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The Spanish War Policy: Weyler

The likeness of General Weyler is given in full uniform with all his decorations. When he landed in Cuba, the cannon sounding, the flags flying, the brass bands playing, the sun shining, the Spaniards cheering, and walked in the street one block to the palace square through masses of people, guarded by firm lines of soldiers, he wore all the bravery that the picture shows, and, in addition, a sword and hat from which floated a tall and fluttering white plume. He had been told there was a plot to assassinate him at this time, but took the chances coolly. The Spaniards have had some experience of dynamite thrown by anarchists, and a bomb might have been hurled from a housetop or a window upon the new captain-general. The Cuban revolutionists declared they could not afford to do it, for if they became assassins they would lose the sympathy of all civilized people. In the palace on business he is dressed with extreme simplicity, in black clothes with no mark of rank but a sash of red and yellow around his waist.

Mr. Rappleye, an American correspondent, who added art as a pen painter to his news service, drew this striking personal sketch of the captain-general whose failure in Cuba will be one of the decisive features of the progress of the Island to independence:

General Weyler is one of those men who creates a first impression, the first sight of whom never can be effaced from the mind, by whose presence the most careless observer is impressed instantly, and yet, taken altogether, he is a man in whom the elements of greatness are concealed under a cloak of impenetrable obscurity. Inferior physically, unsoldierly in bearing, exhibiting no trace of refined sensibilities nor pleasure in the gentle associations that others live for or at least seek as diversions, he is nevertheless the embodiment of mental acuteness, crafty, unscrupulous, fearless and of indomitable perseverance.

He is one of the most magnetic men in whose presence I have ever stood--yet not attractive. His overwhelming personality is irresistible--yet he is unpleasant of appearance. Campos was an exceptional man. Marin was commonplace. Weyler is unique. Campos and Marin affected gold lace, dignity and self-consciousness. Weyler ignores them all as useless, unnecessary impediments, if anything, to the one object of his existence. Campos was fat, good-natured, wise, philosophical, slow in his mental processes, clear in his judgment, emphatic in his opinions, outspoken and, withal, lovable, humane, conservative, constructive, progressive, with but one project ever before him, the glorification of Spain as a mother-land and a figure among peaceful, enlightened nations. Weyler is lean, diminutive, shriveled, ambitious for immortality irrespective of its odor, a master of diplomacy, the slave of Spain for the glory of sitting at the right of her throne, unlovable, unloving, exalted.

My journey through the forest of gold lace terminated before the closed door of General Weyler's official abode. There an adjutant, more bedizzened than the rest of the dazzling multitude, trod softly to the portico, gently opened the way, retired again without a word, and we were alone in the presence of the man.

And what a picture! A little man. An apparition of blacks--black eyes, black hair, black beard, dark--exceedingly dark--complexion; a plain black attire. He was alone, and was standing facing the door I entered. He had taken a position in the very centre of the room, and seemed lost in its immense depths. His eyes, far apart, bright, alert and striking, took me in at a glance. His face seemed to run to chin, his lower jaw protruding far beyond any ordinary indication of firmness, persistence or will power. His forehead is neither high nor receding; neither is it that of a thoughtful or philosophic man. His ears are set far back; and what is called the region of intellect, in which are those mental attributes that might be defined as powers of observation, calculation, judgment and execution, is strongly developed.

The grand old man of the war is Maximo Gomez, a man of the greatest military capacity that has been displayed in this war, and that will give him a permanent place among the great captains. He is, of course, charged by the Spaniards with selling out to them when Campos played pacificator at Zanjon, but his little farm in San Domingo and his wife and children earning their living as music teachers and seamstresses, while his son, at the command of the father, protects mother and sisters, and holds a clerkship, does not look like enrichment by bribery--to say nothing of returning to plunge again into war in Cuba against, as he well knows, tremendous odds. The year of the military life of Gomez, just closed, has been not only the most brilliant in his long life, but it will rank high as a series of military achievements in which great things were accomplished by small means. There is no praise of accomplishments in war more exalted than that.