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The Second Year of the Second War

The condition of the Country Approaching the Second Rainy Season of the Struggle--Why the War-Cry went forth in February--The Sagacity of Gomez in Choosing Time and Place--Preparing for his Remarkable Campaign--The Policy of Destruction--Why it was Adopted--The Way the Spaniards are Retaliating--Cuba Laid Waste by Both Combatants--War, Pestilence and Famine--The Terrible Privations and Distress of the People.

There have been many wars in and about and around Cuba, but only two that may be called Cuban--that of the ten years, from 1868 to 1878, and the present. The English, French, and Spanish, when at the height of their maritime power, compared with others, and themselves the foremost of nations in enlightenment, enterprise and progressive development, warred in and for Cuba, and for the seas surrounding her and the islands of those seas, and there came also pirates and filibusters, and used the shelter of her shores to assail them and the commerce that sailed from them or found its channels beside them. There were armaments and assaults, aggressive expeditions and vengeful massacres; riotings in the cities and insurrections of slaves. The struggle of the Cuban people for themselves, their fights for liberty, were the two wars whose causes, course and consequences we are tracing; and we are in the second year of the second war.

The last week of February of 1895 did not happen accidentally to be chosen for the declaration of the contest that is progressing. Time and place were carefully taken into account. Those engaged in the preliminaries for Cuban revolt were wise in the affairs and the policy of Spain, and could very well understand the weaknesses she would develop in action, and the lines on which her resources could be most certainly and swiftly crippled. One man especially was able to form an accurate judgment from personal experience, and was profoundly able to plan the campaign that was coming. We refer not to the ardent patriot so soon to fall, Jose Marti, but to the old military chieftain, Maximo Gomez. He had so far been informed of the state of the Island that he was certain Spain would underrate the insurrection. She would look upon it as at the worst for her, assuming the proportions during the first year that had been attained in the last year of the first war. Gomez knew that the renewed conflagration was to be the most widespread that ever broke out, and that the Spanish government would be certain to be sluggish at the start to meet the real danger, partially that it was the habit of Spaniards, but principally because they would naturally undervalue the forces that were to be put in motion against them. If he had not had confidence in the resources to be placed at his command, Gomez would have selected the most difficult and dangerous season of the year to send forth the war-cry for field operations; but he nicely measured the time and materials and the ways as well as the means of his partizans and enemies, and the opening of the spring, as it would be called in temperate countries, was fixed as the time for the war proclamation. He wanted some months for getting the insurgents out and organized, and he did not want them drenched and scorched in the rainy season to begin with. He gave himself the good campaigning time of March, April and May for field preparations, knowing that when the Spaniards would appreciate the magnitude of the work cut out for them and pour in their battalions, their movement would be checked by the rains and fear of the fever, and he have the opportunities of three quarters of a year for development. It turned out just so.

Martinez Campos first tried his old persuasive methods and then ascertained that there were a million Cubans to combat with; and when his urgent calls for more troops were responded to and they had been gathered, and made the long voyage and landed, the rains came and with them the full power of the tropical sun and the fever, and by the time he had found how unavailable were his peace measures and his mud marches, and consented to wait until the campaigning conditions had come to pass, Gomez had made ready for his raid from Santiago to Pinar del Rio, which was more than a surprise--it was astounding, and with the invasion of the central and western regions of the Island, rich in the sugar and tobacco plantations--the sources of Cuban wealth and Spanish revenue--was developed the grand tactics of desolation. In his long march, which was as great a distance as from Philadelphia to Detroit, not only the scope of the rebellion was extended, but its strength increased at every step. Campos was out-generaled before he took command. The revolutionist had formed a resolution of desperation. It was to put an end to the prosperity of the contested country for all purpose of those who had selfishly and oppressively misgoverned it. The Spanish had made themselves foreigners, except as holders of offices and special privileges and as consumers of the substance of the people. Spain had made Cuba her slave, and had to pay the penalty in the horrors of servile insurrection. Gomez knew well the old story in warfare of the Spanish Trocha--a line across the island--and, knowing its invulnerability was an illusion, he gave himself no concern about it, and when the time came marched through and began the westward movement that was his master-stroke of warfare. He stopped cane grinding just as the sugar planters were about to begin it, and when his orders were disregarded he burned cane fields as warnings, and explained his purpose. It was to cut off the supply of sugar for exportation so that there would be nothing with which to pay for the importations on which the Spanish duties were collected. Cane fields enough were burned to alarm the planters generally, and when any of them were defiant, they found the protection of the government was a total failure.