The Spanish-American War: Causes and Consequences
The War Overseas: Cuba, the Pearl of the Antilles
After the Peace of Zanjón (1878), the natives of Cuba hoped the Spanish government would grant a series of reforms that would give them the same rights of political representation in the Spanish courts as the peninsula, participation in the government of the island, free trade, and the abolition of slavery, which was still practiced with the blacks who worked in the sugar mills or factories. None of these requests had been considered by the colonial administration because of the strong opposition of the great landowners, slave traders, and the mainland.
Following the bipartisan model of the peninsula, two major parties were created in Cuba: the Autonomy Party, composed mostly of Cubans, and the Constitutional Union, a Spanish party that had a strong membership of peninsulars installed on the island. The first called for autonomy for the island, advocated a program of political and economic reforms without reaching independence, and had achieved broad representation in the Spanish parliament. Sagasti, of the Liberal Party, was likely to make improvements to the island, but during his successive terms, he only came to realize the formal abolition of slavery in 1888. In 1893, the courts proposed approval of a proposed reform of Cuba’s colonial status but were unsuccessful due to strong pressure from Spanish economic interests, unwilling to make any concessions to the “pearl of the Antilles,” which they feared could breach.
The ineffectiveness of the administration in introducing reforms in the colony stimulated the desire for emancipation, and the independence movement was gaining ground against autonomy. In 1893, an intellectual, José Martí, founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party, whose aim was to achieve independence, and it immediately got support from abroad, especially the United States. The independence movement rapidly increased its social base and had the support of revolutionary leaders such as Máximo Gómez, Antonio Maceo, and Calixto García, who had distinguished themselves in their struggle against the Spanish troops in the Ten Years’ War and had refused to accept the Zanjón agreements.
In 1891, the Spanish government raised tariffs on imported products to the island that did not come from the peninsula (Cánovas Tariff). By then, the main economic client of Cuba was the United States, which acquired almost all of the two Cuban products, sugar and snuff, while the power only allowed Cuba to export products with strong input tariffs. In 1894, the USA acquired 88.1% of Cuban exports but only benefited 32% of its imports, which still came mainly from Spain. U.S. President William McKinley expressed his protest against this situation and threatened to close the doors to the U.S. market for sugar and snuff to Cubans if the Spanish government did not change its tariff policy on the island. This was coupled with the fear of a new uprising for independence and the suspicion that it could count on U.S. support.
The Great Insurrection
In 1879, there was a new outbreak of insurrection against the Spanish presence on the island, which led to the Little War. The rise of the mambises—the name that was given to the Cuban rebels—was defeated the following year for lack of support, lack of weapons, and the superiority of the Spanish army. A few years later, the Grito de Baire of February 24, 1895, began a general uprising. The rebellion began in the east of the island, in Santiago de Cuba, and spread to La Habana. The head of the Spanish government, Cánovas del Castillo, sent an army under General Martínez Campos, who understood that the pacification of the island needed strong military action that should be accompanied by political efforts of reconciliation with the insurgents.
Martínez Campos failed to militarily control the rebellion, and he was replaced by General Valeriano Weyler, who proposed to completely change control methods and to initiate strong repression. To prevent the insurgents from increasing their popularity in the countryside, peasants organized concentrations, which were forced to change their settlement by holding them in certain towns with no possibility of contact with the fighters. Weyler tried very hard for the rebels, applying the maximum penalty to many of them, and civilians, who were victims of famine and epidemics.
Militarily, the war was not favorable to the Spanish soldiers, as it developed in the jungle and against forces that were widespread in the territory, which were concentrated and dispersed quickly. Neither were the Spanish soldiers trained to deal with a war of this kind, nor did the Army have adequate means. The poor supply, lack of supplies, and tropical diseases caused great slaughter among the troops, making the final victory target increasingly difficult to achieve.
In 1897, after the assassination of Cánovas and aware of the failure of the repressive way favored by Weyler, the new Liberal government removed him from office and entrusted the command to General Blanco. It also launched a strategy of reconciliation with the hope of pushing the separatists to agree on a formula to maintain Spanish sovereignty on the island and avoid conflict with the United States. To this end, it decreed the independence of Cuba, universal male suffrage, equal rights between islanders and peninsulars, and tariff autonomy. But the reforms came too late: the independence movement, which had U.S. backing, refused to accept the end of hostilities, which was unilaterally declared by the Spanish government.
Parallel to the Cuban conflict, in 1896, there was a rebellion in the Philippines. The Pacific colony had received little Spanish immigration and had a low military presence, which was reinforced by a large contingent of missionaries from the main religious orders. Spanish economic interests were much lower than in Cuba but were kept for the production of snuff and to be a gateway for trade with Asia.
The independence movement forged in the formation of the Liga Filipina, founded by José Rizal in 1892, and the Katipunan underground organization. Both had the support of a faction of the Spanish-speaking mestizo bourgeoisie and indigenous groups. The insurrection spread through the province of Manila, and General Camilo García Polavieja conducted an enforcement policy, condemning Rizal to death in late 1896. The new Liberal government in 1897 appointed Captain General Fernando Primo de Rivera, who promoted an indirect negotiation with the principal leaders of the uprising, resulting in a temporary pacification of the archipelago.
U.S. Intervention
The United States had set its initial expansion area in the Caribbean region and, to a lesser extent, in the Pacific, where its influence had been felt in Hawaii and Japan. The U.S. interest in Cuba had taken different proposals to purchase the island, which Spain had always rejected. The American commitment to the Cuban cause was evident from 1895, when President McKinley was openly supporting the rebels, who sent weapons by sea.
The opportunity to intervene in the war was given by the incident of the U.S. battleship Maine, which exploded in Havana harbor in April 1898. The U.S. falsely blamed Spanish agents and sent Spain an ultimatum that demanded the withdrawal from Cuba. The Spanish government denied any involvement in the Maine incident and rejected the U.S. ultimatum, threatening to declare war in case of invasion of the island. Spanish political leaders were aware of Spanish military inferiority but considered acceptance of the ultimatum without a struggle humiliating. Thus began the Spanish-American War.
A fleet commanded by Admiral Cervera left for Cuba but was quickly defeated in the Battle of Santiago, where they faced modern ships with rickety ones. The United States also defeated another Spanish fleet in the Philippines in the Battle of Cavite. In December 1898, the Peace of Paris was signed, in which Spain agreed to leave Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, which became U.S. protectorates. The Spanish army backed up and was in poor condition, while many Spaniards were preparing to evacuate the island and repatriate their interests.
Consequences of the Disaster of 1898: A Political and Moral Crisis
Despite the scale of the crisis of 1898 and its symbolic significance, its immediate impact was less than expected. Although the war entailed significant losses in the colony, it was not so in the metropolis, where the economic crisis was much lower. The need to meet the debts incurred by the Cuban war promoted finance reform, carried out by Minister Fernández Villaverde to increase revenue from the increased tax burden.
Nor did the great political crisis that was predicted pass, and the Restoration system survived, ensuring the continuity of the Turno. However, some of the new rulers tried to apply to politics the ideas of regeneration, a highly critical view of the current political system and Spanish culture. The political crisis also stimulated the growth of nationalist movements, especially in the Basque Country and Catalonia, where they denounced the failure of the dynastic parties to develop a renewable and decentralized policy.
Thus, the crisis of 1898 was essentially a moral and ideological crisis, which caused a major psychological impact among the population. The defeat plunged society and the Spanish political class into a state of disappointment and frustration because it meant the destruction of the myth of the Spanish Empire at a time when European powers were building vast colonial empires in Asia and Africa, and the relegation of Spain to a secondary role in the international context. In addition, the foreign press presented Spain as a “dying nation” with a totally ineffective army, a corrupt political system, and incompetent politicians. That vision caught on in much of the Spanish public.
Regeneration
The failure of the revolution of 1868 had left an important mark on progressive intellectuals who felt that they had lost a great opportunity to modernize the country. This was the feeling of a group of intellectuals gathered at the Free Institution of Education, created in 1876 when many professors left the university to afford non-academic freedom. The institution, which had in its ranks intellectuals of the caliber of Francisco Giner de los Ríos and was deeply influenced by Krausism, was a great impetus for the reform of education in Spain.
Some intellectuals trained in the Free Institution of Education felt that Spanish society and politics, too much influenced by Catholic doctrine, did not promote the modernization of culture and the development of science. This trend, which spoke strongly of the regeneration of Spain, eventually became known as regeneration. Its greatest exponent was the Aragonese Joaquín Costa, who was not only a prolific writer but also the creator of social and economic institutions such as the National League of Producers and the inspiration of a political party, the National Union, of popular and highly critical Restoration.
The crisis of 1898 aggravated the critical regeneration, which was very negative towards the history of Spain, denounced the shortcomings of the Spanish collective psychology, and argued that there was a “degeneration” of the Spanish and that precisely the regeneration of the country, burying past glories—in the words of Costa, had to be “sealed with seven seals the tomb of El Cid.” Regenerationists defended the need to improve the situation of the Spanish countryside and raise the educational and cultural development, as reflected in the motto, also of Costa: “school and pantry.” In the 1890s, a renewal of science in Spanish started to occur with the introduction of positivism, advances in medicine, experimental science, and sociology.
Also, a group of writers and thinkers, known as the Generation of 1898, tried to analyze the “problem of Spain” in a very critical and pessimistic way. They thought that after losing the last remnants of the Spanish Empire, it was now time for moral regeneration, social, and cultural development.
The End of an Era
The disaster of 1898 meant the end of the Restoration system, as it was designed by Cánovas, and the emergence of a new generation of politicians, intellectuals, scientists, social activists, and entrepreneurs, who began acting in the new reign of Alfonso XIII. However, the reforms of regeneration that tried to apply the new government after the crisis of 1898 did not carry out the deep reforms announced but merely allowed the system to continue to function with minimal changes.
The military defeat also had consequences in the army, accused by some of the public of taking great responsibility for the disaster. Faced with growing anti-militarism in certain social sectors, some of the soldiers leaned towards more authoritarian and intransigent positions, attributing the defeat to the inefficiency and corruption of politicians. Within the army, a corporate feeling and conviction that the military should have a greater presence and role in political life was taking shape. This military intervention was increasing in the first decades of the 20th century and culminated in the coup of Primo de Rivera in 1923, which opened a seven-year dictatorship, and featuring General Franco in 1936, which provoked a civil war and plunged Spain into a military dictatorship for nearly forty years.