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An Irrepressible Conflict of Testimony: Weyler

Meantime there is a letter from Maximo Gomez, saying: We have a great military advantage over the enemy in the incapacity of the majority of Weyler's generals. The false official reports of supposed victories with which they cynically pretend to deceive themselves, their government and the world, contribute to the speedy triumph of the revolution. No human work which has for a base falseness and infamy, can be either firm or lasting.

Everything that Spain orders and sends to this land, that she has drenched with the blood of her own children, only serves to ruin her power. And no man is so well chosen as General Weyler to represent in these times and in America the Spain of Philip II.

The commanders-in-chief on both sides have notably forcible ways of expressing themselves.

In nothing during the whole course of the war have there been more positive disagreements than concerning the position of Maceo in the west end. This is a typical and test case. It was the boast of the Spaniards that the western province was truly loyal to them. There the feet of rebels had never polluted the soil save by stealth. One would have supposed from Spanish conversation that if the rebels ever got there they would be suppressed instantly by the peninsular patriots. When the tide of invasion sweeping over the Island passed Havana, and poured, like a river of lava, in Pinar del Rio, the people welcomed the destroyers with open arms, and there was rejoicing in the villages.

After Captain-General Weyler had reorganized the scattered and bewildered columns, and imparted to the troops some of his own confidence, he ordered them to be put in motion, and the insurgents, short of cartridges, and without hospitals to save their wounded from death in languishing captivity, evaded combats until they found, through superiority in local information, advantageous opportunities, and then they behaved with extreme caution, and the larger bodies drifted rather than were driven eastward; and the report was, Gomez was sick and going into rainy weather quarters, while the Maceos would conduct some skirmishing. The Spanish confidence was higher than it had been for months, when it was dashed by rebel recklessness close to Havana. The peculiar sluggishness of the Spanish columns until they have positive orders to do explicit things gives time for rebel raids. The Spaniards are not cowardly in the sense of being afraid of the enemy, but they are fearfully particular about their orders, and there is next to no independent initiative. The rebels rushed into villages within half an hour of Havana, and had their way for hours, watching all the while for the signs of Spanish activity, and going away at full gallop with such necessaries as they could gather as soon as there was choice between a heavy fight or flight. By the time the Spanish are massed to their satisfaction and in motion, the insurgents are out of sight. The return of Antonio Maceo to Pinar Del Rio was to the Spaniards a surprise, but the statement is current in Cuba that he was expected, and the secret well kept; also that there had been carefully stored, in anticipation of his coming, stores of supplies; that there was corn ready for his horses and cattle; sheep and hogs and potatoes in plenty secreted in the mountains. Upon this is based the Cuban theory that Maceo is not undergoing great hardships, and is not disturbed by decisive movements, though his position is well known. It is claimed for him that he has the country with him, and that there are signals arranged for surf boats, by which supplies are landed in some of the many harbors that are a feature of the coast line. There have been several of the sharp skirmishes that in Cuba are classed as battles, between the troops of Maceo and the Spaniards westward of the trocha, and each side claims victory, the rebels, as usual, riding down the Spaniards, hewing them in pieces and capturing cartridges; the Spaniards winning the fields by irresistible bayonet charges. The fact of deadly combats is attested by the names of officers on both sides killed and wounded, but the narratives are vague enough to allow large scope for controversy without descending to tantalizing particulars. There is a waiting game played. Maceo feels that he is doing the cause of his country service when he remains in the west; that time is against the Spaniards, and they far outnumber him, and have him located. It is their turn to move.

The Spanish say Maceo's men are nearly naked, hungry, and despondent, and wanting to surrender, and must soon come to a bad end if they can be prevented from moving eastward; and the troops work on at their trocha, in high spirits that they only have to fortify a line and stay there. This is regarded as equivalent to aggression, but it shows the captain-general is imitating the failures of predecessors.