the island to trade with Spain to a great extent, and the Spanish merchants at Barcelona and other points, preferring to have commercial relations with the Spaniards rather than the Cubans, have done much to of mountains varying more or less in height the wealthy class of Cuba. A very high (the highest portion being at the eastern tariff on all goods, except those coming end of the island) which constitutes a back- from Spain, has driven the inhabitants of bone, as it were, and to which upon each of its long sides the remainder of the island seems to be securely anchored. In these mountains are found many minerals, and upon their sides grow in profusion the most valuable hard woods, the railroads using in some instances mahogany for cross-ties. The history of the Spanish people, so far as it refers to their colonial possessions, has never kept step to the music of the march of progress or ever shown any development of interior natural resources. Here, on this favored spot where Spanish feet were planted over four centuries ago, there are no public roads or highways or even country roads; no canals; no telegraphs, except along the line of some of the railroads and the few ; railroads on the island were GENERAL VALERIANO WEYLER, FORMER GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CUBA. bring about this finan cial change in these two classes. This change, combined with economic questions, has been greatly widening the dividing line between the Cubans and Spaniards until it has resulted in the present existing chasm. Enmity, therefore, exists between Spaniards and Cubans, though the latter are descendants of Spaniards themselves. It is a remarkable fact that nearly every person born on the island seems to be at once instilled with a dislike for the Spaniards and their methods, and I know of no instance where chil built by Mr. Lee. Serveral of Consul A English enter- deel prise and capital, and not by Spanish. It has ever Unidos Amo recuerde ។ dren born in Cuba of de ples Spanish FACSIMILE OF GENERAL WEYLER'S AUTOGRAPH, WRITTEN ON A PHOTOGRAPH GIVEN been the policy of the Spaniards to occupy the edges of a country and remain in and closely around the cities and towns which constitute the seaports. THE ENMITY BETWEEN SPANIARDS AND CUBA. Less than a half century ago the Cubans (or Insular Spaniards, as they were called) owned most of the property and wealth of the island; but it has been gradually passing away from them until to-day the Peninsular Spaniards (or the Spaniards born in Spain) have succeeded in securing possession of the commercial business, stores, and commission houses of the cities, so that they are now parents have not participated in this feeling. This be ing true, has made it easier for the Spaniards to deprive the Cubans of all" Home Rule," or participation in the government and its perquisites, until the last feather was added to the great pile which had been accumulating for a long number of years, and has driven the Cubans to attempt once more to throw off the Spanish yoke and seize and hold the reins of their own government. THE SPANISH ARMY IN CUBA. Spain, losing her power by gradual process, has seen for many years that Cuban independence is only a question of time, though the political demands on the party in power in Madrid has made it necessary for the political life of that party to resist in every form every attempt upon the part of the Cubans to secure their liberties, and to resist all attempts of other countries to intervene in the interest of peace, progress, and humanity. Whatever else may be said of Spain and her decadence, the fact stands bravely forth that she has made a magnificent struggle to preserve this rich colonial possession. Over 200,000 soldiers (a greater number than the combined armies of Generals Grant and Lee in the war of 1861-65 in this country) have been transported, at im mense expense, over 3,000 miles from her shoresthe largest number of organized troops that has ever been transported so great a distance from their homes and firesides. These troops have been badly handled, and therefore have not made much of a record in strategy and tactics or for efficient service on the island of Cuba. They were principally located in the coast cities and in the larger interior towns, while the insurrectionists have been holding to a great degree the rest of the island. else may be said about him, has fought this war in the only way he could win it, and never for one moment during the three years of strife has he departed a hair's breadth from the policy first inaugurated. He proposed to combat Spain's purse more than her soldiers; to play a waiting game and exhaust the failing financial resources of Spain. He did not pro pose to fight if it could be avoided, because he could not well afford to lose a man or a cartridge, being dependent for both upon the very uncertain and devious methods of filibusterism. His army, scattered over an island some 800 miles long by an average breadth of sixty miles, if all concentrated upon a single point, would number about 35,000 men; but being entirely devoid of bases of supplies and deficient in transportation and food for men or horses, to concentrate would be to starve, and to fight pitched battles against overwhelming numbers would result in the loss of the battle and the loss of his cause. is a grim, resolute, honest, conscientious, grizzled old veteran, now seventy-five years old, who has thoroughly understood the tactics necessary to employ in order to waste the resources of his enemy and to prolong the war until such time as Spain would abandon the struggle as hopeless, or until it should become manifest to the United States that the contest had degenerated into a hopeless conflict. GENERAL RAMON BLANCO. The inefficiency of the Spanish soldier is due not to a want of personal courage, but because he is not properly drilled, disciplined, or organized into a fighting machine. In Cuba he has to struggle as best he can with but little or no pay-while badly clothed and fed and is sent into the field to stand the sunshine and the storm without giving him proper protection from either. He then becomes an easy captive to climatic causes, and instead of a robust soldier crammed with fire and fight, we find a half-sick, listless man, to whom it is an effort to raise and aim a rifle. GENERAL WEYLER AND HIS POLICY. He General Weyler, the Spanish commander first charged with suppressing the insurrection, seemed to have had an idea that if he could build trochas, or ditches, across the Gomez, the leader of the rebels, whatever island from north to south, and from sea to sea, at one or two points, and have these trochas strongly held by Spanish troops, the connection of the different bodies of insurgents on the island would be severed, and that he could then pen or corral them, and afterwards march his soldiers first into one of these pens and then into another until he had captured or killed all those within who were opposed to the Spanish flag. These trochas are curious in their construction. When the ditches are dug, the dirt is thrown up on one side, while on the other is a barbed wire fence, and every few hundred yards a blockhouse is built capable of holding a few soldiers and generally with two stories-the upper one being occupied by the vidette or sentinel who is posted General Blanco, did but little to suppress the insurrection. He organized columns to move from the cities and operate against the bands of roving insurgents in their vicinity, but the Spaniards have so little idea of modern warfare and of the necessary attributes to mobilize an army, that these columns, after having been out a very few days and exchanged fire with the insurgents, would invariably return to the cities because out of rations or burdened with a few wounded, while the insurgents who had assembled to temporarily check their march would scatter out again and return to their various little camps, with the result, probably, to each side, of only two or three men killed and a few wounded. GENERAL BARTOLOMÉ MASO, PRESIDENT OF THE CUBAN REPUBLIC. to report any advance of his enemy. It can- THE RECONCENTRADO ORDER AND ITS EFFECT. not be said that this method of warfare proved successful, though. It cost large sums It was evident, therefore, that this style of money to construct trochas, and now of guerrilla warfare as practiced by the inthey have been practically abandoned. One light battery of artillery could have opened the way for passage of troops. The insurgents always found many ways of crossing them at night or where these lines ran through swamps, or around by the water at either end. Maceo, it will be remembered, who was supposed to have been shut off in the western end of the province by what is known as the Mariel trocha, found no difficulty in crossing when he desired to go east, though, unfortunately for the Cuban cause, it resulted in his death afterwards. Captain General Weyler, more active in Cuban campaign work than his successor COLONEL ERNESTO FONS STERLING, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA. surgents could be maintained for years because a generous soil, tilled by the peasantry NOTE.-The portraits on this and the next page, of the heads of the Cuban insurgent government, are after photographs taken by a special correspondent of MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE in the winter of 1897-1898. who were in sympathy with insurrection, produced the necessary food. It was then that General Weyler conceived the brilliant idea of destroying the peasant farmers to prevent their giving aid and comfort to the insurrectionists. This he hoped to effect by the issuing of his famous "reconcentrado order," whose terms compelled the old men, women and children to leave their homes and come within the THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR OF THE CUBAN REPUBLIC AND HIS STAFF. nearest Spanish fortified lines, pains being quence, over 200,000 (principally women taken after they were driven from their little farms to burn their houses, tear up their plant beds, and drive off and confiscate the few cattle, hogs and chickens that they were obliged to leave. and children and non-combatants) died from starvation and starvation alone. History presents nowhere such an appalling record; nor do the military annals anywhere furnish such a horrible spectacle, the result of a The United States was naturally shocked military order, based upon a supposed miliat the brutality of this order and saw, with tary necessity. MAXIMO GOMEZ, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE CUBAN INSURGENTS. From a pencil drawing made from life by Sylvester Scovel in December, 1897. Copyright, 1898,. by The International Society. not propose to make war with velvet paws, but to achieve his purpose of putting down the insurrection if he had to wade through, up to the visor of his helmet, the blood of every Cuban-man, woman, andchild -on the island. And yet I found him in official intercourse affable, pleasant, and agreeable. He was always polite and cour teous to me, and told me more than once that he wished I would remain in my position there as Consul General as long as he did as Governor and Captain General. He is small in stature, with a long face and square chin, wearing side whiskers and a mustache; quick and nervous in his manner and gait, and decided in his opinions. He was loved by some, and hated and feared by others. Whatever may have been his military qualifications, his warfare in Cuba did not demonstrate soldierly ability, because with an army of effectives of at least 150,000 men he failed to suppress an insurrection whose total fighting force did not number 40,000 men. He told me one day he would like to visit the United States, to which I replied that I thought he would enjoy seeing the new republic with its wonderful history; but he shook his head, saying that he could never go, because the people of the United States would kill him, and that they were already calling him in the newspapers, "The Butcher Weyler." AN INSURGENT CAMP. THESE MEN ARE PART OF THE REGIMENT NAMED IN HONOR OF GENERAL GOMEZ'S SON PANCHITO, WHO WAS KILLED BY THE SPANIARDS. |