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Saturday, April 9th, 2005
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In Memoriam of the Heroes of Cuba and The Phillipines
Acte en Memòria dels Herois de Cuba i Filipines Dissabte, 7 de maig de 2005 *** Acto en Memoria de los Héroes de Cuba y Filipinas Sábado, 7 de mayo de 2005 *** Acto em Memoria dos Heróis de Cuba e Filipinas Sábado, 7 de maio de 2005 *** Memorial Act for the Heroes of Cuba and The Philippines
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem: hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.'  We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato– |
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Saturday, April 9th, 2005
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The War of 98 (The Spanish-American War)
The defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898 signified the lost of our last colonies of Overseas: Cuba, Puerto Rico and The Philippines. This happened in the period known in Spanish hisroy as "The Restauration". The Restauration started in December 1874 with a coup d'etat by General Martínez Campos, near Sagunto (Valencia), and with the support of the brigade of General Dabán they proclaimed Alfonso XII as King of Spain, ending thus with the First Republic.
 The policy of The Restauration. The new constitutional Monarchy, under the inspiration of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, articulated the new state, moderated, under the basis of the Constitution of 1876. This Constitution gave the king much power and, at the same time, left opened the possibility to introduce Liberal principles through in Spanish legislation through the laws that had to develop the constitutional tex. According to the text in the Constitution of 1876, all those who accepted the Monarchy of Alfonso XII could take part in the political system: The "exclusivism" had driven Alfonso XII's mother out of the borders of Spain. The idea was to allow in the new political arena as many parties or factions as possible. The system found its stability with a two-party sytem in which the binomy Cánovas-Sagasta, chiefs of the two most important parties --Conservative and Liberal respectively--, alternated in office. This was made possible by the powers that the Constitutions gave the King to dissolve the Courts and through the fraud in the electoral results. This way, once the king gave his trust to one of the two political leaders and requested him to form a new government, immediately after took place an elections in which, inevitably, the party in office obtained a wide majority. The Restauration created a system based in fraud and in the corruption of the political system which extended to the Adminstration, both local and country wise. The first government of the Restauration, directed by Cánovas, found over the table two problems: the Carlist War and the rebellion in Cuba. The offensive carried out by the forces of the Government on the Carlist sanctuary gave its results, and on February 19th, 1876 Estella surrended. On the 28th of this same month, the Pretender Don Carlos left Spain. War was over. The second big problem was the already long war in Cuba, knwon as the "War of the Ten Years", which had started in 1868 with an event that what was known as the "Cry of Yara". Once finished the Carlist War, the Government could send important reinforcements to Cuba. During the early 1877 there were some one hundred thousand men in the island. This same year General Martínez Campos took over the command of the army of operations and, combining the military action with the political negotiation, he managed to put an end to the rebellion with the Peace of Zanjón on February 12th, 1878. With this peace the rebels were offered, among other things, the concesion to the Island of the same political and administrative conditions that Puerto Rico enjoyed, and a forgive and forget policy for all political crimes committed since 1868. With the consecution of the peace, Spain lived a time of tranquility from 1878 until 1895, only altered by small incidents like the "Guerra Chiquita" (smallish war), a short lived seccecionist raising in Santiago de Cuba, and the question of the frontier of Melilla (Northern Africa) in 1893. On November 25th, 1885, King Alfonso XII died and his wife, Queen Mª Cristina de Habsbourg-Lorena, became the Regent. The change that the Regency supposed in the dome of the political power did not alter the functioning of the Spanish politics. Around the year 1898, Spain moved down in the downward slope of the Restauration. During the time transcurred from 1878 till 1895, the different governments in Madrid did not know how, or could not, to attend the petitions of reforms that were arriving from Cuba. These changes seeked to ease the road to the independence. This was a pending subject, the true problem that neither Cánovas nor Sagasta knew how to resolve, and not because they did not know about it. In the letter that General Polavieja wrote to General Blanco, Capitán General (Commander-in-Chief) of Cuba, on June 4th, 1879, and by which special circumstances --as he himself points-- was not received by General Blanco but by General Martínez Campos, at the time Minister of War, we can read the following: "Convinced of it as we are, we must, in my opinion, instead of trying to impel at any cost and at all time the independence of Cuba --which would be a futile attempt--, get ready for it and stay in the Island only the time that is rational to stay, and take the convenient measures to avoid being thrown out violently, with the damage that this would mean to our interests and to our good name, before the time in which we must friendly abandon it." [source]
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem: hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.' We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato– |
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Saturday, April 9th, 2005
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The War of 98 (The Spanish-American War)
 Embarking of soldiers to Ultramar (overseas) The opinion of Polavieja, as it is well known, was not taken into account and regrettably his predictions became true. There was neither a foreign policy geared to obtain support, in case that some foreign powers which were interested in our colonies decided to take on a military intervention. In the begining of the decade of the 90s, the biggest worry was the negotiation of a series of commercial treaties in line with the protectionist orientation that our commercial policies had taken. The Spanish Government tried, via diplomatic actions, to obtain warranties that the United States would not intervene in the Cuban conflict, but these attempts failed. Spain insisted till the end. "All diplomatic activity performed by the Government of Sagasta from October 1897 until April 1898 only achieved that the big powers raised a moral protest in favour of Spain because England led a minimal European intervention. So far as we know until this moment, there was not the slightest chance that some of the six big powers, alone or with allies, accepted the possibility of participating in an armed intervention." Nor were the politicians of the Restauration, neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals, able to face the deep reforms that the Army needed. All they did was looking forward to avoid the raisings and, due to the scarcity of elements to maintain public order, that the Army substituted the Law and Order forces in case of necessity, as had happened in numerour occassions before. Some improvements took place though, like the creation of the Academia General Militar in 1882. But many of the bills that were passed kept, in essence, the existing organisation or they barely modified it. Other, after being passed, were never taken into effect. It must be pointed that in April 1887, General Cassola, Minister of War, presented in a Congress a plan to reorganize the Army. The open debate that this brought was of much importance to the Spanish society, and the press followed it with much interest. The reforms that General Cassola meant to perform on the core of the military institution affected two fundamental aspects of it: first, to create an autonomous and effective organism through the promulgation of a law Constitutive of the Army which defined clearly the essence of the Army, and which establishes definitely its organic articulation; and second, to try to adequately resolve the pitiful personal, famililar and social state which the the members of the Army where going through. Cassola found a strong opposition, since his project touched some sensitive issues. If the proposal of the obligatority of the military service stroke that bourgeoise society, which was so propicious to the new privileges of money and where only the children of the poor served as soldiers, many of the other reforms left wounded directly the "spirit of corps". His project was rejected by the privileged in the civilian society and by those who could avoid the conscription through the payment of the redemption, and by the priveleged ones in the military stratum, i.e. by the facultative arms: Artillery, Engineers and Staff, who feared that they would lose the benefits of dualism and the system of promotion through merits. Canalejas, before the Congress, denounced the main problems that our army suffered of in 1888. Among others we can highlight the defficient status of organisation, low wages, problems in promotions, and old and scarce material. With regards to the small campaign which took place after the border incident with Morocco in 1893, the Staff of the E.M.C. writes in its History of the campaigns in Morocco: "The military organisation was so deficient that it was necessary to desorganize all services in order to place an army of 22,000 troops in Melilla, and considerably late and with a lack of numerous elements. It was obvious that in 1895 things could not have changed much. The politicians did not bother with creating an army appropiated to defend our colonies. [source]
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem: hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.' We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato– |
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Saturday, April 9th, 2005
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The War of 98 (The Spanish-American War)
 Group of officers of Regimiento Mallorca no. 13. Cuba, circa 1898 The uprising was being organized from months earlier by the Cuban independentist leaders, both those who were in Cuba and those who were outside the Island. All of them had accepted the political leadership exercized by José Martí from exile in New York. By the end of January 1895 the order for the uprising which had to take place during the second fortnight of February, not earlier, to allow time for the disembarking of the troops which were outside the Island. Initially it was thought that the rebellion would be quickly suffocated, since the only places where the independentist rebellion could not be tackled were Baire and Santiago de Cuba (Orient). General Calleja, Commander-in-Chief of Cuba, considered the events as simple actions carried out by parties composed by a few bandits, and he felt that he was capable to take the situation under control with the approximately fourteen thousand men under his command. Therefore he did not bother with asking for reinforcements. His self-secureness and his passivity were, to say the least, worrying. The news that arrived in the Peninsula from individual sources caused the alarm, and the President of the Government, Sagasta, on March 3rd decided to send immediately to the Island an expedition of 8500 men on board of the cruiser Reina Mercedes, plus another 1500 waiting to be sent as quickly as possible. Sagasta presented his dimission with character of irrevocability, and the Regent Dna. María Crisitina asks Cánovas to nominate a new government, which he does on March 23rd. General Calleja is fired and he designates General Martínez Campos as his substitute. On March 29th the brothers Antonio and José Maceo disembark at the beach of Duaba, and on April 11 José Martí and Máximo Gómez arrive to Playitas. The arrival of the main leaders give the insurrection a new strength. The new Commander-in-Chief believed that it was possible a negotiated way out, which he expects to achieve combining a policy of good will and a wide indult, with the military action. On May 11th he goes to Santiago de Cuba to take the command in person of the army of operations. The insurrect army, also known by the name of army mambí, enforced the guerrilla war, which meant that they had to perform continous marches and counter-marches, prepare ambushes, and look forward to surprising, to take advantage on the terrain, and to exhaust the enemy on a constant state of fighting in which not a single combat or confrontation was decisive. In Dos Ríos took place a confrontation of great importance on May 21st, between the column commanded by Colonel Ximénez de Sandoval and a party of rebels commanded by Máximo Gómez. The importance of this fight was that the rebell leader José Martí was counted among the fatal casualties, and the independentist cause lost his main leader only three months after the start of the insurrection. The dead corpse of Martí was taken to Santiago de Cuba. After the formal identification, the coffin was carried to the cementery accompanied by many troops. There, Colonel Ximénez de Sandoval enquired if any of the civilians was willing to say some words. After a long silence, Colonel Ximénez de Sandoval pronounced some words which are testimony of his noble character: "Sirs: When men of gentle condition like us fight, the hatred and rancours vanish. No one who feels inspired by noble feelings must see in these lying corpse an enemy. The Spanish military men fight to the death, but they have consideration to the defeated and they honour the dead." The insurrection, however, was growing in strength, and from Oriente it extended to the center of the Island. The army of the rebels practiced a systematic sacking and devastation, achieving with it that the majority of the rural population, by their own will or fear, gave them their support. General Martínez Campos was in Manzanillo on July 12th when he received news that Maceo was near Bayamo with more than 7000 mambises under his command. Despite having only 400 men, the Spanish general decided to meet them. During the march, General Santocildes joined him with 1000 other men. On July 19th, in the savanah of Peralejo, the clash took place and, after five hours of a very harsh combat, Maceo was forced to retreat and the Spanish troops could reach Bayamo. There, at the head of his column, General Santocildes lost his life. On September 16th the upraised Cubans passed their Constitution, the first code of the Cuban Republic which was being born. The combats, ambushes and bruishes were constant. The violence and cruelty are on the rise. Except for some small Spanish victories, the initiative is in the hands of the insurrects. By the end of October, Antonio Maceo decides to constitute a column that will take the war to the westernmost part of the Island, where there were the richest and most populated areas, and to try to get the triomph and uprising in them. After a long march which was joined by Máximo Gómez in San Juan, and leaving after him a trail of destruction, on December 23rd Maceo meets face to face General Martínez Campos in the surroundings of Coliseo. The Commander-in-Chief of Cuba is forced to retreat. This victory of the mambí army raised the alarm in Havana. The relief was not only necessary, but urgent. General Martínez Campos only realized his error of trying to come to a negotiated peace after the battle of Peralejo. The insurrection could only be put to an end with the military defeat of one of the two fighting sides. They needed, thus, more than good intentions for it. On July 25th, from Manzanillo, he addresses Cánovas on a letter telling him among other things: "The few Spaniards who are in the island only dare to openly say it in the cities: the rest of inhabitants hate Spain. When one walks through the shacks in the fields no men can be seen, and when the women are asked for their husbands or children, they answer with a frightening naturality: in the mounts with the rebels." Next he goes on saying that it would be necessary to take some drastic measures, but that he doesn't have the moral conditions to do such a thing. "Only Weyler has them in Spain, because he has also the intellegince, courage and the skills in war. Think it over, my dear friend, and if while talking to him about the system you prefer him, do not hesitate in replacing me. We are dealing with the fate of Spain here." Cánovas finally decided to attend the advises of General Martínez Campos. Weyler disembarked in Havana on February 10th, 1896, with the firm will of pacifying the island, starting in the west and finishing in the east. To defeat an enemy who controled the countryside and who counted on the support of the peasants and thereafter with a perfect information on the moves of the Spanish troops; who could move along a wide field of operations through the entire island with more freedom, who could choose the place and the moment to establish contact with the enemy, who had the ability to act in distant places simultaneously, who was able to survive on the terrain, ready to set places on fire, to destroy, to sack and to act without any mercy, ... it was required more than trying to just protect the properties and to avoid molesting the civilian population.  Group of officers on the deck, circa 1900
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem: hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.' We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato– |
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Sunday, April 10th, 2005
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The War of 98 (The Spanish-American War)
 Infantry Regiment Vizcaya no. 1. Circa 1900 The campaigning plans of the new Commander-in-Chief of Cuba consisted in dividing the front, which spread through the entire island, into three opereation fronts through two 'trochas', the trocha of Júcaro-Morón and the trocha of Mariel-Majana. These 'trochas' were areas cleaned of vegetation as if they were real roads, which crossed the island through its narrowest parts, and the Spanish troops marched and patroled them. On these trochas, at regular distances, they would place towers of observation, reflectors, pits, small forts and trenches. The next step, and starting at the westernmost part, was to reconnoitre the parties of insurrects in each of those fronts. In order to achieve these operations, an urgent reorganisation of the troops was needed. The number of men in the army of operations had to be increased, reducing the dispersed detachments which were being used to protect the properties, and these had to be substituted by volunteers. The military columns must be formed up by complete units under the command of their natural chiefs, and their mobility and autonomy had to be increased; besides this, the operations had to be coordinated. All men of the columns had to be armed with Mauser rifles. Before that the trocha Marel-Majana could be closed, on February 15, Maceo crossed to the province of La Habana to meet Máximo Gómez. The initiative was now in the Spanish camp, and the attention concentrated on Maceo, who had some six thousand men under his command. In his constant moving to avoid direct combat when it wasn't in his best interests, on March 12th he crossed to Pinar del Río while fleeing from the column of General Linares, and on the 15th he had to face the column of Colonel Hernández de Velasco. From this moment, Weyler ordered the completion of the trocha Mariel-Majana, placing on it a strong detachment of troops under the command of General Arolas, with the purpose of preventing anyone from crossing the line in one direction or the other, and leaving Maceo isolated from the rest of the insurrects. General Linares, with three columns under his command, had as a mission to chase Maceo. On April 30th, on a combined action, six columns advanced over Cacarajícara, the reduct of Maceo, which was taken after a disputed fight. But the mambí leader managed to flee.In the hillocks of Lajas, General Suárez Valdés had a tough combat of five hours against the sneaky Maceo. In the meantime, Máximo Gómez attempted to cross the trocha to help his leutenant and was trying to keep his men concentrated for this. However, although on a less intensity, he was also being contrantly hounded. The groups of rebels were being chased till exhaution in Pinar del Río, La Habana and Matanzas, and this provoked that many of the insurrects gave themselves up. Starting in June, the rains reached a great intensity and the military operations were reduced as a consequence of the difficulties that the columns found while marching, due to the swamping of the roads and the floodings of the rivers. But in Pinar del Río the tension was kept. In October the works in the trocha Mariel-Majana were finished, and it was garrisoned by 12,000 men and 26 pieces of artillery. Weyler published a edict ordering the re-concentration of the population in the province of Pinar del Río, to avoid the peasants helping the parties of insurrects. In the province of Oriente, Calixto García had taken over the command of the Mambí army, and he managed to establish contact with Máximo Gómez. Both started to move their troops provoking numerous combats of lesser importance, in an attempt to distract the attention that the Spanish forces had fixed over their two main objectives: the trocha Júcaro-Morón and Maceo. On November 9th, General Weyler with 35 batallions and 6 batteries marched towards Mariel to command an operation geared to reconnoitring the pary of Maceo who, before the constant persecution to which he was being subjected, was forced to abandon Pinar del Río. During the night of the 4th to the 5th of December he eluded the trocha via the sea, and on the 7th, in Punta Brava, he was taken by surprise by the column of Major Cirujeda. During the brief combat that took place there, Maceo fell off his horse fatally wounded, and while he was being helped to stand back, another shot killed him. Weyler could now forget about Maceo and put all efforts in Máximo Gómez, who was trying to activate the war in the central provinces by every mean. On December 26th he managed to cross the trocha Júcaro-Morón. By the end of January 1897 he camped in Los Remedios with some 3,000 men, and waited for the arrival of Calixto García with a similar number of men. The operations geared towards achieving the surrender of Gómez and the total pacification of the second front had been started in Santa Clara. Before the end of May, the forces of the leader of the army of insurrects were scattered and reduced, with little ability to fight a combat. On May 26th the Commander-in-Chief of the Island communicated to the Minister of War that from the westernmost part to the trocha Júcaro-Morón, the island had been pacified. Once the season of rains finished, they would take on the attack to the east. However, the critiques against Weyler poured mainly from the United States, and sadly from Spain too, due to his policy of re-concentration and for confronting war with war. Weyler realized that an intervention of the United States in the conflict was a possibility. In June, on a telegram to the President of the Government, among other things he says: "I am convinced that the closer we come to ending the war by means of arms, the more difficulties will put to it the United States to avoid it." The press campaign against Weyler was very harsh, and he was accused of all kind of attrocities, as if the brutality of war was the work of only one man, or of only one party, and as if war and its horrors were the invention of the Spanish general. Even before Weyler had taken the command of the Capitanía General de Cuba, he had been attacked without mercy from the pages of the paper El Mercantil Valenciano. The fact that in the United States there was a press campaign against General Weyley is easy to understand, since there were lobbies in favour of annexing Cuba and descrediting Wesley was benefitial for them. It was more difficult to understand the insistance of the Spanish press on his destitution. In Cuba, in the meantime, the Winter campaign, which was expected to end with the rebels in Oriente, was being prepared with extreme care. An unfortunate event gave a turn to the situation. On August 8th, 1897, Cánovas was assasinated. The Regent María Cristina appointed General Azcárraga to form a transition office. Calixto García needed to cheer the now languishing insurrection, and for it he reunited a column of 5,000 men and on August 14th arrived with it to Las Tunas, a small town of 3,000 inhabitants defended by a garrison of 300 men. After a siege which lasted one week, the defenders surrended. They were slaughtered with machetes, the town was sacked, its inhabitants abused and, after setting on fire what little was left, Calixto García abandoned Las Tunas. This event was presented as a propaganda of a great victory, and as evidence that Spain was still far from being able to pacify Cuba.  Infantry Regiment San Fernando. Valencia, circa 1881.
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem: hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.' We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato– |
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The War of 98 (The Spanish-American War)
 Expeditionary Regiment Antequera. Cuba. Azcárraga signified the continuity of the Spanish policies in the war, but on October 4th he was succeeded by Sagasta in the Presidence of the Government. While Cánovas defended Weyler against all odds, Sagasta was determined to relieve him from duty, despite the opinions favourable to the General which arrived from Havana. On October 9th, General Valeriano Weyler was ceased and a substitute, General Blanco, who in 1896 had been ceased in his duty as Commander-in-Chief in the Capitanía General of The Philippines for being excessively compliant and irresolute, was nominated to nominated. Blanco had instructions from Madrid to renounce to all offensives. On November 25th, Calixto García razed Guisa. Obviously the insurrects had not received the same instructions as Blanco. On November 26th it was released a royal decree which gave Cuba autonomy. It was too late, and the Cuban rebels would only depose their attitude with the independence. The atmosphere was increasingly thickening in the capital. The autonomous government started functioning on January 1st, 1898. The media wasattacking the Army. On the streets, public demonstrations of one sign and the opposite were constant. On January 12th, as a consequence of the publication of some article, a group of military men irritated by these assaulted various newspapers offices. The US consul asked Washington to send warships to Havana, to defend the interests of the US citizens. The Maine, a battleship, anchored in the harbour of Havana and, on Frebruary 15th, it sank after an explosion in which 266 crewmen died. The Americans accused the Spaniards. A US commision sent to investigate the event declared that an external explosion had provoked the catastrophe. The diplomatic tensions was in increase. The United States wanted to control Cuba, among other reasons, for the strategical position of the Island in front of the Gulf of Mexico, and they were resolved to purchase it or to fight for it. But they were going to justify their military intervention, with much hypocrisy, on humanitarian grounds: they wanted to avoid sufferings to the Cuban people. On April 11th, the Senate and the Congress of the US resolved that Cuba was free and independent and that, if Spain does not renounce immediately to its sovereignty over the Island, the President of the US was authorized to use all military and naval means to enforce it. On April 21st all diplomatic relations were terminated. On the 25th, the US declared war on Spain and started a blockade on the Island. The squadron of Admiral Cervera, which was in Cabo Verde, received orders to head to the Antilles even when the Admiral himself had insisted in that, given the superiority of their fleet, it was impossible to defeat the yankee fleet, and that it would be more convenient that his squadron protected the Canary Islands and the Peninsula in the event of an attack by the North Americans. Once he had received the orders to weigh anchors, Admiral Cervera wrote to the Minister of the Navy: "With my conscience in peace I go to the sacrifice, without understanding the unanimous vote of the generals of the Navy, which means the disapproval and the censorship of my own opinions, and which implies the need that any of them had releaved me in my duty." Admiral Cervera was not the only one who had that pesimistic vision. Captain Villaamil, who was on command of the squadron wing of torpedos, sent a telegraph to his friend Sagasta: "Before the importance that the destination given to this squadron will have to the Nation, I believe it convenient that you know through the friend who doesn't fear to be censored in his words, that although the military men are all willing to die with honour attending their duties, I believe without a doubt that the sacrifice of this nucleus of naval forces will be so certain as sterile and counterproducing for the end of the war, unless the much repeated observations of your Admiral to the Minister of the Navy are not taken into consideration." The Spanish Army had its forces scattered through the Island, although the main body was in Havana for its strategic importance. On May 19th arrived the squadron of Admiral Cervera to Santiago de Cuba, a city located in the easter part of the Island, where the Mambí Army was stronger and it was in control of the territory. The attack of the US army to Cuba was left to Nelson A. Miles, Commander-in-Chief of the army. They chose Tampa as the point from where the expeditionary corps, named the Fifth Army, would depart. There, in a chaotic and defficient organisation, 18,000 men and the necessary material for the war was embarked. On June 14th the fleet set sails to Antilles. The orders were to seize Santiago within the shortest time possible, re-embarking and set sail to Banes and wait there for instructions. The US fleet was in front of Santiago on the 20th. General Shafter, who was in command of the Fifth Army, attended a meeting with Admiral Sampson, chief of the squadron which was blocking Santiago's Bay, and with Calixto García. It was the Cuban leader who exposed his plans to take the city, which was accepted by the North Americans. These plans consisted in disembarking in Daiquiri and attacking from the east, while the Mambises surrounded the rest of the city. A Cuban general, Castillo Dunay, took Daiquiri with a garrison which retreated without presenting a fight. The Fifth Army disembarked under the protection of the Mambises on June 22nd. On the next day, after taking Siboney, the division of General Lawton met the Spanish troops which were sheltered on the heights of Guásimas. These were the same forces which had abandoned Siboney and which General Linares, Governor of Santiago, had reinforced with 1,500 men under the command of General Rubín. Shafter had decided that the division commanded by Lawton went on the vanguard, that the division of Kent took positions in the surroundings of Siboney, and that the division of Wheeler took positions in Daiquiri. On the 24th, Wheeler decided on his own account to attack the heights of Guásimas. He ordered the brigade commanded by Young an advance, but the fire of the Spanish soldiers stopped them. Wheeler asked for reinforcements to Lawtown, but General Rubín, obbeying some orders he had received, took his forces to Santiago. As a consequence, the North Americans took Guásimas, Sevilla and La Redonda. Santiago was now much closer.
[source]
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem: hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.' We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato– |
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The War of 98 (The Spanish-American War)
When the North American military command learned that Colonel Escario headed to reinforce the city with a column, they decided to attack immediately. July 1st was the day chosen to lauch the assault. At dawn that day the expeditionary army had occupied positions in the east side of Santiago. The axis of the attack would be defined by the road which went from Sevilla to Santiago, crossing a dense tropical vegetation area to the surroundings of Las Lomas de San Juan.
Not far from them there was on a promontory the defensive nucleus of El Caney. Shafter thought that it was necessary to take both positions to avoid any surprises. According to this plan, the North Americans placed their units as follows: in front of Aguadores, the brigade of Duffield; in front to Las Lomas de San Juan, the divisions of Kent and Wheeler; and to the east of El Caney, the divison of Lawton. General Linares, who was in command of near 10,000 men, organized his first line of defense: in El Caney, General Vara del Rey with 527 men; in Aguadores, 1,000 men; in San Juan, 360 men and one section of artillery; and in fort Canosa, 140 men. The North Americans' intentions was to take El Caney in two hours with the division of Lawton, while the divisions of Kent and Wheeler were deployed before Las Lomas de San Juan. Once taken El Caney, Lawton would have to incorporate the right flank to take into effect the assault on San Juan with the entire Fifth Army. Early at dawn, the division of Lawton advanced deployed towards El Caney. They thought that the panic would make the Spanish soldier to flee, but they soon discovered that the Spaniards were not ver keen on racing, and that they were willing to put all the tenacity in the defense of their postion. There there was not only the brave Vara de Rey, but with him there were a small number of guerrilla soldiers of our Infantry who gave example of braveness and courage. The first waves of assailants were stopped with the shots from close and at floor level made by the denfenders with their mausers. The American artillery directed its fire against El Viso, a small fort made of stone, key of the defense. At 9 a.m. Lawton stopped the attack for the hard difficulties that his men were having to advance one palm on the terrain, and asked that the brigade of reserve was incorporated. The total number of men under his command where thus 6,000. At midday El Caney still resisted. The imposive deploy of the North Americans failed to impress its defenders. The artillery was placed one kilometer away from El Viso, and they started firing over the small fort damaging its defenses. Lawton recived the orders to abandon the attack and incorporate his units to the assault on San Juan, but he dissobeys and continues his personal fight. Now the artillery was efficiently sweeping the Spanish trenches, and he ordered a new assault against El Viso, which was finally taken at 5 p.m. From there they could sweep the town and its defenses in a way that all attempt to resist was already impossible. Wounded, General Vara del Rey passed the command onto Colonel Punyet, who organized the retreat. During the retreat he was reached by a shot, and his dead body remained on the battle field. When the American troops found him, they paid him military tributes. At night, Leutenant Colonel Punyet arrived to Santiago with some 60 men. The haughty Lawton had calculated that it would be enough with two hours for his 6,000 men to take a position defended by Spanish men. He needed 12 instead. He took El Caney, the Spanish soldiers took the Glory. Captain Wester, military attache to the Legacy of Sweden and Norway in Washington, who witnessed in person the events, wrote a relate of these events at the end of which reads: "After this not one word could be heard in the American camp on the question of the inferiority of the Spanish race! And this fight of El Caney, will it not be always taught to the entire world as one of the more beautiful examples of human courage and of military abnegation? Who of those who have taken part in it is not worthy of an honourable award? Watch that village! The houses have been ruined by grenades, the streets covered with deads and woundeds. General Vara de Rey lies there, dead; his adjutants, next to him, also dead; all around numbers of officers and soldiers. From the first to the last of them, all of them have fulfilled their duty. Blessed be the country which is so much loved by her sons! Blessed be the heroes who have fallen un such a glorious combat! With their blood they have written in the history the name of El Caney, like one of the most brilliant episodes of warriors, and with letters of gold they must also be inscribed in the flags of the troops that comatted there!" While the fight was taking place at El Caney, the divisions of Kent and Wheeler started their march to take the positions of assault. They advanced throught the narrow road to Santiago. The divison of Wheeler started wading across the river and deploying the troops on the right flank, but the ford became a funnel and the American troops went jamming into it, producing great confusion. In order to try to understand what was going on, the American military command ordered the rising of a captive globe, of a descreet yellow colour. The Spanish soldiers opened fire on it, and soon they understood that the globe was indicating the position of the enemy, and directed the shots of their rifles on the vegetation of the swamp. Our section of artillery, with two cannons Krupp of 7,5 cm, after shooting down the globe, centered the fire over the enemy troops next to the ford. It was the Mambises who advanced their positions and waded through the river establishing a line of fire three hundred meters away of the first Spanish positions. It was thanks to them that the two American divisions could complete their deployment. The forces of Wheeler took on assault La Loma de la Caldera, which is sited in front of Las Lomas de San Juan. The general himself led the attack under the protection of the fire of his artillery and of the machine-guns Gatling. The Spanish cannons exhausted all their ammunition, and although slowly, those multi-coloured troops were climbing the hill and could not be stopped. The defenders organized an retreat in order, which was protected by the artillery men under the command of Captain De Antonio: they all died. The Americans reached the peaks of San Juan. Still, the Spanish soldiers had the strength to launch a desperate counterattack by our Infantry of Marine, commanded by [Navy] Captain Bustamante, but the attempt was rejected. General Linares, wounded in combat, passed the command onto General Toral. At dusk the Spanish found themselves sheltered behind the last exterior line of defense. Shafter ordered the construction of long trenches around Santiago. On the 2nd the column of Colonel Escario arrived with 3,000 men. The Mambises took over Cuabitas, which damn provided water to the city. Shafter asked General Toral to surrender, and General Toral refuses. On the same day, Admiral Cervera receives a telegram from the Commander-in-Chief, General Blanco: "Given the needy and grave status of that place that General Toral tells me about, take Your Excellency the most haste in embarking the disembarked troops of the squadron and leave with them immediately".
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem: hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.' We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato– |
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Sunday, April 10th, 2005
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The War of 98 (The Spanish-American War)
 Almirante don Pascual Cervera y Topete Approximately at 9.30 a.m. on the day 3rd, the squadron of Admiral Cervera started the long awaited exit from Bay of Santiago with the war pavillions raised. The plans were for the biggest possible number of ships to outwit the blockade and head west to look for shelter on another harbour. The flagship, María Teresa, was the first in abandoning the estuary with the idea of calling the attention of the enemy fleet over her. With that in mind, as soon as it was out the María Teresa opened fire on the nearest cruiser, but gearing at full steam against the Brooklyn, she was reached by the fire of the enemy and the flames spread fast through the ship. Admiral Cervera ordered to run the ship aground to try to save as many crewmen as possible. After the María Teresa, came out the Vizcaya, the Colón, and the Oquendo, but the US squadroon was paying close attention to the Spanish. The Vizcaya and the Oquendo were reached by the enemy artillery, and soon their decks were taken by the flames. The Colón was the only that seemed able to escape the blockade, but the enemy squadron went after her and it was the Oregon the first in reaching her. Before the inferiority in combat conditions, the captain of the Colón ordere to lower the flag, to flood it and to run her aground on the beach. The entire squadron of Admiral Cervera was destroyed, since as soon as they came out of harbour the destroyers Furor and Plutón were beaten down. The victory of Admiral Sampson raised the until now low morale of the Fifth Army, whose Commander-in-Chief was already considering to retreat to more secure positions. With all in favour, General Shafter did not dare to give the orders to assault the city, as he had had too many casualties only to take two small positions with very small garrisons. El Caney and San Juan were still present in his mind. Many of his men were ill. The threatened General Toral with bombing the city if he didn't surrender without conditions. The situation in Santiago was increasingly agravating by the minutes, but he did not accept to surrender. On July 10th and 11th, the city and its defenses were bombed. The situation was unbearable. After consulting with the Commander-in-Chief of Cuba, on July 16th General Toral surrendered Santiago de Cuba and the province to the North Americans. As a sign of gratitude to the Cubans for saving the Fifth Army in Daiquiri, Las Guásimas and San Juan, Shafter impeded them to enter in the city. This was the start of frictions between Cubans and North Americans. After the destruction of the Spanish squadron of Filipinas in Cavite, of the squadron of Cuba in Santiago, the surrender of the Spanish forces in Oriente, the invasion of Puerto Rico, the besiege of Manila, and the obvious impossibility of confronting the naval might of the United States, the Government of Sagasta initiated the conversations to negotiate a peace, although there were in Cuba 200,000 men who were ready to fight but who had not yet been in combat. On July 14th, 1898, General Blanco sent the following telegram to the Minister of War: "The widespread opinion in this army, and one which his generals agree with, is to continue with the war considering that the honour of the arms demands even more sacrifices, but this will never be an obstacle to carry out the orders of the Government, which this army will obbey as it is his duty. For my part, though I am much obliged by the flattering sentences that you direct to me in you telegram on the 12th, it is very sad for me declare to you that, in case that the Government decides to sign a peace treaty, I cannot continue in command of this army."
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'Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto
accipiet reduces. Antiquam exquirite matrem: hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.' We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato– |
