A vintage original Spanish American war photo of two soldiers sitting under a tentphoto measuring approximately 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches. The photo is in fair shape.1895February 24 - Second Cuban Insurrection begins.
April - General Gomez, General Antonio Maceo, Jose Maceo, Cebreco, Crombet, Guerra, Jose Marti and Borrero land in Cuba
May 19 - Cuban Jose Marti killed in encounter at Dos Rios Oriente Province.
June 13 -Spanish General Fidel de Santoclides killed in the battle of Peralejo Oriente Province. He died, killed by sharpshooter Andres Fernandez of Antonio Maceo\'s escort, while protecting Arsenio Martinez Campos Spanish Governor of Cuba. Martinez Campos takes refuge in Bayamo and is soon removed from his position and returned to Spain.
September 17 - Battleship MAINE commissioned.
October 1895-January 1896. Antonio Maceo and Maximo Gomez take their forces on the \"La Invasion\" fighting almost every day from Mangos de Baragua Oriente Province eastern Cuba to Mantua, in Pinar del Rio Province in extreme western Cuba.
November 30, 1895 - Battle at Iguara. It is in this \"La Invasion\" encounter that Winston Churchill is given a medal \"Red Cross\" by the Spanish. Spanish claim victory but numerically inferior Cubans continue to advance.
1896
January, 1896 - Antonio Maceo and Maximo Gomez end their \"La Invasion.\"
February 16 - General Weyler issues first of reconcentrado orders.
March 24 - Calixto Garcia, escaped from Spain, arrives in Cuba with well armed expedition.
August 26 - Philippine Revolution begins.
December, 7 - Antonio Maceo killed in encounter at Punta Brava, Havana Province.
December 30: Filipino national hero Dr. Jose Rizal is executed by Spanish troops.
1897
March 4 - William McKinley inaugurated as president of the United States.
March 13 - Calixto Garcia now using cannon enters the fortified town of Jiguani Oriente Province.
June 19 - Stewart Woodford appointed U.S. Minister to Spain
August 8 - Spanish Prime Minister Canovas assassinated.
August 30 - The Spanish forts at Tunas, north western Oriente Province fall to Calixto Garcia.
October 4 - Prime Minister Sagasta takes office in Spain.
October 31- Prime Minister Sagasta recalls General Weyler from Cuba.
November 28 - The Spanish forts at Guisa, Northern foothills of Sierra Maestra Oriente Province, fall to Calixto Garcia.
1898
January 1 - Spain institutes limited political autonomy in Cuba.
January 12 - Spanish in Cuba \"riot\" or demonstrate against autonomy-supporting newspaper offices. Consul-General Lee takes this as threat against Americans.
January 17 - Consul-General Lee asked for ship to sent to Havana
January 21 Esperanza, the Cuban rebel stronghold is invaded.
January 24 - Battleship MAINE sent to Havana
January 25 - Battleship MAINE arrives in Havana.
January 27 - Cuban Brig. Gen. Aranguren ambushed and killed.
February 1 - Spanish forces are beaten at Rejondon de Baguanos. This and other previous operations by Garcia, cause the Spanish to abandon the strategically important interior of Oriente Province, and effectively isolating Santiago de Cuba by land from other coastal Spanish garrisons.
February 9 - The DeLome letter is printed, critical of McKinley, causing the Spanish diplomat to be recalled.
February 15 -Battleship MAINE explodes, 266 crewmen killed.
February 16 - DeLome leaves the US for Spain.
February 17 - Naval Board of Inquiry into the loss of the battleship MAINE created (\"the Sampson Board\")
February 18 - Spanish cruiser VIZCAYA arrives in New York in reciprocal visit for the USS Maine, unaware that the Maine had been lost.
February 21 - The Naval Court of Inquiry into the loss of the MAINE begins.
February 25 - VIZCAYA leaves New York for Havana.
February 25 - Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, cabled Commodore Dewey to be ready if war were to break out, and gave him his objectives
March 6 - Spain requests, unofficially, that Consul-General Lee be recalled.
March 8 - Congress authorizes $50 million for a war fund.
March 14 - Admiral Cervera\'s squadron steams for the Cape Verde Islands.
March 17 - Senator Redfield Proctor reports on the Cuban situation after his visit to Cuba
March 19 - Battleship OREGON, under Capt. Charles Clark leaves San Francisco for Florida, by way of Tierra del Fuego on its famous dash!
March 21 - Board of Inquiry Report completed. States that battleship MAINE lost to a mine.
March 25 - McKinley receives Board of Inquiry Report.
March 26 - McKinley sends note to Spain demanding an end to war in Cuba, as well as a note indicating the findings of the Naval Board of Inquiry.
March 28 - Naval Court of Inquiry report presented to Congress. On the same day, the report of the Spanish Board of Inquiry into the loss of the MAINE is received in Washington. This reports states that the loss was the result of an internal accident.
March 30 - U.S. minister to Spain, Woodford, conveys request that war in Cuba end and that Cuba be given independence.
March 31 - Spain turns down demands of Cuban independence.
April 1 - U.S. House of Representatives authorizes $22.6 million for naval vessels.
April 6 - Pope asked McKinley to not declare war pending the Pope\'s negotiations with Spain.
April 7 - Ambassadors of England, Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Russia appeal to McKinley for peace.
April 9 - Spain orders General Blanco to declare armistice in Cuba. Consul-General Lee and other U.S. citizens leave Cuba.
April 11 - McKinley asks Congress for war.
April 16 - Army begins mobilization. Teller Amendment passes in U.S. Congress, stating that the U.S. would not annex Cuba.
April 19 - U.S. Congress declares Cuba independent.
April 22 - Blockade of Cuba commenced by US Navy. First Spanish ship taken.
April 23 - McKinley issues call for 125,000 volunteers. Spain declares war.
April 25 - U.S. declares war, but makes the declaration retroactive to April 22. Matanzas, Cuba bombarded by the US Navy.
April 27 - Commodore Dewey\'s squadron leaves Mirs Bay, China for the Philippines.
April 29 - Calixto Garcia takes Bayamo, abandoned by the Spanish, as headquarters.
April 30 - Admiral Cervera\'s Spanish squadron leaves the Cape Verde Islands for the Caribbean.
May 1 - U.S. Navy\'s Asiatic Squadron under Commodore Dewey defeats the Spanish Pacific Squadron at the Battle of Manila Bay.
May 1 - US Lieutenant Andrew Summers Rowan arrives in Bayamo to coordinate Cuban and US forces.
May 11 - Dewey promoted to rear admiral.
May 11 - The WINSLOW attacks Cardenas, resulting in the death of Ensign Bagley and five crewmen. Bagley was the only U.S. naval officer to die in the war. Cervera\'s squadron appears off Martinique.
May 11 - The cable is cut at Cienfuegos, Cuba by the crews of the MARBLEHEAD and NASHVILLE
May 12 - Admiral Sampson bombards San Juan, Puerto Rico, without warning.
May 13 - Commodore Schley\'s \"Flying Squadron\" leaves Hampton Roads for the vicinity of Cuba.
May 15 - Theodore Roosevelt begins training with Rough Riders.
May 17 - Cervera\'s squadron arrives in Santiago, Cuba.
May 25 - McKinley issues a call for 75,000 more volunteers. The first army expedition leaves San Francisco for Manila, P.I.
May 28 - Battleship OREGON arrives off Florida after the 14,700 nautical mile dash from the U.S.\'s west coas
May 29 - US Navy blockades Spanish fleet in Santiago harbor.
May 31 - Schley and the blockading squadron skirmish with CRISTOBAL COLON and the forts at Santiago
June 3 - Hobson sinks the MERRIMAC at the entrance to Santiago harbor.
June 10 - US Marines land at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
June 12-14 - Maj. Gen. Shafter\'s Vth Corps embarks at Tampa.
June 15 - Spanish squadron leaves Spain for the Philippines.
June 21 - Guam \"captured\" by US forces.
June 20 - Calixto Garcia meets with US General William Shafter in Asseradero Sierra Maestra to coordinate US landings.
June 20 - Cruiser CHARLESTON captures Island of Guam
June 21 - Cuban forces (530 men) under Colonel Gonzalez Clavel are taken by US transport Leone, and protected by the US warships Vixen and the Gloucester land at Sigua and advance on Daiquri by land.
June 22 - At dawn, Gonzalez Clavel\'s men advancing by land take the lightly defended Spanish positions on the heights of Daiquiri and control landing zone. US ships accidentally shell Cuban forces on shore. U.S forces under General Lawton begin to land.
June 22 - Vth Corps of 16,000 men land at Daiquiri in Cuba throughout the day.
June 22-23 - Cuban scouts take about 20 wounded and report to General Lawton that first Spanish strong positions are at La Guasimas. Lawton orders US and Cuban forces at his command to hold positions, before fomal attack.
June 24 - Battle of Las Guasimas.
July 1 - Battles of El Caney and San Juan Hill.
July 3 - Spanish fleet attempts to escape from Santiago, all ships destroyed at the naval Battle of Santiago.
July 4 - Six Spanish prisoners killed aboard Auxiliary Cruiser HARVARD. The event becomes known as the \"Harvard Incident.\"
July 6 - Hobson and his crew exchanged.
July 8 - Spanish squadron heading for the Philippines is forced to turn around to protect the Spanish coastline.
July 10 - Santiago bombarded by the U.S. Navy.
July 17 - Spanish Santiago garrison surrenders.
July 25 - US Army invades Puerto Rico.
July 26 - Spanish ask for terms of peace through the French ambassador.
July 31 - Night attack by the Spanish on the American lines at Manila, P.I.
August 9 - Battle of Coamo, Puerto Rico results in U.S. victory; Spain accepts McKinley\'s terms of peace.
August 11 - American Troops entered Mayaguez, Puerto Rico\'s third largest city.
August 12 - Peace protocol is signed (truce).
August 13 - U.S. Forces take Manila after a minor skirmish and show of force.
August 20 - Great naval review in New York harbor.
August 23 - General Merritt appointed governor of Manila. Command of 8th Corps in P.I. given to General Otis.
August 25 - General Shafter leaves Cuba.
August 29 - Efforts to raise MARIA TERESA and CRISTOBAL COLON begun by Hobson.
September 10 - Spanish Cortes approves peace protocol.
September 12 - Admiral Cevera leaves U.S. to return to Spain.
September 13 - \"Rough Riders\" mustered out of service; Spanish senate approves peace protocol.
September 14 - U.S. troops begin leaving Puerto Rico; Queen Regent of Spain signs peace protocol.
September 20 - First U.S. flag raised in Havana, Cuba.
September 24 - Leonard Wood made military governor of Cuba.
September 25 - MARIA TERESA raised by Hobson.
September 29 - Spanish and American peace commissioners meet for the first time.
October 12 - OREGON and IOWA leave New York for Manila, P.I.
October 18 - U.S. takes formal possession of Puerto Rico.
October 25-18 - Peace Jubilee held in Philadelphia
November 5 - MARIA TERESA lost near Cat Island.
November 28 - Spain agrees to cede Philippines Islands.
November 30 - General Blanco leaves Cuba for Spain.
December 10 - Treaty of Paris ends Spanish American War.
December 23 - Aguinaldo\'s cabinet resigns in the Philippines.
1899
February 4 - Philippine American War (formerly called the Philippine Insurrection) begins.
1901
March 4 - McKinley\'s 2nd inauguration. Roosevelt is vice-president.
March 23 - Philippine Revolutionary leader General Aguinaldo captured.
September 14 - McKinley dies after being shot on September 6, Theodore Roosevelt becomes President.
1902
July 4 - Roosevelt declares the Philippines pacified.The Spanish–American War (Spanish: Guerra hispano-americana or Guerra hispano-estadounidense; Filipino: Digmaang Espanyol-Amerikano) was fought between the United States and Spain in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American acquisition of Spain\'s Pacific possessions led to its involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately in the Philippine–American War.[11]
Revolts had been occurring for some years in Cuba against Spanish rule. The U.S. later backed these revolts upon entering the Spanish–American War. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1883, but in the late 1890s, U.S. public opinion was agitated by anti-Spanish propaganda led by newspaper publishers such as Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst which used yellow journalism to call for war.[12][13] The business community across the United States had just recovered from a deep depression and feared that a war would reverse the gains. It lobbied vigorously against going to war.
The United States Navy armoured cruiser Maine had mysteriously sunk in Havana Harbor; political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war that he had wished to avoid.[14] The United States sent an ultimatum to Spain demanding that it surrender control of Cuba. First Madrid declared war, and Washington then followed suit.[15]
The main issue was Cuban independence; the ten-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. As the American agitators for war well knew,[16] U.S. naval power proved decisive, allowing expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already facing nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further wasted by yellow fever.[17] Numerically superior Cuban, Philippine and U.S. forces obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila despite the good performance of some Spanish infantry units and fierce fighting for positions such as San Juan Hill.[18] Madrid sued for peace after two obsolete Spanish squadrons sunk in Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay and a third, more modern fleet recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts.[19]
The result was the 1899 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favourable to the U.S. which allowed it temporary control of Cuba and ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippine islands. The cession of the Philippines involved payment of $20 million ($575,760,000 today) to Spain by the U.S. to cover infrastructure owned by Spain.[20]
The defeat and loss of the last remnants of the Spanish Empire was a profound shock to Spain\'s national psyche and provoked a thorough philosophical and artistic revaluation of Spanish society known as the Generation of \'98.[19] The United States gained several island possessions spanning the globe and a rancorous new debate over the wisdom of expansionism.[21] It was one of only five US wars (against a total of eleven sovereign states) to have been formally declared by Congress.[22]
Contents [hide]1 Historical background1.1 Spain\'s attitude towards its colonies1.2 American interest in the Caribbean2 Path to war2.1 Cuban struggle for independence2.2 Spanish attitude2.3 U.S. response2.4 USS Maine. Dispatch to Havana and loss2.5 Declaring war2.6 Alternative historical interpretations3 Pacific theater3.1 Philippines3.2 Guam4 Caribbean Theater4.1 Cuba4.1.1 Cuban sentiment4.1.2 Land campaign4.1.3 Naval operations4.1.4 U.S. withdrawal4.2 Puerto Rico5 Making peace6 Aftermath6.1 Postwar American investment in Puerto Rico7 In film and television8 Military decorations8.1 United States8.2 Other countries9 See also10 Notes10.1 Footnotes10.2 Source citations11 References12 Further reading13 External links13.1 Media13.2 Reference materials13.3 NewspapersHistorical background[edit]Spain\'s attitude towards its colonies[edit]The combined problems arising from the Peninsular War (1807–1814), the loss of most of its colonies in the Americas in the early 19th-century Spanish American wars of independence, and three Carlist Wars (1832–1876) effected a new interpretation of Spain\'s remaining empire.[citation needed] Liberal Spanish elites like Antonio Cánovas del Castillo and Emilio Castelar offered new interpretations of the concept of \"empire\" to dovetail with Spain\'s emerging nationalism. Cánovas made clear in an address to the University of Madrid in 1882[23][24] his view of the Spanish nation as based on shared cultural and linguistic elements – on both sides of the Atlantic – that tied Spain\'s territories together.
Cánovas saw Spanish imperialism as markedly different in its methods and purposes of colonization from those of rival empires like the British or French. Spaniards regarded the spreading of civilization and Christianity as Spain\'s major objective and contribution to the New World.[25] The concept of cultural unity bestowed special significance on Cuba, which had been Spanish for almost four hundred years, and was viewed as an integral part of the Spanish nation. The focus on preserving the empire would have negative consequences for Spain\'s national pride in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War.
American interest in the Caribbean[edit]In 1823, American fifth President James Monroe (1758-1831, served 1817-1825) enunciated the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United States would not tolerate further efforts by European governments to retake, expand their colonial holdings in the Americas or to interfere with the newly independent states in the hemisphere; at the same time, the doctrine stated that the U.S. would respect the status of the existing European colonies. Before the American Civil War (1861-1865), Southern interests attempted to have the United States purchase Cuba and convert it into a new slave territory. The Ostend Manifesto proposal of 1854 failed, and national attention shifted to the growing sectional conflict and threat of civil war.
After the American Civil War and Cuba\'s Ten Years\' War, U.S. businessmen began monopolizing the devalued sugar markets in Cuba. In 1894, 90% of Cuba\'s total exports went to the United States, which also provided 40% of Cuba\'s imports.[26] Cuba\'s total exports to the U.S. were almost twelve times larger than the export to her mother country, Spain.[27] U.S. business interests indicated that while Spain still held political authority over Cuba, economic authority in Cuba, acting-authority, was shifting to the U.S.A.
The U.S. became interested in a trans-isthmus canal across Central America, either in Nicaragua, or in Panama, where the Panama Canal would later be built (1903-1914), and realized the need for naval protection. Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was an especially influential theorist; his ideas were much admired by future 26th President Theodore Roosevelt, as the U.S. rapidly built a powerful naval fleet of steel warships in the 1880s and 1890s. Roosevelt served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897–1898 and was an aggressive supporter of a war with Spain over Cuba.
Meanwhile, the \"Cuba Libre\" movement, led by Cuban intellectual José Martí, had established offices in Florida[28] and New York to buy and smuggle weapons. It mounted a large propaganda campaign to generate sympathy that would lead to official pressure on Spain. Protestant churches and Democratic farmers were supportive, but business interests called on Washington to ignore them.[29]
Although Cuba attracted American attention, little note was made of the Philippines, Guam, or Puerto Rico.[30] Historians note that there was little popular demand in the United States for an overseas colonial empire, though at this time the longtime colonial empires of the United Kingdom (Great Britain) with its British Empire \"on which the sun never set\" and France\'s French Empire maintained theirs with some added growths and additions, now joined by the German Empire, Italian Empire and the Empire of Japan. These new and growing empires were dramatically expanding their overseas holdings during the late 19th century in unclaimed areas among native and indigenous peoples in the less developed continents of Africa, Asia and the Pacific.[31]
Path to war[edit]Cuban struggle for independence[edit]Main article: Cuban War of IndependenceThe first serious offer for Cuban independence, the Ten Years\' War, erupted in 1868 and was subdued by the authorities a decade later. Neither the fighting nor the reforms in the Pact of Zanjón (February 1878) quelled the desire of some revolutionaries for wider autonomy and ultimately independence. One such revolutionary, José Martí, continued to promote Cuban financial and political autonomy in exile. In early 1895, after years of organizing, Martí launched a three-pronged invasion of the island.[32]
The plan called for one group from Santo Domingo led by Máximo Gómez, one group from Costa Rica led by Antonio Maceo Grajales, and another from the United States (preemptively thwarted by U.S. officials in Florida) to land in different places on the island and provoke an uprising. While their call for revolution, the grito de Baíre, was successful, the result was not the grand show of force Martí had expected. With a quick victory effectively lost, the revolutionaries settled in to fight a protracted guerrilla campaign.[32]
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, the architect of Spain\'s Restoration constitution and the prime minister at the time, ordered General Arsenio Martínez-Campos, a distinguished veteran of the war against the previous uprising in Cuba, to quell the revolt. Campos\'s reluctance to accept his new assignment and his method of containing the revolt to the province of Oriente earned him criticism in the Spanish press.[33]
The mounting pressure forced Cánovas to replace General Campos with General Valeriano Weyler, a soldier who had experience in quelling rebellions in overseas provinces and the Spanish metropole. Weyler deprived the insurgency of weaponry, supplies, and assistance by ordering the residents of some Cuban districts to move to reconcentration areas near the military headquarters.[33] This strategy was effective in slowing the spread of rebellion. In the United States, this fueled the fire of anti-Spanish propaganda.[34] In a political speech President William McKinley used this to ram Spanish actions against armed rebels. He even said this \"was not civilized warfare\" but \"extermination\".[35][36]
Spanish attitude[edit]
A Spanish satirical drawing published in La Campana de Gràcia (1896) criticizing U.S. behavior regarding Cuba by Manuel Moliné. Upper text reads (in old Catalan): \"Uncle Sam\'s craving\", and below: \"To keep the island so it won\'t get lost.\"
An American cartoon published in Judge, Feb. 6, 1897: Columbia (representing the American people) reaches out to the oppressed Cuba (the caption under the chained child reads \"Spain\'s 16th Century methods\") while Uncle Sam (representing the US government) sits blindfolded, refusing to see the atrocities or use his guns to intervene (cartoon by Grant E. Hamilton).The Spanish Government regarded Cuba as a province of Spain rather than a colony, and depended on it for prestige and trade, and as a training ground for the army. Prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo announced that \"the Spanish nation is disposed to sacrifice to the last peseta of its treasure and to the last drop of blood of the last Spaniard before consenting that anyone snatch from it even one piece of its territory.\"[37] He had long dominated and stabilized Spanish politics. He was assassinated in 1897 by Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo,[38] leaving a Spanish political system that was not stable and could not risk a blow to its prestige.[39]
U.S. response[edit]Further information: Presidency of William McKinleyThe eruption of the Cuban revolt, Weyler\'s measures, and the popular fury these events whipped up proved to be a boon to the newspaper industry in New York City, where Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal recognized the potential for great headlines and stories that would sell copies. Both papers denounced Spain, but had little influence outside New York. American opinion generally saw Spain as a hopelessly backward power that was unable to deal fairly with Cuba. American Catholics were divided before the war began, but supported it enthusiastically once it started.[40][41]
The U.S. had important economic interests that were being harmed by the prolonged conflict and deepening uncertainty about the future of Cuba. Shipping firms that had relied heavily on trade with Cuba now suffered losses as the conflict continued unresolved.[42] These firms pressed Congress and McKinley to seek an end to the revolt. Other American business concerns, specifically those who had invested in Cuban sugar, looked to the Spanish to restore order.[43] Stability, not war, was the goal of both interests. How stability would be achieved would depend largely on the ability of Spain and the U.S. to work out their issues diplomatically.
While tension increased among the Cubans and Spanish Government, popular support of intervention began to spring up in the United States, due to the emergence of the \"Cuba Libre\" movement and the fact that many Americans had drawn parallels between the American Revolution and the Cuban revolt, seeing the Spanish Government as the tyrannical colonial oppressor. Historian Louis Pérez notes that \"The proposition of war in behalf of Cuban independence took hold immediately and held on thereafter. Such was the sense of the public mood.\" At the time many poems and songs were written in the United States to express support of the \"Cuba Libre\" movement.[44] At the same time, many African Americans, facing growing racial discrimination and increasing retardation of their civil rights, wanted to take part in the war because they saw it as a way to advance the cause of equality, service to country hopefully helping to gain political and public respect amongst the wider population.[45]
President McKinley, well aware of the political complexity surrounding the conflict, wanted to end the revolt peacefully. In accordance with this policy, McKinley began to negotiate with the Spanish government, hoping that the negotiations would be able to end the yellow journalism in the United States, and therefore, end the loudest calls to go to war with Spain. An attempt was made to negotiate a peace before McKinley took office, however, the Spanish refused to take part in the negotiations. In 1897 McKinley appointed Stewart L. Woodford as the new minister to Spain, who again offered to negotiate a peace. In October 1897, the Spanish government still refused the United States offer to negotiate between the Spanish and the Cubans, but promised the U.S. it would give the Cubans more autonomy.[46] However, with the election of a more liberal Spanish government in November, Spain began to change their policies in Cuba. First, the new Spanish government told the United States that it was willing to offer a change in the Reconcentration policies (the main set of policies that was feeding yellow journalism in the United States) if the Cuban rebels agreed to a cessation of hostilities. This time the rebels refused the terms in hopes that continued conflict would lead to U.S. intervention and the creation of an independent Cuba.[46] The liberal Spanish government also recalled the Spanish Governor General Valeriano Weyler from Cuba. This action alarmed many Cubans loyal to Spain.[47]
The Cubans loyal to Weyler began planning large demonstrations to take place when the next Governor General, Ramon Blanco, arrived in Cuba. U.S. consul Fitzhugh Lee learned of these plans and sent a request to the U.S. State Department to send a U.S. warship to Cuba.[47] This request lead to the U.S.S. Maine being sent to Cuba. While the Maine was docked in Havana, an explosion sank the ship. The sinking of the Maine was blamed on the Spanish and made the possibility of a negotiated peace very slim.[48] Throughout the negotiation process, the major European powers, especially Britain, France, and Russia, generally supported the American position and urged Spain to give in.[49] Spain repeatedly promised specific reforms that would pacify Cuba but failed to deliver; American patience ran out.[50]
USS Maine. Dispatch to Havana and loss[edit]Main article: USS Maine (ACR-1)
The sunken USS Maine in Havana harborMcKinley sent the USS Maine to Havana to ensure the safety of American citizens and interests, and to underscore the urgent need for reform. Naval forces were moved in position to attack simultaneously on several fronts if the war was not avoided. As Maine left Florida, a large part of the North Atlantic Squadron was moved to Key West and the Gulf of Mexico. Others were also moved just off the shore of Lisbon, and still others were moved to Hong Kong.[51]
At 9:40 on the evening of February 15, 1898, Maine sank in Havana Harbor after suffering a massive explosion. While McKinley urged patience and did not declare that Spain had caused the explosion, the deaths of 250 out of 355 [52] sailors on board focused American attention. McKinley asked Congress to appropriate $50 million for defense, and Congress unanimously obliged. Most American leaders took the position that the cause of the explosion was unknown, but public attention was now riveted on the situation and Spain could not find a diplomatic solution to avoid war. Spain appealed to the European powers, most of whom advised it to accept U.S. conditions for Cuba in order to avoid war.[53] Germany urged a united European stand against the United States but took no action.[54]
The U.S. Navy\'s investigation, made public on March 28, concluded that the ship\'s powder magazines were ignited when an external explosion was set off under the ship\'s hull. This report poured fuel on popular indignation in the U.S., making the war inevitable.[55] Spain\'s investigation came to the opposite conclusion: the explosion originated within the ship. Other investigations in later years came to various contradictory conclusions, but had no bearing on the coming of the war. In 1974, Admiral Hyman George Rickover had his staff look at the documents and decided there was an internal explosion. A study commissioned by National Geographic magazine in 1999, using AME computer modelling, stated that the explosion could have been caused by a mine, but no definitive evidence was found.[56]
Declaring war[edit]Main article: Propaganda of the Spanish–American War
United States Army Colonel Charles A. Wikoff was the most senior U.S. military officer killed in the Spanish–American War.After the Maine was destroyed, New York City newspaper publishers Hearst and Pulitzer decided that the Spanish were to blame, and they publicized this theory as fact in their papers.[57] They both used sensationalistic and astonishing accounts of \"atrocities\" committed by the Spanish in Cuba by using headlines in their newspapers, such as \"Spanish Murderers\" and \"Remember The Maine\". Their press exaggerated what was happening and how the Spanish were treating the Cuban prisoners.[58] The stories were based on factual accounts, but most of the time, the articles that were published were embellished and written with incendiary language causing emotional and often heated responses among readers. A common myth falsely states that when illustrator Frederic Remington said there was no war brewing in Cuba, Hearst responded: \"You furnish the pictures and I\'ll furnish the war.\"[59]
This new \"yellow journalism\" was, however, uncommon outside New York City, and historians no longer consider it the major force shaping the national mood.[60] Public opinion nationwide did demand immediate action, overwhelming the efforts of President McKinley, Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed, and the business community to find a negotiated solution. Wall Street, big business, high finance and Main Street businesses across the country were vocally opposed to war and demanded peace. After years of severe depression, the economic outlook for the domestic economy was suddenly bright again in 1897. However, the uncertainties of warfare posed a serious threat to full economic recovery. \"War would impede the march of prosperity and put the country back many years,\" warned the New Jersey Trade Review. The leading railroad magazine editorialized, \"From a commercial and mercenary standpoint it seems peculiarly bitter that this war should come when the country had already suffered so much and so needed rest and peace.\" McKinley paid close attention to the strong anti-war consensus of the business community, and strengthened his resolve to use diplomacy and negotiation rather than brute force to end the Spanish tyranny in Cuba.[61]
A speech delivered by Republican Senator Redfield Proctor of Vermont on March 17, 1898, thoroughly analyzed the situation and greatly strengthened the pro-war cause. Proctor concluded that war was the only answer.[62]:210 Many in the business and religious communities which had until then opposed war, switched sides, leaving McKinley and Speaker Reed almost alone in their resistance to a war.[63][64][65] On April 11, McKinley ended his resistance and asked Congress for authority to send American troops to Cuba to end the civil war there, knowing that Congress would force a war.The American transport ship Seneca, a chartered vessel that carried troops to Puerto Rico and CubaOn April 19, while Congress was considering joint resolutions supporting Cuban independence, Republican Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado proposed the Teller Amendment to ensure that the U.S. would not establish permanent control over Cuba after the war. The amendment, disclaiming any intention to annex Cuba, passed the Senate 42 to 35; the House concurred the same day, 311 to 6. The amended resolution demanded Spanish withdrawal and authorized the President to use as much military force as he thought necessary to help Cuba gain independence from Spain. President McKinley signed the joint resolution on April 20, 1898, and the ultimatum was sent to Spain.[66] In response, Spain severed diplomatic relations with the United States on April 21. On the same day, the U.S. Navy began a blockade of Cuba.[67] Spain stated, it would declare war if the US forces invaded its territory, on April 23. On April 25, the U.S. Congress declared that a state of war between the U.S. and Spain had de facto existed since April 21, the day the blockade of Cuba had begun.[67]Spanish Vessels captured up to evening of May 1, 1898The Navy was ready, but the Army was not well-prepared for the war and made radical changes in plans and quickly purchased supplies. In the spring of 1898, the strength of the Regular U.S. Army was just 25,000 men. The Army wanted 50,000 new men but received over 220,000 through volunteers and the mobilization of state National Guard units,[68] even gaining nearly 100,000 men on the first night after the explosion of the USS Maine.[69]
Alternative historical interpretations[edit]The Department of State of the United States of America summarizes the aftermath of the war for the Filipino people:[70]
\"After its defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain ceded its longstanding colony of the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. On February 4, 1899, just two days before the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, fighting broke out between American forces and Filipino nationalists led by Emilio Aguinaldo, who sought independence rather than a change in colonial rulers. The ensuing Philippine-American War lasted three years and resulted in the death of over 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants. As many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famine, and disease.\"
In 1901, novelist Mark Twain wrote about the aftermath of the war for the Philippines:[71]
\"We have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit\'s work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America\'s honor and blackened her face before the world.\"
In his War and Empire,[16] Prof. Paul Atwood of the University of Massachusetts (Boston) writes:
\"The Spanish-American War was fomented on outright lies and trumped up accusations against the intended enemy. ... War fever in the general population never reached a critical temperature until the accidental sinking of the USS Maine was deliberately, and falsely, attributed to Spanish villainy. ... In a cryptic message ... Senator lodge wrote that ‘There may be an explosion any day in Cuba which would settle a great many things. We have got a battleship in the harbor of Havana, and our fleet, which overmatches anything the Spanish have, is masked at the Dry Tortugas.’\"
In his autobiography,[72] Theodore Roosevelt gave his views of the origins of the war:
\"Our own direct interests were great, because of the Cuban tobacco and sugar, and especially because of Cuba\'s relation to the projected Isthmian [Panama] Canal. But even greater were our interests from the standpoint of humanity. ... It was our duty, even more from the standpoint of National honor than from the standpoint of National interest, to stop the devastation and destruction. Because of these considerations I favored war.\"
Pacific theater[edit]Philippines[edit]
The Pacific theatre of the Spanish–American WarIn the 333 years of Spanish rule, the Philippines developed from a small overseas colony governed from the Viceroyalty of New Spain to a land with modern elements in the cities. The Spanish-speaking middle classes of the 19th century were mostly educated in the liberal ideas coming from Europe. Among these Ilustrados was the Filipino national hero José Rizal, who demanded larger reforms from the Spanish authorities. This movement eventually led to the Philippine Revolution against Spanish colonial rule. The revolution had been in a state of truce since the signing of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato in 1897, with revolutionary leaders having accepted exile outside of the country.The Battle of Manila BayThe first battle between American and Spanish forces was at Manila Bay where, on May 1, Commodore George Dewey, commanding the U.S. Navy\'s Asiatic Squadron aboard USS Olympia, in a matter of hours defeated a Spanish squadron under Admiral Patricio Montojo. Dewey managed this with only nine wounded.[73][74] With the German seizure of Tsingtao in 1897, Dewey\'s squadron had become the only naval force in the Far East without a local base of its own, and was beset with coal and ammunition problems.[75] Despite these problems, the Asiatic Squadron not only destroyed the Spanish fleet but also captured the harbor of Manila.[75]
Following Dewey\'s victory, Manila Bay was filled with the warships of Britain, Germany, France, and Japan.[75] The German fleet of eight ships, ostensibly in Philippine waters to protect German interests, acted provocatively – cutting in front of American ships, refusing to salute the United States flag (according to customs of naval courtesy), taking soundings of the harbor, and landing supplies for the besieged Spanish.[77]
The Germans, with interests of their own, were eager to take advantage of whatever opportunities the conflict in the islands might afford.[78] There was a fear at the time that the islands would become a German possession.[79] The Americans called the bluff of the Germans, threatening conflict if the aggression continued, and the Germans backed down.[78][80] At the time, the Germans expected the confrontation in the Philippines to end in an American defeat, with the revolutionaries capturing Manila and leaving the Philippines ripe for German picking.[81]
Commodore Dewey transported Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipino leader who had led rebellion against Spanish rule in the Philippines in 1896, from exile in Hong Kong to the Philippines to rally more Filipinos against the Spanish colonial government.[82] By June, U.S. and Filipino forces had taken control of most of the islands, except for the walled city of Intramuros. On June 12, Aguinaldo proclaimed the independence of the Philippines.[83][84]
On August 13, with American commanders unaware that a cease-fire had been signed between Spain and the U.S. on the previous day, American forces captured the city of Manila from the Spanish in the Battle of Manila.[82][85] This battle marked the end of Filipino–American collaboration, as the American action of preventing Filipino forces from entering the captured city of Manila was deeply resented by the Filipinos. This later led to the Philippine–American War,[86] which would prove to be more deadly and costly than the Spanish–American War.Spanish prisoners of war in ManilaThe U.S. had sent a force of some 11,000 ground troops to the Philippines. Armed conflict broke out between U.S. forces and the Filipinos when U.S. troops began to take the place of the Spanish in control of the country after the end of the war, resulting in the Philippine–American War. On August 14, 1899, the Schurman Commission recommended that the U.S. retain control of the Philippines, possibly granting independence in the future.[87]
Guam[edit]Main article: Capture of GuamOn June 20, a U.S. fleet commanded by Captain Henry Glass, consisting of the protected cruiser USS Charleston and three transports carrying troops to the Philippines, entered Guam\'s Apra Harbor, Captain Glass having opened sealed orders instructing him to proceed to Guam and capture it. Charleston fired a few cannon rounds at Fort Santa Cruz without receiving return fire. Two local officials, not knowing that war had been declared and believing the firing had been a salute, came out to Charleston to apologize for their inability to return the salute as they were out of gunpowder. Glass informed them that the U.S. and Spain were at war.[88]
The following day, Glass sent Lt. William Braunersruehter to meet the Spanish Governor to arrange the surrender of the island and the Spanish garrison there. Some 54 Spanish infantry were captured and transported to the Philippines as prisoners of war. No U.S. forces were left on Guam, but the only U.S. citizen on the island, Frank Portusach, told Captain Glass that he would look after things until U.S. forces returned.[88]
Caribbean Theater[edit]Cuba[edit]See also: San Juan Hill order of battle and El Caney order of battle
The Spanish armored cruiser Cristóbal Colón, which was destroyed during the Battle of Santiago on July 3, 1898
Detail from Charge of the 24th and 25th Colored Infantry and Rescue of Rough Riders at San Juan Hill, July 2, 1898 depicting the Battle of San Juan HillTheodore Roosevelt advocated intervention in Cuba, both for the Cuban people and to promote the Monroe Doctrine. While Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he placed the Navy on a war-time footing and prepared Dewey\'s Asiatic Squadron for battle. He also worked with Leonard Wood in convincing the Army to raise an all-volunteer regiment, the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry. Wood was given command of the regiment that quickly became known as the \"Rough Riders\".[89]
The Americans planned to capture the city of Santiago de Cuba to destroy Linares\' army and Cervera\'s fleet. To reach Santiago they had to pass through concentrated Spanish defenses in the San Juan Hills and a small town in El Caney. The American forces were aided in Cuba by the pro-independence rebels led by General Calixto García.
Cuban sentiment[edit]For quite some time the Cuban public believed the United States government to possibly hold the key to its independence, and even annexation was considered for a time, which historian Louis Pérez explored in his book Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy. The Cubans harbored a great deal of discontent towards the Spanish Government, due to years of manipulation on the part of the Spanish. The prospect of getting the United States involved in the fight was considered by many Cubans as a step in the right direction. While the Cubans were wary of the United States\' intentions, the overwhelming support from the American public provided the Cubans with some peace of mind, because they believed that the United States was committed to helping them achieve their independence. However, with the imposition of the Platt Amendment of 1903 after the war, as well as economic and military manipulation on the part of the United States, Cuban sentiment towards the United States became polarized, with many Cubans disappointed with continuing American interference.[90]
Land campaign[edit]From June 22 to 24, the Fifth Army Corps under General William R. Shafter landed at Daiquirí and Siboney, east of Santiago, and established an American base of operations. A contingent of Spanish troops, having fought a skirmish with the Americans near Siboney on June 23, had retired to their lightly entrenched positions at Las Guasimas. An advance guard of U.S. forces under former Confederate General Joseph Wheeler ignored Cuban scouting parties and orders to proceed with caution. They caught up with and engaged the Spanish rearguard of about 2,000 soldiers led by General Antero Rubín[91] who effectively ambushed them, in the Battle of Las Guasimas on June 24. The battle ended indecisively in favor of Spain and the Spanish left Las Guasimas on their planned retreat to Santiago.
The U.S. Army employed Civil War-era skirmishers at the head of the advancing columns. Three of four of the U.S. soldiers who had volunteered to act as skirmishers walking point at the head of the American column were killed, including Hamilton Fish II (grandson of Hamilton Fish, the Secretary of State under Ulysses S. Grant), and Captain Allyn K. Capron, Jr., whom Theodore Roosevelt would describe as one of the finest natural leaders and soldiers he ever met. Only Oklahoma Territory Pawnee Indian, Tom Isbell, wounded seven times, survived.[92]
The Battle of Las Guasimas showed the U.S. that quick-thinking American soldiers would not stick to the linear tactics which did not work effectively against Spanish troops who had learned the art of cover and concealment from their own struggle with Cuban insurgents, and never made the error of revealing their positions while on the defense. Americans advanced by rushes and stayed in the weeds so that they, too, were largely invisible to the Spaniards who used un-targeted volley fire to try to mass fires against the advancing Americans. While some troops were hit, this technique was mostly a waste of bullets as the Americans learned to duck as soon as they heard the Spanish word Fire, \"Fuego\" yelled by the Spanish officers. Spanish troops were equipped with smokeless powder arms that also helped them to hide their positions while firing.Receiving the news of the surrender of SantiagoRegular Spanish troops were mostly armed with modern charger-loaded 1893 7mm Spanish Mauser rifles and using smokeless powder. The high-speed 7×57mm Mauser round was termed the \"Spanish Hornet\" by the Americans because of the supersonic crack as it passed overhead. Other irregular troops were armed with Remington Rolling Block rifles in .43 Spanish using smokeless powder and brass-jacketed bullets. US regular infantry were armed with the .30–40 Krag–Jørgensen, a bolt-action rifle with a complex rotating magazine. Both the US regular cavalry and the volunteer cavalry used smokeless ammunition. In later battles, state volunteers used the .45–70 Springfield a single-shot black powder rifle.[92]
On July 1, a combined force of about 15,000 American troops in regular infantry and cavalry regiments, including all four of the army\'s \"Colored\" regiments, and volunteer regiments, among them Roosevelt and his \"Rough Riders\", the 71st New York, the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, and 1st North Carolina, and rebel Cuban forces attacked 1,270 entrenched Spaniards in dangerous Civil War-style frontal assaults at the Battle of El Caney and Battle of San Juan Hill outside of Santiago.[93] More than 200 U.S. soldiers were killed and close to 1,200 wounded in the fighting, thanks to the high rate of fire the Spanish were able to put down range at the Americans.[94] Supporting fire by Gatling guns was critical to the success of the assault.[95][96] Cervera decided to escape Santiago two days later. First Lieutenant John J. Pershing, nicknamed \"Black Jack,\" oversaw the 10th Cavalry Unit during the war. Pershing and his unit fought in the Battle of San Juan Hill. Pershing was cited for his gallantry during the battle.
The Spanish forces at Guantánamo were so isolated by Marines and Cuban forces that they did not know that Santiago was under siege, and their forces in the northern part of the province could not break through Cuban lines. This was not true of the Escario relief column from Manzanillo,[97] which fought its way past determined Cuban resistance but arrived too late to participate in the siege.
After the battles of San Juan Hill and El Caney, the American advance halted. Spanish troops successfully defended Fort Canosa, allowing them to stabilize their line and bar the entry to Santiago. The Americans and Cubans forcibly began a bloody, strangling siege of the city.[98] During the nights, Cuban troops dug successive series of \"trenches\" (raised parapets), toward the Spanish positions. Once completed, these parapets were occupied by U.S. soldiers and a new set of excavations went forward. American troops, while suffering daily losses from Spanish fire, suffered far more casualties from heat exhaustion and mosquito-borne disease.[99] At the western approaches to the city, Cuban general Calixto Garcia began to encroach on the city, causing much panic and fear of reprisals among the Spanish forces.
Naval operations[edit]
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The Santiago Campaign (1898)
Crewmen pose under the gun turrets of Iowa in 1898The major port of Santiago de Cuba was the main target of naval operations during the war. The U.S. fleet attacking Santiago needed shelter from the summer hurricane season; Guantánamo Bay, with its excellent harbor, was chosen. The 1898 invasion of Guantánamo Bay happened between June 6 and 10, with the first U.S. naval attack and subsequent successful landing of U.S. Marines with naval support.
The Battle of Santiago de Cuba on July 3, was the largest naval engagement of the Spanish–American War and resulted in the destruction of the Spanish Caribbean Squadron (also known as the Flota de Ultramar). In May, the fleet of Spanish Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete had been spotted by American forces in Santiago harbor, where they had taken shelter for protection from sea attack. A two-month stand-off between Spanish and American naval forces followed.
When the Spanish squadron finally attempted to leave the harbor on July 3, the American forces destroyed or grounded five of the six ships. Only one Spanish vessel, the new armored cruiser Cristóbal Colón, survived, but her captain hauled down her flag and scuttled her when the Americans finally caught up with her. The 1,612 Spanish sailors who were captured, including Admiral Cervera, were sent to Seavey\'s Island at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, where they were confined at Camp Long as prisoners of war from July 11 until mid-September.
During the stand-off, U.S. Assistant Naval Constructor, Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Hobson had been ordered by Rear Admiral William T. Sampson to sink the collier USS Merrimac in the harbor to bottle up the Spanish fleet. The mission was a failure, and Hobson and his crew were captured. They were exchanged on July 6, and Hobson became a national hero; he received the Medal of Honor in 1933, retired as a Rear Admiral and became a Congressman.
U.S. withdrawal[edit]Yellow fever had quickly spread amongst the American occupation force, crippling it. A group of concerned officers of the American army chose Theodore Roosevelt to draft a request to Washington that it withdraw the Army, a request that paralleled a similar one from General Shafter, who described his force as an \"army of convalescents\". By the time of his letter, 75% of the force in Cuba was unfit for service.[100]
On August 7, the American invasion force started to leave Cuba. The evacuation was not total. The U.S. Army kept the black Ninth US Cavalry Regiment in Cuba to support the occupation. The logic was that their race and the fact that many black volunteers came from southern states would protect them from disease; this logic led to these soldiers being nicknamed \"Immunes\". Still, when the Ninth left, 73 of its 984 soldiers had contracted the disease.[100]
Puerto Rico[edit]Main article: Puerto Rican CampaignIn May 1898, Lt. Henry H. Whitney of the United States Fourth Artillery was sent to Puerto Rico on a reconnaissance mission, sponsored by the Army\'s Bureau of Military Intelligence. He provided maps and information on the Spanish military forces to the U.S. government prior to the invasion.
The American offensive began on May 12, 1898, when a squadron of 12 U.S. ships commanded by Rear Adm. William T. Sampson of the United States Navy attacked the archipelago\'s capital, San Juan. Though the damage inflicted on the city was minimal, the Americans were able to establish a blockade in the city\'s harbor, San Juan Bay. On June 22, the cruiser Isabel II and the destroyer Terror delivered a Spanish counterattack, but were unable to break the blockade and the Terror was damaged.
The land offensive began on July 25, when 1,300 infantry soldiers led by Nelson A. Miles disembarked off the coast of Guánica. The first organized armed opposition occurred in Yauco in what became known as the Battle of Yauco.[101]
This encounter was followed by the Battle of Fajardo. The United States was able to seize control of Fajardo on August 1, but were forced to withdraw on August 5 after a group of 200 Puerto Rican-Spanish soldiers led by Pedro del Pino gained control of the city, while most civilian inhabitants fled to a nearby lighthouse. The Americans encountered larger opposition during the Battle of Guayama and as they advanced towards the main island\'s interior. They engaged in crossfire at Guamaní River Bridge, Coamo and Silva Heights and finally at the Battle of Asomante.[101][102] The battles were inconclusive as the allied soldiers retreated.
A battle in San Germán concluded in a similar fashion with the Spanish retreating to Lares. On August 9, 1898, American troops that were pursuing units retreating from Coamo encountered heavy resistance in Aibonito in a mountain known as Cerro Gervasio del Asomante and retreated after six of their soldiers were injured. They returned three days later, reinforced with artillery units and attempted a surprise attack. In the subsequent crossfire, confused soldiers reported seeing Spanish reinforcements nearby and five American officers were gravely injured, which prompted a retreat order. All military actions in Puerto Rico were suspended on August 13, after U.S. President William McKinley and French Ambassador Jules Cambon, acting on behalf of the Spanish Government, signed an armistice whereby Spain relinquished its sovereignty over Puerto Rico.[102]
Making peace[edit]
Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador in the U.S., signing the memorandum of ratification on behalf of SpainWith defeats in Cuba and the Philippines, and both of its fleets destroyed, Spain sued for peace and negotiations were opened between the two parties. After the sickness and death of British consul Edward Henry Rawson-Walker, American admiral George Dewey requested the Belgian consul to Manila, Édouard André, to take Rawson-Walker\'s place as intermediary with the Spanish were halted on August 12, 1898, with the signing in Washington of a Protocol of Peace between the United States and Spain.[106] After over two months of difficult negotiations, the formal peace treaty, the Treaty of Paris, was signed in Paris on December 10, 1898,[107] and was ratified by the United States Senate on February 6, 1899.
The United States gained all of Spain\'s colonies outside of Africa in the treaty, including the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico with the exception of Cuba, which became a U.S. protectorate.[107] The treaty came into force in Cuba April 11, 1899, with Cubans participating only as observers. Having been occupied since July 17, 1898, and thus under the jurisdiction of the United States Military Government (USMG), Cuba formed its own civil government and gained independence on May 20, 1902, with the announced end of USMG jurisdiction over the island. However, the U.S. imposed various restrictions on the new government, including prohibiting alliances with other countries, and reserved the right to intervene. The U.S. also established a perpetual lease of Guantánamo Bay.
Aftermath[edit]
With the end of the war, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt musters out of the U.S. Army after the required 30-day quarantine period at Montauk, Long Island, in 1898.The war lasted ten weeks.[108] John Hay (the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom), writing from London to his friend Theodore Roosevelt, declared that it had been \"a splendid little war\".[109][110] The press showed Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites fighting against a common foe, helping to ease the scars left from the American Civil War.[111] Exemplary of this was the fact that four former Confederate States Army generals had served in the war, now in the US Army and all of them again carrying similar ranks. These officers included Matthew Butler, Fitzhugh Lee, Thomas L. Rosser and Joseph Wheeler, though only the latter had seen action. Still, in an exciting moment during the Battle of Las Guasimas, Wheeler apparently forgot for a moment which war he was fighting, having supposedly called out \"Let\'s go, boys! We\'ve got the damn Yankees on the run again!\" [112]
The war marked American entry into world affairs. Since then, the U.S. has had a significant hand in various conflicts around the world, and entered many treaties and agreements. The Panic of 1893 was over by this point, and the U.S. entered a long and prosperous period of economic and population growth, and technological innovation that lasted through the 1920s.[113]
The war redefined national identity, served as a solution of sorts to the social divisions plaguing the American mind, and provided a model for all future news reporting.[114]
The idea of American imperialism changed in the public\'s mind after the short and successful Spanish–American War. Due to the United States\' powerful influence diplomatically and militarily, Cuba\'s status after the war relied heavily upon American actions. Two major developments emerged from the Spanish–American War: one, it greatly enforced the United States\' vision of itself as a \"defender of democracy\" and as a major world power, and two, it had severe implications for Cuban–American relations in the future. As historian Louis Pérez argued in his book Cuba in the American Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos, the Spanish–American War of 1898 \"fixed permanently how Americans came to think of themselves: a righteous people given to the service of righteous purpose\".[115]
The war greatly reduced the Spanish Empire. Spain had been declining as an imperial power since the early 19th century as a result of Napoleon\'s invasion. The loss of Cuba caused a national trauma because of the affinity of peninsular Spaniards with Cuba, which was seen as another province of Spain rather than as a colony. Spain retained only a handful of overseas holdings: Spanish West Africa (Spanish Sahara), Spanish Guinea, Spanish Morocco, and the Canary Islands.
The Spanish soldier Julio Cervera Baviera, who served in the Puerto Rican Campaign, published a pamphlet in which he blamed the natives of that colony for its occupation by the Americans, saying, \"I have never seen such a servile, ungrateful country [i.e., Puerto Rico].... In twenty-four hours, the people of Puerto Rico went from being fervently Spanish to enthusiastically American.... They humiliated themselves, giving in to the invader as the slave bows to the powerful lord.\"[116] He was challenged to a duel by a group of young Puerto Ricans for writing this pamphlet.[117]A cartoon of Uncle Sam seated in restaurant looking at the bill of fare containing \"Cuba steak\", \"Porto Rico pig\", the \"Philippine Islands\" and the \"Sandwich Islands\" (Hawaii).Culturally, a new wave called the Generation of \'98 originated as a response to this trauma, marking a renaissance in Spanish culture. Economically, the war benefited Spain, because after the war large sums of capital held by Spaniards in Cuba and the United States were returned to the peninsula and invested in Spain. This massive flow of capital (equivalent to 25% of the gross domestic product of one year) helped to develop the large modern firms in Spain in the steel, chemical, financial, mechanical, textile, shipyard, and electrical power industries.[118] However, the political consequences were serious. The defeat in the war began the weakening of the fragile political stability that had been established earlier by the rule of Alfonso XII.
The Teller Amendment, which was enacted on April 20, 1898, was a promise from the United States to the Cuban people that it was not declaring war to annex Cuba, but to help it gain its independence from Spain. The Platt Amendment was a move by the United States\' government to shape Cuban affairs without violating the Teller Amendment.[119]The cover of Puck from April 6, 1901. Caricatures an Easter bonnet made out of a warship that alludes to the gains of the Spanish–American War.The U.S. Congress had passed the Teller Amendment prior to the war, promising Cuban independence. However, the Senate passed the Platt Amendment as a rider to an Army appropriations bill, forcing a peace treaty on Cuba which prohibited it from signing treaties with other nations or contracting a public debt. The Platt Amendment was pushed by imperialists who wanted to project U.S. power abroad (in contrast to the Teller Amendment which was pushed by anti-imperialists who called for a restraint on U.S. rule). The amendment granted the United States the right to stabilize Cuba militarily as needed. In addition, the Platt Amendment permitted the United States to deploy Marines to Cuba if its freedom and independence was ever threatened or jeopardized by an external or internal force. The Platt Amendment also provided for a permanent American naval base in Cuba. Guantánamo Bay was established after the signing of the Cuban–American Treaty of Relations in 1903. Thus, despite that Cuba technically gained its independence after the war ended, the United States government ensured that it had some form of power and control over Cuban affairs.
The U.S. annexed the former Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam. The notion of the United States as an imperial power, with colonies, was hotly debated domestically with President McKinley and the Pro-Imperialists winning their way over vocal opposition led by Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who had supported the war. The American public largely supported the possession of colonies, but there were many outspoken critics such as Mark Twain, who wrote The War Prayer in protest.
Roosevelt returned to the United States a war hero, and he was soon elected governor of New York and then became the vice president. At the age of 42 he became the youngest man to become President after the assassination of President William McKinley.1900 Campaign posterThe war served to further repair relations between the American North and South. The war gave both sides a common enemy for the first time since the end of the Civil War in 1865, and many friendships were formed between soldiers of northern and southern states during their tours of duty. This was an important development, since many soldiers in this war were the children of Civil War veterans on both sides.[120]Segregation in the U.S. military, 1898The African-American community strongly supported the rebels in Cuba, supported entry into the war, and gained prestige from their wartime performance in the Army. Spokesmen noted that 33 African-American seamen had died in the Maine explosion. The most influential Black leader, Booker T. Washington, argued that his race was ready to fight. War offered them a chance \"to render service to our country that no other race can\", because, unlike Whites, they were \"accustomed\" to the \"peculiar and dangerous climate\" of Cuba. One of the Black units that served in the war was the 9th Cavalry Regiment. In March 1898, Washington promised the Secretary of the Navy that war would be answered by \"at least ten thousand loyal, brave, strong black men in the south who crave an opportunity to show their loyalty to our land, and would gladly take this method of showing their gratitude for the lives laid down, and the sacrifices made, that Blacks might have their freedom and rights.\"[121]
In 1904, the United Spanish War Veterans was created from smaller groups of the veterans of the Spanish American War. Today, that organization is defunct, but it left an heir in the Sons of Spanish–American War Veterans, created in 1937 at the 39th National Encampment of the United Spanish War Veterans. According to data from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the last surviving U.S. veteran of the conflict, Nathan E. Cook, died on September 10, 1992, at age 106. (If the data is to be believed, Cook, born October 10, 1885, would have been only 12 years old when he served in the war.)
The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW) was formed in 1914 from the merger of two prior veterans organizations which both arose in 1899: the American Veterans of Foreign Service and the National Society of the Army of the Philippines.[122] The former was formed for veterans of the Spanish–American War, while the latter was formed for veterans of the Philippine–American War. Both organizations were formed in response to the general neglect veterans returning from the war experienced at the hands of the government.
To pay the costs of the war, Congress passed an excise tax on long-distance phone service.[123] At the time, it affected only wealthy Americans who owned telephones. However, the Congress neglected to repeal the tax after the war ended four months later, and the tax remained in place for over 100 years until, on August 1, 2006, it was announced that the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the IRS would no longer collect the tax.[124]
Postwar American investment in Puerto Rico[edit]The change in sovereignty of Puerto Rico, like the occupation of Cuba, brought about major changes in both the insular and U.S. economies. Prior to 1898 the sugar industry in Puerto Rico was in decline for nearly half a century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, technological advances increased the capital requirements to remain competitive in the sugar industry. Agriculture began to shift toward coffee production, which required less capital and land accumulation. However, these trends were reversed with U.S. hegemony. Early U.S. monetary and legal policies made it both harder for local farmers to continue operations and easier for American businesses to accumulate land.[125] This, along with the large capital reserves of American businesses, led to a resurgence in the Puerto Rican sugar industry in the form of large American owned agro-industrial complexes.
At the same time, the inclusion of Puerto Rico into the U.S. tariff system as a customs area, effectively treating Puerto Rico as a state with respect to internal or external trade, increased the codependence of the insular and mainland economies and benefitted sugar exports with tariff protection. In 1897 the United States purchased 19.6 percent of Puerto Rico\'s exports while supplying 18.5 percent of its imports. By 1905 these figures jumped to 84 percent and 85 percent, respectively.[126] However, coffee was not protected, as it was not a product of the mainland. At the same time, Cuba and Spain, traditionally the largest importers of Puerto Rican coffee, now subjected Puerto Rico to previously nonexistent import tariffs. These two effects led to a decline in the coffee industry. From 1897 to 1901 coffee went from 65.8 percent of exports to 19.6 percent while sugar went from 21.6 percent to 55 percent.[127] The tariff system also provided a protected market place for Puerto Rican tobacco exports. The tobacco industry went from nearly nonexistent in Puerto Rico to a major part of the country\'s agricultural sector.
In film and television[edit]The Spanish–American War was the first U.S. war in which the motion picture camera played a role.[128] The Library of Congress archives contain many films and film clips from the war.[129] In addition, a few feature films have been made about the war. These include
The Rough Riders, a 1927 silent filmA Message to Garcia, 1936Rough Riders, a 1997 television miniseries directed by John Milius, and featuring Tom Berenger (Theodore Roosevelt), Gary Busey (Joseph Wheeler), Sam Elliott (Buckey O\'Neill), Dale Dye (Leonard Wood), Brian Keith (William McKinley), George Hamilton (William Randolph Hearst), and R. Lee Ermey (John Hay)The Spanish–American War: First Intervention, a 2007 docudrama from The History ChannelBaler, a 2008 film about the Siege of BalerLos últimos de Filipinas (\"The Last Ones of the Philippines\"), a 1945 Spanish biographical film directed by Antonio Román.Amigo, 2010
Introduction
Image of the USS Maine The Battleship MainePhotographic History of the Spanish American War, p. 36.
On April 25, 1898 the United States declared war on Spain following the sinking of the Battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. As a result Spain lost its control over the remains of its overseas empire -- Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines Islands, Guam, and other islands.
Background
Beginning in 1492, Spain was the first European nation to sail westward across the Atlantic Ocean, explore, and colonize the Amerindian nations of the Western Hemisphere. At its greatest extent, the empire that resulted from this exploration extended from Virginia on the eastern coast of the United States south to Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America excluding Brazil and westward to California and Alaska. Across the Pacific, it included the Philippines and other island groups. By 1825 much of this empire had fallen into other hands and in that year, Spain acknowledged the independence of its possessions in the present-day United States (then under Mexican control) and south to the tip of South America. The only remnants that remained in the empire in the Western Hemisphere were Cuba and Puerto Rico and across the Pacific in Philippines Islands, and the Carolina, Marshall, and Mariana Islands (including Guam) in Micronesia.
Cuba
Following the liberation from Spain of mainland Latin America, Cuba was the first to initiate its own struggle for independence. During the years from 1868-1878, Cubans personified by guerrilla fighters known as mambises fought for autonomy from Spain. That war concluded with a treaty that was never enforced. In the 1890\'s Cubans began to agitate once again for their freedom from Spain. The moral leader of this struggle was José Martí, known as \"El Apóstol,\" who established the Cuban Revolutionary Party on January 5, 1892 in the United States. Following the grito de Baire, the call to arms on February 24, 1895, Martí returned to Cuba and participated in the first weeks of armed struggle when he was killed on May 19, 1895.
The Philippines Islands
The Philippines too was beginning to grow restive with Spanish rule. José Rizal, a member of a wealthy mestizo family, resented that his upper mobility was limited by Spanish insistence on promoting only \"pure-blooded\" Spaniards. He began his political career at the University of Madrid in 1882 where he became the leader of Filipino students there. For the next ten years he traveled in Europe and wrote several novels considered seditious by Filipino and Church authorities. He returned to Manila in 1892 and founded the Liga Filipina, a political group dedicated to peaceful change. He was rapidly exiled to Mindanao. During his absence, Andrés Bonifacio founded Katipunan, dedicated to the violent overthrow of Spanish rule. On August 26, 1896, after learning that the Katipunan had been betrayed, Bonifacio issued the Grito de Balintawak, a call for Filipinos to revolt. Bonifacio was succeeded as head of the Philippine revolution by Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy, who had his predecessor arrested and executed on May 10, 1897. Aguinaldo negotiated a deal with the Spaniards who exiled him to Hong Kong with 400,000 pesos that he subsequently used to buy weapons to resume the fight.
Puerto Rico
During the 1880s and 1890s, Puerto Ricans developed many different political parties, some of which sought independence for the island while others, headquartered like their Cuban counterparts in New York, preferred to ally with the United States. Spain proclaimed the autonomy of Puerto Rico on November 25, 1897, although the news did not reach the island until January 1898 and a new government established on February 12, 1898.
United States
U.S. interest in purchasing Cuba had begun long before 1898. Following the Ten Years War, American sugar interests bought up large tracts of land in Cuba. Alterations in the U.S. sugar tariff favoring home-grown beet sugar helped foment the rekindling of revolutionary fervor in 1895. By that time the U.S. had more than $50 million invested in Cuba and annual trade, mostly in sugar, was worth twice that much. Fervor for war had been growing in the United States, despite President Grover Cleveland\'s proclamation of neutrality on June 12, 1895. But sentiment to enter the conflict grew in the United States when General Valeriano Weyler began implementing a policy of Reconcentration that moved the population into central locations guarded by Spanish troops and placed the entire country under martial law in February 1896. By December 7, President Cleveland reversed himself declaring that the United States might intervene should Spain fail to end the crisis in Cuba. President William McKinley, inaugurated on March 4, 1897, was even more anxious to become involved, particularly after the New York Journal published a copy of a letter from Spanish Foreign Minister Enrique Dupuy de Lôme criticizing the American President on February 9, 1898. Events moved swiftly after the explosion aboard the U.S.S. Maine on February 15. On March 9, Congress passed a law allocating fifty million dollars to build up military strength. On March 28, the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry finds that a mine blew up the Maine. On April 21 President McKinley orders a blockade of Cuba and four days later the U.S. declares war.
The War
Following its declaration of war against Spain issued on April 25, 1898, the United States added the Teller Amendment asserting that it would not attempt to exercise hegemony over Cuba. Two days later Commodore George Dewey sailed from Hong Kong with Emilio Aguinaldo on board. Fighting began in the Phillipines Islands at the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1 where Commodore George Dewey reportedly exclaimed, \"You may fire when ready, Gridley,\" and the Spanish fleet under Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo was destroyed. However, Dewey did not have enough manpower to capture Manila so Aguinaldo\'s guerrillas maintained their operations until 15,000 U.S. troops arrived at the end of July. On the way, the cruiser Charleston stopped at Guam and accepted its surrender from its Spanish governor who was unaware his nation was at war. Although a peace protocol was signed by the two belligerents on August 12, Commodore Dewey and Maj. Gen. Wesley Merritt, leader of the army troops, assaulted Manila the very next day, unaware that peace had been declared.
In late April, Andrew Summers Rowan made contact with Cuban General Calixto García who supplied him with maps, intelligence, and a core of rebel officers to coordinate U.S. efforts on the island. The U.S. North Atlantic Squadron left Key West for Cuba on April 22 following the frightening news that the Spanish home fleet commanded by Admiral Pascual Cervera had left Cadiz and entered Santiago, having slipped by U.S. ships commanded by William T. Sampson and Winfield Scott Schley. They arrived in Cuba in late May.
War actually began for the U.S. in Cuba in June when the Marines captured Guantánamo Bay and 17,000 troops landed at Siboney and Daiquirí, east of Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city on the island. At that time Spanish troops stationed on the island included 150,000 regulars and 40,000 irregulars and volunteers while rebels inside Cuba numbered as many as 50,000. Total U.S. army strength at the time totalled 26,000, requiring the passage of the Mobilization Act of April 22 that allowed for an army of at first 125,000 volunteers (later increased to 200,000) and a regular army of 65,000. On June 22, U.S. troops landed at Daiquiri where they were joined by Calixto García and about 5,000 revolutionaries.
U.S. troops attacked the San Juan heights on July 1, 1898. Dismounted troopers, including the African-American Ninth and Tenth cavalries and the Rough Riders commanded by Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt went up against Kettle Hill while the forces led by Brigadier General Jacob Kent charged up San Juan Hill and pushed Spanish troops further inland while inflicting 1,700 casualties. While U.S. commanders were deciding on a further course of action, Admiral Cervera left port only to be defeated by Schley. On July 16, the Spaniards agreed to the unconditional surrender of the 23,500 troops around the city. A few days later, Major General Nelson Miles sailed from Guantánamo to Puerto Rico. His forces landed near Ponce and marched to San Juan with virtually no opposition.
Representatives of Spain and the United States signed a peace treaty in Paris on December 10, 1898, which established the independence of Cuba, ceded Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, and allowed the victorious power to purchase the Philippines Islands from Spain for $20 million. The war had cost the United States $250 million and 3,000 lives, of whom 90% had perished from infectious diseases.

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