A Patriot's History of the Modern World

by Larry Schweikart

  In addition, snobbishness afflicted European elites to the point where they could not imagine tactless and uncultured Americans defeating a Continental power. Germany’s landed classes, the Junkers, who dominated the officer corps and the vaunted German General Staff, expected that the war with Spain would be decided at sea, and after looking at the balance of power, Emperor Wilhelm II concluded, “The Hidalgo surely will beat up Brother Jonathan because the Spanish navy is stronger than the American.”26 Germany’s Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who also thought the Spanish navy superior, nevertheless argued that a long war favored the United States, but he was nearly alone. Most of the conservative German voices, including the journal Grenzboten, proclaimed that Spanish military professionalism would be the decisive factor. Once again, the Europeans mistook pomp and ceremonial drill for genuine fighting capabilities, though the Germans can be partly excused for inaccurate assessments because they had no journalists sending firsthand information. After the war, however, most German observers still failed to read the results properly, claiming that the Americans had not faced a serious opponent who would have exposed her military weaknesses.27 Professionals, especially the Prussians, doubted Americans could perform in battle against a European foe. When the New York World blared in its headlines, “WE ARE READY,” the Austrian Wiener Journal scoffed, “Sam may be prepared but he is not ready.”28

  Europeans’ misunderstanding and mistrust of volunteer armies afflicted their judgment when it came to the Spanish-American War. By 1900, almost every European country had adopted compulsory military service. Among the major powers, only the United States retained a substantially volunteer army. To Republicans in Spain, where the wealthy could buy their way out of service, volunteer armies did not represent freedom but class abuse, the corollary of which was a preferred compulsory draft. Therefore, as one Spanish Republican editorialized, “do not expect the American army to equal the inspirations, the ideas, the customs, the patriotism, inherent to Latin armies.”29 The misperceptions of what republicanism entailed for the Americans led to repeated analyses that were deeply flawed. Observers asked why American working men, “who enjoy fabulous wages and a general comfort unheard of even in our richest rural towns,” would not “avoid exposing themselves to die by the bullet?…Republic and war are incompatible, as can be seen right now in the Yankee camps.”30 Hence, from different ends of the spectrum European aristocrats and republicans both derided American martial capabilities as overly (and unreliably) democratic.

  Perhaps the most astounding misjudgments (at home and abroad) were those that predicted American intervention in Cuba would lead the United States into bankruptcy. Spanish Republican politician Emilio Castelar prophesied that war would be “an immediate disaster for the Saxon republic…. America would have to arm itself to the teeth…. it would have to increase its budget to the level of Caesarist budgets; it would have to convert its creative legions of workers into legions of exterminators…. it would have to lose its liberty….”31 Austria’s Wiener Tagblatt echoed the “greedy American” theme, claiming, “The Americans would lose money fighting against Spain and that was something the clever Anglo-Saxons would never want.”32

  Only a few journalists discerned that the American way of war, with its citizen soldiers, produced better fighters because of republican values. “The Yankees,” wrote one,

  those “pigs,” without patriotism, without ideals, with no other God than the dollar [who seem to have] no other object in life than to get rich, go voluntarily to war against Spain. And not only penniless adventurers go voluntarily but young men belonging to the richest families of Washington and New York go to war and have fallen as its first victims. Aristocratic and mesocratic Spanish youth should not ignore this example that the enemy is setting us. Let it not be said that the stinking rich Yankees give lessons of patriotism, courage, [and] nobility, to young Spaniards.33

  Another observed, “Spaniards have not gone to this war of their own free will…. By contrast the Yankees have all gone voluntarily…there are entire regiments of volunteers who, instead of receiving money, give it, offering their lives and their wallets to their country.” That was, he concluded, “truly a nation in arms…[and] moreover, a patriotic nation.”34 Monarchy was the enemy, he wrote—an enemy that had “killed patriotism.” An Austrian writer, in a similar vein, saw only “a disaster for the unhappy Iberian peninsula” to come from a war.35 Indeed, most conservative papers in Austria agreed that a long war would favor the Americans and end badly for Spain.

  By 1898, a small handful of British journalists had begun to draw different impressions of American volunteers from those offered a century earlier or from the majority of their colleagues. “Bronzed out-of-door, healthy looking fellows, of enormous physique,” as one writer described Americans, “looked individually capable of going anywhere.”36 The men once portrayed as undisciplined now seemed “a more professional style,” and the American light cavalry were “as fine as any in the world.”37 Roosevelt’s “Rough Riders,” of course, attracted the most attention, although evaluating both the regulars and the volunteers, the British correspondents thought the latter were “amateurs.” Europeans still assessed the Americans as lacking in discipline: morning drill was “an almost intolerable thing,” partly due to the heat and humidity; American discipline was “above average,” though still too casual.38 The American supply organization, another snorted, was “run upon a higgledy-piggledy system which it is impossible to describe.”39

  Dewey, Roosevelt, and Victory

  Enough disparity in the opinions of experts remained that Spain clung to the hope that the “real” Americans—the ones whom Europeans kept predicting would falter—would show up. The war, after all, would be fought at sea, where despite the obsolescence of Spain’s fleet, a single lucky shot could sink an enemy. But other realities concerned Spanish war planners. In neither Cuba nor the Philippines did the Spanish have a loyal population to support them, but if American ships could be lured into range of shore-based batteries, and those combined with the firepower of the Spanish navy, then the fleet might have a chance. Dewey and Rear Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, who commanded the flying squadron off Florida, knew that as well. Spanish shore batteries and ships were hopelessly outranged by superior American guns, so the Americans only needed to remain at a distance. Dewey lacked only one thing while preparing for war in Hong Kong—sufficient ammunition—but even that showed up at the last possible moment with the Baltimore, which arrived only forty-eight hours before the British ordered Dewey to leave Hong Kong. The squadron moved thirty miles up the Chinese coast to Mirs Bay, where the ammunition was distributed throughout the ships on April 25.

  Consequently, following the explosion and sinking of the USS Maine in Cuba, on February 15, and the subsequent declaration of war against Spain, both the American and Spanish squadrons were on the move, Dewey heading from Mirs Bay to the Philippines, while Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón, a seasoned officer who had been awarded some of Spain’s highest honors, sailed out of Manila Bay for Subic Bay and the protection of its shore batteries. He soon learned that the large guns that were to have been installed around the bay still sat on the beach and his mines were unreliable, so he was forced to return to Manila Bay.

  The Castilla, which was completely unmaneuverable, was turned into a floating battery with sand barges brought up to surround her. Montojo also hurriedly placed guns all around the entrance of Manila Bay, well aware of the dubious track record of fixed shore batteries in combating mobile cruisers. He had done his best, but when Dewey said to the captain of the Olympia, “You may fire when ready, Gridley,” the Spanish fleet was quickly annihilated at the cost of one American sailor, the victim of heatstroke.

  On the other side of the world, American volunteers flocked to the recruiting stations, many clamoring to join the famous Rough Rider regiment of cavalry. Theodore Roosevelt, who had done so much to prepare the nation for the war, had resigned his office as assistant
secretary of the Navy to become the second-in-command of the regiment as a lieutenant colonel, under Colonel Leonard Wood. Roosevelt’s volunteers consisted of scoundrels and outlaws, Apaches and Mexicans, dandies and New York polo players. Sheriff Buckey O’Neill, one of Arizona’s most famous lawmen, had also joined, perhaps to keep an eye on all the ruffians who sought refuge there. When the Rough Riders arrived in Tampa, however, they found only one ship—reserved for another regiment. Roosevelt impulsively commandeered the vessel, although it lacked space for the mounts, so the Rough Riders, some of the “finest light cavalry in the world,” embarked for Cuba…as infantry.

  An orange-gold Cuban sun, occasionally streaked by sea mist and humidity, beat down on American units disembarking at Daiquirí. This was a much different army from the forces that had made up the Union and Confederate armies thirty-five years earlier. Professional units had spent much of their career battling Indians on the Plains, and large-scale infantry operations had not been seen since 1865. While some of the Plains cavalry had first-class weapons, the troops wading ashore at Daiquirí were armed with inferior Krag-Jørgensen rifles with a slow reloading rate (to help conserve ammunition, according to the Ordinance Department), putting them at an extreme disadvantage to the Spaniards and their superior charger-loaded German-made Mausers. Even tactics had been tailored to defeat Sioux, Cheyenne, and Apache combatants, not European-style foes with artillery. When Americans did employ traditional infantry tactics, they were from the Civil War, against a toughened enemy who had fought guerrillas and learned to use cover instead of massed lines. Nevertheless, Americans began to develop suppression fire covering advancing squads.

  General William Shafter had established the base for his corps at Siboney, east of Santiago, and sent General Joseph Wheeler, a former Confederate cavalry general, to attack the Spanish rearguard. Wheeler walked into an ambush, and while the Americans were bloodied at Las Guásimas, the Spanish continued their retreat. By the first of July, 15,000 Americans, including cavalry and four black regiments, assaulted entrenched Spanish positions at El Caney and San Juan Hill outside Santiago.

  After Leonard Wood was promoted to command a brigade, Roosevelt assumed command of the regiment with the rank of colonel, and shortly thereafter the Rough Riders, the 10th (Colored) Cavalry, and the 3rd Cavalry regiment launched their assault on foot against the Kettle Hill portion of San Juan Heights on July 1. The Buffalo Soldiers carried the brunt of the fighting—aided by the timely arrival of a pair of Gatling guns—and with the Rough Riders took Kettle Hill. A British correspondent described the soldiers as “ants” sweeping up the ridge: “It was incredible but it was grand. The boys were storming the hill…. But we knew that it had cost them dear.”40

  Cuban insurgents considered the victory to be theirs, but the American triumph was obvious. Even the British correspondents who had once derided their American cousins esteemed them differently. Douglas Macpherson of the Daily Graphic wrote, “I have the most unqualified admiration for the American regular soldier. There is no better fellow anywhere.”41 Spanish forces consolidated and resisted at Fort Canosa, followed by an American siege of the city, aided by Cuban forces.

  But already a much more deadly enemy had descended on the Americans: malaria and yellow fever, which caused five times more casualties than Spanish bullets. The Spanish, too, were afflicted with disease, having only 55,000 men available to fight out of their 230,000-man force. Despite the Spaniards’ advantage in numbers and weaponry (the rapid-firing Mauser versus the American fixed-magazine Krag-Jørgensen single-shot rifles and black powder Springfield “Trapdoor” also adopted to force American soldiers to economize on ammunition with a slow rate of fire) and decimated by the ravages of disease, the American forces pushed inland. The Spanish fleet, which remained in the safety of the bay, finally sortied out on July 3 and lasted just hours. Five of the six Spanish ships were destroyed or grounded, and 1,600 Spanish sailors, including Admiral Cervera, were captured.

  Even before the smoke cleared, Congress adopted a joint resolution that stated the United States could not annex Cuba and had to leave “control of the island to its people.” Certainly some racism was involved: Americans did not want an invasion of cheap labor, particularly if it was brown-skinned. More significantly, however, Americans truly did not want an empire. They had seen what empires had done (and were doing) to Europe, and while subtle influence over local Latin American governments was most desirable, colonization was not. In 1869, when Santo Domingo “effectively offered itself up for annexation…the proposal was defeated in Congress.”42 While a strong element of paternalism tainted Americans’ efforts in Latin America (most notably the Platt Amendment of 1901), America was generally on a “civilizing mission.” Under the interpretations of modern liberal historians, every island, every jungle became a persimmon to be plucked by the imperialistic Americans. But to turn-of-the-century Americans, Cuba represented a jalapeño—digestible, no doubt, but with acidic side effects.

  Whether the newly acquired territories would be better off beneath the American flag was not in question, even for the Spanish. One Spanish writer noted that “everyone who is reliable and serious in Cuba prefers the Yankees a thousand times over to separatism” (that is, independence), and a Russian journalist predicted the “joy of the Philippine insurgents” in securing American aid would secure liberty and peace there.43 The first evidence of American policies could be seen in Cuba, where the United States introduced education and fiscal reforms. When Congress undertook an investigation of the war, European republicans were astounded at the openness of the system. Although a few Europeans looked dimly on Spain’s ouster at the hands of a money-centered United States (the Austrian Wiener Journal, certainly not alone, claimed “the Yankees are businessmen and nothing else”), this view remained in the minority, with most glumly admitting that progress and freedom tended to follow in the Americans’ wake.44 One Spanish writer prophesied that “in all the colonies they have just acquired the Yankees will do in a few years what we have been unable to do in centuries…. that will be our greatest shame.”45 German commentators agreed, viewing the American victory as “a triumph for progress and a gain for mankind”; while a Russian newspaper predicted the U.S. victory would transform the political balance of the world.46 To a few, the American victory marked the end, as one American prelate wrote to Rome, “of all that is old & vile & mean & rotten & cruel & false in Europe…. When Spain is swept [from the oceans] much of the meanness & narrowness of old Europe goes with it, to be replaced by the freedom & openness of America.” He added, “This is God’s way of developing the world.”47 German intellectuals and writers condescendingly snarled that Spain had shrunk “to the rank of a small Asiatic people, decadent and mummified.”48

  Not long after the Spanish surrender, Cuban officials met General Leonard Wood on a steamer in Havana harbor. Wood’s goal was to create “a republic modeled closely upon the lines of our great Anglo-Saxon republic.”49 That Cuba possessed none of the attributes that were necessary for an American-style republic was simply not recognized at the time. Wood, the son of a physician, attended Harvard Medical School, then served with the U.S. Army fighting the Apaches. In 1886, after carrying dispatches one hundred miles through Indian territory, Wood was awarded a Medal of Honor. Later, he became a star football player at Georgia School of Technology (now Georgia Tech), before organizing the Rough Riders with Theodore Roosevelt. Far from seeking to “colonialize” Cuba, Wood set out to educate the Cubans (by 1902, some 250,000 students passed through the schools he established), and oversaw a massive reform of public works, including sewer projects, drainage of swamps, street repairs, and construction of hospitals. Americans under Wood translated textbooks into Spanish, trained 1,300 Cuban teachers, opened thousands of schools (modeled on Ohio’s public school system), and diligently sought to “infuse new life, new principles and new methods of doing things” into the island. He also imposed judicial reforms, especially those that emphasized pri
vate property rights.50 American soldiers distributed food, waged a sanitary campaign, rooted out corrupt officials, built roads and bridges, and dredged Havana harbor. But the greatest achievement under Wood’s tenure involved Dr. Walter Reed’s discovery in 1900 that a particular mosquito transmitted yellow fever. Through the efforts of the Army Medical Corps, mosquito netting was put up in sleeping quarters, standing bodies of stagnant water were drained, and fumigation became commonplace. By 1902 not a single case of yellow fever was reported in Havana, whereas 1,400 cases had been reported in 1900.51

  Cuban sugar planters, who had suffered mightily during the insurrection, bordered on bankruptcy. Wood put a moratorium on the collection of debts from the planters, which lapsed in 1902. Critics therefore could attack Wood regardless of his policies: if he kept the moratorium, he was merely propping up the “imperialist puppets,” and if he allowed the moratorium to lapse, he was sounding the “death knell for much of the island’s planter class.”52 When American corporations bought the bankrupt Cuban sugar plantations, Wood was accused of acting for “U.S. interests.” Americans acquired about 15 percent of Cuban land, bringing in new technology and infrastructure. The Platt Amendment gave the United States long-term leases on bases in Cuba, leading to the construction of the naval base at Guantánamo Bay (made permanent by the Cuban-American Treaty of 1903), and prohibited Cuba from transferring land to any power other than the United States, or engaging in any treaty with another country “which will…impair the independence of Cuba.” At that point, the Army withdrew.