Cuba in War Time by Richard Harding Davis
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Richard Harding Davis >> Cuba in War Time
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[Illustration: The Death of Rodriguez]
CUBA
IN WAR TIME
BY
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society Author of "Three Gringos in
Venezuela and Central America," "The Princess Aline," "Gallegher," "Van
Bibber, and Others," "Dr. Jameson's Raiders," etc., etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY FREDERIC REMINGTON
NEW YORK. R. H. RUSSELL 1897 *[Note: Before Spanish-American War]
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Author's Note
Cuba in War Time
The Fate of the Pacificos
The Death of Rodriguez
Along the Trocha
The Question of Atrocities
The Right of Search of American Vessels
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Death of Rodríguez
A Spanish Soldier
Guerrillas with Captured Pacificos
A Spanish Officer
Insurgents Firing on Spanish Fort
Fire and Sword in Cuba
A Spanish Guerrilla
Murdering the Cuban Wounded
Bringing in the Wounded
Young Spanish Officer
The Cuban Martyrdom
Regular Cavalryman--Spanish
One of the Block Houses
Spanish Cavalry
One of the Forts Along the Trocha
The Trocha
Spanish Troops in Action
Amateur Surgery in Cuba
Scouting Party of Spanish Cavalry
An Officer of Spanish Guerrillas
A Spanish Picket Post
General Weyler in the Field
Spanish Cavalryman on a Texas Broncho
For Cuba Libre
NOTE
These illustrations were made by Mr. Frederic Remington, from personal
observation while in Cuba, and from photographs, and descriptions
furnished by eye-witnesses, and are here reproduced through the
courtesy of Mr. W. R. Hearst.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
After my return from Cuba many people asked me questions concerning the
situation there, and I noticed that they generally asked the same
questions. This book has been published with the idea of answering
those questions as fully as is possible for me to do after a journey
through the island, during which I traveled in four of the six
provinces, visiting towns, seaports, plantations and military camps,
and stopping for several days in all of the chief cities of Cuba, with
the exception of Santiago and Pinar del Rio.
Part of this book was published originally in the form of letters from
Cuba to the _New York Journal_ and in the newspapers of a
syndicate arranged by the _Journal_; the remainder, which was
suggested by the questions asked on my return, was written in this
country, and appears here for the first time.
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
Cuba In War Time
When the revolution broke out in Cuba two years ago, the Spaniards at
once began to build tiny forts, and continued to add to these and
improve those already built, until now the whole island, which is eight
hundred miles long and averages eighty miles in width, is studded as
thickly with these little forts as is the sole of a brogan with iron
nails. It is necessary to keep the fact of the existence of these forts
in mind in order to understand the situation in Cuba at the present
time, as they illustrate the Spanish plan of campaign, and explain why
the war has dragged on for so long, and why it may continue
indefinitely.
The last revolution was organized by the aristocrats; the present one
is a revolution of the _puebleo_, and, while the principal Cuban
families are again among the leaders, with them now are the
representatives of the "plain people," and the cause is now a common
cause in working for the success of which all classes of Cubans are
desperately in earnest.
The outbreak of this revolution was hastened by an offer from Spain to
make certain reforms in the internal government of the island. The old
revolutionary leaders, fearing that the promise of these reforms might
satisfy the Cubans, and that they would cease to hope for complete
independence, started the revolt, and asked all loyal Cubans not to
accept the so-called reforms when, by fighting, they might obtain their
freedom. Another cause which precipitated the revolution was the
financial depression which existed all over the island in 1894, and the
closing of the sugar mills in consequence. Owing to the lack of money
with which to pay the laborers, the grinding of the sugar cane ceased,
and the men were turned off by the hundreds, and, for want of something
better to do, joined the insurgents. Some planters believe that had
Spain loaned them sufficient money with which to continue grinding, the
men would have remained on the _centrals_, as the machine shops
and residence of a sugar plantation are called, and that so few would
have gone into the field against Spain that the insurrection could have
been put down before it had gained headway. An advance to the sugar
planters of five millions of dollars then, so they say, would have
saved Spain the outlay of many hundreds of millions spent later in
supporting an army in the field. That may or may not be true, and it is
not important now, for Spain did not attack the insurgents in that way,
but began hastily to build forts. These forts now stretch all over the
island, some in straight lines, some in circles, and some zig-zagging
from hill-top to hill-top, some within a quarter of a mile of the next,
and others so near that the sentries can toss a cartridge from one to
the other.
The island is divided into two great military camps, one situated
within the forts, and the other scattered over the fields and mountains
outside of them. The Spaniards have absolute control over everything
within the fortified places; that is, in all cities, towns, seaports,
and along the lines of the railroad; the insurgents are in possession
of all the rest. They are not in fixed possession, but they have
control much as a mad bull may be said to have control of a ten-acre
lot when he goes on the rampage. Some farmer may hold a legal right to
the ten-acre lot, through title deeds or in the shape of a mortgage,
and the bull may occupy but one part of it at a time, but he has
possession, which is better than the law.
It is difficult to imagine a line drawn so closely, not about one city
or town, but around every city and town in Cuba, that no one can pass
the line from either the outside or the inside. The Spaniards, however,
have succeeded in effecting and maintaining a blockade of that kind.
They have placed forts next to the rows of houses or huts on the
outskirts of each town, within a hundred yards of one another, and
outside of this circle is another circle, and beyond that, on every
high piece of ground, are still more of these little square forts,
which are not much larger than the signal stations along the lines of
our railroads and not unlike them in appearance. No one can cross the
line of the forts without a pass, nor enter from the country beyond
them without an order showing from what place he comes, at what time he
left that place, and that he had permission from the commandante to
leave it. A stranger in any city in Cuba to-day is virtually in a
prison, and is as isolated from the rest of the world as though he were
on a desert island or a floating ship of war. When he wishes to depart
he is free to do so, but he cannot leave on foot nor on horseback. He
must make his departure on a railroad train, of which seldom more than
two leave any town in twenty-four hours, one going east and the other
west. From Havana a number of trains depart daily in different
directions, but once outside of Havana, there is only one train back to
it again. When on the cars you are still in the presence and under the
care of Spanish soldiers, and the progress of the train is closely
guarded. A pilot engine precedes it at a distance of one hundred yards
to test the rails and pick up dynamite bombs, and in front of it is a
car covered with armor plate, with slits in the sides like those in a
letter box, through which the soldiers may fire. There are generally
from twenty to fifty soldiers in each armored car. Back of the armored
car is a flat car loaded with ties, girders and rails, which are used
to repair bridges or those portions of the track that may have been
blown up by the insurgents. Wherever a track crosses a bridge there are
two forts, one at each end of the bridge, and also at almost every
cross-road. When the train passes one of these forts, two soldiers
appear in the door and stand at salute to show, probably, that they are
awake, and at every station there are two or more forts, while the
stations themselves are usually protected by ramparts of ties and steel
rails. There is no situation where it is so distinctly evident that
those who are not with you are against you, for you are either inside
of one circle of forts or passing under guard by rail to another
circle, or you are with the insurgents. There is no alternative. If you
walk fifty yards away from the circle you are, in the eyes of the
Spaniards, as much in "the field" as though you were two hundred miles
away on the mountains.
[Illustration: A Spanish Soldier]
The lines are so closely drawn that when you consider the tremendous
amount of time and labor expended in keeping up this blockade, you must
admire the Spaniards for doing it so well, but you would admire them
more, if, instead of stopping content with that they went further and
invaded the field. The forts are an excellent precaution; they prevent
sympathizers from joining the insurgents and from sending them food,
arms, medicine or messages. But the next step, after blockading the
cities, would appear to be to follow the insurgents into the field and
give them battle. This the Spaniards do not seem to consider important,
nor wish to do. Flying columns of regular troops and guerrillas are
sent out daily, but they always return each evening within the circle
of forts. If they meet a band of insurgents they give battle readily
enough, but they never pursue the enemy, and, instead of camping on the
ground and following him up the next morning, they retreat as soon as
the battle is over, to the town where they are stationed. When
occasionally objection is made to this by a superior officer, they give
as an explanation that they were afraid of being led into an ambush,
and that as an officer's first consideration must be for his men, they
decided that it was wiser not to follow the enemy into what might prove
a death-trap; or the officers say they could not abandon their wounded
while they pursued the rebels. Sometimes a force of one thousand men
will return with three men wounded, and will offer their condition as
an excuse for having failed to follow the enemy.
About five years ago troops of United States cavalry were sent into the
chapparal on the border of Mexico and Texas to drive the Garcia
revolutionists back into their own country. One troop, G, Third
Cavalry, was ordered out for seven days' service, but when I joined the
troop later as a correspondent, it had been in the field for three
months, sleeping the entire time under canvas, and carrying all its
impedimenta with it on pack mules. It had seldom, if ever, been near a
town, and the men wore the same clothes, or what was left of them, with
which they had started for a week's campaign. Had the Spaniards
followed such a plan of attack as that when the revolution began,
instead of building mud forts and devastating the country, they might
not only have suppressed the revolution, but the country would have
been of some value when the war ended. As it is to-day, it will take
ten years or more to bring it back to a condition of productiveness.
The wholesale devastation of the island was an idea of General
Weyler's. If the captain of a vessel, in order to put down a mutiny on
board, scuttled the ship and sent everybody to the bottom, his plan of
action would be as successful as General Weyler's has proved to be.
After he had obtained complete control of the cities he decided to lay
waste the country and starve the revolutionists into submission. So he
ordered all pacíficos, as the non-belligerents are called, into the
towns and burned their houses, and issued orders to have all fields
where potatoes or corn were planted dug up and these food products
destroyed.
These pacificos are now gathered inside of a dead line, drawn one
hundred and fifty yards around the towns, or wherever there is a fort.
Some of them have settled around the forts that guard a bridge, others
around the forts that guard a sugar plantation; wherever there are
forts there are pacificos.
In a word, the situation in Cuba is something like this: The Spaniards
hold the towns, from which their troops daily make predatory raids,
invariably returning in time for dinner at night. Around each town is a
circle of pacificos doing no work, and for the most part starving and
diseased, and outside, in the plains and mountains, are the insurgents.
No one knows just where any one band of them is to-day or where it may
be to-morrow. Sometimes they come up to the very walls of the fort,
lasso a bunch of cattle and ride off again, and the next morning their
presence may be detected ten miles away, where they are setting fire to
a cane field or a sugar plantation.
[Illustration: Guerrillas With Captured Pacíficos]
This is the situation, so far as the inhabitants are concerned. The
physical appearance of the country since the war began has changed
greatly. In the days of peace Cuba was one of the most beautiful
islands in the tropics, perhaps in the world. Its skies hang low and
are brilliantly beautiful, with great expanses of blue, and in the
early morning and before sunset, they are lighted with wonderful clouds
of pink and saffron, as brilliant and as unreal as the fairy's grotto
in a pantomime. There are great wind-swept prairies of high grass or
tall sugar cane, and on the sea coast mountains of a light green, like
the green of corroded copper, changing to a darker shade near the base,
where they are covered with forests of palms.
Throughout the extent of the island run many little streams, sometimes
between high banks of rock, covered with moss and magnificent fern,
with great pools of clear, deep water at the base of high waterfalls,
and in those places where the stream cuts its way through the level
plains double rows of the royal palm mark its course. The royal palm is
the characteristic feature of the landscape in Cuba. It is the most
beautiful of all palms, and possibly the most beautiful of all trees.
The cocoanut palm, as one sees it in Egypt, picturesque as it is, has a
pathetic resemblance to a shabby feather duster, and its trunk bends
and twists as though it had not the strength to push its way through
the air, and to hold itself erect. But the royal palm shoots up boldly
from the earth with the grace and symmetry of a marble pillar or the
white mast of a great ship. Its trunk swells in the centre and grows
smaller again at the top, where it is hidden by great bunches of green
plumes, like monstrous ostrich feathers that wave and bow and bend in
the breeze as do the plumes on the head of a beautiful woman. Standing
isolated in an open plain or in ranks in a forest of palms, this tree
is always beautiful, noble and full of meaning. It makes you forget the
ugly iron chimneys of the _centrals_, and it is the first and the
last feature that appeals to the visitor in Cuba.
But since the revolution came to Cuba the beauty of the landscape is
blotted with the grim and pitiable signs of war. The sugar cane has
turned to a dirty brown where the fire has passed through it, the
_centrals_ are black ruins, and the adobe houses and the railroad
stations are roofless, and their broken windows stare pathetically at
you like blind eyes. War cannot alter the sunshine, but the smoke from
the burning huts and the blazing corn fields seems all the more sad and
terrible when it rises into such an atmosphere, and against so soft and
beautiful a sky.
People frequently ask how far the destruction of property in Cuba is
apparent. It is so far apparent that the smoke of burning buildings is
seldom absent from the landscape. If you stand on an elevation it is
possible to see from ten to twenty blazing houses, and the smoke from
the cane fields creeping across the plain or rising slowly to meet the
sky. Sometimes the train passes for hours through burning districts,
and the heat from the fields along the track is so intense that it is
impossible to keep the windows up, and whenever the door is opened
sparks and cinders sweep into the car. One morning, just this side of
Jovellanos, all the sugar cane on the right side of the track was
wrapped in white smoke for miles so that nothing could be distinguished
from that side of the car, and we seemed to be moving through the white
steam of a Russian bath.
The Spaniards are no more to blame for this than are the insurgents;
each destroy property and burn the cane. When an insurgent column finds
a field planted with potatoes, it takes as much of the crop as it can
carry away and chops up the remainder with machetes, to prevent it from
falling into the hands of the Spaniards. If the Spaniards pass first,
they act in exactly the same way.
Cane is not completely destroyed if it is burned, for if it is at once
cut down just above the roots, it will grow again. When peace is
declared it will not be the soil that will be found wanting, nor the
sun. It will be the lack of money and the loss of credit that will keep
the sugar planters from sowing and grinding. And the loss of machinery
in the _centrals_, which is worth in single instances hundreds of
thousands of dollars, and in the aggregate many millions, cannot be
replaced by men, who, even when their machinery was intact, were on the
brink of ruin.
Unless the United States government interferes on account of some one
of its citizens in Cuba, and war is declared with Spain, there is no
saying how long the present revolution may continue. For the Spaniards
themselves are acting in a way which makes many people suspect that
they are not making an effort to bring it to an end. The sincerity of
the Spaniards in Spain is beyond question; the personal sacrifices they
made in taking up the loans issued by the government are proof of their
loyalty. But the Spaniards in Cuba are acting for their own interests.
Many of the planters in order to save their fields and _centrals_
from destruction, are unquestionably aiding the insurgents in secret,
and though they shout "Viva España" in the cities, they pay out
cartridges and money at the back door of their plantations.
[Illustration: A Spanish Officer]
It was because Weyler suspected that they were playing this double game
that he issued secret orders that there should be no more grinding. For
he knew that the same men who bribed him to allow them to grind would
also pay blackmail to the insurgents for a like permission. He did not
dare openly to forbid the grinding, but he instructed his officers in
the field to visit those places where grinding was in progress and to
stop it by some indirect means, such as by declaring that the laborers
employed were suspects, or by seizing all the draught oxen ostensibly
for the use of his army, or by insisting that the men employed must
show a fresh permit to work every day, which could only be issued to
them by some commandante stationed not less than ten miles distant from
the plantation on which they were employed.
And the Spanish officers, as well as the planters--the very men to whom
Spain looks to end the rebellion--are chief among those who are keeping
it alive. The reasons for their doing so are obvious; they receive
double pay while they are on foreign service, whether they are fighting
or not, promotion comes twice as quickly as in time of peace, and
orders and crosses are distributed by the gross. They are also able to
make small fortunes out of forced loans from planters and suspects, and
they undoubtedly hold back for themselves a great part of the pay of
the men. A certain class of Spanish officer has a strange sense of
honor. He does not consider that robbing his government by falsifying
his accounts, or by making incorrect returns of his expenses, is
disloyal or unpatriotic. He holds such an act as lightly as many people
do smuggling cigars through their own custom house, or robbing a
corporation of a railroad fare. He might be perfectly willing to die
for his country, but should he be permitted to live he will not
hesitate to rob her.
A lieutenant, for instance, will take twenty men out for their daily
walk through the surrounding country and after burning a few huts and
butchering a pacifico or two, will come back in time for dinner and
charge his captain for rations for fifty men and for three thousand
cartridges "expended in service." The captain vises his report, and the
two share the profits. Or they turn the money over to the colonel, who
recommends them for red enamelled crosses for "bravery on the field."
The only store in Matanzas that was doing a brisk trade when I was
there was a jewelry shop, where they had sold more diamonds and watches
to the Spanish officers since the revolution broke out than they had
ever been able to dispose of before to all the rich men in the city.
The legitimate pay of the highest ranking officer is barely enough to
buy red wine for his dinner, certainly not enough to pay for champagne
and diamonds; so it is not unfair to suppose that the rebellion is a
profitable experience for the officers, and they have no intention of
losing the golden eggs.
And the insurgents on the other side are equally determined to continue
the conflict. From every point of view this is all that is left for
them to do. They know by terrible experience how little of mercy or
even of justice they may expect from the enemy, and, patriotism or the
love of independence aside, it is better for them to die in the field
than to risk the other alternative; a lingering life in an African
penal settlement or the fusillade against the east wall of Cabañas
prison. In an island with a soil so rich and productive as is that of
Cuba there will always be roots and fruits for the insurgents to live
upon, and with the cattle that they have hidden away in the laurel or
on the mountains they can keep their troops in rations for an
indefinite period. What they most need now are cartridges and rifles.
Of men they have already more than they can arm.
People in the United States frequently express impatience at the small
amount of fighting which takes place in this struggle for liberty, and
it is true that the lists of killed show that the death rate in battle
is inconsiderable. Indeed, when compared with the number of men and
women who die daily of small-pox and fever and those who are butchered
on the plantations, the proportion of killed in battle is probably
about one to fifteen.
I have no statistics to prove these figures, but, judging from the
hospital reports and from what the consuls tell of the many murders of
pacificos, I judge that that proportion would be rather under than
above the truth. George Bronson Rae, the _Herald_ correspondent,
who was for nine months with Maceo and Gomez, and who saw eighty fights
and was twice wounded, told me that the largest number of insurgents he
had seen killed in one battle was thirteen.
Another correspondent said that a Spanish officer had told him that he
had killed forty insurgents out of four hundred who had attacked his
column. "But how do you know you killed that many?" the correspondent
asked. "You say you were never nearer than half a mile to them, and
that you fell back into the town as soon as they ceased firing."
[Illustration: Insurgents Firing on a Spanish Fort "One Shot for a
Hundred"]
"Ah, but I counted the cartridges my men had used," the officer
replied. "I found they had expended four hundred. By allowing ten
bullets to each man killed, I was able to learn that we had killed
forty men."
These stories show how little reason there is to speak of these
skirmishes as battles, and it also throws some light on the Spaniard's
idea of his own marksmanship. As a plain statement of fact, and without
any exaggeration, one of the chief reasons why half the insurgents in
Cuba are not dead to-day is because the Spanish soldiers cannot shoot
well enough to hit them. The Mauser rifle, which is used by all the
Spanish soldiers, with the exception of the Guardia Civile, is a most
excellent weapon for those who like clean, gentlemanly warfare, in
which the object is to wound or to kill outright, and not to "shock"
the enemy nor to tear his flesh in pieces. The weapon has hardly any
trajectory up to one thousand yards, but, in spite of its precision, it
is as useless in the hands of a guerrilla or the average Spanish
soldier as a bow and arrow would be. The fact that when the Spaniards
say "within gun fire of the forts" they mean within one hundred and
fifty yards of them shows how they estimate their own skill. Major
Grover Flint, the _Journal_ correspondent, told me of a fight that
he witnessed in which the Spaniards fired two thousand rounds at forty
insurgents only two hundred yards away, and only succeeded in wounding
three of them. Sylvester Scovel once explained this bad marksmanship to
me by pointing out that to shift the cartridge in a Mauser, it is
necessary to hold the rifle at an almost perpendicular angle, and close
up under the shoulder. After the fresh cartridge has gone home the
temptation to bring the butt to the shoulder before the barrel is level
is too great for the Spanish Tommy, and, in his excitement, he fires
most of his ammunition in the air over the heads of the enemy. He also
fires so recklessly and rapidly that his gun often becomes too hot for
him to handle it properly, and it is not an unusual sight to see him
rest the butt on the ground and pull the trigger while the gun is in
that position.