These difficulties and deficiencies, however, cannot fully explain the woeful inferiority of the army to the navy in preparedness. Fundamentally the defect was at the top. Russell A. Alger, the Secretary of War, was a veteran of the Civil War and a silver-voiced orator, but his book on the "Spanish-American War," which was intended as a vindication of his record, proves that even eighteen months of as grueling denunciation as any American official has ever received could not enlighten him as to what were the functions of his office. Nor did he correct or supplement his own incompetence by seeking professional advice. There existed no general staff, and it did not occur to him, as it did to Secretary Long, to create one to advise him unofficially. He was on bad terms with Major General Nelson A. Miles, who was the general in command. He discussed even the details of questions of army strategy, not only with Miles but with the President and members of the Cabinet. One of the most extraordinary decisions made during his tenure of office was that the act of the 9th of March, appropriating $50,000,000 "for national defense," forbade money to be spent or even contracts to be made by the quartermaster, the commissary, or the surgeon general. In his book Secretary Alger records with pride the fact that all this money was spent for coast defense. In view of the fact that the navy did its task, this expenditure was absolutely unnecessary and served merely to solace coast cities and munition makers.
The regular army on April 1, 1898, consisted of 28,183 officers and men. An act of the 26th of April authorized its increase to about double that size. As enlistment was fairly prompt, by August the army consisted of 56,365 officers and men, the number of officers being but slightly increased. It was decided not to use the militia as it was then organized, but to rely for numbers as usual chiefly upon a volunteer army, authorized by the Act of the 22d of April, and by subsequent acts raised to a total of 200,000, with an additional 3000 cavalry, 3500 engineers, and 10,000 "immunes," or men supposed not to be liable to tropical diseases. The war seemed equally popular all over the country, and the million who offered themselves for service were sufficient to allow due consideration for equitable state quotas and for physical fitness. There were also sufficient Krag-Jorgensen rifles to arm the increased regular army and Springfields for the volunteers.
To provide an adequate number of officers for the volunteer army was more difficult. Even though a considerable number were transferred from the regular to the volunteer army, they const.i.tuted only a small proportion of the whole number necessary. Some few of those appointed were graduates of West Point, and more had been in the militia. The great majority, however, had purely amateur experience, and many not even so much. Those who did know something, moreover, did not have the same knowledge or experience. This raw material was given no officer training whatsoever but was turned directly to the task of training the rank and file. Nor were the appointments of new officers confined to the lower ranks. The country, still mindful of its earlier wars, was charmed with the sentimental elevation of confederate generals to the rank of major general in the new army, though a public better informed would hardly have welcomed for service in the tropics the selection of men old enough to be generals in 1865 and then for thirty-three years without military experience in an age of great development in the methods of warfare. The other commanding officers were as old and were mostly chosen by seniority in a service retiring at sixty-four. The unwonted strain of active service naturally proved too great. At the most critical moment of the campaign in Cuba, the commanding general, William R. Shafter, had eaten nothing for four days, and his plucky second in command, the wiry Georgian cavalry leader of 1864 and 1865, General "Joe" Wheeler, was not physically fit to succeed him. There is not the least doubt that the fighting spirit of the men was strong and did not fail, but the defect in those branches of knowledge which are required to keep an army fit to fight is equally certain. The primary cause for the melting of the American army by disease must be acknowledged to be the insufficient training of the officers.
This. .h.i.t or miss method, however, had its compensations, for it brought about some appointments of unusual merit. Conspicuous were those of Colonel Leonard Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. The latter had resigned as a.s.sistant Secretary of the Navy, a position in which he had contributed a great deal to the efficiency of that Department, in order to take a more tangible part in the war. After raising among his friends and the cowboys of the West a regiment of "Rough Riders," he declined its command on plea of military inexperience. Roosevelt made one of those happy choices which are a mark of his administrative ability in selecting as colonel Leonard Wood, an army surgeon whose quality he knew through common experiences in the West.
To send into a midsummer tropical jungle an American army, untrained to take care of its health, for the most part clothed in the regulation army woolens, and tumbled together in two months, was an undertaking which-could be justified only on the ground that the national safety demanded immediate action. In 1898, however, it seemed to be universally taken for granted by people and administration, by professional soldier as well as by public sentiment, that the army must invade Cuba without regard to its fitness for such active service. The responsibility for this decision must rest upon the nation. The experience of centuries had proved conspicuously that climate was the strongest defense of the Caribbean islands against invasion, and it was in large measure the very sacrifice of so many American soldiers that induced the study of tropical diseases. In 1898 it could hardly be expected that the American command, inexperienced and eager for action, should have recognized the mosquito as the carrier of yellow fever and the real enemy, or should have realized the necessity of protecting the soldiers by inoculation against typhoid fever.
Fixed as was the determination to send an army into Cuba at the earliest possible moment, there had been a wide diversity of opinion as to what should be the particular objective. General Miles wavered between the choice of the island of Porto Rico and Puerto Principe, a city in the interior and somewhat east of the middle of Cuba; the Department hesitated between Tunas on the south coast of Cuba, within touch of the insurgents, and Mariel on the north, the seizure of which would be the first step in a siege of Havana. The situation at Santiago, however, made that city the logical objective of the troops, and on the 31st of May, General Shafter was ordered to be prepared to move. On the 7th of June he was ordered to sail with "not less than 10,000 men," but an alarming, though unfounded, rumor of a Spanish squadron off the north coast of Cuba delayed the expedition until the 14th. With an army of seventeen thousand on thirty-two transports, and accompanied by eighty-nine newspaper correspondents, Shafter arrived on the 20th of June off Santiago.
The Spanish troops in Cuba-the American control of the sea made it unnecessary to consider those available in Spain-amounted, according to returns in April, 1898, to 196,820. This formidable number, however, was not available at any one strategic spot owing to the difficulty of transporting either troops or supplies, particularly at the eastern end of the island, in the neighborhood of Santiago. It was estimated that the number of men of use about Santiago was about 12,000, with 5000 approaching to a.s.sist. Perhaps 3000 insurgents were at hand under General Garcia. The number sent, then, was not inadequate to the task. Equal numbers are not, indeed, ordinarily considered sufficient for an offensive campaign against fortifications, but the American commanders counted upon a difference in morale between the two armies, which was justified by results. Besides the American Army could be reinforced as necessity arose.
CHAPTER XI. The Campaign Of Santiago De Cuba
In planning the campaign against Santiago, Admiral Sampson wished the army immediately to a.s.sault the defenses at the harbor mouth in order to open the way for the navy. General Shafter, however, after conferring with General Garcia, the commander of the insurgents, decided to march overland against the city. The army did not have sufficient small vessels to effect a landing; but the navy came to its a.s.sistance, and on the 22d of June the first American troops began to disembark at Daiquiri, though it was not until the 26th that the entire expedition was on sh.o.r.e. On the second day Siboney, which had a better anchorage and was some six miles closer to Santiago, was made the base. From Siboney there stretched for eight or ten miles a rolling country covered with heavy jungle brush and crossed by mere threads of roads. There was indeed a railroad, but this followed a roundabout route by the coast. Through this novel and extremely uncomfortable country, infected with mosquitoes, the troops pressed, eager to meet the enemy.
The first engagement took place at Las Guasimas, on the 24th of June. Here a force of about a thousand dismounted cavalry, partly regulars and partly Rough Riders, defeated nearly twice their number of Spaniards. This was the only serious resistance which the Americans encountered until they reached the advanced defenses of Santiago. The next week they spent in getting supplies ash.o.r.e, improving the roads, and reconnoitering. The newspapers considered this interval entirely too long! The 30th of June found the Americans confronting the main body of Spaniards in position, and on the 1st of July, the two armies joined battle.
Between the opposing forces was the little river San Juan and its tributaries. The Spanish left wing was at El Caney, supported by a stone blockhouse, rifle pits, and barbed wire, but with no artillery. About four miles away was San Juan Hill, with more formidable works straddling the main road which led to Santiago. Opposite El Caney, General Lawton was in command of about seven thousand Americans. The fight here began at half-past six in the morning, but the American artillery was placed at too great a distance to be very effective. The result was a long and galling exchange of rifle firing, which is apt to prove trying to raw troops. The infantry, however, advanced with persistency and showed marked personal initiative as they pushed forward under such protection as the brush and gra.s.s afforded until they finally rushed a position which gave opportunity to the artillery. After this they speedily captured the blockhouse.
The fight lasted over eight hours instead of two, as had been expected, and thus delayed General Lawton, who was looked for at San Juan by the American left. The losses, too, were heavy, the total casualties amounting to seven per cent of the force engaged. The Americans, however, had gained the position, and after a battle which had been long and serious enough to test thoroughly the quality of the personnel of the army. Whatever deficiencies the Americans may have had in organization, training, and military education, they undoubtedly possessed fighting spirit, courage, and personal ingenuity, and these are, after all, the qualities for which builders of armies look.
The battle of El Caney was perhaps unnecessary, for the position lay outside the main Spanish line a.n.a.l would probably have been abandoned when San Juan fell. For that more critical movement General Shafter kept about eight thousand troops and the personal command. Both he and General Wheeler, however, were suffering from the climate and were unable to be with the troops. The problem of making a concerted advance through the thick underbrush was a difficult one, and the disposition of the American troops was at once revealed by a battery of artillery which used black powder, and by a captive balloon which was injudiciously towed about.
The right wing here, after a.s.suming an exposed position, was unable to act, as Lawton, by whom it was expecting to be reinforced, was delayed at El Caney. The advance regiments were under the fire of the artillery, the infantry, and the skillful sharpshooters of an invisible enemy and were also exposed to the fierce heat of the sun, to which they were unaccustomed. The wounded were carried back on litters, turned over to the surgeons, who worked manfully with the scantiest of equipment, and were then laid, often naked except for their bandages, upon the damp ground. Regiment blocked regiment in the narrow road, and officers carrying orders were again and again struck, as they emerged from cover, by the sharpshooters" fire. The want of means of communication paralyzed the command, for all the equipment of a modern army was lacking: there were no aeroplanes, no wireless stations, no telephones.
Throughout the morning the situation grew worse, but the nerve of the men did not give way, and American individual initiative rose to the boiling point. Realizing that safety lay only in advance, the officers on the spot began to take control. General Hawkins, with the Sixth and Sixteenth Regulars, advanced against the main blockhouse, which crested a slope of two hundred feet, and the men of the Seventy-first New York Volunteers joined promiscuously in the charge.
To the right rose Kettle Hill, jutting out and Banking the approach to the main position. Facing it and dismounted were the First and Ninth Regular Cavalry, the latter a negro regiment, and the Rough Riders under Colonel Roosevelt. The Tenth Infantry was between the two wings, and divided in the support of both. A battery of Gatling guns was placed in position. The Americans steadily advanced in an irregular line, though kept in some sort of formation by their officers. Breaking down brush and barbed wire and sheltering themselves in the high gra.s.s, the men on the right wing worked their way up Kettle Hill, but before they reached the rifle pits of the enemy, they saw the Spaniards retreating on the run. The audacity of the Americans at the critical moment had insured the ultimate success of their attack and they found the final capture of the hill easy.
The longer charge against the center of the enemy was in the meantime being pressed home, under the gallant leadership of General Hawkins, who at times was far in advance of his line. The men of the right wing who looked down from their new position on Kettle Hill, a quarter of a mile distant, saw the Spaniards give way and the American center dash forward. In order to support this advance movement, the Gatlings were brought to Kettle Hill, and General S.S. Sumner and Colonel Roosevelt led their men down Kettle and up San Juan Hill, where they swept over the northern jut only a moment after Hawkins had carried the main blockhouse.
The San Juan position now in the hands of the Americans was the key of Santiago, but that entrenched city lay a mile and a quarter distant and had still to be unlocked-a task which presented no little difficulty. The Americans, it is true, had an advantageous position on a hilltop, but the enemy had retired only a quarter of a mile and were supported by the complete system of fortifications which protected Santiago. The American losses totaled fifteen hundred, a number just about made good at this moment by the arrival of General Duffield"s brigade, which had followed the main expedition. The number of the Spanish force, which was unknown to the Americans, was increased on the 3d of July by the arrival of a relief expedition under Colonel Escario, with about four thousand men whom the insurgent forces had failed to meet and block, as had been planned.
On the 2d of July there was desultory fighting, and on the 3d, General Shafter telegraphed to the Secretary of War that he was considering the withdrawal of his troops to a strong position, about five miles in the rear. The Secretary immediately replied: "Of course you can judge the situation better than we can at this end of the line. If, however, you could hold your present position, especially San Juan Heights, the effect upon the country would be much better than falling back."
The Spanish commanders, however, did not share General Shafter"s view as to the danger involving the Americans. Both Admiral Cervera and General Blanco considered that the joint operations of the American Army and Navy had rendered the reduction of Santiago only a question of time, but they differed as to the course to be pursued. In the end, General Blanco, who was in supreme command, decided, after an exchange of views with the Spanish Government and a consultation with the Captain of the German cruiser Geier, then at Havana, to order the Spanish squadron to attempt an escape from Santiago harbor. Cervera"s sailors had hitherto been employed in the defense of the city, but with the arrival of the reinforcements under Escario he found it possible to reman his fleet. An attempt to escape in the dark seemed impossible because of the unremitting glare of the searchlights of the American vessels. Cervera determined upon the desperate expedient of steaming out in broad daylight and making for Cienfuegos.
The blockade systematically planned by Admiral Sampson was conducted with a high degree of efficiency. Each American ship had its definite place and its particular duty. When vessels were obliged to coal at Guantanamo, forty miles distant, the next in line covered the cruising interval. The American combined squadron was about double Cervera"s in strength; his ships, however, were supposed to have the advantage in speed, and it was conceivable that, by turning sharply to the one side or the other, they might elude the blockading force. On the very day that Cervera made his desperate dash out of the harbor, as it happened, the New York, Admiral Sampson"s flagship, was out of line, taking the Admiral to a conference with General Shafter at Siboney, a few miles to the eastward. The absence of the flagship, however, in no way weakened the blockade, for, if Cervera turned westward he would find the squadron of Schley and the other vessels designated to prevent his escape in that direction, while if he turned eastward he would almost at once be engaged with the New York, which would then be in an advantageous position ahead of the chase.
At half-past nine on the morning of the 3d of July, the first vessel of the Spanish fleet emerged from Santiago Harbor. By 10:10 A.M. all the Spanish ships were outside of the harbor mouth. Commodore Schley, on the Brooklyn, hoisted the signal to "close up," apparently on the understanding that Sampson"s signal on leaving for Siboney to "Disregard motions of the commander-in-chief" had delegated the command to him. Though this question of command later involved a bitter dispute, it was at the time of little moment, for clouds of smoke obscured the signals so frequently that no complicated maneuver could have been guided by them, and, as far as concerted action was concerned, the whole squadron was under exactly similar contingent orders from Admiral Sampson. As a matter of fact, the thing to do was so obvious that the subsequent dispute really raged on the point of who actually gave an order, the sense of which every one of the commanders would have executed without order. If, therefore, the layman feels some annoyance at such a controversy over naval red tape, he may have the consolation of knowing that all concerned, admirals and captains, did the right and sensible thing at the time. If there be an exception, it was the curious maneuver of Schley, the commander of the Brooklyn, who turned a complete circle away from the enemy after the battle had begun. This action of his was certainly not due to a desire to escape, for the Brooklyn quickly turned again into the fight. A controversy, too, has raged over this maneuver. Was it undertaken because the Brooklyn was about to be rammed by the Vizcaya, or because Schley thought that his position blocked the fire of the other American vessels? It is not unlikely that the commander of the Spanish ship hoped to ram the Brooklyn, which was, because of her speed, a most redoubtable foe. But unless this maneuver saved the Brooklyn, it had little result except to scare the Texas, upon whom she suddenly bore down out of a dense cloud of smoke.
Steering westward, the Spanish ships attempted to pa.s.s the battle line, but the American vessels kept pace with them. For a short time the engagement was very severe, for practically all vessels of both fleets took part, and the Spanish harbor batteries added their fire. At 10:15 A.M. the Maria Teresa, Admiral Cervera"s flagship, on fire and badly shattered by heavy sh.e.l.ls, turned toward the beach. Five minutes later the Oquendo, after something of a duel with the Texas, also turned insh.o.r.e. The Brooklyn was in the lead of the Americans, closely followed by the Oregon, which developed a wonderful burst of speed in excess of that called for in her contract. These two ships kept up the chase of the Vizcaya and the Cristobal Colon, while the slower vessels of the fleet attended to the two Spanish destroyers, Furor and Pluton. At 11:15 A.M. the Vizcaya, riddled by fire from the Brooklyn and Oregon, gave up the fight.
By this time, Sampson in the New York was rapidly approaching the fight, and now ordered the majority of the vessels back to their stations. The Colon, fleeing westward and far ahead of the American ships, was pursued by the Brooklyn, the Oregon, the Texas, the New York, and the armed yacht Vixen. It was a stern chase, although the American vessels had some advantage by cutting across a slight concave indentation of the coast, while the Colon steamed close insh.o.r.e. At 1:15 P.M. a shot from the Oregon struck ahead of the Colon, and it was evident that she was covered by the American guns. At 1:30 P.M. she gave over her flight and made for sh.o.r.e some forty-five miles west of Santiago. The victory was won. It has often been the good fortune of Americans to secure their greatest victories on patriotic anniversaries and thereby to enhance the psychological effect. Admiral Sampson was able to announce to the American people, as a Fourth of July present, the destruction of the Spanish fleet with the loss of but one of his men and but slight damage to his ships.
On the hills above Santiago the American Army had now only the land forces of the Spaniards to contend with. Shafter"s demand for unconditional surrender met with a refusal, and there ensued a week of military quiet. During this time General Shafter conducted a correspondence with the War Department, in judging which it is charitable to remember that the American commander weighed three hundred pounds, that he was sweltering under a hot sun, and that he was sixty-three years old, and sick. Too humane to bombard Santiago while Hobson and his men were still in Spanish hands, he could not forgive Sampson for not having forced the narrow and well-mined channel at the risk of his fleet. The War Department, sharing Shafter"s indignation, prepared to attempt the entrance with one of its own transports protected by baled hay, as had been done on the Mississippi during the Civil War. Shafter continued to be alarmed at the situation. Without reenforcements he could not attack, and he proposed to allow the Spaniards to evacuate. The War Department forbade this alternative and, on the 10th of July, he began the bombardment of Santiago.
The Secretary of War then hit upon the really happy though quite unmilitary device of offering, in return for unconditional surrender, to transport the Spanish troops, at once and without parole, back to their own country. Secretary Alger was no unskillful politician, and he was right in believing that this device, though unconventional, would make a strong appeal to an army three years away from home and with dwindling hopes of ever seeing Spain again. On the 15th of July a capitulation was agreed upon, and the terms of surrender included not only the troops in Santiago but all those in that military district-about twenty-four thousand men, with cannon, rifles, ammunition, rations, and other military supplies. Shafter"s recommendation that the troops be allowed to carry their arms back to Spain with them was properly refused by the War Department. Arrangements were made for Spanish ships paid by the United States to take the men immediately to Spain. This extraordinary operation was begun on the 8th of August, while the war was still in progress, and was accomplished before peace was established.
The Santiago campaign, like the Mexican War, was fought chiefly by regulars. The Rough Riders and the Seventy-first New York Regiment were the only volunteer units to take a heavy share. Yet the absence of effective staff management was so marked that, as compared with the professional accuracy shown by the navy, the whole campaign on land appears as an amateur undertaking. But the individual character of both volunteers and regulars was high. The American victory was fundamentally due to the fighting spirit of the men and to the individual initiative of the line and field officers.
In the meantime the health of the American Army was causing grave concern to its more observant leaders. Six weeks of Cuban climate had taken out of the army all that exuberant energy which it had brought with it from the north. The army had accomplished its purpose only at the complete sacrifice of its fighting strength. Had the Spanish commander possessed more nerve and held out a little longer, he might well have seen his victorious enemies wither before his eyes, as the British had before Cartagena in 1741. On the 3d of August a large number of the officers of the Santiago army, including Generals Wheeler, Sumner, and Lawton, and Colonel Roosevelt, addressed a round robin to General Shafter on the alarming condition of the army. Its substance is indicated in the following sentences: "This army must be moved at once or it will perish. As an army it can be safely moved now. Persons responsible for preventing such a move will be responsible for the unnecessary loss of many thousands of lives." Already on the 1st of August, General Shafter had reported 4255 sick, of whom 3164 were cases of yellow fever, that deadly curse of Cuba, which the lack of proper quarantine had so often allowed to invade the sh.o.r.es of the United States. On the 3d of August, even before General Shafter had received the round robin, the Secretary of War authorized the withdrawal of at least a portion of the army, which was to be replaced by supposedly immune regiments. By the middle of August, the soldiers began to arrive at Camp Wikoff at Montauk Point, on the eastern end of Long Island. Through this camp, which had been hastily put into condition to receive them, there pa.s.sed about thirty-five thousand soldiers, of whom twenty thousand were sick. When the public saw those who a few weeks before had been healthy and rollicking American boys, now mere skeletons, borne helpless in stretchers and looking old and shriveled, a wave of righteous indignation against Secretary Alger swept over the country, and eventually accomplished enough to prevent such catastrophes in the future.
The distressing experience of the army was too real not to have its constructive effect. Men like William Crawford Gorgas were inspired to study the sanitation and the diseases of the tropics and have now made it possible for white men to live there safely. Men of affairs like Elihu Root were stimulated to give their talents to army administration. Fortunately the boys were brought north just in time to save their lives, and the majority, after a recuperation of two or three years, regained their normal health.
The primary responsibility for this gamble with death rested with those who sent an expedition from the United States to the tropics in midsummer when the measures necessary to safeguard its health were not yet known. This responsibility rested immediately upon the American people themselves, all too eager for a war for which they were not prepared and for a speedy victory at all costs. For this national impatience they had to pay dearly. The striking contrast, however, between the efficiency of the navy and the lack of preparation on the part of the army shows that the people as a whole would have supported a more thorough preparation of the army, had the responsible officials possessed sufficient courage and intelligence to have demanded it; nor would the people have been unwilling to defer victory until autumn, had they been honestly informed of the danger of tropical disease into which they were sending the flower of their youth. Such a postponement would not only have meant better weather but it would have given time to teach the new officers their duty in safeguarding the health of their men as far as possible, and this precaution alone would have saved many lives. Owing to the greater practical experience of the officers in the regular regiments, the death rate among the men in their ranks fell far below that among the volunteers, even though many of the men with the regulars had enlisted after the declaration of war. On the other hand, speed as well as sanitation was an element in the war, and the soldier who was sacrificed to lack of preparation may be said to have served his country no less than he who died in battle. Strategy and diplomacy in this instance were enormously facilitated by the immediate invasion of Cuba, and perhaps the outcome justified the cost. The question of relative values is a difficult one.
No such equation of values, however, can hold the judgment in suspense in the case of the host of secondary errors that grew out of the indolence of Secretary Alger and his worship of politics. Probably General Miles was mistaken in his charges concerning embalmed beef, and possibly the canned beef was not so bad as it tasted; but there can be no excuse for a Secretary of War who did not consider it his business to investigate the question of proper rations for an army in the tropics simply because Congress had, years before, fixed a ration for use within the United States. There was no excuse for sending many of the men clad in heavy army woolens. There was no excuse for not providing a sufficient number of surgeons and abundant hospital service. There was little excuse for the appointment of General Shafter, which was made in part for political reasons. There was no excuse for keeping at the head of the army administration General Nelson A. Miles, with whom, whatever his abilities, the Secretary of War was unable to work.
The navy did not escape controversy. In fact, a war fought under the eyes of hundreds of uncensored newspaper correspondents unskilled in military affairs could not fail to supply a daily grist of scandal to an appreciative public. The controversy between Sampson and Schley, however, grew out of incompatible personalities stirred to rivalry by indiscreet friends and a quarrelsome public. Captain Sampson was chosen to command, and properly so, because of his recognized abilities. Commodore Schley, a genial and open-hearted man, too much given to impulse, though he outranked Sampson, was put under his command. Sampson was not gracious in his treatment of the Commodore, and ill feeling resulted. When the time came to promote both officers for their good conduct, Secretary Long by recommending that Sampson be raised eight numbers and Schley six, reversed their relative positions as they had been before the war. This recommendation, in itself proper, was sustained by the Senate, and all the vitality the controversy ever had then disappeared, though it remains a bone of contention to be gnawed by biographers and historians.
CHAPTER XII. The Close Of The War
While the American people were concentrating their attention upon the blockade of Santiago near their own sh.o.r.es, the situation in the distant islands of the Pacific was rapidly becoming acute. All through June, Dewey had been maintaining himself, with superb nerve, in Manila Harbor, in the midst of uncertain neutrals. A couple of unwieldy United States monitors were moving slowly to his a.s.sistance from the one side, while a superior Spanish fleet was approaching from the other. On the 26th of June, the Spanish Admiral Camara had reached Port Said, but he was not entirely happy. Several of his vessels proved to be in that ineffective condition which was characteristic of the Spanish Navy. The Egyptian authorities refused him permission to refit his ships or to coal, and the American consul had with foresight bought up much of the coal which the Spanish Admiral had hoped to secure and take aboard later from colliers. Nevertheless the fleet pa.s.sed through the Suez Ca.n.a.l and entered the Red Sea.
Fully alive to the danger of the situation, the Naval War Board gave orders on the 29th of June for a squadron under Commodore Watson to start for the Spanish coast in hope of drawing Camara back.
The alarm which had previously been created on the American coast by the shrouded approach of Cervera naturally suggested that the Americans themselves might win one of those psychological victories now recognized as such an important factor in modern warfare. The chief purpose of future operations was to convince the Spanish people that they were defeated, and nothing would more conduce to this result than to bring war to their doors. This was, moreover, an operation particularly suited to the conditions under which the United States was waging war, for publicity was here a helping factor. Admiral Sampson, more intent on immediate business than on psychological pressure, was not enthusiastically in favor of the plan. Nevertheless preparation proceeded with that deliberation which in this case was part of the game, and presently the shadow of an impending American attack hung heavy over the coasts of Spain. The Spanish Government at first perhaps considered the order a bluff which the United States would not dare to carry out while Cervera"s fleet was so near its own sh.o.r.es; but with the destruction of Cervera"s ships the plan became plainly possible, and on the 8th of July the Spanish Government ordered Camara back to parade his vessels before the Spanish cities to a.s.sure them of protection.
But, before Camara was called home, the public were watching his advance against the little American fleet at Manila, with an anxiety perhaps greater than Dewey"s own. Nothing in modern war equals in dramatic tension the deadly, slow, inevitable approach of a fleet from one side of the world against its enemy on the other. Both beyond the reach of friendly help, each all powerful until it meets its foe, their home countries have to watch the seemingly never coming, but nevertheless certain, clash, which under modern conditions means victory or destruction. It is the highest development of that situation which has been so exploited in a myriad forms by the producers of dramas for the moving pictures and which nightly holds audiences silent; but it plays itself out in war, not in minutes but in months. No one who lived through that period can ever forget the progress of Camara against Dewey, or that of Rozhestvensky with the Russian fleet, six years later, against Togo.
Meanwhile another move was made in the Caribbean. General Miles had from the first considered Porto Rico the best immediate objective: it was much nearer Spain than Cuba, was more nearly self-sufficing if left alone, and less defensible if attacked. The War Department, on the 7th of June, had authorized Miles to a.s.semble thirty thousand troops for the invasion of Porto Rico, and preparations for this expedition were in progress throughout the course of the Santiago campaign. Miles at the time of the surrender of Santiago was actually off that city with reinforcements, which thereupon at once became available as a nucleus to be used against Porto Rico. On the 21st of July he left Guantanamo Bay and, taking the Spaniards as well as the War Department completely by surprise as to his point of attack, he effected a landing on the 26th at Guanica, near the southwestern corner of Porto Rico.
The expeditionary force to Porto Rico, however, consisted not of 30,000 men but of only about 15,000; and it was not fully a.s.sembled on the island until the 8th of August. The total Spanish forces amounted to only about 10,000, collected on the defensible ground to the north and in the interior, so that they did not disturb the disembarkation. The American Army which had been dispatched from large Atlantic ports, such as Charleston and Newport News, seems to have been better and more systematically equipped than the troops sent to Santiago. The Americans occupied Guanica, Ponce, and Arroyo with little or no opposition, and were soon in possession of the southern sh.o.r.es of the island.
Between the American forces and the main body of the enemy stretched a range of mountains running east and west through the length of the island. San Juan, the only fortress, which was the main objective of the American Army, lay on the opposite side of this mountain range, on the northern coast of the island. The approach to the fortress lay along a road which crossed the hills and which possessed natural advantages for defense. On the 7th of August a forward movement was begun. While General Wilson"s army advanced from Ponce along the main road toward San Juan and General Brooke moved north from Arroyo, General Schwan was to clear the western end of the island and work his way around to Arecibo, toward which General Henry was to advance through the interior. The American armies systematically worked forward, with an occasional skirmish in which they were always victorious, and were received with a warm welcome by the teeming native population. On the 13th of August, General Wilson was on the point of clearing his first mountain range, General Schwan had occupied Mayaguez, and General Henry had pa.s.sed through the mountains and was marching down the valley of the Arecibo, when orders arrived from Washington to suspend operations.
The center of interest, however, remained in the far-away Philippines. Dewey, who had suddenly burst upon the American people as their first hero, remained a fixed star in their admiration, a position in which his own good judgment and the fortunate scarcity of newspaper correspondents served to maintain him. From him action was expected, and it had been prepared for. Even before news arrived on the 7th of May of Dewey"s victory on the 1st of May, the Government had antic.i.p.ated such a result and had decided to send an army to support him. San Francisco was made a rendezvous for volunteers, and on the 12th of May, General Wesley Merritt was a.s.signed to command the expedition. Dewey reported that he could at any time command the surrender of Manila, but that it would be useless unless he had troops to occupy the city.
On the 19th of May, General Merritt received the following orders: "The destruction of the Spanish fleet at Manila, followed by the taking of the naval station at Cavite, the paroling of the garrisons, and the acquisition of the control of the bay, have rendered it necessary, in the further prosecution of the measures adopted by this Government for the purpose of bringing about an honorable and durable peace with Spain, to send an army of occupation to the Philippines for the twofold purpose of completing the reduction of the Spanish power in that quarter and giving order and security to the islands while in the possession of the United States."
On the 30th of June the first military expedition, after a bloodless capture of the island of Guam, arrived in Manila Bay. A second contingent arrived on the 17th of July, and on the 25th, General Merritt himself with a third force, which brought the number of Americans up to somewhat more than 10,000. The Spaniards had about 13,000 men guarding the rather antiquated fortifications of old Manila and a semicircle of blockhouses and trenches thrown about the city, which contained about 350,000 inhabitants.
It would have been easy to compel surrender or evacuation by the guns of the fleet, had it not been for an additional element in the situation. Manila was already besieged, or rather blockaded, on the land side, by an army of nearly ten thousand Philippine insurgents under their shrewd leader, Emilio Aguinaldo. It does not necessarily follow that those who are fighting the same enemy are fighting together, and in this case the relations between the Americans and the insurgents were far from intimate, though Dewey had kept the situation admirably in hand until the arrival of the American troops.
General Merritt decided to hold no direct communication with Aguinaldo until the Americans were in possession of the city, but landed his army to the south of Manila beyond the trenches of the Filipinos. On the 30th of July, General F. V. Greene made an informal arrangement with the Filipino general for the removal of the insurgents from the trenches directly in front of the American forces, and immediately advanced beyond their original position. The situation of Manila was indeed desperate and clearly demanded a surrender to the American forces, who might be relied upon to preserve order and protect property. The Belgian Consul, M. Eduard Andre, urged this course upon the Spanish commander. The Governor-General, Fermin Jaudenes, exhibited the same spirit which the Spanish commanders revealed throughout the war: though const.i.tutionally indisposed to take any bold action, he nevertheless considered it a point of honor not to recognize the inevitable. He allowed it to be understood that he could not surrender except to an a.s.sault, although well knowing that such a melee might cause the city to be ravaged by the Filipinos. M. Andre, however, succeeded by the 11th of August in arranging a verbal understanding that the fleet should fire upon the city and that the troops should attack, but that the Spaniards should make no real resistance and should surrender as soon as they considered that their honor was saved.
The chief contestants being thus amicably agreed to a spectacular but bloodless battle, the main interest lay in the future action of the interested and powerful spectators in the harbor. Admiral Dewey, though relieved by the arrival of the monitor Monterey on the 4th of August, was by no means certain that the German squadron would stand by without interference and see the city bombarded. On the 9th of August he gave notice of the impending action and ordered foreign vessels out of the range of fire. On the 13th of August Dewey steamed into position before the city. As the American vessels steamed past the British Immortalite, her guard paraded and her band played Admiral Dewey"s favorite march. Immediately afterwards the British commander, Captain Chichester, moved his vessels toward the city and took a position between our fleet and the German squadron. The foreign vessels made no interference, but the Filipinos were more restless. Eagerly watching the American a.s.sault, they rushed forward when they saw it successful, and began firing on the Spaniards just as the latter hoisted the white flag. They were quieted, though with difficulty, and by nightfall the city was under the Stars and Stripes, with American troops occupying the outworks facing the forces of Aguinaldo, who were neither friends nor foes.