The
Spanish American War has gone down in American history as the event which first
led the United States into taking its place as a world power. To look at this dramatic representation of the
Rough Riders’ charge at San Juan Hill, led by Theodore Roosevelt, you’d
think that the Americans were used to doing this kind of thing.
It would be a mistake to say that North America embarked on this war
with firm expansionist and imperialist objectives. Certainly, a few people in
the executive, notably Roosevelt, were motivated by the prospect of acquiring
new territory. Within the nation as a whole, there were far more altruistic
concerns. It was natural for North Americans to feel concern for Cuba, a land
with which they had strong commercial links. As Foster Rhea Dulles wrote: ”It
was primarily an emotional response on the part of the American public to the
plight of a colonial people struggling for freedom against foreign rule.” The
Cuban rebellion had been raging since 1895, and thus far, North America had
only resorted to intervene with diplomacy.
This ended when The Maine was sunk in Havana harbour. It was one of the
United States’ new battleships, the pride of the navy, and so the symbol of
North America’s armed forces. The Maine had been sent to Cuba to protect
American commercial properties there. Its sinking caused outrage in North
America, and the infamous yellow press didn’t spare anything in its demand for
war. Yet, if the Maine had not been destroyed, then it is very doubtful that
the United States could have intervened militarily in Cuba at all. Indeed, in
the preceding months, it had looked likely that North America would achieve
Spanish withdrawal from the island through diplomacy alone. The United States
arrival on the world stage may well have been delayed indefinitely.
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The North American public was certainly eager for the glory of war, as the
historian Morgan related. ”Many young American men were already imbued with the
desire to kill a Spaniard; the press and events had done their work well.” The
conflict was not restricted to Cuba. The war became a more general one against
Spanish colonialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The spirit of the Monroe
Doctrine was to be imposed by force. It was this war that was to be such a
blessing for the imperialists and expansionists.
Theodore Roosevelt, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, ordered
Commodore George Dewey in Hong Kong to attack the Spanish fleet and possessions
in the Philippines. The battle began on the 1st of May. The Spanish fleet was
no match for the United States’ modern navy. Consequently, 381 Spanish seamen
were killed and there were no American casualties. Such a victory lives up to
the popular view of the Spanish-American war.
Central to the question of whether the United States was embarking on an
expansionist policy is the attitude of the President, William McKinley. This is
made rather difficult by the fact that the President was rather reticent at
voicing his own views. It was rather typical of him to claim that he was
completely surprised by Dewey’s victory, as he told his friend H.H.Kohlsaat: ”I
could not have told where those darned islands were within 2,000 miles!” Yet
the Secretary of the Navy had consulted him about sending Dewey there. Since we
do not really know what McKinley’s views were, it has the unfortunate effect of
making us think that the President bowed down to public pressure. Morgan goes
out of his way to defend McKinley by saying that “The greatly overrated ‘yellow
press’ did not force the President to free Cuba. By intervening in 1898, the
McKinley administration merely accepted its inability to solve the Cuban issue
peacefully.”
It is very likely that McKinley did hold some expansionist
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sympathies.
This can be seen from his role in the annexation of Hawaii in the summer of
1898. ”We need Hawaii just as much and a great deal more than we did
California,” McKinley told one of his Secretaries. ”It is manifest destiny.”
The annexation came about through a joint congressional resolution approved by
McKinley in July 1898. As Dulles wrote, ”It broke the pattern of the past”. For
the first time, the United States had given a clear signal that it was prepared
to go beyond the borders which had previously been enough for her people. The
imperialists welcomed this precedent at that momentous time, for the fate of
the Philippines was yet to be decided. Those who opposed the policy feared that
by acquiring possessions in the Pacific, the United States would be unable to
resist being drawn into quarrels there with foreign powers.
It was decided that the assault on Spanish Cuba should be an amphibious
one. McKinley ordered a naval blockade of the island. There was a need to draw
recruits into a fledgling army. To have embarked on such on a great imperialist
venture, America would have needed a sizable and well-equipped standing army.
The fact that they didn’t can only suggest that this was not a premeditated
imperialist policy. As Morgan wrote: ”Congressional penury, a long period of
peace, and American distrust of professional armies and belief in the citizen
soldier combined to give the country an army hardly large enough to police the
remaining frontier or stage a good parade.” Much more revenue had gone to the
navy, so that it could effectively perform its role as defender of the nation.
It was only with very great difficulty that the American army was able to put
on an offensive display.
The army commanders were woefully inept, or disingenuous to say the
least. To be fair, one can only say that they were not prepared for the role
that was suddenly thrust upon them, and that they were just not the men for the
job. It
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did
not help that the American expeditionary army was led by General William
R.Shafter. Much was made of his obesity and the fact that he wore winter
uniform in such a stifling climate. The expeditionary army had set sail for
Cuba from Tampa, where they had most extraordinarily organised. There was only
one railway line to the wharf, a wharf which could not possibly cope with more
than a few warships and transports. The government had been forced to order
army provisions from commercial companies, who were more concerned with their
profit margins than their country. Consequently, there were a few fatalities
due to contaminated beef rations. Regiments, such as the Rough Riders, stole
from each other and often at gun point. It was the most inept of armies,
noteworthy for its enthusiasm rather than anything else. Shafter obviously did
not know what to do, and kept delaying the departure time for Cuba.
Surprisingly, one sector of the United States which opposed the war at
the very beginning was the business sector. As Dulles wrote, men like Mark
Hanna, a vigorous spokesman for American industry in the Republican party,
feared that the war would threaten economic stability. There’s the story of
Theodore Roosevelt raising his fist in front of Hanna’s face and shouting, ”we
will have this war for the freedom of Cuba in spite of the timidity of the
commercial interests”. Yet Hanna was swiftly converted to the imperialist point
of view when he realised that the war was stimulating the economy, rather than
unsettling it.
McKinley was treading on uncertain ground, so he trod carefully, making
sure that he had sufficient support before he did anything. Many influential
people called for the acquisition of the Philippines, such as Henry Cabot
Lodge, who wrote that “we must on no account let the Islands go... We hold the
other side of the Pacific and the value to this country is almost beyond
imagination”. Lodge, and others, feared that, although America had not won the
islands by
5
right
of conquest, to not acquire them would leave them to the mercy of foreign
powers, such as Japan and Germany. Yet McKinley had later cause to say,”If old
Dewey had just sailed away when he smashed that Spanish fleet, what a lot of
trouble he would have saved us”. McKinley should have followed his instincts
and announced the fate of the Philippines as soon as he’d heard of Dewey’s
victory.
By remaining in the Philippines and by having contact with their
revolutionary leaders, Dewey only made sure that Americans would sympathise
with that rebellion also, which previously had been unknown to them. The
Filipinos were later to show that they disliked being American subjects as much
as they had been Spanish ones. The expeditionary army in Cuba tended to blame
the Cubans for all their errors. The Spanish were weak, but if they had been
fighting the Americans alone, they could have put paid to American imperialist
ambitions. Instead, they had been wearied by fighting a guerrilla war with the
Cubans for many years. The Cubans were dedicated fighters, but they were
continually slandered by the American press. General Shafter blamed the Cubans
for anything which went wrong and insulted the worthy General Garcia by
allowing him no role in the surrender of Santiago. To add insult to injury,
Spanish officials were kept on to keep order.
Cuba had to suffer military rule until she accepted the Platt Amendment
in 1902. American capitalists were poised to invest a great deal of money into
the island, and as one wrote, they needed “confidence that the United States
will either stay in control or will insist that the succeeding government shall
afford adequate protection”. The amendment allowed America to intervene in Cuba
whenever it thought fit for “the protection of life, property, and individual
liberty”. It was to play a decisive role in Cuba’s future. This was commercial
imperialism. As Dulles noted, there was irony in having a war to overthrow
Spanish colonialism which led to the creation of an American empire.
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