The Spanish-American War took place in 1898, and resulted in the independence of Cuba and the takeover of former Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific by the United States of America.
Context
Spain's position as a world power had declined. By the end of the 19th century he had only a few small possessions in the Pacific Ocean, Africa and the Indies, most of his colonial empire had gained independence, and a number of the areas still under Spanish control were likely to do so. The guerrillas operated in the Philippines, and had been present in Cuba for decades.
Around 1894, American capital investment in the sugar plantations and refineries of Cuba amounted to about 50 million dollars and the annual trade between the United States and Cuba amounted to a hundred million dollars. Sugar is by far the main export product and is sold mainly to the United States. Moreover, a certain number of followers of Commodore Alfred Mahan, a famous theoretician and strategist, saw in this island close to the United States an area conducive to the creation of naval bases.
However, Cuba will experience trouble. The small people of the peons already lived there in misery, even at the time of economic prosperity. But after 1890, a series of difficulties made their situation even more intolerable:increased competition from European beet sugar, drop in the price of sugar during the depression of 1893, especially the Wilson-Gorman customs tariff (1894) which increased by 40% customs duties on sugar and eliminated the privileged position of Cuban sugar in the American market. Given that sugar represented 80% of the island's resources, the result was catastrophic. The resulting social suffering and latent discontent against Spanish rule - which had already brought a series of revolts in the past, notably in 1868-1878 - provoked a rebellion in March 1895.
Both sides showed cruelty. The Spanish general Valériano Weyler, from February 1896, practiced a policy of forced regrouping of a large part of the population - including women, children, old people - behind barbed wire. The food and sanitary conditions being absolutely insufficient, thousands of reconcentrados died, this was the first modern case of a concentration camp. In two years, an eighth of the population, that is to say about 200,000 people, succumbed. For their part, the rebels practiced a scorched earth policy, ransacking and destroying the properties of supporters of Spain and ravaging the sugar plantations. Their aim was to bring about the defeat of the Spaniards by exhausting all their resources.
American public opinion, influenced moreover by the Cuban revolutionary committees in New York, quickly showed its sympathy for those who were fighting for their independence. Some particularly sensationalist newspapers, especially Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, made much of the barbarity of the Spaniards and their Commander-in-Chief, Weyler, nicknamed "the Butcher." Protestant newspapers - perhaps partly out of hostility towards Catholic priests in Cuba - as well as a number of republican and democratic organs declared themselves in favor of intervention in favor of the insurgents on purely humanitarian grounds. On the other hand, supporters of expansion such as Theodore Roosevelt, Lodge or Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune, also called for intervention.
These events on Cuba coincided in the 1890s with a battle for readers between the American press groups Hearst and Pulitzer. Hearst's style, dubbed "yellow journalism," could have supplanted that of Pulitzer, and he used the power of the press to sway American opinion in favor of the war. Despite the documents attesting to the atrocities committed in Cuba, and the reality of a rebellion which fought against the Spanish yoke, Hearst often fabricated stories or made them up in highly provocative language. Hearst published sensationalized accounts of the atrocities which the "cruel Spaniards" inflicted on the "poor Cubans". Outraged by the "inhumanity" of the Spaniards, the Americans were excited to demand an "intervention", which even the most jaded hawks, such as a young Theodore Roosevelt, would have considered a done deal. Hearst is known for his famous response to a request from his illustrator, Frederic Remington, to return from a quiet and uneventful stay in Havana:“Please stay. You provide the images, and I will provide the war. »
On the other hand, the newspapers reflecting the thinking of economic or financial circles pointed out that a war would jeopardize the economic recovery which was beginning to manifest itself in 1897 and would threaten monetary stability based on the gold standard.
Given the heated nature of the debate and the nature of the struggle in Cuba, it was not easy for the US government to maintain a position of neutrality. President Cleveland did his best not to let himself be drawn into an adventure, despite pressure from Congress. His successor McKinley endeavored to follow the same policy of prudence. The beginning of a policy of reforms in Cuba by Spain - dismissal of Weyler, obtaining by the Cubans of the same political rights as the Spaniards, promise of an eventual internal autonomy - was far from satisfying the rebels but was well received by the US government and part of the press. On November 6, 1897, the Washington Post ran the headline:“No war with Spain. All directions point to peace. (No war with Spain. Everything points to peace.) A series of incidents would however increase the tension between the United States and Spain.
Voltage rise
The publication, on February 9, 1898, by the New York Journal of a private letter from the Spanish ambassador in Washington DC, Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, stolen by an insurgent spy, caused a stir:in this missive, the author described President McKinley as "a weakling seeking the admiration of the crowds"!
Six days later, the battleship "USS Maine" exploded in the harbor of Havana.
In spite of the newspapers - apart from the Journal and the World - politicians, businessmen and members of the clergy who called for calm, public opinion was hurt, in the words of one European diplomat, "with a sort of warlike fury". Demonstrations burned Spaniards in effigy in the streets:a warlike enthusiasm swept across the country. Faced with the government's inaction, McKinley began to be hissed in the streets and in the theaters.
Faced with the rise of this tide of warmongering, the advocates of peace began to falter. The Chicago Times Herald wrote on March 9, 1898:Intervention in Cuba is now inevitable. Our internal political conditions do not allow it to be postponed. Other newspapers followed suit. On the 19th, a moderate and respected Republican senator from Vermont, Redfield Proctor, told the Senate that a recent trip to Cuba had convinced him of the merits of an intervention. Many businessmen, economic organizations, various religious groups who had been moderate began to change their minds. Many political leaders decided that it was no longer reasonable to oppose the general demand for war. Among the Democrats, for example, Bryan, who had shown great caution until then, spoke out at the end of March for intervention. For their part, many Republicans put pressure on the government which they threatened to no longer support if it did not take more account of the popular will.
Faced with such war fever, what was McKinley's attitude? Personally wishing to avoid war, he asked Spain on March 27, 1898 to conclude an armistice with the rebels, to abolish the concentration camp policy, and finally to accept American mediation. In fact, he managed to let Spain know that he wanted Cuba to gain independence. The Spanish government accepted everything except the promise of independence. As Ernest May remarks, by refusing the most important of American demands, Spain was accepting the possibility of war with the United States.
In the United States, the war party, which continued to organize, increased its pressure on the president. This one did not want to leave to the Democrats, in this year of election, the privilege of defending the independence of Cuba. He also feared a congressional initiative that would embarrass him. Also, despite the concessions of Spain, McKinley proposed to Congress, on April 11, 1898, an intervention. On the 19th, he declared that Cuba must be free and authorized the use of force to liberate the island. An amendment specified that the United States would not annex the island. Spain desperately sought support from other European powers, but without success. Admittedly, his cause was hardly attractive. But above all the countries of Europe did not care to fall out with the United States with all the economic and financial consequences that this could entail. Abandoned by all, Spain had no other solution than to declare war on the United States on April 24, 1898, the US Navy having already established the blockade of the island on the 21st.
Finally, what pressures had McKinley given in to? Most historians consider that the war did not break out under pressure from economic circles. Apart from a few landowners who had had their property devastated on the island, shipowners engaged in trade with Cuba and a few individuals wishing to obtain government contracts, in fact, one cannot speak of concrete pressure from the economic circles on the government for an intervention in Cuba in 1898.
On the contrary, the business world tried for three years to resist all the pressures, Julius W. Pratt, after a careful study of the economic and financial journals, the minutes of the Chambers of Commerce and the petitions sent to the State Department, concludes that economic, banking, industrial and commercial circles, particularly in the East, were violently hostile to the war in late 1897 and early 1898. The revival of business dating from 1893 , had experienced two relapses, once in 1895 and again at the time of the campaign in favor of the free minting of silver in 1896. In 1897, the economic situation recovered again, foreign trade was in progress; industrialists, merchants, financiers were optimistic. In domestic politics, the great electoral struggle of 1896 had resulted in the triumph of big capitalism. Wasn't a war in danger of bringing trouble? It “will jeopardize the march of prosperity,” writes the New Jersey Trade Review. The head of the Republican Party's electoral organization, Mark Hanna, a Senate business spokesman, believed that the war was "over domestic economic policy". The Wall Street Journal, in December 1897, and February 1898, hoped that the question of Cuba would receive a peaceful solution. Thus, Theodore Roosevelt, himself very favorable to the war, wrote on April 5, 1898 to Robert Bacon:"Here in Washington, we have the impression that all those who have any connection whatsoever with the interests of big business are ready to meet any infamy in order to keep the peace and prevent business from being disrupted. »
For the American historian Walther La Feber, on the contrary, “the American economic community was not so monolithic in its opposition to war”. She would even have already been strongly preoccupied with the search for new markets, especially since the depression of 1893. For La Feber, it is not the influence of Congress or that of sensationalist journalists that explains the hardening of McKinley's attitude. from April 10, but the in extremis evolution of many businessmen in favor of a warmongering policy. McKinley did not want war and even tried to avoid it, but he also wanted what only a war could achieve:the independence of Cuba and at the same time the disappearance of the uncertainty that weighed on political and economic life. from the country. Be that as it may, faced with the rapidity of the military successes, the reservations expressed by the industrialists vanished. First, it was realized that the war could be short and would facilitate economic recovery. Then the triumph of Admiral Dewey at Manila offered, with the possibility of a point of support in the Far East, the means of thwarting the advantages which the Russian Empire, the German Empire, the British Empire and the France had recently won with obtaining leasehold territories in China.
However, even if McKinley had only decided to become intransigent when he was certain of obtaining the support of a certain number of businessmen, it should not be forgotten that he was subject to tremendous pressure from public opinion. As warmongering sentiment grew, McKinley feared that he would cause a split in the Republican Party and ruin his chances of re-election in 1900 if he continued to oppose the war. The business community had, in fact, rallied to the idea of an expansionist policy preached by others for a long time. They had not been the promoters.
So what was the origin of the warmongering groundswell? Ernest R. May, in Imperial Democracy, offers a psychological explanation. The United States was in a situation of concern. This country, until then largely Protestant and English, with a rural economy, had seen in a short time the number of Catholics increase as well as industrialization and urbanization triumph. A malaise seized the population of old stock. This latent anxiety was suddenly heightened by the crisis of 1893. Was there not a sort of irrational transfer of these anxieties and anxieties onto Cubans who were also suffering? For the people as for the American government, the war with the Spanish monarchical, Catholic, Latin empire had perhaps no other purpose than to remedy their own anxieties. In any case, perhaps the nation never knew such unanimity.
There were, however, more genuine and sincere pressures for war. Faced with defeat and a lack of money and resources to continue fighting the Spanish occupation, the Cuban revolutionaries and their future president, Tomás Estrada Palma, secretly deposited $150 million in an American bank to buy the independence of Cuba, which Spain refused. He then skilfully negotiated and propagated his cause to the US Congress, eventually guaranteeing to foot the bill for US intervention.
The United States Navy had by then grown considerably, but had not yet had the opportunity to be tested, and several old war dogs were eager to test and use their new tools. The navy had devised plans to attack the Spanish in the Philippines more than a year before hostilities began. The end of the conquest of the West and the full-scale conflict with the Native Americans left the army unoccupied, and the staffs hoped that a new task would soon fall upon them. Since ancient times, some Americans had thought that Cuba was rightfully theirs. The so-called manifest destiny theory made the island, just off the coast of Florida, a prime candidate for American expansion. The majority of the island economy was already in American hands, and the majority of its trade, much of it underground, was with the United States. Some economic leaders have also incited the conflict. In the words of Nebraska Senator John M. Thurson:“War with Spain might increase trade and revenue for every American railroad company; it could increase the production of each American factory; it could boost every branch of domestic industry and commerce. »
In Spain, the government was not totally against the war. The United States was not a proven power, while the decrepit Spanish navy had a glorious past; it was thought that this might be a challenge in the United States. There was also a widespread notion among Spanish aristocratic leaders that the ethnically mixed United States Army and Navy could never survive under such great pressure.
War
On February 15, 1898, an explosion took place aboard the US Navy warship USS Maine, anchored in the port of Havana, which quickly sank, resulting in the death of 266 men. The evidence as to the cause of the explosion was inconclusive and contradictory, however, the American press, led by the two New York newspapers, proclaimed that it was certainly a despicable act of sabotage by the Spanish. The press encouraged the public to call for war with this slogan:"Remember Maine! Spain in hell!". This chauvinistic and warmongering feeling took the name of jingoism, an expression invented in the United Kingdom in 1878. Thanks to modern scientific advances, it is agreed that this explosion was due to a spontaneous combustion of gunpowder magazines located too close to sources heat.
The struggle between Spain and the United States was unequal. Certainly on paper, Spain could appear powerful:200,000 soldiers in Cuba and a fleet of armored cruisers and torpedo boats superior in number to the US Navy. But the warships of this one were much newer and better trained. Spain in fact offered only weak resistance and the military operations were quite short. It had placed, it seems, its hopes in external aid, European intervention, which did not happen.
The most popular of all American wars, the spendid little war, to use the expression of John Hay, is organized in the United States in the worst confusion. With only 28,183 men in the US Army, volunteers were called in who received only old-fashioned rifles and lacked tents and blankets. Having no summer uniforms, they left for the tropics with the heavy blue woolen uniform!
The first fights took place not in Cuba but in the Philippines, also Spanish possessions. The American Pacific squadron composed of 7 warships, commanded by Admiral Dewey, sent to the bottom, at dawn on May 1, 1898, the Spanish fleet of 10 ships of Admiral Patricio Montojo without losing a single man.
In Cuba itself, an expeditionary force of 17,000 men landed on June 20, 1898. Among them was a unit of volunteers - the cavalry regiment of the Rough Riders - commanded in title by Colonel Leonard Wood and in fact by Lieutenant -Colonel Theodore Roosevelt who had resigned as assistant secretary of the Navy on May 7, 1898 to join the expedition. The Spanish army failed to take advantage of its numerical superiority. It is true that they only had 13,000 men at the landing site and that they were very poorly organized for the transport of their troops. In the battles that took place for the capture of the heights of the San Juan Hills, Theodore Roosevelt established his reputation as a reckless soldier and hero. These fights were hard and bloody, and the Americans, badly commanded, lacking reinforcements, food and ammunition, were “on the verge of a military disaster”, according to Roosevelt himself.
It was again at sea that the fate of arms was played out:the American fleet sank in a few hours the Spanish ships of Admiral Cervera who were trying to leave the port of Santiago de Cuba on July 13. Deprived of all naval support, the Spanish forces in Cuba capitulated on July 17. Puerto Rico was occupied without resistance on July 25 by a contingent of 500 men.
Finally, during this ten-week war, the American forces had lost 5,462 men, of whom only 379 were on the battlefield, while the Spanish forces mourned the loss of 2 generals, 581 officers and 55,078 soldiers and sailors.
On August 12, 1898, Spain accepted a preliminary peace treaty ending hostilities in Cuba. The next day, Manila fell into the hands of the Americans aided by the Filipino insurgents. The Treaty of Paris signed on December 10, 1898 put an official end to this war.
Conclusion
The War of 1898 was undoubtedly a turning point in American history. The United States took its place among the great powers of the planet. The Washington Post wrote a very penetrating editorial at the time:“We now face a strange destiny. The taste for empire in a people is like the taste for blood in the animals of the jungle. It means an imperial policy, a resurgent Republic taking its place among the nations in arms. »
From now on the Americans could no longer content themselves with occupying themselves only with their internal affairs. The United States had established its supremacy over the Caribbean and extended its influence to the shores of Asia. They had become a world power by the demonstration of their force and this would henceforth affect the international politics of all the great powers.