Part 75 (1/2)
PEACE AND FAIR PROMISES.
At last, Spain, seeing that she could neither induce the Cubans to surrender nor draw them into a decisive battle; and finding, furthermore, that her army of 200,000 men was likely to be annihilated by death, disease, and patriot bullets, made overtures, which, by promising many privileges to the people that they had not before enjoyed, effected a peace. As a result of this war, slavery was abolished in the island; but Spain's promises for fair and equitable government were repudiated, and the civil powers became more extortionate and severe than ever. This war laid a heavy debt upon Spain, and Cuba was taxed inordinately. The people soon saw that they had been duped. The world looked upon Cuba and Spain as at peace. To the outsider the surface was placid, but underneath ”the waters were troubled.” Such heroic spirits as Generals Calixto Garcia, Jose Marti, Antonio Maceo, and Maximo Gomez, leaders in the ten years' struggle, still lived, though scattered far apart, and in their hearts bore a load of righteous wrath against their treacherous foe. While such men lived and such conditions existed another conflict was inevitable.
THE LAST GREAT STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM.
It was on February 24, 1895, that the last revolution of the Cuban patriots began. Spain had heard the mutterings of the coming storm, and hoped to stay it by visiting with severe punishment every Cuban suspected of patriotic affiliations. Antonio Maceo, a mulatto, but a man of fortune and education, a veteran of the ten years' war, and a Cuban by birth, was banished to San Domingo. There were other exiles in Key West, New York, and elsewhere. Jose Marti was the leading spirit in forming the Cuban Junta in New York and organizing revolutionary clubs among Cubans everywhere. Antonio Maceo was the first of the old leaders in the field. He went secretly to Cuba and began organizing the insurrectionists, and when war was declared the flag of the new republic, bearing a lone white star in a red field, was flung to the breeze. Captain-General Calleja declared martial law in the insurgents'
vicinity, and troops were hastily summoned and sent from Spain. The revolutionists from the start fought by guerrilla methods of warfare, das.h.i.+ng upon the unsuspecting Spanish towns and forces, and escaping to the mountains before the organized Spaniards could retaliate.
Jose Marti and Jose Maceo--brother of the general--were prompt to join the active forces, and on April 13, 1895, General Maximo Gomez, a native of San Domingo, came over and was made commander of the insurgent forces. This grizzled old hero, with nearly seventy years behind him, was at once an inspiration and a host within himself. An army of 6,000 men was ready for his command, and the revolution took on new life and began in all its fury. On May 19th the insurgents met their first great disaster, when Jose Marti was led into an ambush and killed. But his blood was like a seed planted, from which thousands of patriots sprang up for the ranks. Within a few days there were 10,000 ill-armed but determined men in the field. They had no artillery, nearly half were without guns, and there was little ammunition for those who were armed.
THE PLANS OF CAMPOS THWARTED.
In April, 1895, Captain-General Calleja was replaced by Martinez Campos, the commander in the preceding war, and one of the ablest of the Spanish generals. He sought to conciliate the people and alleviate the prevailing distress, but the rebels in arms had lost all faith in Spanish honor, while the veteran Gomez proved so wily that Campos could neither capture him nor force him into an engagement. Everywhere Gomez marched he gathered new patriots. Near the city of Bayamo, Maceo attacked Campos, and the Spanish commander barely escaped with his life.
He was besieged in Bayamo, and had to stay there until 10,000 soldiers were sent to escort him home. That was the last of Campos' fighting. By August, Spain had spent $21,300,000 and lost 20,000 men by death, and 39,000 additional soldiers had been brought into the island, 25,000 of them the flower of the Spanish army, and she was also forced to issue $120,000,000 bonds, which she sold at a great sacrifice, to carry on the war.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPTAIN C.D. SIGSBEE
Commander of the ”Maine” at the frightful catastrophe in Havana Harbor, February 15, 1898.]
The patriots met September 13, 1895, at Camaguey and formed their government by adopting a const.i.tution and electing a president and other state officers. This body formally conferred upon Gomez the commission of commander-in-chief of the army. Before the close of the month, there were 30,000 rebels in the field. Spanish war-s.h.i.+ps patroled the coast, but the insurgents held the whole interior of Santiago province, and government forces dared not venture away from the sea. The same was true of Santa Clara and Puerto Principe. Matanzas was debatable ground; but Gomez made bold raids into the very vicinity of Havana. Spain continued to increase her army, till by the year 1898 it numbered about 200,000 men.
As if the cup of Cuba's sorrow were not sufficiently bitter, or her long-suffering patriots had not drunk deep enough of its gall, General Campos was recalled, and General Valeriano Weyler (nicknamed ”The Butcher”) arrived in February, 1896. He promptly inaugurated the most bitter and inhuman policy in the annals of modern warfare. It began with a campaign of intimidation, in which his motto was ”Subjugation or Death.” He established a system of espionage that was perfect, and the testimony of the spy was all the evidence he required. He heeded no prayer and knew no mercy. His prisons overflowed with suspected patriots, and his sunrise executions, every morning, made room for others. It was thus that General Weyler carried on the war from his palace against the unarmed natives, his 200,000 soldiers seldom securing a shot at the insurgents, who were continually bushwhacking them with deadly effect, while yellow fever carried them off by the thousands. How many lives Weyler sacrificed in that dreadful year will never be known.
How many suspects he frightened into giving him all their gold for mercy and then coldly shot for treason, no record will disclose; but the crowded, unmarked graves on the hillside outside Havana are mute but eloquent witnesses of his infamy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SUNRISE EXECUTIONS.
Outside the prison walls, Havana. Weyler's way of getting rid of prisoners.]
Under these conditions, Gomez declared that all Cubans must take sides.
They must be for or against. It was no time for neutrals and there could be no neutral ground, so he boldly levied forced contributions upon planters unfavorable to his cause, and extended protection to those who befriended the patriots. Exasperated by Weyler's atrocities upon non-combatant patriots, he dared to destroy or confiscate the property of Spanish sympathizers.
THE DEATH OF GENERAL MACEO.
On the night of December 4, 1896, the insurgents suffered an irreparable loss in the death of General Maceo, who was led into an ambush and killed, it is believed, through the treachery of his staff physician.
Eight brothers of Maceo had previously given their lives for Cuban freedom.
At the close of 1896, the island was desolate to an extreme perhaps unprecedented in modern times. The country was laid waste and the cities were starving. Under the pretext of protecting them, Weyler gathered the non-combatants into towns and stockades, and it is authoritatively stated that 200,000 men, women, and children of the ”reconcentrados,” as they were called, died of disease and starvation.
The insurgents remained masters of the island except along the coasts.
The only important incident of actual warfare was the capture of Victoria de las Tunas, in Santiago province, by General Garcia at the head of 3,000 men, after three days' fighting. In this battle the Spanish commander lost his life and forty per cent. of his troops were killed or wounded; the rest surrendered to Garcia, and the rebels secured by their victory 1,000 rifles, 1,000,000 rounds of ammunition, and two Krupp guns.
In the spring of 1898 the United States intervened. The story of our war with Spain for Cuba's freedom is elsewhere related.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CLARA BARTON.