History Questions

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 485 Reversal of Fortune This reversal of the two nations’ positions initially led to a diminishment of the importance of Spanish-American relations. Early in the new century, Americans were fo- cused on events in Asia and the Western Hemisphere, precisely the areas fromwhich Spain had been expelled.

When World War I broke out in 1914, both nations de- clared their neutrality. While Spain’s caution led it to maintain that stance throughout the war, in 1917 the ex- panding interests of the United States drew it into the conﬂict and tentatively into European power politics, thus setting the scene for the next stage in Spanish-American relations.

Just as the American Revolution posed a dilemma for the Spanish, so too did the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 for the Americans. The rebellion of Fran- cisco Franco and his generals against the Spanish repub- lican government was a microcosm of the ideological fer- ment of interwar Europe. Franco received assistance from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, and the Republicans re- ceived assistance fromthe Soviet Union. Most democ- racies, including the United States, observed a formal neutrality that had the effect of dooming the Spanish gov- ernment to defeat.

Franco remained technically neutral throughout World War II, but he favored the Axis when it seemed in command early on and tipped back toward the Allies as the war drew to a close. American policy during the war was to buy Spain’s neutrality by overpaying the Spanish for goods with military signiﬁcance (such as tungsten) in order to keep the Spanish nonbelligerent and the supplies out of German hands.

U.S. policy toward Spain grew harsher with the suc- cess of D-Day in 1944 and the growing likelihood of a German defeat. Citing the role played by the Axis powers in Franco’s rise to power, in early 1945 Franklin Roosevelt declared that the United States could not have normal relations with his government. The United States joined its allies in barring Spain fromthe United Nations and recalled its chiefs of mission from Madrid.

Franco blunted American pressure to yield power to a more democratic regime by appealing to growing con- cern about the Soviet Union. While his quasi-fascist re- gime remained an international pariah, American leaders gradually reached the conclusion that Franco was pref- erable to a potential communist government in Spain.

The United States did not include Spain in either its eco- nomic or military plans for western Europe (the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), but after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, Spain’s potential military value in a European war against the Soviets overrode the Truman administration’s ideo- logical aversion to Franco.

The rehabilitation of Franco culminated in the Pact of Madrid, signed in September 1953. While Spain re- mained outside NATO, the agreement (which gave theUnited States air and naval bases in Spain) effectively al- lied the two nations during the remainder of the Cold War. The death of Franco in November 1975 and the subsequent return to democratic government in Spain re- moved whatever residual cloud remained over Spanish- American relations. Spain’s acceptance into NATO in 1982 and the European Community in 1986 further so- lidiﬁed the normalization of relations. At the close of the twentieth century, Spanish-American relations resembled those of the United States with other European nations and had lost the distinctive quality of years past. BIBLIOGRAPHY Beaulac, Willard L.Franco: Silent Ally in World War II.Carbon- dale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986.

Cortada, James.Two Nations Over Time: Spain and the United States,1775–1977.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978.

Edwards, Jill.Anglo-American Relations and the Franco Question 1945–1955.New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Hayes, Carleton J. H.The United States and Spain: An Interpre- tation.New York: Sheed and Ward, 1951.

Little, Douglas.Malevolent Neutrality: The United States,Great Britain,and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War.Ithaca, N.Y.:

Cornell University Press, 1985.

Rubottom, Richard R., and J. Carter Murphy.Spain and the United States: Since World War II.New York: Praeger, 1984.

Whitaker, Arthur P. Spain and Defense of the West: Ally and Lia- bility.New York: Harper, 1961. Reprint, Westport, Conn.:

Greenwood Press, 1980.

———.The Spanish-American Frontier,1783–1795.Boston and New York: Houghton Mifﬂin, 1927. Reprint, Lincoln:

University of Nebraska Press, 1969. Mark S. Byrnes See alsoSpanish-American War.

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR. The sinking of the battleshipMainein Havana harbor on 15 February 1898 provided a dramaticcasus bellifor the Spanish-American War, but underlying causes included U.S. economic in- terests ($50 million invested in Cuba; $100 million in an- nual trade, mostly sugar) as well as genuine humanitarian concern over long-continued Spanish misrule. Rebellion in Cuba had erupted violently in 1895, and although by 1897 a more liberal Spanish government had adopted a conciliatory attitude, U.S. public opinion, inﬂamed by strident “yellow journalism,” would not be placated by anything short of full independence for Cuba.

TheMainehad been sent to Havana ostensibly on a courtesy visit but actually as protection for American cit- izens. A U.S. Navy court of inquiry concluded on 21 March that the ship had been sunk by an external explo- sion. Madrid agreed to arbitrate the matter but would not promise independence for Cuba. On 11 April, President WilliamMcKinley asked Congress for authority to inter- SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 486 Spanish-American War.U.S. troops line up crisply; contrary to this image, thousands of regular soldiers and volunteers found shortages of weapons and supplies, as well as poor food and sanitation, at the camps where they assembled. Getty Images vene, and, on 25 April, Congress declared that a state of war existed between Spain and the United States.

The North Atlantic Squadron, concentrated at Key West, Florida, was ordered on 22 April to blockade Cuba.

The Spanish home ﬂeet under Adm. Pascual Cervera had sortied fromCadiz on 8 April, and although he had only four cruisers and two destroyers, the approach of this “ar- mada” provoked near panic along the U.S. East Coast.

Spanish troop strength in Cuba totaled 150,000 reg- ulars and forty thousand irregulars and volunteers. The Cuban insurgents numbered perhaps ﬁfty thousand. At the war’s beginning, the strength of the U.S. Regular Army under Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles was only twenty- six thousand. The legality of using the National Guard, numbering something more than 100,000, for expedi- tionary service was questionable. Therefore, authorities resorted to the volunteer systemused in the Mexican- American War and Civil War. The mobilization act of 22 April provided for a wartime army of 125,000 volunteers (later raised to 200,000) and an increase in the regular army to sixty-ﬁve thousand. Thousands of volunteers and recruits converged on ill-prepared southern camps where they found a shortage of weapons, equipment, and sup- plies, and scandalous sanitary conditions and food.

In the Western Paciﬁc, Commo. George Dewey had been alerted by Acting Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to prepare his Asiatic Squadron for operations in the Philippines. On 27 April, Dewey sailed fromHong Kong with four light cruisers, two gunboats, and a reve-nue cutter—and, as a passenger, Emilio Aguinaldo, an ex- iled Filipino insurrectionist. Dewey entered Manila Bay in the early morning hours on 1 May and destroyed the Spanish squadron, but he had insufﬁcient strength to land and capture Manila itself. Until U.S. Army forces could arrive, the Spanish garrison had to be kept occupied by Aguinaldo’s guerrilla operations.

In the Atlantic, Cervera slipped into Santiago on Cuba’s southeast coast. Commo. Winﬁeld Schley took station off Santiago on 28 May and was joined four days later by Rear Adm. William T. Sampson. To support these operations, a marine battalion on 10 June seized nearby Guanta´ namo to serve as an advance base. Sampson, re- luctant to enter the harbor because of mines and land batteries, asked for U.S. Army help. Maj. Gen. William R. Shafter, at Tampa, Florida, received orders on 31 May to embark his V Corps. Despite poor facilities, he had seventeen thousand men, mostly regulars, ready to sail by 14 June and by 20 June was standing outside Santiago.

On 22 June, after a heavy shelling of the beach area, the V Corps began going ashore. It was a confused and vul- nerable landing, but the Spanish did nothing to interfere.

Between Daiquiri and Santiago were the San Juan heights. Shafter’s plan was to send Brig. Gen. Henry W.

Lawton’s division north to seize the village of El Caney and then to attack frontally with Brig. Gen. Jacob F. Kent’s division on the left and Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s dis- mounted cavalry on the right. The attack began at dawn on 1 July. Wheeler, one-time Confederate cavalryman, sent his dismounted troopers, including the black Ninth and Tenth cavalries and the volunteerRough Riders, un- der command of Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, against Kettle Hill. The Spanish withdrew to an inner defense line, and, as the day ended, the Americans had their ridge line but at a cost of seventeen hundred casualties.

Shafter, not anxious to go against the Spanish second line, asked Sampson to come into Santiago Bay and attack the city, but for Sampson there was still the matter of the harbor defenses. He took his ﬂagship eastward on 3 July to meet with Shafter, and while they argued, Cervera in- advertently resolved the impasse by coming out of the port on orders of the Spanish captain general. His greatly inferior squadron was annihilated by Schley, and on 16 July the Spaniards signed terms of unconditional surren- der for the 23,500 troops in and around the city.

At the end of July the VIII Corps, some ﬁfteen thou- sand men (mostly volunteers) under Maj. Gen. Wesley Merritt, had reached the Philippines. En route, the escort cruiserCharlestonhad stopped at Guamand accepted the surrender of the island fromthe Spanish governor, who had not heard of the war. Because of an unrepaired cable, Dewey and Merritt themselves did not hear immediately of the peace protocol, and on 13 August an assault against Manila was made. The Spanish surrendered after token resistance.

The peace treaty, signed in Paris on 10 December 1898, established Cuba as an independent state, ceded SPANISH-A\bERICAN \fAR, NAVY IN 487 Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, and provided for the payment of $20 million to Spain for the Philip- pines. Almost overnight the United States had acquired an overseas empire and, in the eyes of Europe, had be- come a world power. The immediate cost of the war was $250 million and about three thousand American lives, of which only about three hundred were battle deaths. A disgruntled Aguinaldo, expecting independence for the Philippines, declared a provisional republic, which led to thePhilippine Insurrection that lasted until 1902.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cosmas, Graham A.An Army for \bmpire\f The United States Army in the Spanish-American War. Shippensburg, Pa.: \fhite \bane Publishing, 1994.

Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting for American Manhood\f How Gen- der Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine- American Wars. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998.

Linderman, Gerald F. The Mirror of War\f American Society and the Spanish-American War. Ann Arbor: University of \bichi- gan Press, 1974.

\busicant, Ivan. \bmpire by Default\f The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century. New York: Holt, 1998.

Traxel, David. 1898\f The Birth of the American Century. New York: Knopf, 1998. \bdwin H. Simmons / a. g. See also Jingoism; Maine,Sinking of the; Paris, Treaty of (1898); Teller Amendment; Territories of the United States; Yellow Journalism; and vol. 9\fAnti-Imperialist League Platform; A Soldier’s Account of the Spanish- American War.

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, NAVY IN. Shortly before the Spanish-American War , growing American interest in a modern, powerful navy had resulted in in- creased appropriations and a vigorous program of ship construction, especially of battleships and cruisers. The Spanish-American \far (1898) lasted only about ninety days, yet it marked the generally successful combat trial of the then new American navy. Following by eight years the appearance of Alfred Thayer \bahan’s The Inﬂuence of Sea Power upon History, the conﬂict illustrated principles and techniques of war that were sometimes adhered to, sometimes violated.

The main combat areas of the war were Spanish pos- sessions in the Philippines and the Caribbean. In both theaters, American naval ascendancy was ﬁrst established, although by different means, to assure sea control before undertaking amphibious and military operations. On 1 \bay 1898, in the Battle of \banila Bay, which involved secondary cruiser forces in a secondary area, Commodore George Dewey easily defeated an antiquated Spanish