The Spanish-American War
Causes, Mysteries, Myths and Realities
By José Enrique Rovira Murillo and José María Manrique García
Taken ftom: http://articulosforoarbil.blogspot.com/2013/12/la-guerra-del-98-causas-misterios-mitos.html
Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope
General Index:
1st Part: The eve of the Spanish American War of 1898
- Situation of the overseas colonies in 1897
- The insatiable Yankee expansionism ... and its power
- Cánovas' and other assassinations
- The Maine
- The armies confronted in the Splendid Little War
1st Part: The eve of the Spanish American War of 1898
1. Situation of the overseas colonies in 1897
The Restoration Regime spans the period of Spanish history between the end of the First Republic in 1874 and Miguel Primo de Rivera's coup d'etat of 1923. This long period of Parliamentary Monarchy is characterized by an alternation in power of two political parties, the Conservative and the Liberal. Alternation was attained in an apparently democratic way, but in reality the elections were directed so as to make the party which was most convenient for the Crown at that moment to win: the Crown even got to name first ministers without regard to the party to which they belonged being a minority in Congress. During the Regency of María Cristina de Habsburgo-Lorena, the widow of Alfonso XII and mother of child King Alfonso XIII, a certain inclination towards the liberals could be perceived. Up until 1897, power was monopolized by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, president of the Conservative Party, and Práxedis Mateo Sagasta, of the Liberal Party. The most palpable policy difference between the two parties regarded the overseas colonies and Morocco.In theory, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines were a part of Spain, but in practice, their inhabitants enjoyed lesser rights than those of the metropolis. In Cuba, slavery had existed, especially during the reign of the House of Bourbon, up until 1886, even though the Moret Law (1870) had suppressed it; in Puerto Rico. it lived on until 1873, and in Cuba until the above mentioned year; abolition of slavery had raised in the Courts of Cadiz (1811) threats from the Cuban representatives, both Creole and Peninsular, of seceding from Spain and requesting annexation to the United States. Most Cubans wished not to secede, but to achieve autonomy and equality.
With respect to the United States, it is worth noting that, since their birth, as will be seen below, they expanded at the expense of Spain and Mexico, and that their fixation on annexing Cuba and Puerto Rico had started even before their independence from England. These attempts, worthy of a separate study, were made both by force ― by indirect aggression (fostering separatism and wars) ― and through purchase offers.
Liberals in Spain always aimed to grant wide autonomy to the colonies, whereas the Conservatives' policy was "a strong arm with the separatists", in their conviction that autonomies would derive into concessions of independence.
Sketched in this rough manner the Spanish political panorama at the end of the century, we reach the crucial year of 1898, from which point the subsequent disaster takes off. Violent revolts broke out that year in Cuba, the Philippines and Morocco, and they took place during the mandate of the Liberal Party.
Morocco had had undergone sporadic breakouts of violence since 1891, and in Cuba, always lined up in the gun-sight of the United States, a long war had ended in 1878, but the secessionist leaders were still alive and had organized again.
We have a different situation in the Philippine uprising. The Philippine Archipelago has two large areas, one of them, Christianized and Hispanicized, comprising the Island of Luzon and the Vizaya Archipelago; the other one in which the Spanish presence was military and localized, was quasi independent; it comprised the island of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. The Hispanicized region had never had any attempts of subversion; on the contrary, it expected Spain to defend it against the continued and bloody incursions of Moorish pirates. The Muslim region was always a field of action for the Spanish Army. The navy concentrated itself in the Sulu Archipelago while the land army did so in Mindanao. In 1890, Captain General Valeriano Wyler occupied effectively one fourth of the Island of Mindanao. In 1893, Weyler, who had been named by Cánovas, was replaced by Captain General Ramón Blanco y Erenas, a military of the same thinking as Sagasta. Let's leave the Philippines for a moment, and we leave her in a period in which Spain is expanding into territories in the archipelago where it had never planted its flag. The zone is more pacified than ever, and the sultans of Mindanao and the Sulus accept Spain's nominal sovereignty.
Let us talk of Sagasta, president of the liberal party, and named prime minister of government since he had "won the election". He had participated, along with Prim, in the triumph of "the Glorious" masonic revolution if there ever was one. In 1980, Sagasta was the Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Spain, the main masonic lodge in our country, position from which he resigned because it might hurt his political career. He resigned from being the Grand Master; he did not resign from being a mason. It was then not strange that a mason would rule the destiny of Spain, since some years earlier, General Juan Prim y Prats had made a coup d'etat and assumed the government responsibilities in spite of being a declared mason (casually, his code name was 'brother Washington'). One of the first measures taken by Sagasta upon assuming power was, as we have said, to dismiss Weyler as Captain General, and name General Blanco, who was also a mason, and his code name was 'brother Barcelona' [i].
From the time Lieutenant General Blanco assumed the charge of Captain General of the Philippines in 1893, he was criticized by the ecclesiastic orders, which were practically in charge of 'government', for courting with the masonic lodges of Luzon; the new governor reacted accusing them of being retrograde. Those lodges were similar to the ones in Spain, in that, in theory, they pursued their aims by pacific means, and in one of them the 'perfect master' José Rizal, a famous Philippine physician and poet, was an active member. Their objective was to attain an ample autonomy for the Philippines, since, up to that time, no independentist restlessness had taken place in Luzon. But one of these masonic lodges, named El Katipunán, began radicalizing itself; its Grand Master was murdered by his 'brothers', and Emilio Aguinaldo attained power and planned a general insurrection in Luzon. The monks kept on showing up at the Santa Potenciana Palace, warning that a coordinated revolt in the entire island was approaching, but General Blanco kept on dismissing them without paying attention, and even one of the monks was detained for spreading destabilizing intrigues. In 1895, the insurrection broke out, and caught fire with so much strength in the entire island of Luzon, that the army had to barricade itself in 'Intramuros' the walled citadel of Manila, which remained intact until the Yankees demolished it in the Second World War.
The events at Luzon and another insurrection which had taken place in the East of Cuba, made the Government of the Unión Liberal fall, Cánovas then assuming power. He, in his hard line, named Captains General the two best generals with which Spain counted at the time, Weyler for Cuba and Polavieja for the Philippines.
Camilo García de Polavieja arrived in Luzon in 1896, disembarked at 'Intramuros' and within six months had practically ended the insurrection. Unfortunately, the monks pointed out to him that the revolt had come from the masonic lodges, for which reason he intended to give them a lesson, and had a number of masons shot, among them Rizal, a good and innocent man. Aguinaldo took Rizal as a martyr of his revolution. Polavieja had caused an irreparable fissure between the Tagalog and the 'Castilian' people in so evident a manner that he was dismissed by the conservative cabinet itself. Too late, international masonry had already decreed that the Philippines was to become independent to punish Spain.
While these events took place, far away, in Cuba, General Weyler had defeated the insurgents , the 'mambises', and had pacified the Western half of Cuba. All the mambises leaders were Freemasons, and during the war, two 'masters' had died, José Martí and Antonio Maceo. The international lodges, who looked after their 'brothers', condemned Spain to lose all of its colonies.
In August 1897, Antonio Cánovas suffered a deadly attempt on his life, and the Regent resolved the crisis by carrying out the rotation of the parties, naming Sagasta Prime Minister again. The new Prime Minister named his cabinet's strong man, Segismundo Moret, a declared 33rd degree mason, for the Overseas Ministry. Moret immediately dismissed Weyler, and in his place named none other than Lieutenant General Ramón Blanco.
Cuba at that time was not fully pacified; almost one half of it continued to be up in arms, for which reason it seems to have been an absurd — or symbolic — decision to have said general end the Cuban War, commanding an army of 200,000 men. This, knowing full well what had happened the last time Blanco had replaced Weyler.
In the Philippines, the Captain General was Fernando Primo de Rivera — the uncle of Miguel, the future dictator — a general named by Cánovas and presently accepted by Sagasta, but the Liberal Government sent a new general of division to occupy the post of Army Chief of Staff in the Philippines. A man who had had a lightning-fast career in the Army and that, oddly enough, had been transferred from the Marine Infantry to the Army Staff. In his youth, being commander, he had been aide de camp to the dictator General Juan Prim, that military who boasted of being a mason, he was General Celestino Fernández Tejeiro, an obscure man from a symbolic viewpoint, who upon arriving in the Philippines hurried up to negotiate with Aguinaldo, with whom he signed the confused Biac-Na-Bato Pact. Under this treaty, Spain was required to pay 800,000 pesetas to the leaders of the Katipunán, so that they could exile themselves in Hong-Kong, even when Primo de Rivera had them encircled in the mountains of Bac-Na-Bato.
Similarly, General Blanco arrived in Cuba with the exclusive commitment of negotiating with the mambises; to the point that, having he taken command on December 26, 1897, there is official evidence that his conversations with Máximo Gómez — a mambi leader and also a mason — began on January 11, less than 20 days after his taking command.
It is evident that the Liberal Party had a plan for the colonies, which excluded war. Sagasta was a radical pacifist, to the point of having taken the symbolic name 'Paz' (Peace). This plan became evident not only by the quick negotiations with the insurgents, but also by moving the most resolute generals away from the colonies; that is, those who had stood out in the preceding wars, even when, they having no place as Captains General under the new reconciliation plan, could have stayed in warring territories as soldiers. We refer to Weyler, Polavieja, Lachambre and Andrés González Muñoz. Separate mention deserves the latter, a lieutenant general who had been born in Santiago de Cuba, and who had been Maceo's nemesis and Weyler's right hand. Since sending González Muñoz home meant sending him to Santiago de Cuba, he was appointed Captain General of Puerto Rico, and died mysteriously the same day that he arrived in the Lesser Antilles.
Strange things were happening, it seemed to be a perfect script drawn by some obscure hand... who had decreed that Spain lose its colonies, and at least the national lodges had accepted not to fight for them, but nobody, at least formally, had decreed that the Spanish colonies fall in Yankee hands. At that moment, something unexpected took place: the 'Maine' exploded in Havana.
2. The insatiable Yankee expansionism... and its power.
To understand the Cuban War we have to place ourselves in the situation, and recall the circumstances surrounding the neighbor to the North of the island.The United States, first colony to become independent from its metropolis [ii] and the first nation organized under distinctly capitalist principles, followed the steps of England, which had always ambitioned the Spanish Empire and contributed resolutely to ruin it. It can be considered that the first clear and precise pronouncement to that effect was the plan of that Puritan, regicide, and resettler of Jews in England, Oliver Cromwell; plan named Western Design (1655), which took concrete form in an expedition to conquer the Hispaniola, Cuba and other Caribbean islands, to then pass on to the Continent and turn Spanish America into an English one; he conquered only Jamaica and, in some way, British Honduras (Belize, Guatemala). In the sphere of this pursuit, we must recall that the English occupied Guantanamo in 1741, and intended, unsuccessfully, to conquer Santiago de Cuba. But they did occupy Havana between 1762 and 1763, supported by men from Virginia and New England; and Manila between 1762 and 1764. They also disembarked in Puerto Rico in 1797, even though they were unable to take San Juan.
When the thirteen English Colonies in North America proclaimed their independence in 1776, they spanned hardly some 800,000 square kilometers, but by the end of the nineteenth century, they had grown to some 9,700,000 square kilometers.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the fathers of the American Nation, even before its independence, recommended taking Cuba and Mexico, both located at the mouth of the Mississippi, as a part of the future nation he had in mind.
In 1783, seven years after the Declaration of Independence, attained with the significant aid of Spain, let's not forget, even without the 13 colonies having yet become a federal political state, John Adams (later its second president, and presumably a Jew) advocated the annexation of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Facing such situation, the Count of Arana proposed to King Carlos III, transforming the American Viceroyships, with the exclusion of Cuba and Puerto Rico, into three kingdoms, with Spanish infantes at their head, taking the King of Spain the title of Emperor.
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson (3rd president, between 1801 and 1809, presumably a Jew and a mason, who along with Adams, his compatriots called them "Moses and Aaron") wrote: "our confederation should be considered a nest from which all of America, of the North and of the South, has to be populated... My fear is that Spain be too weak to keep its dominance over them before our population has progressed enough to gain dominion over them, inch by inch". And in 1801: "... despite our present interests holding us within our limits, it is impossible not to look beyond, to those distant times when our fast multiplication will expand us beyond those limits, and will cover not only all of the North but also all of the South of this continent, with people speaking the same language, governed in a similar way, and with similar laws".
In 1803, the USA purchased Louisiana from France. Napoleon had forced Spain to sell it back to France by the Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800 (it had been Spanish since 1762 by virtue of the Treaty of Fontainebleau; France had obligated itself to offer it to Spain before selling it to any third country, matter which our 'ally' never honored.)
In 1805, President Jefferson notified the Minister of Great Britain in Washington, that, in case of a war with Spain, they would take Cuba. Jefferson took advantage of our War of Independence to, after unsuccessful purchase attempts and considering Western Florida (between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers, and parallel 31) a part of Louisiana, invaded it without any previous war declaration. Annexation would be completed with the support of the separatists in the viceroyships.
Luis de Onís, plenipotentiary minister of Spain in the US, wrote to the Viceroy of the New Spain in April 1812: "...every day, the ambitious ideas of this Republic keep growing, and its hostile pursuits against Spain are confirmed... this government has proposed itself no less than fixing its limits at the mouth of the Rio Grande del Norte or Bravo, following its course up to the Pacific ocean, taking consequently the provinces of Texas, Nuevo Santander, Coahuila, Nuevo México, and part of the provinces of Nueva Vizcaya and Sonora. To any sane person this project may sound to be a delirium, but it is not less sure that the project exists, and that a map of these provinces has been expressly made by order of the government, including, within those limits, also the Island of Cuba, as a natural part of this Republic." Onis also wrote that "... The United States have formulated their plan with wise and mature reflection, they follow it with impassivity, and, along with England, regardless of who their rulers may be, do not alter it one iota."
In 1819, the USA purchased Florida from Spain for five million dollars (Adams-Onis Treaty), Florida (Eastern and Western) had been English between 1763 and 1783 (Treaties of Paris of those years); by virtue of the Treaty of San Lorenzo of 1795, Spain ceded the territory East of the Mississippi, between parallels 31° and 32° 22'; during the war of 1812-1814 between the USA and England (partly because of the intention of conquering Canada) and being Spain absorbed in the War of Independence, North Americans invaded the Floridas in persecution of Indians, and to deny them to the British; after an invasion of Anglo Saxon colonists, the North Americans occupied the territory between the Mississippi and Pensacola in 1810; then again in 1816 and 1818, menacing to annex them and to invade Cuba; the excuse had been, aside from the supposed attacks of the Hispanicized Seminole Indians, the fugitive negro slaves.
And in this context, Cuban trade with the US opened up in 1818. Later, facing the competence of beet sugar from Europe, the US will become the purchaser of the greatest portion of Cuban production, getting to become its economic metropolis,
In 1822, the United States became the first nation to recognize the new Hispanic American nations recently turned independent thanks to their assistance and to that of England. Almost all of the independentist leaders were Freemasons and, generally, of Anglo Saxon obedience.
John Quincy Adams (eldest child of President John Adams, diplomat, sixth president of the United States from 1825 to 1829, and at that time Secretary of State), formulated the "ripe fruit" thesis in 1823, according to which Cuba and Puerto Rico, on account of their geographical proximity and due to "political gravitation", would end up in the hands of the US. The famous phrase "America for the Americans" was uttered by Quincy Adams in 1823, although attributed to James Monroe (a Freemason, 5th president, from 1817 to 1825). They both were the fathers of the 'Monroe Doctrine', which was imbued in the thinking of the ruling class in the United States. Monroe would say that "to add Cuba is what the United States needs for the American Nation to attain the greatest degree of interest... I had always seen it as the most interesting acquisition for our states system."
In 1839, Fort Ross (California) was purchased from Russia, and Consul Nicolas Trist attempted to purchase Cuba.
In 1841, the aforementioned John Quincy Adams defended the black slaves who had mutinied on the Amistad ship murdering its crew, reaching port in the US, and managed to have them considered free men and not deported to Cuba, on grounds that the US had forbidden international slave trade even though it was allowed within their borders.
A new attempt to purchase Cuba for 50 million failed. In face of the negative, the Cuban Council in New York was founded
In 1844 - 45 Texas (an independent republic since 1836) was annexed
The old and diffuse notion of the "Manifest Destiny", a development of the Monroe Doctrine, appeared defined as such in 1845, and embodies the "God given" right of the Americans to spread at least their political institutions and trade throughout the American continent.
In 1872, John Gast painted his famous American Progress picture.
Between 1876 and 1890, the rest of the Indian nations are annihilated: Sioux, Blackfeet, Apaches, Comanches, Ute, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Crow, etc. and Montana, Dakota and Oregon are annexed.
In 1846, the Oregon territory (current states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho) is acquired from England
An editorial in the New York daily The Sun, of July 23, 1847, read: "Cuba has to be ours! ,,, Give us Cuba and our possessions will be complete." In 1847 - 48 other Yankee attempts to purchase Cuba take place.
In 1848, after the Mexican War, Mexico loses approximately one half of its territory. President Polk, a mason, proposes Spain to sell Cuba to the US for 100 million dollars.
General Narciso López, a traitor and a Freemason, designer of the independentist flag, invaded Cuba from the United States in 1850 and 1851, he died before a firing squad. Practically all of the Cuban and Philippine independentist leaders were Freemasons.
In 1853, Gadsden purchased la Mesilla Territory (South of the Gila river) from Mexico. Commodore Perry (1852 - 54) forced Japan to open its borders to trade.
In 1854, several North American diplomats drafted a number of recommendations on foreign policy, among which was the acquisition of Cuba and Puerto Rico by means of purchase (between 100 and 130 million) or their conquest by force in case of rejection; the offer was repeated in 1857 - 58 and 1861 (presidents Pierce and Buchanan). In consequence, John A. Quitman, governor of Mississippi, offered 120 million to the Spanish Government.
In 1867, the USA purchased Alaska from Russia.
In 1869, the War of Secession having ended, and in Cuba having begun the Ten Year War or Cepeda insurrection (1868 Grito de Yara / La Gloriosa - 1878), the first independist one, President Grant (1868 - 1877) proposed a new purchase, Grant intended to annex also the Dominican Republic.
General Prim (President of the Council of Ministers 1869 - 70 and a Freemason) proposed to the USA and/or the USA proposed to him (through Sickles, ambassador in Madrid, authorized by Grant), the concession of Cuban independence in exchange for an indemnification, guaranteed by the United States, which would be paid by the Cubans, in a maneuver to be whitewashed with a referendum, after the pacification of the island and the amnesty of the independentists. Before his assassination, he freed the separatist leaders who had been submitted to a War Council, and sent Nicolás Azcárate and Miguel Jorro to Washington to negotiate the terms. The debt of the province was of some 400 million dollars. This attitude is consistent with the proposal he made to England that same year through ambassador A.H. Layard, of swapping Gibraltar for Ceuta.
On October 31, 1873, the corvette Tornado captured the American pirate ship Virginius, which carried arms, 103 Cubans and 52 Americans or Englishmen. 53 of them died in Santiago before a firing squad, including some Americans and Englishmen. This incident demonstrated that the Cuban independentists counted with the effective undercover support of the US government, and the connivance of the British; the main expeditions of contraband ships proceeding from Anglo-saxon ports had been some thirty, at least, through 1875.
1873-1874 First Spanish Republic
1879-1880 The Splendid Little War
In 1890, admiral and famous strategist Alfred T. Mahan, then Secretary of the Navy, asked to create naval bases, preferably in Cuba and Puerto Rico. That same year, the USA threatened with ceasing to buy sugar; in 1891 the USA purchased from Cuba (situated only 90 miles away from Florida, and destination of Yankee investments for 50 million dollars) 95% of its sugar and 87% of its exports (against almost 40% of the American ones) and a reciprocity trade treaty was signed between Spain and the USA. As we have said, Spain had ceased to be the "economic metropolis" of Cuba. Since 1885, the USA exceeded England in manufacturing production, and by the end of the century, it consumed a greater amount of energy than Germany, France, Austro-Hungary, Russia, Japan and Italy combined. In 1890, the US Army was inferior to the Bulgarian army, and its Navy was much inferior to the Italian navy. In summary, the USA had become the first economic power of the world and was situated to the side of Cuba, while Spain was far away from Cuba and very far away from the Philippines (twice the distance separating the Archipelago from the US). But as Dominique Soucy wrote, [iii] there still was one more 'weapon', it was no secret by then. that the US governments had used masonry in their country as one more instrument in their colonial policy in Cuba... and that Cuban Freemasons were fully integrated in the sphere of US masonry", to which it should be added that British masonry was doing likewise with a great portion of the Spanish one [iv]
1893 - 98 Annexation of Hawaii
1895 - 1898: Grito de Baird and Cuban War. Curiously, a week after the sinking of the Maine and without awaiting an investigation of the causes, President William McKinley, a Freemason, made a new purchase offer (300 million) twice the amount offered by Grant to Prim in 1869.
As colophon, let us recall that the American interventionist excuse was to favor Cuban liberty, which became embodied, after two years of military occupation, in a "controlled Republic" in which they imposed the government of Tomás Estrada Palma, and the "Platt Amendment" by which the US reserved the right to intervene in Cuba in case of it becoming necessary; in 1903, Cuba leased Guantanamo (some 182 Km2) to the US for no fixed term. That same year, the American annexation of the Panama Canal Zone took place.
From 1906 to 1909, Cuba was formally intervened by the US. As regards the Philippines, the US converted them into a colony, arguing that "the Philippinos are incapable of self-governing... and needed to be Christianized", in spite of it having been a country with a Catholic majority for centuries; up until 1946 they did not grant them independence. Not only the independentist leaders had been masons, also three of the five presidents that Cuba had through 1929 were masons.
3. Cánovas' and other assassinations
Spain at the end of the nineteenth century was still a world power, capable of "projecting" to Cuba, to end the "War of 95", an expeditionary army of 212,717 soldiers [v] between March of 1895 and January of 1897, with an expenditure of one billion pesetas; Cánovas had, supposedly, promised to send to Cuba "to the last man and to the last peseta". General Weyler, with this army and employing realistic and efficacious tactics (the "total war" was declared by the mambises), fully dominated the insurrection in the Western half of the island, and was about to do the same with the Eastern half when the "timely" assassination of Cánovas (1897) and the consequent change of government, brought together his immediate dismissal.The main Spanish weakness vis a vis the United States and the mambises was internal: In 1897, El Imparcial, the Liberal newspaper, criticized Weyler strongly, and the Republicans organized a plot, supporting themselves on the sergeants of several garrisons, at the same time that the socialist leader, Pablo Iglesias, openly opposed the war. Additionally, masonry flourished in Spain, with the consequent interference that this international secret society could and did induce on its Spanish members; let us recall that masonic had been the periods of the Constitutional triennium from 1820 to 1823, the Revolutionary sexenium of 1868 - 1874, with the reign of the mason Amadeo I (1871 - 1873) and the, masons as well, Presidents of Government Juan Prim y Prats (1869 - 1870), Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla (1871 and 1872) and Práxedis Mateo Sagasta (1871 and 1874), then the disastrous and tragic First Republic of 1873, and the presidential mandates of Práxedis Mateo Sagasta (1874, 1881-1883, 1892-1895; he was a 33rd degree mason and Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Spain between 1876 and 1881), not to talk of the suspicions about Alfonso XII (in 1875 he had been accepted by the masons with conditions; he had been a cadet at the British Academy of Sandhurst and his widow was dubbed "masona" by the Carlists).
The period between the Revolution of 1868 (The Gloriosa or Septembrina, which dethroned Isabel II) and the Disaster of 98 was, according to the masons themselves, the golden era of Spanish masonry, given that in those 30 years, when it was not prohibited, it formed more than 2,000 lodges (200 in Cuba, against a little more than 170 in Madrid, a like amount in Barcelona and 90 in Puerto Rico) and masonic organizations with no less than 80,000 members, among which predominated government employees, office holders, and military and navy men [vii]. But aside from the "Hispanist" obediences, others existed. In the International Masonic Congress in Lausanne of September 1875, in which the Cuban Consejo Supremo de Colón was present, but Spanish masonry was not, (the Gran Logia de Colón had been born with a letter of Dispensation from the Grand Lodge of South Carolina), it was approved that the authority over Cuba and Puerto Rico belonged to the Supremo Consejo de Colón and not to any Spanish obedience; this means that Cuba was masonically independent before being politically so. [viii] Cuban masonry was of majoritarian Yankee affiliation; the Grand Lodges of the United States, especially those of Pennsylvania and Louisiana, formed the first lodges in Cuba, after an ephemerous British action; implementation of Spanish Peninsular freemasonry occurred later. In Cuba, as in the Philippines, the independentists were either masons or belonged to clubs associated with freemasonry, which acted in favor of North American interests. [ix]
We should try to understand in this context the assassination of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, President of the Council of Ministers, on August 8, 1897. The assassin, Michel Angiolillo, 26 years old, was an anarchist with a justice and police record in Italy and in Spain, regardless of which he entered Spain comfortably again, with efficacious false documentation. After passing through Madrid, he left supposedly to San Sebastián, and then to the Santa Águeda resort (Mondragón, three kilometers away from Vergara, Guipúzcoa). He checked in as Emilio Einaldi, bookkeeper and correspondent of the Italian newspaper "Il Popolo" of Naples; four days before Cánovas arrived there back from San Sebastián, where he had dealt business with the Queen Regent. With no difficulty, the anarchist made three revolver shots on the President while the latter, at one in the afternoon, after having gone to Mass in the town, was reading the newspaper at the entrance of the establishment, in the gallery leading to the dining room; the three shots were inescapably fatal, another sign of preparation.
Afterwards, he practically gave himself in with no resistance; yes, after facing and serenely responding to the words of the livid and shaken wife of the victim, the first one to arrive at the site of the crime, despite her having been on the first floor, talking with a friend of hers, when the first shot was heard; she got there before any of the twenty-five civil guards and nine secret police agents of the Presidential escort. That Italian of strange behavior, the only unknown person in all the establishment, had not arisen the suspicions of those policemen; they were not tried for their inefficiency. All indicates that the criminal investigation process had no other interest than the quick sentencing and execution of the criminal, since the possible clues were hardly investigated; in just twelve days the case was closed with the execution of the assassin.
Angiolillo had arrived in Barcelona towards the end of 1895, fleeing Italian justice, after having spent some time in Marseille. In Barcelona and with a false passport with the name of José Santo, he worked in the print shop of the anarchist review "Ciencia Social". He returned to Marseille after the attack against the Corpus procession in the Barcelonian alley Arenas de Cambio on June 7, 1896, which took twelve lives (including four children) and some 35 wounded; the motive of the attack was supposedly linked to the Cuban War of 1895, and to the repression of the quarrels that were being promoted on occasion of the embarkation of troops destinated there. He was thrown out of France in October 1896, in face of the Spanish accusation of having participated in the attack, and on suspicion of being plotting another one against the Kaiser and the King of Italy on his trip to this nation, taking refuge in Brussels to pass finally to London.
On April 6, 1986, the Comitato Centrale per la Libertá de Cuba was founded by members of the Republican, Radical and Socialist parties, which got to send volunteers to fight in Cuba. According to some libertarian website, Angiolillo passed through Naples in 1897, participating in a supposed "anarchist assembly" in which volunteers for the assassination were solicited to take revenge for the fire squad executions at Montjuich. The fact is that, in London, Angiolillo made contact, at least, with the very important anarchist nucleus installed there (with the famous Malatesta and other leaders), as well as with the very active Antillean revolutionary members. The Italian, moreover, before arriving in Spain passed, by way of Lisbon! at least one week in Paris, where he visited Betances, introduced by an Italian, in the seat of his "official representation", on Rue Chateaudun N°6 bis. Betances persuaded Angiolillo of his intention of murdering a member of the Royal Family, recommending Cánovas as a victim but refusing to collaborate if not (though Cánovas was not ruling when "the Corpus bomb" incident and its subsequent trial). Betances, aside from providing him with a false identity, gave the anarchist between 500 and 1,000 francs; the anarchist also received money from anarchist Malato, from journalist Henry de Rochefort and from Antillean anarchist Fernando Tárrida del Mármol. [x]
Puerto Rican physician Betances was, since April 1896, "Diplomatic Agent of the Cuban Republic in Arms" in Paris, and contributed 200 francs to said committee, which got to send Italian volunteers to fight in Cuba. Betances answered to the Junta Cubana en Nueva York, presided by Freemason Tomás Estrada Palma.
Arrived in Madrid, again via London and Lisbon, Angiolillo got an interview with the Republican José Nakens, who had also taken part in the attack against Alfonso XIII in 1905. Nakens wrote that, after having the Italian left Madrid, an "enigmatic personage" gave him an envelope for Angiolillo, envelope which he destroyed once he learned of the success of the assassination.
Angiolillo, once he was taken in custody at Santa Águeda, said his motive was taking revenge for the five killed before a firing squad in Montjuich on May 6, 1897. But it is clear that the assassination had further explanations. Pio Moa has summarized part of the plot perfectly: "Cánovas died assassinated by an Italian anarchist behind whose hand, it has always been suspected, acted Cuban independentism and Freemasonry [...] Nakens, Betances and Morral, and probably Angiolillo too, coincided in their masonic membership," [xi] And as soon as it happened, the New York Times wrote: "The Cubans will, at last! see their dreams of liberty realized, because now, without Cánovas, the war between the United States and Spain is inevitable"
For the majority of the Spaniards of 1898, there were clear and well defined culprits: the Freemasons. The proof is that, after that year, Spanish freemasonry practically disintegrated: lodge membership declined to the point of putting the secret society at the brink of starvation, situation from which it took them two decades to recover. Freemason Sánchez Ferré has estimated that, between 1900 and 1939, Spanish lodges and similar organizations never reached 300 in number, nor Freemasons 5,000. [xiii]
Ricardo de la Cierva has declared categorically: "The loss of Hispanic America was consummated in 1898 with that of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, through a huge masonic conspiracy, carried out in Spain and Overseas, which some delusional historians are obstinate in arbitrarily denying." [xiii] And Ferrari Billoch wrote: "Several masonic Spanish generals ... got to hand over the Great Antille to the Yankee army ... fulfilling the resolutions of universal freemasonry, which had decreed Spain's loss of Cuba in punishment for its tenacity." [xiv]
The death of Cánovas, aside from signifying the Disaster of 1998, was the end of the Bourbon Restoration and of the Conservative Party, even though the system continued until the similar assassinations of José Canalejas and Eduardo Dato.
And talking about assassinations, modern investigations confirm the fact that Prim was the victim of a masonic conspiracy in spite of him being a mason.[xvi] But the assassination that bears the greatest similitude to the one treated herein, is that of Admiral Carrero Blanco, when President of Government who had also just gone to mass, and who was also entirely unprotected by the information and security services (even blaming him for the ease with which the attack was carried out) and, again, with the United States seeking a territory, the Spanish Sahara, which they coveted (for Morocco) and, of course, also behind a process of "political normalization" for Spain, designed to their taste.
4. The Maine
The USS Maine was a 7,000 ton United States cruiser, which for the Navy was antiquated (about 10 years old) but not so much for the Spanish Armada, since its features were similar to the 'Vizcaya' class cruisers, then the best ships of our fleet. On January 25 1898 it anchored at the Port of Havana, and exploded on February 15, causing between 255 and 266 fatal victims among the crew (according to sources). This event sparked off the United States declaration of war against Spain, Up to here the historical events; now it calls for posing three questions:- Who sent it there and what for?
- Who made it explode?
- Who benefited from the event?
The answer to the first and third questions is, without doubt, the Jingoes. The most probable answer to the second question is — as we shall try to demonstrate —: the Jingoes.
Jingo is the term used to designate those Americans who aim to have a European style empire, itself understood as the exalted a nationalism favoring a violent expansion at the expense of other nations. The term had been born in England. It refers to businessmen, military and politicians who promote imperialism; all of them members of the Republican Party. Traditionally, the Republicans have favored imperialism in the Government of the United States, while the Democrats have defended the values of liberty of the peoples. This duality forms the essence itself of American mentality, the ones cannot exist without the others. If the Republicans were the ones who always governed, they would be a powerful but hated nation. If it were the Democrats the ones who always governed, the United States would lead the rights of the peoples from a position of weakness. This may seem to be a simplistic proposition, although, seen from the inside, it is more complex: a Republican government which produces wealth is followed by a Democratic one which neither returns the territories nor revives the dead, but puts a nice face and says "it wasn't me". Every eight years, American electors redeem themselves of the ravages done by the Republican government, without which their nation would not be so powerful. Change everything so that everything stays the same.
This process became acute in 1861, during the times preceding the American Civil War. While the Democrats were in favor of granting independence to the secessionist states of the South, the Republicans favored declaring war against them. Finally, the latter were the ones who imposed their thesis, no matter how the war should be won and, in addition, their goal that the Southern States willingly accept their return to the Union after their defeat; the events seemed to confirm the imperialist argument. No consideration was given — and that's how the system works — to the possibility of victory reaping some seven hundred thousand lives.
The triumph of the Republican ideas occasioned that the White House received no Democratic occupant for the following thirty years, period during which the massacre of the Indian peoples and the conquer of Mexico's Northern provinces were perpetrated.
The streak of Republican victories was truncated by Democratic President Cleveland, who governed the USA during two mandates, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897. This character is crucial because it was just after his second mandate that the United States attacked Spain, but we have the key in his first mandate, in 1885.
In 1885, at the Berlin Conference, the Europeans divided up Africa and Asia among themselves. The United States was the only non-European country, aside from Turkey, which was invited. But precisely that year, the Democrats had won the election, and the US delegate took a position against colonialism, renouncing to its "slice of the cake". Anyway, it was agreed that, from then on, the conflicts between powers for their colonies would be resolved on a negotiated basis, instead of by force of arms. A period of peace and modernity was beginning, as a result of which, Germany signed an agreement with Spain on the Caroline Islands and Morocco some years later.
But when the Republicans returned to power, a part of them, the Jingoes, would not accept the postulates which North America had maintained at the Berlin Conference. They decided to garner an empire, but it was too late to do it by fair means; the world had already been divided up, and the United States had not gotten their share, for which reason they decided to do it by force.
The attack of the United States against Spain put dynamite under the frail international equilibrium emanated from the Berlin Conference. In 1898, British and French armies were at the brink of a showdown in Fashoda, Sudan. The following year, Great Britain declared war against the Boers in South Africa, which were supported by the Netherlands. Japan never forgave the United States for their invasion of Hawaii in 1898. The Germans had a small empire and they had renounced to extend it for the sake of international equilibrium, and they now felt cheated; in October 1898, Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Jerusalem, and in November, the military alliance between Germany and the Ottoman Empire was signed. The world was divided up in blocks to mutually protect their empires, all of which responded to obscure strategic interests. The next fifty years were the most bloody humanity had ever seen; all this because North America had broken the rules of the game established at the Berlin Conference.
But let's get back to Havana in January 1898. It were the Jingoes those who pressured Republican President McKinley to send the Maine there. We don't know what they sent it for, but we know that the leader of the Jingoes was William Randolph Hearst, at the time president of the main economic lobby; Hearst was also an outstanding member of the "Illuminati" masons and, with his New York Journal, promoted enormously the Spanish American war.
What or who made the Maine explode? This question has been profusely debated; whether it was an explosion or an implosion; whether there was one or two detonations, whether it was on purpose or spontaneous... This writing would extend too much if we intended to delve to the bottom of the investigations; we will center our discussion on demonstrated conclusions, both at the time when the event took place, and the subsequent investigations made by the Navy itself twenty years ago.
It has been demonstrated that there were two detonations and that, at least the major one —the second — had an internal cause, when the munitions storeroom exploded. Of the first and smaller detonation, there is no certainty to this day whether it was internal, by the spontaneous exploding of the coal, or external, caused by a small mine.
The hole that even today can be seen in the hull of the ship is under the keel. It would not be easy to place a mine under the ship, given that it was watched over externally by the Civil Guard, and internally by the American marines themselves. This excludes uncontrolled elements, be they Spanish or Cuban, as none of them had the necessary operating capacity. The Spanish government could have done it, simply by having the Maine anchored over a previously installed mine. But, would the pacifist Sagasta government and its ultra pacifist General Blanco do something like that? At any rate, a mine planted at the bottom of the sea would have raised mud, which would have reached the adjacent ships; but this didn´t happen.
Only two options are left, a mine placed against the hull, or a spontaneous explosion of the coal, and both exclude Spain as the party responsible. However, the American investigating commission blamed Spain as the solely responsible party, without supplying any evidence. Are there any proofs to blame it on the Navy or on the Jingoes? Or on Jingoes in the Department of the Navy, as was Freemason Theodore Roosevelt? There are no proofs, but there are plenty of indications.
On January 30, the Buccaneer yacht, property of William Randolph Hearst, showed up without a Customs permit and, without requesting mooring, nor permission from the pilot. After a strange maneuver, it anchored in the military zone, between the Maine and the Legazpi. A surprising location for a recreational boat. The Buccaneer remained anchored at the same place despite the request of the port authorities to move away.
In the evening of his arrival, Mr Hearst sent an invitation to the officers of the Maine, to attend a reception for them on the Buccaneer that night. And, in turn, he was invited on board of the Maine, to make a reportage on its baseball team, which had won the Navy championship that year. Mr Hearst made use of his stay in Havana to hold several meetings with his friends and associates of the "Havana Club", name by which the businessmen sector which supported annexation with the United States was known. Finally, on February 11, the Buccaneer left the military harbor at the request of the Civil Guard, but instead of anchoring at the Nautical Club, opted for abandoning the port. Four days later, the Maine exploded.
An excuse was needed for the annexation because, up to then, the argument wielded by the United States had been the struggle of the Cuban people for their liberty, supported by the Monroe Doctrine. But the Mambi movement had acquired a personality of its own. That the Americans had given economic support to the insurrection and asylum to the Cuban Government in Exile came out to be of no use, because the insurrects did not seek annexation but independence. A reason was needed in order to draw together American public opinion and to exclude the mambises, if possible. On the other hand, the new autonomy granted by Sagasta [xvii] had given illusions to a wide spectrum of the Cuban population.
Suddenly, nobody wanted annexation any longer. War had to be declared urgently, since at the beginning of 1898, the most important ships of the Spanish Armada came down to just three cruisers, all twins of the Vizcaya class. In contrast, all of the acquisitions programs of the US Navy had been completed, and what is more, all the units were new and in their best shape.
We have thus answered the questions: Who had the opportunity to do it? and who was benefited from it? In our opinion, Hearst had not intended to cause so many deaths. If the small mine placed against the hull had worked properly, nobody would have been hurt. Also, had the ship remained almost intact, the external participation would have been more clearly evidenced, and his own newspaper would have taken upon itself to point to the Spaniards as criminals. If all had come out right, at the end of the conflict Hearst would have boasted among his glamorous friends of having personally had to trigger the war.
Was there a connection between the Jingoes and freemasonry? Certainly, both groups converge in the Republican Party. At the time, in the United States — contrary to how it was in Spain, where masons basically militated in the Liberal Party (progressivist) — freemasonry populated the conservative wing of the political spectrum because the Democrats had been supporters of slavery. Probably the Jingoes had made use of the fact that freemasonry had decreed Spain's loss of its colonies to achieve their golden dream of building their own empire. That's why the Maine had sailed to Havana.
5 The Armies confronted in 'The Splendid Little War"
We have already said that the US Army was not, by much, an enemy to Spain, whereas the Navy was much more developed, surpassing the Spanish one in some aspects and being at a disadvantage in some others, although its main battle line was not ready until the middle nineties. But the "official version" of the disaster of 1998, invented by the politicians and the military who were responsible, and coauthors, of that disaster, has spread, and keeps on spreading, in a tortious and stubborn way, that "the Spanish Army was made up of old wooden ships" which motivated the quick defeat of Montojo in Cavite and the shameful "suicide" of Cervera in Santiago.We are entirely in agreement with Pío Moa, influenced by the prestigious historian Agustín R. Rodríguez [xviii] when he says that the "USA not only was the first economic power in the world, but was also strategically situated next to Cuba and half the distance away from the Philippines, and Spain is quite far from Cuba (which is only 200 kilometers away from the American coast, and from seven to eight thousand from the metropolis) and very far from the Philippines: Of course, they had everything to win in a long contest, but it was not certain that they would win in a short one, and a clear setback at the beginning could have stopped them. The Spanish Armada had modern ships and was faster than its opponent, albeit somewhat inferior in artillery power and battleships; the US commands were mediocre, and on the eve of the fight numerous sailors deserted, sign of a not quite high morale. Spain could have played its best weapon, taking advantage of its speed, and attacking the coasts and the enemy's commerce, perspective which raised panic in some coastal regions in the USA, the population of which moved to the interior. There were commanders ready to carry this strategy forward.
That the probable result of the confrontation was not that clear can be demonstrated by the fact that most of the naval experts of the time thought that Spain could have a chance, given that the Yankees were superior in battleships but the Spanish were in armored cruisers and in fast attack craft. The speed of the Spanish cruisers, not to mention the Spanish destroyers (a Spanish invention, just as was the submarine, albeit obscurely "torpedoed from the inside" never crystallized and thus expedited the disaster of 1998 [xix]) made it possible to avoid direct confrontation with the American battleships, except in night combat (advocated and rehearsed in Spain by that time), allowing them to attack the smaller units, the merchant ships, and the shores. In this latter sense, San Juan Puerto Rico was an ideal base, being sufficiently far from the United States and possessing something more than a modest coastal artillery (in spite of lacking heavy cannons), all of which prevented a constant effective blockade; that was the initial plan of Minister Rear Admiral Bermejo (instructions that reached Cape Verde on the San Francisco on April 18, and telegrams of the following 21 and 22)
The US Navy was conscious of the power of the Spanish Armada in the Atlantic, for which reason it sent two fleets to Cuba and Puerto Rico, which, even when they were superior to the Spanish in number and armament, had instructions not to confront it separately; a third Yankee fleet had been assigned to the defense of the American coast, just as Spain counted with what was named the "Cámara Squadron" to protect its coasts. Concretely, when the Cervera and Sampson squadrons confronted each other, against the average speed of 7.5 knots of the American ships, Cervera could have countered with his 14 knot average speed, in addition to their greater maneuverability and dexterity in combat procedures. And this Spanish potentiality could have been greater had the Villamil squadron (three destroyers and three torpedo boats) left earlier from the Peninsula in convoy with two of Cervera's cruisers, as he could have done it, with which they all could have reached Havana or Puerto Rico with no problem.
In the Antilles, the offensive advantage of greater speed and number of torpedo boats of the Spanish ships (each armored cruiser carried three firing tubes and three torpedoes for each); to that could be added the defensive power of the coastal artillery in the naval bases, which contributed to equalize the differences. At that time, navy cannons would hit coastal targets with efficacy only at less than 2,000 meters, while the medium coastal cannons would easily hit their target at up to 5,000 meters if they counted with telemetry bases.
Cervera was in Martinique and Curacao when he learned about the Battle of San Juan, with the resulting shortage of munition which the battle would have meant for Sampson's squadron. But he was unaware of the Minister's authorization to go back to the Peninsula (which Marine General Vallarino, navy commander in Puerto Rico, apparently failed to send to Martinique and Curacao, though did send to Havana). In this context, Cervera decided to sail to Santiago, in spite of this port having hardly any defenses, and it lying in an inlet over 6 km long and less than 200 m wide; "a mousetrap from which it was impossible to escape", as it was said then.
Going back to the chronological order of the events, let's begin with Cavite, on May 1, 1898, given that such defeat, 'incomprehensibly' magnified by the Spanish military authorities in the Philippines, had enormous transcendence, even though the Spanish fleet in that 30,000 island archipelago had been basically engaged in repressing piracy, In that combat "... (the Spanish) ships were a bit older than the American ones (in a way that) it could be affirmed that most of them were at one half of their life cycle; this is a fact that we would like to stress, and which has (been) rightly noted by Don Agustín Ramón Rodríguez González, Doctor in Current History, completely rejecting the theory that the Spanish fleet made up of wooden ships had confronted an all-powerful fleet of armored battleships." [xx]
The aforementioned deceitful "strength idea" is based on the existence of the so-called cruise ships deployed basically in the Philippines and in Spanish Oceania, which were similar to those of other squadrons for like engagements and which, in the event of having to combat against other "protected" ships, could carry it out without its wooden hull entailing a decisive inconvenience. The 'Castilla' cruiser, the only one in Cavite and in Santiago with those characteristics (with internal metal structure, though),which was immobilized on account of a breakdown in its engines, and which, in great measure for that reason had not yet been painted gray (it was still white), suffered much from enemy fire and was unnecessarily abandoned by its crew, which made the fires devour it. That the Spanish ships were not so old or so bad can be demonstrated by the fact that the Americans re-floated the cruiser Don Juan de Austria and added it to its own navy, which they kept in service up until 1921, as happened also with the protected cruisers Isla de Cuba (kept in service up until 1912) and Isla de Luzón (up until 1919), sold afterwards to other navies or as merchant ships.
Moreover, in these confrontations, theoretically of strength, two important aspects should not be forgotten: the coastal artillery and the cannon-armor duo of the great ships; this, of course, without forgetting the training of the crews and their morale (there were many desertions among the foreign sailors hired by the Americans); the state of maintenance of the ships; the proximity of the support bases (the Yankees in the Pacific had their closest base in Hawaii, though formally an independent nation, and a supply base on the Yang Tze Kiang River in China, and of course could freely avail themselves of the British base in Hong-Kong) at 3,500 miles and their Continental shores at 7,000; the quality of their commanders, etc.
With respect to the great cannons of the battleships, it must be pointed out that they were no universal panacea, since they had great limitations: their firing cadence was very slow, even one shot every ten minutes, their aiming systems were very rudimentary, with which their effective reach was quite compromised under 5000 m, which made them almost equal to our numerous González Hontoria of 120 mm and 10 km reach; they were not used for salvo firing (simultaneous shots) except at very short distances. As proof of this, remember that at Santiago de Cuba, the eighteen Yankee cannons of 30 and 32 cm made only two impacts in a discharge at point blank.
With respect to the American battleships, their armor protected the central part of their sides, the bow and stern of the ship remaining without armor, that is, one half of the ship, especially at the float line, was unprotected.
Since we have mentioned the coastal artillery in Puerto Rico, we will say that their efficacy was demonstrated on May 12, when the battleships Iowa and Indiana, the cruiser New York, the monitors (river ships) Terror and Puritan, and several auxiliary ships (armed merchant ships); 11 ships in total, from distances between 1,000 and 3,000 meters shot close to 2,000 projectiles of medium and large caliber on San Juan (and the triple or quadruple number of Nordenfelt and Hotchkiss shells of a smaller caliber), of which 250 hit the forts, 800 exploded in the city violating uses and customs of the time, and other 200 did not explode. The attack was concentrated against the castles of San Cristóbal, mainly, and El Morro, as well as its annexed batteries, and lasted for about three hours; they only put one 24 cm mortar out of action (they tore off its closing breech block) and temporarily interrupted firing of the Carmen battery (two Ordóñez 15 cm cannons) whose officer and several artillery men were wounded; that is, their firing was very poor. The cannons of the castles of San Cristóbal and San Felipe of El Morro fired 441 shots: the Iowa received between four and nine 15 cm impacts (according to sources), which made it withdraw, probably on tow, and the insignia ship New York received one. The Spanish casualties were 64: two military and five civilians dead, and 39 military and 18 civilians wounded. The American casualties were, at least, two dead and seven wounded on the Indiana, Iowa and New York.
Of the 38 very diverse coastal pieces with which the stronghold counted, almost two thirds could not fire, due to their position in relation to that of the squadron. Those which did participate in the combat were:13 C.H.E. tubular iron 15 cm cannons; Model 1885 Ordóñez; five O.H.S. hoop-reinforced iron 24 cm mortars, Model 1891 Ordóñez, seven striped, hoop-reinforced iron 21 cm mortars, Model 1872, and six C.H.S. 15 cm cannons, Mod 1878. Alone, the combined Indiana, Iowa and New York ships had eight 13-inch (33 cm) C.H.S, 22 eight-inch (20.3 cm), four six-inch (15.24 cm) and eighteen four- inch (10.16 cm) cannons, in addition to multiple low caliber ones. By the time the squadron withdrew, the Spanish fire was more regular and sustained than it had been at the start of the combat. For lack of budget, they did not count with telemetry stations.
That is, a modest coastal artillery demonstrated it could deny the sea to a squadron, no matter how powerful. And that occurred in Havana where, in 1896, 56 large caliber artillery pieces were installed, so that by 1898 the maritime front had three redoubts, 24 coastal batteries and 7 auxiliary batteries available, with a total of 193 pieces (among them two Krupp 30.5 cm cannons, two other of the same caliber Ordóñez, six Krupp of 28 cm, other similar 24 cm Ordóñez, four 15 cm CHE, etc.). four telemetry stations (with projectors and telemeters) two Nordenfelt machine guns, and 28 torpedoes/ mines for coastal defense.
And the same, of course, could have occurred in Manila, where the means were dispersed and those which defended its port, the most powerful ones, were annulled. Even though the Dewey squadron almost doubled that of Montojo in tonnage and number of cannons, aside from its ships being more modern and faster, the combination of Spanish means could have been sufficient to win the round.
Ignoring 24 very old coastal pieces in Manila, it had four CHRS 24 cm reformed cannons, Mod 1881 (7,000 m reach and piercing projectiles); nine OHRS 21 cm mortars, Mod 1870, and 6 Ordóñez CHE 15 cm cannons, Mod 1885; all of them perfectly effective, especially the former and the latter, which could be joined by 28 ship units which had been already retired. This combination, together with that of the squadron, which was much superior to that of the American ships [xxi], both in number and in efficacy (shooting from a fixed emplacement and less vulnerable than those on ships). To that, the availability of some forty mines was added.
But the 13 mortars (of 24 cm and 21 cm) stayed in Manila and, of the six Ordóñez 15 cm cannons in Punta Sngley (Cavite), four were sent to Subic and two stayed in Cavite. The cannons disembarked from the squadron were emplaced on the islets and flanks at the mouth of the Bay of Manila. The same was done with the torpedoes and mines: 14 were sent to Subic, 22 were installed in front of the Manila Bay and the rest at Cavite. This was the distribution made.
To understand this distribution, we need to mention what was written of Cavite by First Class Ship Lieutenant Víctor Concas (later chief of staff of Admiral Cervera, and commander of cruiser Infanta María Teresa) in the Revista General de Marina in year 1882: "from a military standpoint, Cavite is an absurdity, since it is located at the bottom end of a bay, with entries, one of which is 9,700 meters wide and 72 meters deep, and are practically undefendable, neither with artillery nor with torpedoes and, as a consequence, once blockaded, it converts the harbor into a horrible mousetrap. In Cavite a disaster awaits us on the first occasion." Subic, where construction was being done since some years back, would be the planned replacement for the Cavite Arsenal, Captain General Primo de Rivera had made the agreements of Malacañang, commitments which, as will be seen later, generated all kinds of misunderstandings between the Army and the Navy. Having Primo de Rivera been replaced by Agustín, who had given arms to the rebels of Kapitunan among other "hardly explainable" actions, when Montojo arrived in Subic, as was his plan, he found out that the four 150 mm Ordóñez cannons had not been installed, and he had not been made aware thereof! Artillery emplacement was, in theory, the Army's responsibility, but there was, at least, a conflict in jurisdictions. Montojo then wanted to shelter his squadron in the Manila Harbor, under the protection of its relatively powerful coastal artillery but the Captain General prohibited him from doing this. In this obscure and wrongful way, undoubtedly embellished with lies and obscure interests, the squadron arrived in Cavite. It is easy to imagine, leaving aside the scenario of a possible defensively organized Subic, what would have happened if combat had taken place in Manila, given that Dewey, as shall be seen, was close to withdrawing after his unfruitful first attack against the almost defenseless Cavite.
This is why, both in the Pacific and in the Atlantic, the Americans pursued decisive naval combats, seeking a quick outcome by taking advantage of the superiority of their battleships: 'Casually', as we shall see, this was handed to them on a silver platter in both theaters of operations.
But even in those scenarios of face to face general combat, historically it has not always been the strongest of the contenders the one which attained victory, given that intelligence, determination (will to win) and courage, are decisive in war. Let's see two examples that do not exhaust the topic in any way:
- In 1741, Admiral Blas de Lezo, with 3,000 men and five ships, defeated two hundred British ships and thirty thousand soldiers in Cartagena de Indias.
- In 1744, Admiral Juan José Navarro, with twelve ships, defeated a British squadron of thirty-two galleons at Cape Sicié (France) where, additionally, the British doubled the Spanish in number of cannons.
On the other hand, this was demonstrated in almost all minor combats in 1989.
(To be continued)
Notes:
[i] La Masonería al Desnudo,by F. Ferrari Billoch, Page.152, Ediciones Bergua, Madrid, 1935, citing Maurice Fara (pseudonym) in La Masonería y su Obra, published by J. Murillo, Madrid, 1934, and Editorial Tradicionalista.
[ii] The revolution in the 13 colonies was hatched in the Masonic lodges. George Washington belonged to lodge Virginia 4, and eight of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence were masons (and other 10 probably also were), 13 of the 33 who signed the Constitution, and 20 of their 29 generals, including Frenchman Lafayette, an important agent of freemasonry. Some of the colonists who, disguised as Indians triggered the revolution in 1773 by boarding tea-loaded ships and throwing their cargo into the sea, were also masons.
[iii] Masonería y Nación: Redes Masónicas y Políticas en la Construcción Identitaria Cubana (1811-1902), Canariy Islands, Spain, Ediciones Idea, 2006; quoted by Pedro Sánchez Farré in http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=89804511.
[iv] “America owes the first - and last - independentist impulses to Spanish masons, though this implies a lack of patriotism for certain people, to us it cannot constitute less than a seal of pride", according to Masonic review “Latomia” (published these days by the Grand Lodge of Spain; 1933, vol 2, page 265; see: “Relaciones y opiniones oficiales de las masonerías españolas sobre. Iberoamérica durante la II República (1931-1935)”.
On the other hand, it is admitted that Esteban Morín and other five Jews, founded the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (of 33 degrees) in Charleston, Virginia, in 1801, from the Supreme Council of which depended a great number of Hispanic American and peninsular lodges.
[v] According to official data published by “El Depósito de la Guerra” in 1897, between March 1895 and January 1897, 212.717 soldiers were sent to Cuba See Monografías del CESEDEN, Nº 14, 1995 by Colonel Fernando Redondo Díaz, .Conservative Cánovas decided to end the War of 95”, using 200.000 soldiers and a billion pesetas, according to José Luis Comellas, in Historia de España Moderna y Contemporánea. Ediciones Rialp. Madrid, 1975/77.
[vi] In 1888 the Grand Orient of Spain and the National Grand Orient of Spain were merged, creating the National Grand Orient of Spain, but this is a fleeting union, and the majority of its members end up forming the Spanish Grand Orient on May 21 of that same year, Miguel Morayta y Sagrario being elected its Grand Master; in 1889, the Grand Spanish Symbolic Lodge of the Ancient and Primitive Oriental Rite of Memphis and Mizraim is founded.
[vii] José A. Ferrer Benimeli in La Masonería Española y la Crisis Colonial del 98, at the International Symposium of the History of Spanish Masonry (Centro de Estudios Históricos de la Masonería Española, Barcelona, 1997). Pedro Sánchez Ferré, mason of the Grand Spanish Lodge and professor at Universidad de Barcelona, in La Masonería y los Masones Españoles en el Siglo XX,
[viii] P. Sánchez Ferré: Nacionalismo y Masonería en España 1880-1936, pages. 71-84, Cuadernos de Investigación Histórica Brocarn nº 17, Barcelona, 1991, dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/124681.pdf . Javier Güerri en La Masonería y el Desastre del 98, Revista Arbil nº 75, http://www.arbil.org/%2875%29maso.htm.UNED: La Masonería y la Crisis Colonial del 98, extracted from Sánchez Ferré, Masonería y Colonialismo en La Masonería Española (1728-1939)- Exposición, Alicante-Valencia, 1989, pages. 81-90; http://www.uned.es/dpto-hdi/museovirtualhistoriamasoneria/5historia_masoneria_espana/m%20y%20crisis%20colonial%20del%2098.htm.
[ix] Among others, Dominique Soucy, in Masonería y Nación: Redes Masónicas y Políticas en la Construcción Identitaria Cubana (1811-1902), Canarias, España, Ediciones Idea, 2006.
[x] Félix Ojeda Reyes, in El Desterrado de París: Biografía del Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances (1827–1898), Ediciones Puerto, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2001, páginas. 356-359. Also: El “sólido” núcleo de Betances en París y el asesinato de Cánovas, en el Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, Tomo CXCIV, nº II, Año 1997, pages. 239 a 254. And Luis Bonafoux (friend and biographer of doctor Betances), en Betances, San Juan de Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1970.
[xi] Pío Moa Rodríguez, in no way given to conspiracy theories, in Una Historia Chocante, Pag. 75, Ediciones Encuentro, Madrid, 2004.
Connivance of freemasonry with anarchism is documented in may other cases.
[xii] Pedro Sánchez Ferré, in his above cited La Masonería y los Masones Españoles en el Siglo XX.
[xiii] Revista Época, Madrid, May 21, 2005.
[xiv] Francisco Ferrari Billoch in La Masonería al Desnudo, Pag,s. 152-3, Ediciones Bergua, Madrid, 1936. http://www.fileserve.com, | http://www.profitupload.com.
[xv] Prim, by the way, proposed the independence of Cuba and a compensation to Spain, guaranteed by the United States, which, already by then were supporting and financing the separatists (an undercover sale maneuver, See La Masonería al Desnudo, Pag. 152), once the island had been pacified, and, shortly before his assassination, he sent Nicolás Azcárate y Miguel Jorro to Washington to negotiate the emancipation conditions with the independentists. His death on December 30, 1870 truncated that solution. Prim filled the Spanish efforts with difficulties; in 1870 he freed the Cuban separatist leaders which were being subjected to a War Council,
[xvi] J.A. Vaca de Osma in La Masonería y el Poder, Planeta, Barcelona, 1999/2000. Fontana Beltrán: El Magnicidio del General Prim-Los Verdaderos Asesinos, Akrón, Astorga, 2001. Diario ABC (11-II-2013): The Investigating Commission on his assassination ratified the theory that he was finished off http://www.abc.es/cultura/libros/20130211/abci-prim-estrangulado-201302111036.html; the commission gets to affirm, textually that “Prim's assassination arises from a war between Freemasons”.
[xvii] On November 29. 1897, Spain granted autonomy to Cuba by means of a Constitution which gave it full government faculties, with the exception of international policy and military defense. The majority of members of this autonomous government were Freemasons (see: Españoles y Cubanos en la Masonería, by Janet Iglesias Cruz and Javier Gutiérrez Forte; also D. Soucy, Op. Cit.). It is said that in the Autonomous Cabinet of Puerto Rico , eight of its 11 members were masons (http://elmason.blogspot.com.es/2005_10_30_archive.html).
[xviii] Pío Moa, in La Guerra de Cuba, 24-X-2009; http://www.corunaliberal.es:80/index.php/component/content/article/1373-lengua-y-politica. Agustín Rodríguez González, basically in Operaciones de la Guerra de 1898 -Una Visión Crítica-, capítulo “Balance de Fuerzas” (Pag. 32-52), Editorial ACTAS, Madrid, 1998.
[xix] Javier Sanmateo: La Cuestión del Submarino y la Guerra del 98, http://almirantecervera.com/alm/?page_id=477. In addition to the treason (literally) which he documents, it is important because he does the same with Dewey's phrase of “had the Spaniards in Manila had one or two of the submarines invented by Peral it would have been impossible for me attain victory”.
[xx] Alejandro Anca Alamillo in Batalla de Cavite (1 de mayo de 1898):El Sol del Imperio Comienza a Ponerse
http://www.revistanaval.com/armada/batallas/cavite.htm. See also http://www.eldesastredel98.com/capitulos/barcmadera.htm#. With respect to the wooden ships, for example, Santiago Sobreques wrote in his Historia de España Moderna y Contemporánea (página 377, Editorial Vicens Vives, 1969) that: “…Cervera had arrived in the Antilles, where, short of fuel had to take refuge in Santiago de Cuba. He imprudently tried to sail from there to Havana, but his wooden ships were ready fuel for the fire from the American,ships, armored and with cannons of .longer reach”.
[xxi] Rodríguez-González: El combate de Cavite, Revista de Indias Vol. LVIII, Nº 213-1998