The Spanish-American War: Causes, Consequences, and Cultural Impact
The Disaster of 1898: Causes and Consequences
Since 1898, insurrections in Cuba had been almost continuous, suppressed by military means and political agreements. In 1895, with the cry of Baire—a public statement on the island’s independence—the rebels were joined by the intellectual José Martí. The petty bourgeoisie and the most popular elements of Cuban society participated in the revolt. The Spanish Government sent up to 130,000 soldiers under the command of General Martinez Campos.
The general’s tactics did not work, as neither Sagasta nor Cánovas were willing to grant major concessions to the Cubans, despite the concessions granted after the Peace of Zanjón. Both agreed not to yield an inch on sovereignty: Cuba is Spain. The response was military. The Spanish contingent reached over 300,000 soldiers. General Valeriano Weyler was appointed as the new head of operations.
Two events in early 1897 undermined military domination of the island. First, liberals began to distance themselves from Cánovas’s politics, asking for a more political than military action. Second, U.S. Republicans won the election. The new president, McKinley, favored intervention in the race to replace the Spanish in the domain of the island. After the assassination of Cánovas, Sagasta came to power and tried to solve the problem by political means. To this end, a new constitution for Cuba was drafted, establishing it as an autonomous state within the Spanish crown. In 1898, the new insular government took office, but political tension was unbearable, and conflicts broke out between the Spanish residents, Cuban military, and naval forces. In the battle of Santiago de Cuba, the Spanish fleet surrendered to the power of U.S. ships, and the Spanish Government had no choice but to sue for peace. In the Peace of Paris, Spain lost all its overseas possessions: Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, and the Philippines and the Marianas in the Pacific.
Economic losses were limited, and the Spanish economy recovered quite fast. However, the loss of the colonies was a heavy blow to the exports of Spanish industries, as they had lost important markets and places of production for certain products and raw materials.
Spanish Culture (1875-1898): The Age of Plata
The period between 1875 and 1936 is known as the Age of Plata. The Restoration period was marked by a considerable willingness to work scientifically, an effort of Europeanization, and the predominance of description and observation in the scientific order. Santiago Ramon y Cajal was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
In the field of letters, Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo dedicated his life to the history of ideas, criticism, and the history of Spanish and Spanish-American literature. Literary naturalism was characterized by an ideal observer of reality in the service of social critique of the ruling classes of the Restoration and the discovery of the region and its typical characteristics.
In painting, Joaquin Sorolla is the reference point, aligned with the same aesthetic as naturalist writers. Naturalism encouraged the cultivation of the pure-blooded and the popular. The novel reveals the regional landscape, painting genre pictures, and in music, there is the apotheosis of zarzuela.
In the field of education, the Restoration regime eliminated the most liberal faculty from official centers. Education acquired religious and conservative overtones. A group of academics founded the Free Institution of Education, led by Francisco Giner de los Ríos. These efforts were accompanied by a peripheral nationalist revival of regional languages and literature. In Catalonia, the Renaixença emerged. In Valencia, there was also a revival of Valencian culture. In Galicia, a literary restoration of the Galician language was achieved.
The Generation of ’98 raised the need to regenerate Spanish society. It was a heterogeneous group coalesced around the exaltation of Spanish nationalism and values.