Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles

Meantime the blockade of the Cuban coasts, as indicated above, had been established effectively, to the extent demanded by international law, which requires the presence upon the coast, or before the port, declared blockaded, of such a force as shall constitute a manifest danger of capture to vessels seeking to enter or to depart. In the reserved, not to say unfriendly, attitude assumed by many of the European States, the precise character of which is not fully known, and perhaps never will be, it was not only right, but practically necessary, to limit the extent of coast barred to merchant ships to that which could be thus effectually guarded, leaving to neutral governments no sound ground for complaint. Blockade is one of the rights conceded to belligerent States, by universal agreement, which directly, as well as indirectly, injures neutrals, imposing pecuniary losses by restraints upon trade previously in their hands. The ravages of the insurrection and the narrow policy of Spain in seeking to monopolize intercourse with her colonies had, indeed, already grievously reduced the commerce of the island; but with our war there was sure to spring up a vigorous effort, both legal and contraband, to introduce stores of all kinds, especially the essentials of life, the supply of which was deficient. Such cargoes, not being clearly contraband, could be certainly excluded only by blockade; and the latter, in order fully to serve our military objects, needed at the least to cover every port In railway communication with Havana, where the bulk of the Spanish army was assembled. This it was impossible to effect at the first, because we had not ships enough; and therefore, as always in such cases, a brisk neutral trade, starting from Jamaica and from Mexico, as well as from Europe and the North American Continent, was directed upon the harbors just outside the limits of the blockade,—towards Sagua la Grande and adjacent waters in the north, and to Batabano and other ports in the south. Such trade would be strictly lawful, from an international standpoint, unless declared by us to be contraband, because aiding to support the army of the enemy; and such declarations, by which provisions are included in the elastic, but ill-defined category of contraband, tend always to provoke the recriminations and unfriendliness of neutral states. Blockade avoids the necessity for definitions, for by it all goods become contraband; the extension of it therefore was to us imperative.

As things were, although this neutral trade frustrated our purposes to a considerable degree, it afforded us no ground for complaint. On the contrary, we were at times hard driven by want of vessels to avoid laying ourselves open to reclamation, on the score of the blockade being invalid, even within its limited range, because ineffective. This was especially the case at the moment when the army was being convoyed from Tampa, as well as immediately before, and for some days after that occasion: before, because it was necessary then to detach from the blockade and to assemble elsewhere the numerous small vessels needed to check the possible harmful activity of the Spanish gunboats along the northern coast, and afterwards, because the preliminary operations about Santiago, concurring with dark nights favorable to Cervera's escape, made it expedient to retain there many of the lighter cruisers, which, moreover, needed recoaling,—a slow business when so many ships were involved. Our operations throughout labored—sometimes more, sometimes less—under this embarrassment, which should be borne in mind as a constant, necessary, yet perplexing element in the naval and military plans. The blockade, in fact, while the army was still unready, and until the Spanish Navy came within reach, was the one decisive measure, sure though slow in its working, which could be taken; the necessary effect of which was to bring the enemy's ships to this side of the ocean, unless Spain was prepared to abandon the contest. The Italian writer already quoted, a fair critic, though Spanish in his leanings, enumerates among the circumstances most creditable to the direction of the war by the Navy Department the perception that "blockade must inevitably cause collapse, given the conditions of insurrection and of exhaustion already existing in the island."

From this specific instance, the same author, whose military judgments show much breadth of view, later on draws a general conclusion which is well worth the attention of American readers, because much of our public thought is committed to the belief that at sea private property, so called,—that is, merchant ships and their cargoes,—should not be liable to capture in war; which, duly interpreted, means that the commerce of one belligerent is not to be attacked or interrupted by the other. "Blockade," says our Italian, "is the fundamental basis of the conflict for the dominion of the seas, when the contest cannot be brought to an immediate issue;" that is, to immediate battle. Blockade, however, is but one form of the unbloody pressure brought to bear upon an enemy by interruption of his commerce. The stoppage of commerce, in whole or in part, exhausts without fighting. It compels peace without sacrificing life. It is the most scientific warfare, because the least sanguinary, and because, like the highest strategy, it is directed against the communications,—the resources,—not the persons, of the enemy. It has been the glory of sea-power that its ends are attained by draining men of their dollars instead of their blood. Eliminate the attack upon an enemy's sea-borne commerce from the conditions of naval war,—in which heretofore it has been always a most important factor,—and the sacrifice of life will be proportionately increased, for two reasons: First, the whole decision of the contest will rest upon actual conflict; and, second, failing decisive results in battle, the war will be prolonged, because by retaining his trade uninjured the enemy retains all his money power to keep up his armed forces.

The establishment and maintenance of the blockade therefore was, in the judgment of the present writer, not only the first step in order, but also the first, by far, in importance, open to the Government of the United States as things were; prior, that is, to the arrival of Cervera's division at some known and accessible point. Its importance lay in its twofold tendency; to exhaust the enemy's army in Cuba, and to force his navy to come to the relief. No effect more decisive than these two could be produced by us before the coming of the hostile navy, or the readiness of our own army to take the field, permitted the contest to be brought, using the words of our Italian commentator, "to an immediate issue." Upon the blockade, therefore, the generally accepted principles of warfare would demand that effort should be concentrated, until some evident radical change in the conditions dictated a change of object,—a new objective; upon which, when accepted, effort should again be concentrated, with a certain amount of "exclusiveness of purpose."

Blockade, however, implies not merely a sufficient number of cruisers to prevent the entry or departure of merchant ships. It further implies, because it requires, a strong supporting force sufficient to resist being driven off by an attack from within or from without the port; for it is an accepted tenet of international law that a blockade raised by force ceases to exist, and cannot be considered re-established until a new proclamation and reoccupancy of the ground in force. Hence it follows that, prior to such re-establishment, merchant vessels trying to enter or to depart cannot be captured in virtue of the previous proclamation. Consequent upon this requirement, therefore, the blockades on the north and on the south side, to be secure against this military accident, should each have been supported by a division of armored ships capable of meeting Cervera's division on fairly equal terms; for, considering the sea distance between Cienfuegos and Havana, one such division could not support both blockades. It has already been indicated why it was impossible so to sustain the Cienfuegos blockaders. The reason, in the last analysis, was our insufficient sea-coast fortification. The Flying Squadron was kept in Hampton Roads to calm the fears of the seaboard, and to check any enterprise there of Cervera, if intended or attempted. The other division of the armored fleet, however, was placed before Havana, where its presence not only strengthened adequately the blockading force proper, but assured also the safety of our naval base at Key West, both objects being attainable by the same squadron, on account of their nearness to each other.

It should likewise be noticed that the same principle of concentration of effort upon the single purpose—the blockade—forbade, a priori, any attempts at bombardment by which our armored ships should be brought within range of disablement by heavy guns on shore. If the blockade was our object, rightly or wrongly, and if a blockade, to be secure against serious disturbance, required all the armored ships at our disposal,—as it did,—it follows logically and rigorously that to risk those ships by attacking forts is false to principle, unless special reasons can be adduced sufficiently strong to bring such action within the scope of the principle properly applied. It is here necessary clearly to distinguish. Sound principles in warfare are as useful and as necessary as in morals; when established, the presumption in any case is all on their side, and there is no one of them better established than concentration. But as in morals, so in war, the application of principle, the certainty of right, is not always clear. Could it always be, war would be an exact science; which it is not, but an art, in which true artists are as few as in painting or sculpture. It may be that a bombardment of the fortifications of Havana, or of some other place, might have been expedient, for reasons unknown to the writer; but it is clearly and decisively his opinion that if it would have entailed even a remote risk of serious injury to an armored ship, it stood condemned irretrievably (unless it conduced to getting at the enemy's navy), because it would hazard the maintenance of the blockade, our chosen object, upon which our efforts should be concentrated.² There is concentration of purpose, as well as concentration in place, and ex-centric action in either sphere is contrary to sound military principle.

The question of keeping the armored division under Admiral Sampson in the immediate neighborhood of Havana, for the purpose of supporting the blockade by the lighter vessels, was one upon which some diversity of opinion might be expected to arise. Cervera's destination was believed—as it turned out, rightly believed—to be the West Indies. His precise point of arrival was a matter of inference only, as in fact was his general purpose. A natural surmise was that he would go first to Puerto Rico, for reasons previously indicated. But if coal enough remained to him, it was very possible that he might push on at once to his ultimate objective, if that were a Cuban port, thus avoiding the betrayal of his presence at all until within striking distance of his objective. That he could get to the United States coast without first entering a coaling port, whence he would be reported, was antecedently most improbable; and, indeed, it was fair to suppose that, if bound to Havana, coal exigencies would compel him to take a pretty short route, and to pass within scouting range of the Windward Passage, between Cuba and Haïti. Whatever the particular course of reasoning, it was decided that a squadron under Admiral Sampson's command should proceed to the Windward Passage for the purpose of observation, with a view to going further eastward if it should appear advisable. Accordingly, on the 4th of May, five days after Cervera left the Cape de Verde, the Admiral sailed for the appointed position, taking with him all his armored sea-going ships—the Iowa, the Indiana, and the New York—and two monitors, the Amphitrite and the Terror. Of course, some smaller cruisers and a collier accompanied him.

It is almost too obvious for mention that this movement, if undertaken at all, should be made, as it was, with all the force disposable, this being too small to be safely divided. The monitors promptly, though passively, proceeded to enforce another ancient maritime teaching,—the necessity for homogeneousness, especially of speed and manœuvring qualities, in vessels intending to act together. Of inferior speed at the best, they had, owing to their small coal endurance, and to minimize the delay in the progress of the whole body, consequent upon their stopping frequently to coal, to be towed each by an armored ship,—an expedient which, although the best that could be adopted, entailed endless trouble and frequent stoppages through the breaking of the tow-lines.

Shortly before midnight of May 7th, the squadron was twenty miles north of Cape Haïtien, about six hundred sea miles east of Havana. It was there learned, by telegrams received from the Department, that no information had yet been obtained as to the movements of the Spanish division, but that two swift steamers, lately of the American Transatlantic line, had been sent to scout to the eastward of Martinique and Guadaloupe. The instructions to these vessels were to cruise along a north and south line, eighty miles from the islands named. They met at the middle once a day, communicated, and then went back in opposite directions to the extremities of the beat. In case the enemy were discovered, word of course would be sent from the nearest cable port to Washington, and to the Admiral, if accessible. The two vessels were directed to continue on this service up to a certain time, which was carefully calculated to meet the extreme possibilities of slowness on the part of the Spanish division, if coming that way; afterwards they were to go to a given place, and report. It may be added that they remained their full time, and yet missed by a hair's breadth sighting the enemy. The captain of one of them, the Harvard, afterwards told the writer that he believed another stretch to the south would have rewarded him with success. The case was one in which blame could be imputed to nobody; unless it were to the Spaniards, in disappointing our very modest expectations concerning their speed as a squadron, which is a very different thing from the speed of a single ship.

Among the telegrams received at this time by the Admiral from the Department were reports of rumors that colliers for the Spanish division had been seen near Guadaloupe; also that Spanish vessels were coaling and loading ammunition at St. Thomas. Neither of these was well founded, nor was it likely that the enemy's division would pause for such purpose at a neutral island, distant, as St. Thomas is, less than one hundred miles from their own harbors in Puerto Rico.

Immediately after the receipt of these telegrams, the Admiral summoned all his captains between 12 and 4 A.M., May 9th, to a consultation regarding the situation. He then decided to go on to San Juan, the chief seaport of Puerto Rico, upon the chance of finding the Spanish squadron there. The coaling of the monitors, which had begun when the squadron stopped the previous afternoon, was resumed next morning. At 11.15, May 9th, a telegram from the Department reported a story, "published in the newspapers," that the Spanish division had been seen on the night of the 7th, near Martinique. The Department's telegram betrayed also some anxiety about Key West and the Havana blockade; but, while urging a speedy return, the details of the Admiral's movements were left to his own discretion. The squadron then stood east, and on the early morning of the 12th arrived off San Juan. An attack upon the forts followed at once, lasting from 5.30 to 7.45 A.M.; but, as it was evident that the Spanish division was not there, the Admiral decided not to continue the attack, although satisfied that he could force a surrender. His reasons for desisting are given in his official report as follows:—

"The fact that we should be held several days in completing arrangements for holding the place; that part [of the squadron] would have to be left to await the arrival of troops to garrison it; that the movements of the Spanish squadron, our main objective, were still unknown; that the Flying Squadron was still north and not in a position to render any aid; that Havana, Cervera's natural objective, was thus open to entry by such a force as his, while we were a thousand miles distant,—made our immediate movement toward Havana imperative."

It will be noted that the Admiral's conclusions, as here given, coincided substantially with the feeling of the Department as expressed in the telegram last mentioned. The squadron started back immediately to the westward. During the night of this same day, Thursday, May 12th, towards midnight, reliable information was received at the Navy Department that Cervera's squadron had arrived off Martinique,—four armored cruisers and three torpedo destroyers, one of the latter entering the principal port of the island.

The movements of the Spanish division immediately preceding its appearance off Martinique can be recovered in the main from the log of the Cristobal Colon, which was found on board that ship by the United States officers upon taking possession after her surrender on July 3. Some uncertainty attends the conclusions reached from its examination, because the record is brief and not always precise in its statements; but, whatever inaccuracy of detail there may be, the general result is clear enough.

At noon on May 10th the division was one hundred and thirty miles east of the longitude of Martinique, and fifteen miles south of its southernmost point. Being thus within twelve hours' run of the island, Admiral Cervera evidently, and reasonably, considered that he might now be in the neighborhood of danger, if the United States Government had decided to attempt to intercept him with an armored division, instead of sticking to the dispositions known to him when he sailed,—the blockade of Cuba and the holding the Flying Squadron in reserve. In order not to fall in with an enemy unexpectedly, especially during the night, the speed of the division was reduced to something less than four knots, and the torpedo destroyer Terror was sent ahead to reconnoitre and report. The incident of her separating from her consorts is not noted,—a singular omission, due possibly to its occurring at night and so escaping observation by the Colon; but it is duly logged that she was sighted "to port" next morning, May 11th, at 9 A.M., and that, until she was recognized, the crew were sent to their quarters for action. This precaution had also been observed during the previous night, the men sleeping beside their guns,—a sufficient evidence of the suspicions entertained by the Spanish Admiral.

At 10 A.M.—by which hour, or very soon afterwards, the communication of the Terror with the Admiral recorded by the log must have taken place—there had been abundance of time since daybreak for a 15-knot torpedo destroyer, low-lying in the water, to remain unseen within easy scouting distance of Martinique, and thence to rejoin the squadron, which would then be forty or fifty miles distant from the island. She could even, by putting forth all her speed, have communicated with the shore; possibly without the knowledge of the American representatives on the spot, if the sympathies of the inhabitants were with the Spaniards, as has been generally believed. However that may be, shortly after her junction the division went ahead again seven knots, the speed logged at noon of May 11th, which, as steam formed, was increased to ten knots. At 4 P.M. Martinique was abeam on the starboard hand—north. At sundown the ships went to general quarters, and the crews were again kept at their guns during the night. By this time Cervera doubtless had been informed that Sampson's division had gone east from Cuba, but its destination could have been only a matter of inference with him, for the attack upon San Juan did not take place till the following morning. The fact of keeping his men at quarters also justifies the conclusion that he was thus uncertain about Sampson, for the stationariness of the Flying Squadron would be known at Martinique.

After mentioning that the ship's company went to quarters, the log of the Colon adds: "Stopped from 5.15 to 6 A.M." Whether the 5.15 was A.M. or P.M., whether, in short, the squadron continued practically motionless during the night of May 11th-12th, can only be conjectured, but there can be little doubt that it did so remain. The Spaniards still observe the old-fashioned sea-day of a century ago, abandoned long since by the British and ourselves, according to which May 12th begins at noon of May 11th. A continuous transaction, such as stopping from evening to morning, would fall, therefore, in the log of the same day, as it here does; whereas in a United States ship of war, even were our records as brief and fragmentary as the Colon's, the fact of the stoppage, extending over the logs of two days, would have been mentioned in each. It is odd, after passing an hour or two in putting this and that together out of so incomplete a narrative, to find recorded in full, a few days later, the following notable incident: "At 2.30 P.M. flagship made signal: 'If you want fresh beef, send boat.' Answered: 'Many thanks; do not require any.'" Log-books do state such occurrences, particularly when matters of signal; but then they are supposed also to give a reasonably full account of each day's important proceedings.

Whatever the movements back and forth, or the absence of movement, by the Spanish ships during the night, at 7.10 A.M. the next day, May 12th, while Sampson's division was still engaged with the forts at San Juan, they were close to Martinique, "four miles from Diamond Rock," a detached islet at its southern end. The next entry, the first for the sea-day of May 13th, is: "At 12.20 P.M. lost sight of Martinique." As the land there is high enough to be visible forty or fifty miles under favorable conditions, and as the squadron on its way to Curaçao averaged 11 knots per hour, it seems reasonable to infer that the Spanish Admiral, having received news of the attack on San Juan, though possibly not of the result, had determined upon a hasty departure and a hurried run to the end of his journey, before he could be intercepted by Sampson, the original speed of whose ships was inferior to that of his own, and whom he knew to be hampered by monitors.

The Spaniards did not take coal at Martinique. This may have been due to refusal by the French officials to permit it, according to a common neutral rule which allows a neutral only to give enough to reach the nearest national port. As the ships still had enough to reach Curaçao, they had more than enough to go to Puerto Rico. It may very well be, also, that Cervera, not caring to meet Sampson, whose force, counting the monitors, was superior to his own, thought best to disappear at once again from our knowledge. He did indeed prolong his journey to Santiago, if that were his original destination, by nearly two hundred miles, through going to Curaçao; not to speak of the delay there in coaling. But, if the Dutch allowed him to take all that he wanted, he would in his final start be much nearer Cuba than at Martinique, and he would be able, as far as fuel went, to reach either Santiago, Cienfuegos, or Puerto Rico, or even Havana itself,—all which possibilities would tend to perplex us. It is scarcely probable, however, that he would have attempted the last-named port. To do so, not to speak of the greater hazard through the greater distance, would, in case of his success, not merely have enabled, but invited, the United States to concentrate its fleet in the very best position for us, where it would not only have "contained" the enemy, but have best protected our own base at Key West.

In the absence of certain knowledge, conjectural opinions, such as the writer has here educed, are not unprofitable; rather the reverse. To form them, the writer and the reader place themselves perforce nearly in Cervera's actual position, and pass through their own minds the grist of unsolved difficulties which confronted him. The result of such a process is a much more real mental possession than is yielded by a quiet perusal of any ascertained facts, because it involves an argumentative consideration of opposing conditions, and not a mere passive acceptance of statements. The general conclusion of the present writer, from this consideration of Cervera's position, and of that of our own Government, is that the course of the Spanish Admiral was opportunist, solely and simply. Such, in general, and necessarily, must be that of any "fleet in being," in the strict sense of the phrase, which involves inferiority of force; whereas the stronger force, if handled with sagacity and strength, constrains the weaker in its orbit as the earth governs the moon. Placed in an extremely false position by the fault, militarily unpardonable, of his Government, Admiral Cervera doubtless did the best he could. That in so doing he caused the United States authorities to pass through some moments of perplexity is certain, but it was the perplexity of interest rather than of apprehension; and in so far as the latter was felt at all, it was due to antecedent faults of disposition on our own part, the causes of which have been in great measure indicated already. The writer is not an angler, but he understands that there is an anxious pleasure in the suspense of playing a fish, as in any important contest involving skill.

To say that there was any remarkable merit in the movements of the Spanish Admiral is as absurd as to attribute particular cleverness to a child who, with his hands behind his back, asks the old conundrum, "Right or left?" "It is all a matter of guess," said Nelson, "and the world attributes wisdom to him who guesses right;" but all the same, by unremitting watchfulness, sagacious inference, and diligent pursuit, he ran the French fleet down. At Martinique, Admiral Cervera had all the West Indies before him where to choose, and the United States coast too, conditioned by coal and other needs, foreseen or unforeseen. We ran him down at Santiago; and had he vanished from there, we should have caught him somewhere else. The attempt of the Spanish authorities to create an impression that some marvellous feat of strategy was in process of execution, to the extreme discomfiture of the United States navy, was natural enough, considering the straits they were in, and the consciousness of the capable among them that a squadron of that force never should have been sent across the sea; but, though natural, the pretension was absurd, and, though echoed by all the partisan Press in Europe, it did not for a moment impose as true upon those who were directing the movements of the United States ships.