The Disaster of 98: Spain’s Colonial Loss and Aftermath
The Disaster of 98 and Its Consequences
Only the Socialists, through their minority media outlets, and the Federalists of Pi y Margall had raised their voices in Spain advising the emancipation of the Caribbean island in prevention of fatal consequences and a useless sacrifice of human lives. The Catalan political advocated independence if it were determined in a free plebiscite by most Cubans. Even Admiral Cervera, convinced of the inferiority of the Spanish fleet, deemed it wiser to use it in defending the Iberian coast and the Canary Islands.
But the Government of Sagasta, full of patriotism, disregarded these recommendations of Cervera and ordered him to leave for the West Indies. With it came the naval defeat in history that Spain remembers as the Disaster of 98.
The so-called ‘Colonial Disaster’ refers to the events of 1898. This year saw the defeats of Spain against the United States in the wars of Cuba and the Philippines, accounting for the loss of the last Spanish colonies that remained of the former overseas empire created after the discovery of America by Columbus. The defeat against the Spanish colonial mambises was converted by the government into a genuine collective trauma on this side of the Atlantic (‘¡More was lost in Cuba!’ is an expression that the elderly still often use to comfort themselves with every calamity). Spain tried to overcome the crisis through new imperialist policies directed toward some African territories (Morocco, Rio de Oro, Guinea…).
However, in fact, the final loss of the overseas empire did not cause all the immediate changes that were expected in Spanish politics. In many respects, they continued to govern as if nothing had happened. One can almost say that the regeneracionista desire that shook the conscience after the disaster only had the positive colonial delivery of valuable literary and reflective works of the writers of 98. For the oligarchy in power, when they spoke of “regeneration,” they pretended they wished to change, without thinking of deep political reforms.
Internationally, the success of the U.S. fleet in Santiago de Cuba is considered the war episode that marks the final demise of a way out of step domination of colonialism, and its replacement by another system of exploitation, imperialism, more in line with contemporary capitalism.
It is true, however, that after the war and loss of the Spanish colonies, widespread criticism of Spanish backwardness was built. The need for change and progress became the motto of the new cultural movements. Between 1898 and 1914, Regeneracionismo ideas succeeded, as well as the Generation of 98 and modernism.
Rebellion and Anti-Bourgeois Inconformity
In the last decade of the nineteenth century, an attitude of rebellion and anti-bourgeois incorformismo was born throughout Europe, which became a great movement of enthusiasm and freedom for Beauty, called modernism. In Spain, this movement originated in conjunction with the severe cultural-political crisis of 1898 and soon divided into three groups:
- The actual Modernists (as Rubén Darío and Valle-Inclán)
- Generation of 98 (as Unamuno, Azorín, Pío Baroja and Antonio Machado)
- Regenerationists (among whom was Joaquín Costa)
Everyone agrees that Spain is wrong and that the solution to the problem is to know the real Spain: to know the people, not the great characters or great events, but the story often, the “inside story” (Unamuno), lives vulgar and ignored (Azorín and Baroja).
The three were felt in his youth identified with the movements workers and their problems. This search for solutions makes the writers engaged intellectuals (Ortega, Unamuno and Joaquín Costa) who criticize and oppose the regime.
In the Free Institution of Education formed regenerationists as Joaquín Costa, whose work Oligarchy and Caciquismo portrays the exact status of the rural and backward Spain to be regenerated.