious cooperation for a desired end.

The platform of the Republican party had declared: "The Government of Spain having lost control of Cuba, and being unable to protect the property or lives of resident American citizens, or to comply with its treaty obligations, we believe that the Government of the United States should actively use its influence and good offices to restore peace and give independence to the island." With this mandate, McKinley sought to free Cuba, absolutely or practically, while at the same time maintaining peace with Spain. On June 26, 1897, Secretary Sherman sent a note to the Spanish Minister, protesting against the Spanish methods of war and asserting that "the inclusion of a thousand or more of our own citizens among the victims of this policy" gives "the President the right of specific remonstrance, but in the just fulfillment of his duty he cannot limit himself to these formal grounds of complaint. He is bound by the higher obligation of his representative office to protest against the uncivilized and inhuman conduct of the campaign in the island of Cuba. He conceives that he has a right to demand that a war, conducted almost within sight of our shores and grievously affecting American citizens and their interests throughout the length and breadth of the land, shall at least be conducted according to the military codes of civilization."

Negotiations between the United States and Spain have always been peculiarly irritating, owing to temperamental differences between the two peoples. McKinley, however, had in mind a program for which there was some hope of success. He was willing to agree to some form of words which would leave Spain in titular possession of the island, thereby making a concession to Spanish pride, for he knew that Spain was always more loath to surrender the form than the substance. This hope of the President was strengthened, towards the end of 1897, by a dramatic incident in the political life of Spain. On the 8th of August, the Spanish Prime Minister, the Conservative Antonio Canovas del Castillo, was assassinated, and was succeeded on the 4th of October by the Liberal, Praxedes Mateo Sagasta.

The new Spanish Government listened to American demands and made large promises of amelioration of conditions in Cuba. General Blanco was substituted for General Weyler, whose cruelty had made him known in the American press as "the Butcher"; it was announced that the reconcentrado camps would be broken up; and the Queen Regent decreed the legislative autonomy of Cuba. Arrangements had been made for the handling of minor disputes directly with the Governor-General of Cuba through the American Consul General at Havana, General Fitzhugh Lee. On December 6, 1897, McKinley, in his annual message to Congress, counseled patience. Convinced of the good intentions of the new Spanish Government, he sought to induce American public sentiment to allow it time to act. He continued nevertheless to urge upon Spain the fact that in order to be effective action must be prompt.

Public sentiment against Spain grew every day stronger in the United States and was given startling impulse in February, 1898, by two of those critical incidents which are almost sure to occur when general causes are potent enough to produce a white heat of popular feeling. The Spanish Minister in the United States, Senor Dupuy de Lome, had aroused the suspicion, during his summer residence on the north shore of Massachusetts Bay, that he was collecting information which would be useful to a Spanish fleet operating on that coast. Whether this charge was true or not, at any rate he wrote a letter to a friend, a Madrid editor visiting Havana, in which he characterized McKinley as a vacillating and timeserving politician. Alert American newspaper men, who practically constituted a secret service of some efficiency, managed to obtain the letter. On February 9, 1898, De Lome saw a facsimile of this letter printed in a newspaper and at once cabled his resignation. In immediately accepting De Lome's resignation Spain anticipated an American demand for his recall and thus saved Spanish pride, though undoubtedly at the expense of additional irritation in the United States, where it was thought that he should have been punished instead of being allowed to slip away.

Infinitely more serious than this diplomatic faux pas was the disaster which befell the United States battleship Maine: On January 24, 1898, the Government had announced its intention of sending a warship on a friendly visit to Havana; with the desire of impressing the local Cuban authorities with the imminence of American power. Not less important was the purpose of affording protection to American citizens endangered by the rioting of Spaniards, who were angry because they believed that Sagasta by his conciliatory policy was betraying the interests of Spain. Accordingly the Maine, commanded by Captain Sigsbee, was dispatched to Cuba and arrived on the 25th of January in the harbor of Havana. On the night of the 15th of February, an explosion utterly wrecked the vessel and killed 260 of the crew, besides wounding ninety.

The responsibility for this calamity has never been positively determined. It may have resulted from an accidental internal explosion, from the official action of the Spanish authorities, from the unofficial zeal of subordinate Spanish officers, or even—as suggested by Speaker Reed who was an opponent of war—by action of the insurgents themselves with the purpose of embroiling the United States and Spain. The careful investigations which were afterwards made brought to light evidence of both internal and external explosions; it therefore seems probable that an external mine was the prime cause of the disaster and that the internal explosion followed as a consequence. No direct evidence has been discovered which would fix the responsibility for the placing of the mine, but it is reasonable to attribute it to the Spanish hotheads of Havana. It is not impossible that the insurgents were responsible; but it is incredible that the Spanish Government planned the explosion.

The hasty, though perhaps natural, conclusion to which American public sentiment at once leaped, however, was that the disaster was the work of Spain, without making any discrimination between the Government itself and the disaffected factions. A general sorrow and anger throughout the United States reinforced the popular anxiety for national interests and the humane regard for the Cubans. Press and public oratory demanded official action. "Remember the Maine!" was an admonition which everywhere met the eye and ear. The venerable and trusted Senator Proctor, who visited Cuba, came back with the report that conditions on the island were intolerable. On the 9th of March, "Uncle Joe" Cannon, the watchdog of the Treasury, introduced a bill appropriating fifty million dollars to be used for national defense at the discretion of the President. No doubt remained in the public mind that war would result unless the withdrawal of Spanish authority from Cuba could be arranged peaceably and immediately.

Even in this final stage of the negotiations it is sufficiently obvious that the United States Government was particularly desirous of preserving peace. There is also little doubt that the Spanish Government in good faith had the same desire. The intelligent classes in Spain realized that the days of Spanish rule in Cuba were practically over. The Liberals believed that, under the circumstances, war with the United States would be a misfortune. Many of the Conservatives, however, believed that a war, even if unsuccessful, was the only way of saving the dynasty, and that the dynasty was worth saving. Public opinion in Spain was therefore no less inflamed than in America, but it was less well-informed. Cartoons represented the American hog, which would readily fall before the Spanish rapier accustomed to its nobler adversary the bull. Spanish pride, impervious to facts and statistics, would brook no supine submission on the part of its people to foreign demands. It was a question how far the Spanish Government could bring itself to yield points in season which it fully realized must be yielded in the end.

The negotiation waxed too hot for the aged John Sherman, and was conducted by the Assistant Secretary, William Rufus Day, a close friend of the President, but a man comparatively unknown to the public. When Day officially succeeded Sherman (April 26, 1898) he had to face as fierce a light of publicity as ever beat upon a public man in the United States. Successively in charge of the Cuban negotiations, Secretary of State from April to September, 1898, President of the Paris Peace Commission in October, in December, after a career of prime national importance for nine months in which he had demonstrated his high competence, Day retired to the relative obscurity of the United States circuit bench. Although later raised to the Supreme Court, he has never since been a national figure. As an example of a meteoric career of a man of solid rather than meteoric qualities, his case is unparalleled in American history.

The acting Secretary of State telegraphed the ultimatum of the Government on March 27, 1898, to General Stewart L. Woodford, then Minister to Spain. By the terms of this document, in the first place there was to be an immediate amnesty which would last until the 1st of October and during which Spain would communicate with the insurgents through the President of the United States; in the second place, the reconcentrado policy was to cease immediately, and relief for the suffering Cubans was to be admitted from the United States. Then, if satisfactory terms were not reached by the 1st of October, the President was to be recognized as arbiter between the Spaniards and the insurgents.

On the 30th of March, Spain abrogated the reconcentrado policy in the "western provinces of Cuba," and on the following day offered to arbitrate the questions arising out of the sinking of the Maine. On Sunday, the 3d of April, a cablegram from General Woodford was received by the State Department indicating that Spain was seeking a formula for an armistice that should not too obviously appear to be submission and suggesting that the President ask the Pope to intervene and that the United States abstain from all show of force. "If you can still give me time and reasonable liberty of action," ran Woodford's message, "I will get you the peace you desire so much and for which you have labored so hard." To this the Secretary of State immediately replied that the President would not ask the intervention of the Pope, and that the Government would use the fleet as it saw fit. "Would the peace you are so confident of securing," asked the Secretary, "mean the independence of Cuba? The President cannot hold his message longer than Tuesday." On Tuesday, the 5th of April, General Woodford cabled:

"Should the Queen proclaim the following before twelve o'clock noon of Wednesday, April 6th, will you sustain the Queen, and can you prevent hostile action by Congress? At the request of the Holy Father, in this Passion Week and in the name of Christ, I proclaim immediate and unconditional suspension of hostilities in the island of Cuba. This suspension is to become immediately effective as soon as accepted by the insurgents of that island, and is to continue for the space of six months to the 5th day of October, 1898. I do this to give time for passions to cease, and in the sincere hope and belief that during this suspension permanent and honorable peace may be obtained between the insular government of Cuba and those of my subjects in that island who are now in rebellion against the authority of Spain...." "Please read this in the light of all my previous telegrams and letters. I believe this means peace, which the sober judgment of our people will approve long before next November, and which must be approved at the bar of final history."

To this message the Secretary of State replied:

"The President highly appreciates the Queen's desire for peace. He cannot assume to influence the action of the American Congress beyond a discharge of his constitutional duty in transmitting the whole matter to them with such recommendations as he deems necessary and expedient."

On the 9th of April the Queen granted the amnesty, on the formula of a request by the European powers. On the next day, General Woodford cabled that the United States could obtain for Cuba a satisfactory autonomy, or independence, or the cession of the island.

It was evident that there was no difference of opinion among those in authority in the United States as to the fact that Cuba must be severed from Spain. There were, however, differences of judgment as to which of the three methods suggested by Woodford was preferable, and there was a substantial disagreement as to the means necessary to realize the aims of the American Government. General Woodford believed that Spain would grant the demands of the United States, if she were given time and were not pressed to the point of endangering her dignity. The overwhelming majority in Congress, and particularly the leaders of the dominant Republican party with the exception of Speaker Reed, refused to believe in the sincerity of the Spanish Government. The Administration could not overlook the fact that the Spanish Government, however sincere it might be, might not be able to execute its promises. Great Britain had just recognized the United States as intermediary in a dispute between herself and one of the American nations. Spain, in a dispute much more serious to the United States, refused publicly to admit American intervention, while she did recognize that of the Pope and the European powers. Was it then possible that a Government which was either unwilling or afraid openly to acknowledge American interest in April would, by October, yield to the wishes of the Administration? Was it certain or likely that if the Spanish Government did so yield, it would remain in power?

Reluctantly President McKinley decided that he could not announce to Congress that he had secured the acceptance of the American policy. In his message to Congress on the 11th of April, he reviewed the negotiation and concluded by recommending forcible intervention. On the 19th of April, Congress, by joint resolution, called upon Spain to withdraw from Cuba and authorized the President to use force to compel her to do so. Congress, however, was not content to leave the future of the island merely indefinite, but added that the United States did not desire Cuba and that the "people of the island of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, free and independent." This decision ruled out both autonomy and cession as solutions of the problem. It put an end to the American century-long dream of annexing Cuba, unless the people of the island themselves desired such a relation; and it practically determined the recognition of the unstable Cuban Government then in existence. This decision on the part of Congress, however, reflected the deep-seated conviction of the American people regarding freedom and plainly put the issue where the popular majority wished it to be—upon a basis of unselfish sympathy with struggling neighbors.

The resolution was signed by the President on the 20th of April. On the following day, Admiral Sampson's fleet left Key West with orders to blockade the coast of Cuba, and, in the absence of a formal declaration of war, this strategic move may be considered as its actual beginning. On the 25th of April, Congress declared "that, war be, and the same is hereby, declared to exist, and that war has existed since the twenty-first of April, Anno Domini, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, including the said day, between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain."



CHAPTER VIII. Dewey And Manila Day

War had begun, but the majority of the American people had hardly considered seriously how they were to fight. Fortunately their navy already existed, and it was upon it that they had to rely in the opening moments of hostility. Ton for ton, gun for gun, it stood on fairly even terms with that of Spain. Captain, later Admiral, Mahan, considered that the loss of the Maine shifted a slight paper advantage from the United States to Spain. In personnel, however, the American Navy soon proved its overwhelming superiority, which was due not solely to innate ability but also to sound professional training.

The Secretary of the Navy, John D. Long, had a thorough appreciation of values. Although Congress had not provided for a general staff, he himself appointed a Naval War Board, which served many of the same purposes. Upon this Board he appointed Rear Admiral Sicard, who but for ill health would have commanded the main fleet; Captain A. S. Crowninshield; and, most important, Captain A. T. Mahan, whose equal as master of the theory and history of naval warfare no navy of the world could show. The spirit of the fighting force was speedily exhibited by such exploits as that of Lieutenant Victor Blue in boldly plunging into the Cuban wilderness to obtain information regarding the position of Admiral Cervera's fleet, though in this dangerous sort of work the individual palm must be given to Lieutenant A. S. Rowan of the army, whose energy and initiative in overcoming obstacles are immortalized in Elbert Hubbard's "Message to Garcia," the best American parable of efficient service since the days of Franklin.

Efficient, however, as was the navy, it was far from being a complete fighting force. Its fighting vessels were totally unsupplied with that cloud of servers—colliers, mother ships, hospital ships, and scouts—which we now know must accompany a fleet. The merchant marine, then at almost its lowest point, was not in a position entirely to fill the need. The United States had no extensive store of munitions. Over all operations there hung a cloud of uncertainty. Except for the short campaign of the Chino-Japanese War of 1894, modern implements of sea war remained untested. Scientific experiment, valuable and necessary as it was, did not carry absolute conviction regarding efficient service. Would the weapons of offense or defense prove most effective? Accidents on shipboard and even the total destruction of vessels had been common to all navies during times of peace. That the Maine had not been a victim of the failure of her own mechanism was not then certain. Such misgivings were in the minds of many officers. Indeed, a report of the total disappearance of two battling fleets would not have found the watchful naval experts of the world absolutely incredulous. So much the higher, therefore, was the heroism of those who led straight to battle that complex and as yet unproved product of the brain—the modern warship.

While negotiations with Spain were in their last stages, at the orders of Secretary Long a swift vessel left San Francisco for Honolulu. There its precious cargo was transferred to the warship Baltimore, which then made hurriedly for Hongkong. It contained the ammunition which was absolutely necessary if Commodore George Dewey, in command of the Asiatic squadron, was to play a part in the war. The position of his squadron, even after it received its ammunition, was indeed singular. After the war began, it was unable to obtain coal or other supplies from any neutral port and at the same time it was equally unable to remain in any such port without being interned for the duration of the war. There remained but one course of action. It must not be forgotten that the Spanish empire stretched eastward as well as westward. Already William Pitt, when he had foreseen in 1760 the entrance of Spain into the war which England was then waging with France, had planned expeditions against both Cuba and the Philippines. Now in 1898 the Navy Department of the United States, anticipating war, saw in the proximity of the American squadron to the Spanish islands of the Philippines an opportunity rather than a problem. Commodore George Dewey, the commander of the Asiatic squadron, was fully prepared to enter into the plan. As early as the seventies, when the Virginius affair * threatened war between Spain and the United States, Dewey, then a commander on the west coast of Mexico, had proposed, in case war were declared, that he sail for the Philippines and capture Manila. Now he was prepared to seek in the hostile ports of those islands the liberty that international law forbade him in the neutral ports of Asia. How narrow a margin of time he had in which to make this bold stroke may be realized from the fact that the Baltimore, his second vessel in size, reached Hongkong on the 22d of April and went into dry dock on the 23d, and that on the following day the squadron was ordered either to leave the port or to intern.

* A dispute between the United States and Spain, arising out of the capture of the Virginius, an American vessel engaged in filibustering off the coast of Cuba, and the execution at Santiago of the captain and a number of the crew and passengers. The vessel and the surviving passengers were finally restored by the Spanish authorities, who agreed to punish the officials responsible for the illegal acts.

The little armada of six vessels with which Dewey started for the Philippines was puny enough from the standpoint of today; yet it was strong enough to cope with the larger but more old-fashioned Spanish fleet, or with the harbor defenses unless these included mines—of whose absence Dewey was at the moment unaware. If, however, the Spanish commander could unite the strength of his vessels and that of the coast defenses, Dewey might find it impossible to destroy the Spanish fleet. In that case, the plight of the American squadron would be precarious, if its ultimate self-destruction or internment did not become necessary.

Commodore Dewey belonged to that school of American naval officers who combine the spirit of Farragut's "Damn the torpedoes" with a thorough knowledge of the latest scientific devices. Though he would take all precautions, he would not allow the unknown to hold him back. After a brief rendezvous for tuning up at Mirs Bay near Hongkong on the Chinese coast, Dewey steered straight for Subig Bay in the Philippines, where he expected to meet his opponent. Finding the Bay empty, he steamed on without pause and entered the Boca Grande, the southern channel leading to Manila Bay, at midnight of the 30th of April. Slowly, awaiting daylight, but steadily he approached Manila. Coming within three miles of the city, he discovered the Spanish fleet, half a dozen miles to the southeast, at the naval station of Cavite. Still without a pause, the American squadron moved to the attack.

The Spanish Admiral Montojo tried, though ineffectually, to come to close quarters, for his guns were of smaller caliber than those of the American ships, but he was forced to keep his vessels for the most part in line between the Americans and the shore. Commodore Dewey sailed back and forth five times, raking the Spanish ships and the shore batteries with his fire. Having guns of longer range than those of the Spaniards, he could have kept out of their fire and slowly hammered them to pieces; but he preferred a closer position where he could use more guns and therefore do quicker work. How well he was justified in taking this risk is shown by the fact that no man was killed on the American fleet that day and only a few were wounded. After a few hours' fighting, with a curious interval when the Americans withdrew and breakfasted, Dewey completed the destruction or capture of the Spanish fleet, and found himself the victor with his own ships uninjured and in full fighting trim. By the 3d of May, the naval station at Cavite and the batteries at the entrance of Manila Bay were in the hands of Commodore Dewey, and the Asiatic squadron had wrested a safe and commodious harbor from the enemy.

Secure for the moment and free, Dewey found himself in as precarious a strategic position as has ever confronted a naval officer. With his six war vessels and 1707 men, he was unsupported and at least a month's voyage from America. It was two months, indeed, before any American troops or additional ships reached him. Meanwhile the Spaniards held Manila, and a Spanish fleet, formidable under the circumstances, began to sail for the Philippines. Nevertheless Dewey proceeded to blockade Manila, which was besieged on the land side by the Filipino insurgents under Aguinaldo. This siege was indeed an advantage to the Americans as it distressed the enemy and gave an opportunity to obtain supplies from the mainland. Dewey, however, placed no confidence in Aguinaldo, and further was instructed by Secretary Long on the 26th of May as follows: "It is desirable, as far as possible, and consistent for your success and safety, not to have political alliances with the insurgents or any faction in the islands that would incur liability to maintain their cause in the future." Meanwhile foreign nations were rushing vessels to this critical spot in the Pacific. On the 17th of June, Dewey sent a cable, which had to be relayed to Hongkong by boat, reporting that there were collected, in Manila Bay, a French and a Japanese warship, two British, and three German. Another German man-of-war was expected, which would make the German squadron as strong as the American.

The presence of so large a German force, it was felt, could hardly fail to have definite significance, and therefore caused an anxiety at home which would, indeed, have been all the keener had Admiral Dewey not kept many of his troubles to himself. European sympathy was almost wholly with Spain. The French, for instance, had invested heavily in Spanish bonds, many of which were secured on the Cuban revenues. There was also perhaps some sense of solidarity among the Latin races in Europe and a feeling that the United States was a colossus willfully exerting itself against a weak antagonist. It was not likely that this feeling was strong enough to lead to action, but at least during that summer of 1898 it was somewhat unpleasant for American tourists in Paris, and an untoward episode might easily have brought unfriendly sentiment to a dangerous head. Austria had never been very friendly to the United States, particularly since the execution of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, which his brother Francis Joseph believed the United States could have prevented, and was tied to Spain by the fact that the Queen Regent was an Austrian Hapsburg.

It was evident, moreover, that in Europe there was a vague but nevertheless real dread of the economic potentialities of the United States—a fear which led, in the next few years, to the suggestion that the American invasion of trade should be resisted by a general European economic organization which would even overrule the natural tendency of powers to group themselves into hostile camps. In 1898 it seemed possible that the United States was consciously planning to become a world military power also, and a feeling, not exactly like Blaine's "America for the Americans" but rather of "the world for Europeans," gathered force to meet any attempt at American expansion.

Even before war had broken out between Spain and the United States, this sentiment had sufficiently crystallized to result in a not quite usual diplomatic action. On April 6, 1898, the representatives of Great Britain, Germany, France, Austro-Hungary, Russia, and Italy, presented a note to the Government of the United States making "a pressing appeal to the feelings of humanity and moderation of the President and of the American people in their differences with Spain. They earnestly hope that further negotiations will lead to an agreement which, while securing the maintenance of peace, will afford all necessary guarantees for the reestablishment of order in Cuba."

Of all the European powers none was more interested than Germany in the situation in the Western Hemisphere. There seems to be no doubt that the Kaiser made the remark to an Englishman with reference to the Spanish American War: "If I had had a larger fleet I would have taken Uncle Sam by the scruff of his neck." Though the reason for Germany's attitude has never been proven by documents, circumstantial evidence points convincingly to the explanation. The quest for a colonial empire, upon which Bismarck had embarked rather reluctantly and late, had been taken up with feverish zeal by William II, his successor in the direction of German policy. Not content with the commercial conquests which German trade was making in all countries of the earth, the Kaiser wanted a place in the sun exclusively his own. The world seemed, however, as firmly closed to the late-comer in search of colonies as it was open to him as the bearer of cheap and useful goods. Such remnants of territory as lay on the counter he quickly seized, but they hardly made an empire.

It is not, therefore, a daring conjecture that the Kaiser was as carefully watching the decrepit empire of Spain as he was the traditional sick man of Europe, the empire of Turkey. In 1898 revolutions were sapping both the extremities of the Spanish dominions. The Kaiser, while he doubtless realized that Cuba would not fall to him, in all probability expected that he would be able to get the Philippines. Certain it is that at the close of the Spanish American War he bought all the remaining Spanish possessions in the Pacific. If such had been his expectations with regard to the Philippines, the news of Dewey's victory must have brought him a bitter disappointment, while at the same time the careless and indiscreet remark of an American official to certain Germans—"We don't want the Philippines; why don't you take them?"—may well have given him a feeling that perhaps the question was still open.

Under such circumstances, with Europe none too well-disposed and the Kaiser watching events with a jealous eye, it was very important to the United States not to be without a friend. In England sympathy for America ran strong and deep. The British Government was somewhat in alarm over the political solitude in which Great Britain found herself, even though its head, Lord Salisbury, described the position as one of "splendid isolation." The unexpected reaction of friendliness on the part of Great Britain which had followed the Venezuela affair continued to augment, and relations between the two countries were kept smooth by the new American Ambassador, John Hay, whom Queen Victoria described as "the most interesting of all the ambassadors I have known." More important still, in Great Britain alone was there a public who appreciated the real sentiment of humanity underlying the entrance of the United States into the war with Spain; and this public actually had some weight in politics. The people of both Great Britain and the United States were easily moved to respond with money and personal service to the cry of suffering anywhere in the world. Just before the Spanish American War, Gladstone had made his last great campaign protesting against the new massacres in Armenia; and in the United States the Republican platform of 1896 had declared that "the massacres in Armenia have aroused the deep sympathy and just indignation of the American people, and we believe that the United States should exercise all the influence it can properly exert to bring these atrocities to an end."

John Hay wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge, of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, April 5, 1898, as follows: "For the first time in my life I find the drawing-room sentiment altogether with us. If we wanted it—which, of course, we do not—we could have the practical assistance of the British Navy—on the do ut des principle, naturally." On the 25th of May he added: "It is a moment of immense importance, not only for the present, but for all the future. It is hardly too much to say the interests of civilization are bound up in the direction the relations of England and America are to take in the next few months." Already on the 15th of May, Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, had said to the Birmingham Liberal Unionists: "What is our next duty? It is to establish and to maintain bonds of permanent amity with our kinsmen across the Atlantic. There is a powerful and a generous nation.... Their laws, their literature, their standpoint upon every question are the same as ours."

In Manila Harbor, where Dewey lay with his squadron, these distant forces of European colonial policy were at work. The presence of representative foreign warships to observe the maintenance of the blockade was a natural and usual naval circumstance. The arrival of two German vessels therefore caused no remark, although they failed to pay the usual respects to the blockading squadron. On the 12th of May a third arrived and created some technical inconvenience by being commanded by an officer who outranked Commodore Dewey. A German transport which was in the harbor made the total number of German personnel superior to that of the Americans, and the arrival of the Kaiser on the 12th of June gave the Germans distinct naval preponderance.

The presence of so powerful a squadron in itself closely approached an international discourtesy. Disregarding the laws of blockade, as Dewey, trained in the Civil War blockade of the South, interpreted them, the German officers were actively familiar both with the Spanish officials of Manila and with the insurgents. Finally they ensconced themselves in the quarantine station at the entrance of the Bay, and Admiral Diedrichs took up land quarters. Further, they interfered between the insurgents and the Spaniards outside of Manila Bay. In the controversy between Diedrichs and Dewey which grew out of these difficulties, Captain Chichester, commanding the British squadron, supported Dewey's course unqualifiedly and, moreover, let it be clearly known that, in the event of hostilities, the British vessels would take their stand with the Americans.



CHAPTER IX. The Blockade Of Cuba

While the first victory of the war was in the Far East and the possibility of events of world-wide significance hung upon the level-headedness of Commodore Dewey at Manila, it was realized that the war must really be fought in the West. Both President McKinley and the Queen Regent of Spain had issued proclamations stating that they would adhere to the rules of the Declaration of Paris and not resort to the use of privateers. The naval contest, therefore, was confined to the regular navies. Actually the American fleet was superior in battleships, monitors, and protected cruisers; the Spanish was the better equipped in armored cruisers, gunboats, and destroyers.

Both Spain and the United States hastily purchased, in the last days of peace, a few vessels, but not enough seriously to affect their relative strength. Both also drew upon their own merchant marines. Spain added 18 medium-sized vessels to her navy; the United States added in all 123, most of which were small and used for scouting purposes. The largest and most efficient of these additional American ships were the subsidized St. Paul, St. Louis, New York, and Paris of the American line, of which the last two, renamed the Harvard and Yale, proved to be of great service. It was characteristic of American conditions that 28 were private yachts, of which the Mayflower was the most notable. To man these new ships, the personnel of the American Navy was increased from 13,750 to 24,123, of whom a large number were men who had received some training in the naval reserves of the various States.

The first duty of the navy was to protect the American coast. In 1885 the War Department had planned and Congress had sanctioned a system of coast defense. Up to 1898, however, only one quarter of the sum considered necessary had been appropriated. Mines and torpedoes were laid at the entrances to American harbors as soon as war broke out, but there was a lack of highpower guns. Rumors of a projected raid by the fast Spanish armored cruisers kept the coast cities in a state of high excitement, and many sought, by petition and political pressure, to compel the Navy Department to detach vessels for their defense. The Naval War Board, however, had to remember that it must protect not only the coast but commerce also, and that the United States was at war not to defend herself but to attack. Cuba was the objective; and Cuba must be cut off from Spain by blockade, and the seas must be made safe for the passage of the American Army. If the navy were to accomplish all these purposes, it must destroy the Spanish Navy. To achieve this end, it would have to work upon the principle of concentration and not dispersion.

For several months before the actual declaration of war with Spain, the Navy Department had been effecting this concentration. On the 21st of April, Captain William T. Sampson was appointed to command the forces on the North Atlantic station. This included practically the whole fleet, except the Pacific squadron under Dewey, and the Oregon, a new battleship of unusual design, which was on the Pacific coast. On the 1st of March she was ordered from the Bremerton Yard, in the State of Washington, to San Francisco, and thence to report in the Atlantic. Her voyage was the longest emergency run undertaken up to that time by a modern battleship. The outbreak of the war with Spain meant the sealing of all ports in which she might have been repaired in case of emergency. Rumors were rife of Spanish vessels ready to intercept her, and the eyes not only of the United States but of the world were upon the Oregon. A feeling of relief and rejoicing therefore passed through the country when this American warship arrived at Key West on the 26th of May, fit for immediate and efficient service.

The fleet, though concentrated in the Atlantic within the region of immediate hostility, was divided for purposes of operation into a major division under the immediate command of Admiral Sampson and a flying squadron under Commodore Schley. * The first undertook the enforcement of the blockade which was declared on the 21st of April against Cuba, and patrolled the northern coast from Gardenas to Bahia. Key West was soon filled with Spanish prizes. On the 27th of April a brush took place between batteries at Matanzas and some of the American vessels, without loss of life on either side, except for a mule which bids fair to become immortal in history through being reported by the Spanish as their only casualty and the first of the war. Admiral Sampson, following the tradition of the American Navy of aiming at a vital spot, wished to attack Havana; and a careful study of its fortifications seems to show that he would have had a good chance of success. Chance, however, might have caused the loss of some of his vessels, and, with the small margin of naval superiority at its disposal the Naval War Board was probably wise in not allowing him to take the risk.

* A patrol squadron of cruisers under Commodore Howell was also established to protect the coast from the Delaware capes to eastern Maine. "It can scarcely be supposed," writes Admiral Chadwick, "that such action was taken but in deference to the unreasoning fear of dwellers on the coast."

It was, in fact, Spain which took the initiative and decided the matter. Her West India Squadron was weak, even on paper, and was in a condition which would have made it madness to attempt to meet the Americans without reenforcement. She therefore decided to dispatch a fighting fleet from her home forces. Accordingly on the 29th of April, Admiral Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands and sailed westward with one fast second-class battleship, the Cristobal Colon, three armored cruisers, and two torpedo boat destroyers. It was a reasonably powerful fleet as fleets went in the Spanish War, yet it is difficult to see just what good it could accomplish when it arrived on the scene of action. The naval superiority in the West Indies would still be in the hands of the concentrated American Navy, for the Spanish forces would still be divided, only more equally, between Spanish and Caribbean waters. The American vessels, moreover, would be within easy distance of their home stations, which could supply them with every necessity. The islands belonging to Spain, on the other hand, were ill equipped to become the base of naval operations. Admiral Cervera realized to the full the difficulty of the situation and protested against an expedition which he feared would mean the fall of Spanish power, but public opinion forced the ministry, and he was obliged to put to sea.

For nearly a month the Spanish fleet was lost to sight, and dwellers on the American coast were in a panic of apprehension. Cervera's objective was guessed to be everything from a raid on Bar Harbor to an attack on the Oregon, then on its shrouded voyage from the Pacific coast. Cities on the Atlantic seaboard clamored for protection, and the Spanish fleet was magnified by the mist of uncertainty until it became a national terror. Sampson, rightly divining that Cervera would make for San Juan, the capital and chief seaport of Porto Rico, detached from his blockading force a fighting squadron with which he sailed east, but not finding the Spanish fleet he turned back to Key West. Schley, with the Flying Squadron, was then ordered to Cienfuegos. In the meantime Cervera was escaping detection by the American scouts by taking an extremely southerly course; and with the information that Sampson was off San Juan, the Spanish Admiral sailed for Santiago de Cuba, where he arrived on May 19, 1898.

Though Cervera was safe in harbor, the maneuver of the American fleet cannot be called unsuccessful. Cervera would have preferred to be at San Juan, where there was a navy yard and where his position would have obliged the American fleet either to split into two divisions separated by eight hundred miles or to leave him free range of action. Next to San Juan he would have preferred Havana or, Cienfuegos, which were connected by railroad and near which lay the bulk of the Spanish Army. He found himself instead at the extreme eastern end of Cuba in a port with no railroad connection with Havana, partly blocked by the insurgents, and totally unable to supply him with necessities.

Unless Cervera could leave Santiago, his expedition would obviously have been useless. Though it was the natural function of the American fleet to blockade him, for a week after his arrival there was an interesting game of hide and seek between the two fleets. The harbors of Cienfuegos and of Santiago are both landlocked by high hills, and Cervera had entered Santiago without being noticed by the Americans, as that part of the coast was not under blockade. Schley thought Cervera was at Cienfuegos; Sampson was of the opinion that he was at Santiago. When it became known that the enemy had taken refuge in Santiago, Schley began the blockade on the 28th of May, but stated that he could not continue long in position owing to lack of coal. On the 1st of June Sampson arrived and assumed command of the blockading squadron.

With the bottling up of Cervera, the first stage of the war passed. The navy had performed its primary function: it had established its superiority and had obtained the control of the seas. The American coast was safe; American commerce was safe except in the vicinity of Spain; and the sea was open for the passage of an American expeditionary force. Nearly the whole island of Cuba was now under blockade, and the insurgents were receiving supplies from the United States. It had been proved that the fairly even balance of the two fleets, so anxiously scanned when it was reported in the newspapers in April, was entirely deceptive when it came to real efficiency in action. Moreover, the skillful handling of the fleets by the Naval War Board as well as by the immediate commanders had redoubled the actual superiority of the American naval forces.

A fleet in being, even though inferior and immobilized, still counts as a factor in naval warfare, and Cervera, though immobilized by Sampson, himself immobilized the greater number of American vessels necessary to blockade him. The importance of this fact was evident to every one when, in the middle of June, the remainder of the Spanish home fleet, whipped hastily into a semblance of fighting condition, set out eastward under Admiral Camara to contest the Philippines with Dewey. It was impossible for the United States to detach a force sufficient to cross the Atlantic and, without a base, meet this fleet in its home waters. Even if a smaller squadron were dispatched from the Atlantic round Cape Horn, it would arrive in the Philippines too late to be of assistance to Dewey. The two monitors on the Pacific coast, the Monterey and the Monadnock, had already been ordered across the Pacific, a voyage perilous for vessels of their structure and agonizing to their crews; but it was doubtful whether they or Camara would arrive first in the Philippines.

The logic of the situation demanded that the main American fleet be released. Cervera must be destroyed or held in some other way than at the expense of inactivity on the part of the American warships. Santiago could not be forced by the navy. Two methods remained. The first and simpler expedient was to make the harbor mouth impassable and in this way to bottle up the Spanish fleet. It was decided to sink the collier Merrimac at a narrow point in the channel, where, lying full length, she would completely prevent egress. It was a delicate task and one of extraordinary danger. It was characteristic of the spirit of the fleet that, as Admiral Chadwick says, practically all the men were volunteers. The honor of the command was given to Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Hobson, Assistant Naval Constructor, who had been in charge of the preparations. With a crew of six men he entered the harbor mouth on the night of the 3d of June. A shell disabled the steering gear of the Merrimac, and the ship sank too far within the harbor to block the entrance entirely. Admiral Cervera himself rescued the crew, assured Sampson of their safety in an appreciative note; and one of the best designed and most heroic episodes in our history just missed success.

The failure of the Merrimac experiment left the situation as it had been and forced the American command to consider the second method which would release the American fleet. This new plan contemplated the reduction of Santiago by a combined military and naval attack. Cervera's choice of Santiago therefore practically determined the direction of the first American overseas military expedition, which had been in preparation since the war began.



CHAPTER X. The Preparation Of The Army

When one compares the conditions under which the Spanish American War was fought with those of the Great War, he feels himself living in a different age. Twenty years ago hysteria and sudden panics swept the nation. Cheers and waving handkerchiefs and laughing girls sped the troops on their way. It cannot be denied that the most popular song of the war time was "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night," though it may be believed that the energy and swing of the music rather than the words made it so. The atmosphere of the country was one of a great national picnic where each one was expected to carry his own lunch. There was apparent none of the concentration of effort and of the calm foresight so necessary for efficiency in modern warfare. For youth the Spanish American War was a great adventure; for the nation it was a diversion sanctioned by a high purpose.

This abandon was doubtless in part due to a comfortable consciousness of the vast disparity in resources between Spain and the United States, which, it was supposed, meant automatically a corresponding difference in fighting strength. The United States did, indeed, have vast superiorities which rendered unnecessary any worry over many of the essentials which gripped the popular mind during the Great War. People believed that the country could supply the munitions needed, and that of facilities for transport it had enough. If the United States did not have at hand exactly the munitions needed, if the transportation system had not been built to launch an army into Cuba, it was popularly supposed that the wealth of the country rendered such trifles negligible, and that, if insufficient attention had been given to the study of such matters in the past, American ingenuity would quickly offset the lack of skilled military experience. The fact that American soldiers traveled in sleeping cars while European armies were transported in freight cars blinded Americans for a while to the significant fact that there was but a single track leading to Tampa, the principal point of embarkation for Cuba; and no one thought of building another.

Nothing so strongly marks the amateur character of the conduct of the Spanish War as the activity of the American press. The navy was dogged by press dispatch boats which revealed its every move. When Admiral Sampson started upon his cruise to San Juan, he requested the press boats to observe secrecy, and Admiral Chadwick comments with satisfaction upon the fact that this request was observed "fully and honorably... by every person except one." When Lieutenant Whitney risked his life as a spy in order to investigate conditions in Porto Rico; his plans and purpose were blazoned in the press. Incredible as it may now seem, the newspaper men appear to have felt themselves part of the army. They offered their services as equals, and William Randolph Hearst even ordered one of his staff to sink a vessel in the Suez Canal to delay Camara on his expedition against Dewey. This order, fortunately for the international reputation of the United States, was not executed. With all their blare and childish enthusiasm, the reporters do not seem to have been so successful in revealing to Americans the plans of Spain as they were in furnishing her with itemized accounts of all the doings of the American forces.

While the press not only revealed but formulated courses of action in the case of the army, the navy, at least, was able to follow its own plans. For this difference there were several causes, chief of which was the fact that the navy was a fully professional arm, ready for action both in equipment and in plans, and able to take a prompt initiative in carrying out an aggressive campaign. The War Department had a more difficult task in adjusting itself to the new conditions brought about by the Spanish American War. The army was made up on the principle traditionally held in the United States that the available army force in time of peace should be just sufficient for the purposes of peace, and that it should be enlarged in time of war. To allow a fair amount of expansion without too much disturbance to the organization in increasing to war strength, the regular army was over-officered in peace times. The chief reliance in war was placed upon the militia. The organization and training of this force was left, however, under a few very general directions, to the various States. As a result, its quality varied and it was nowhere highly efficient in the military sense. Some regiments, it is true, were impressive on parade, but almost none of the officers knew anything of actual modern warfare. There had been no preliminary sifting of ability in the army, and it was only as experience gave the test that the capable and informed were called into positions of importance. In fact, the training of the regular officers was inferior to that of the naval officers. West Point and Annapolis were both excellent in the quality of their instruction, but what they offered amounted only to a college course, and in the army there was no provision for systematic graduate study corresponding to the Naval War College at Newport.

These difficulties and deficiencies, however, cannot fully explain the woeful inferiority of the army to the navy in preparedness. Fundamentally the defect was at the top. Russell A. Alger, the Secretary of War, was a veteran of the Civil War and a silver-voiced orator, but his book on the "Spanish-American War," which was intended as a vindication of his record, proves that even eighteen months of as grueling denunciation as any American official has ever received could not enlighten him as to what were the functions of his office. Nor did he correct or supplement his own incompetence by seeking professional advice. There existed no general staff, and it did not occur to him, as it did to Secretary Long, to create one to advise him unofficially. He was on bad terms with Major General Nelson A. Miles, who was the general in command. He discussed even the details of questions of army strategy, not only with Miles but with the President and members of the Cabinet. One of the most extraordinary decisions made during his tenure of office was that the act of the 9th of March, appropriating $50,000,000 "for national defense," forbade money to be spent or even contracts to be made by the quartermaster, the commissary, or the surgeon general. In his book Secretary Alger records with pride the fact that all this money was spent for coast defense. In view of the fact that the navy did its task, this expenditure was absolutely unnecessary and served merely to solace coast cities and munition makers.

The regular army on April 1, 1898, consisted of 28,183 officers and men. An act of the 26th of April authorized its increase to about double that size. As enlistment was fairly prompt, by August the army consisted of 56,365 officers and men, the number of officers being but slightly increased. It was decided not to use the militia as it was then organized, but to rely for numbers as usual chiefly upon a volunteer army, authorized by the Act of the 22d of April, and by subsequent acts raised to a total of 200,000, with an additional 3000 cavalry, 3500 engineers, and 10,000 "immunes," or men supposed not to be liable to tropical diseases. The war seemed equally popular all over the country, and the million who offered themselves for service were sufficient to allow due consideration for equitable state quotas and for physical fitness. There were also sufficient Krag-Jorgensen rifles to arm the increased regular army and Springfields for the volunteers.

To provide an adequate number of officers for the volunteer army was more difficult. Even though a considerable number were transferred from the regular to the volunteer army, they constituted only a small proportion of the whole number necessary. Some few of those appointed were graduates of West Point, and more had been in the militia. The great majority, however, had purely amateur experience, and many not even so much. Those who did know something, moreover, did not have the same knowledge or experience. This raw material was given no officer training whatsoever but was turned directly to the task of training the rank and file. Nor were the appointments of new officers confined to the lower ranks. The country, still mindful of its earlier wars, was charmed with the sentimental elevation of confederate generals to the rank of major general in the new army, though a public better informed would hardly have welcomed for service in the tropics the selection of men old enough to be generals in 1865 and then for thirty-three years without military experience in an age of great development in the methods of warfare. The other commanding officers were as old and were mostly chosen by seniority in a service retiring at sixty-four. The unwonted strain of active service naturally proved too great. At the most critical moment of the campaign in Cuba, the commanding general, William R. Shafter, had eaten nothing for four days, and his plucky second in command, the wiry Georgian cavalry leader of 1864 and 1865, General "Joe" Wheeler, was not physically fit to succeed him. There is not the least doubt that the fighting spirit of the men was strong and did not fail, but the defect in those branches of knowledge which are required to keep an army fit to fight is equally certain. The primary cause for the melting of the American army by disease must be acknowledged to be the insufficient training of the officers.

This hit or miss method, however, had its compensations, for it brought about some appointments of unusual merit. Conspicuous were those of Colonel Leonard Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. The latter had resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a position in which he had contributed a great deal to the efficiency of that Department, in order to take a more tangible part in the war. After raising among his friends and the cowboys of the West a regiment of "Rough Riders," he declined its command on plea of military inexperience. Roosevelt made one of those happy choices which are a mark of his administrative ability in selecting as colonel Leonard Wood, an army surgeon whose quality he knew through common experiences in the West.

To send into a midsummer tropical jungle an American army, untrained to take care of its health, for the most part clothed in the regulation army woolens, and tumbled together in two months, was an undertaking which-could be justified only on the ground that the national safety demanded immediate action. In 1898, however, it seemed to be universally taken for granted by people and administration, by professional soldier as well as by public sentiment, that the army must invade Cuba without regard to its fitness for such active service. The responsibility for this decision must rest upon the nation. The experience of centuries had proved conspicuously that climate was the strongest defense of the Caribbean islands against invasion, and it was in large measure the very sacrifice of so many American soldiers that induced the study of tropical diseases. In 1898 it could hardly be expected that the American command, inexperienced and eager for action, should have recognized the mosquito as the carrier of yellow fever and the real enemy, or should have realized the necessity of protecting the soldiers by inoculation against typhoid fever.

Fixed as was the determination to send an army into Cuba at the earliest possible moment, there had been a wide diversity of opinion as to what should be the particular objective. General Miles wavered between the choice of the island of Porto Rico and Puerto Principe, a city in the interior and somewhat east of the middle of Cuba; the Department hesitated between Tunas on the south coast of Cuba, within touch of the insurgents, and Mariel on the north, the seizure of which would be the first step in a siege of Havana. The situation at Santiago, however, made that city the logical objective of the troops, and on the 31st of May, General Shafter was ordered to be prepared to move. On the 7th of June he was ordered to sail with "not less than 10,000 men," but an alarming, though unfounded, rumor of a Spanish squadron off the north coast of Cuba delayed the expedition until the 14th. With an army of seventeen thousand on thirty-two transports, and accompanied by eighty-nine newspaper correspondents, Shafter arrived on the 20th of June off Santiago.

The Spanish troops in Cuba—the American control of the sea made it unnecessary to consider those available in Spain—amounted, according to returns in April, 1898, to 196,820. This formidable number, however, was not available at any one strategic spot owing to the difficulty of transporting either troops or supplies, particularly at the eastern end of the island, in the neighborhood of Santiago. It was estimated that the number of men of use about Santiago was about 12,000, with 5000 approaching to assist. Perhaps 3000 insurgents were at hand under General Garcia. The number sent, then, was not inadequate to the task. Equal numbers are not, indeed, ordinarily considered sufficient for an offensive campaign against fortifications, but the American commanders counted upon a difference in morale between the two armies, which was justified by results. Besides the American Army could be reinforced as necessity arose.



CHAPTER XI. The Campaign Of Santiago De Cuba

In planning the campaign against Santiago, Admiral Sampson wished the army immediately to assault the defenses at the harbor mouth in order to open the way for the navy. General Shafter, however, after conferring with General Garcia, the commander of the insurgents, decided to march overland against the city. The army did not have sufficient small vessels to effect a landing; but the navy came to its assistance, and on the 22d of June the first American troops began to disembark at Daiquiri, though it was not until the 26th that the entire expedition was on shore. On the second day Siboney, which had a better anchorage and was some six miles closer to Santiago, was made the base. From Siboney there stretched for eight or ten miles a rolling country covered with heavy jungle brush and crossed by mere threads of roads. There was indeed a railroad, but this followed a roundabout route by the coast. Through this novel and extremely uncomfortable country, infected with mosquitoes, the troops pressed, eager to meet the enemy.

The first engagement took place at Las Guasimas, on the 24th of June. Here a force of about a thousand dismounted cavalry, partly regulars and partly Rough Riders, defeated nearly twice their number of Spaniards. This was the only serious resistance which the Americans encountered until they reached the advanced defenses of Santiago. The next week they spent in getting supplies ashore, improving the roads, and reconnoitering. The newspapers considered this interval entirely too long! The 30th of June found the Americans confronting the main body of Spaniards in position, and on the 1st of July, the two armies joined battle.

Between the opposing forces was the little river San Juan and its tributaries. The Spanish left wing was at El Caney, supported by a stone blockhouse, rifle pits, and barbed wire, but with no artillery. About four miles away was San Juan Hill, with more formidable works straddling the main road which led to Santiago. Opposite El Caney, General Lawton was in command of about seven thousand Americans. The fight here began at half-past six in the morning, but the American artillery was placed at too great a distance to be very effective. The result was a long and galling exchange of rifle firing, which is apt to prove trying to raw troops. The infantry, however, advanced with persistency and showed marked personal initiative as they pushed forward under such protection as the brush and grass afforded until they finally rushed a position which gave opportunity to the artillery. After this they speedily captured the blockhouse.

The fight lasted over eight hours instead of two, as had been expected, and thus delayed General Lawton, who was looked for at San Juan by the American left. The losses, too, were heavy, the total casualties amounting to seven per cent of the force engaged. The Americans, however, had gained the position, and after a battle which had been long and serious enough to test thoroughly the quality of the personnel of the army. Whatever deficiencies the Americans may have had in organization, training, and military education, they undoubtedly possessed fighting spirit, courage, and personal ingenuity, and these are, after all, the qualities for which builders of armies look.

The battle of El Caney was perhaps unnecessary, for the position lay outside the main Spanish line anal would probably have been abandoned when San Juan fell. For that more critical movement General Shafter kept about eight thousand troops and the personal command. Both he and General Wheeler, however, were suffering from the climate and were unable to be with the troops. The problem of making a concerted advance through the thick underbrush was a difficult one, and the disposition of the American troops was at once revealed by a battery of artillery which used black powder, and by a captive balloon which was injudiciously towed about.