CHAPTER V

THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS

FOUR hundred years ago Spain rose suddenly to the foremost place among the nations; but she fell almost as speedily, and in the present century she has not been reckoned as one of the great powers of Europe. At the beginning of 1898 her population was estimated at eighteen millions— about a quarter of that of the United States; and in other respects the disproportion of resources was still greater. Her one point of advantage-on paper, at least-lay in the fact that she had the greater number of trained soldiers. The issue of the conflict depended on the command of the sea, and her navy was weaker than her adversary's, though the tremendous inferiority it was to display under the guns of Dewey and Sampson did not appear in the navy lists. Almost overwhelmingly burdened with debt, her Government had neither ready money nor credit-the sinews of modern war. Her financial condition, indeed, was in itself a handicap that predetermined the result of her struggle against her rich and powerful enemy from the day it began.

There is no boastfulness in saying that the American is a better fighter than the Spaniard. Napoleon stigmatized the British as a nation of shopkeepers, and in that historical epigram he unintentionally phrased the strength of the peoples whom we classify by the oft-abused term of AngloSaxon. The qualities that win in the arts of peace

will also win in the arts of war, and the greater energy, intelligence, and organizing power-in a word, the superior business ability of the men who speak the English language is setting them further and further ahead of the Latin races in the struggle for worldwide dominion.

Of all the Latin countries, Spain is probably the least advanced, the most mediæval. Her people live primitively by agriculture; her manufactures are utterly insignificant in comparison to the vast industrial forces of the United States. In 1889 sixty-eight per cent of her inhabitants were returned as illiterate. In such a soil good government does not thrive, and she has suffered sorely from misrule and civil disorder. Her lack of great men is sufficiently shown by the disastrous ineptitude with which her foremost soldiers and statesmen have met the military and political emergencies of the last few years.

The Spaniard can fight bravely, but modern war, especially at sea, is not won by personal bravery. It is a matter of engineering, of the skilful use of ponderous and intricate machinery. In this the Spaniard is specially deficient, and the American conspicuously strong. As has been said by Hiram S. Maxim: "The complication of modern implements of destruction gives to the highly scientific and mechanical races a marked advantage over the untrained and unscientific nations";* and the war of 1898 was a signal demonstration of this principle. As in practically all the countries of continental Europe, Spain's army is raised by conscription, 80,000 recruits being levied annually. Their term of service is twelve years -three in the line, three in the first reserve, six in the second reserve. The full force of the army is nominally 1,083,595 men, but this

The Spanish

army.

* The Engineering Magazine, September, 1898.

is on paper only, as nothing like that number could be equipped for service. The standing army is stated at 128,183 on a peace footing, 183,972 on a war footing. The infantry is equipped with the Mauser, a good modern rifle that is also used by the German and other armies. It is of German make, a magazine rifle of small calibre and great range and power, using smokeless powder, and shooting five bullets without reloading.

Of the morale of the Spanish soldiers, their ill success in Cuba had created an unfavourable—a much too unfavourable-opinion in the United States. Americans who saw them there described them as not lacking in courage, but undisciplined, undrilled, and badly officered-criticisms that agree with those made by Wellington during the Peninsular war. They were wretched marksmen, the correspondents said, never doing target practice, and so careless in action that they seldom raised their rifles to the shoulder, finding it easier to fire with the butt held under the arm. They spoiled their weapons by ignorant misuse, knocking off the sight, for instance, because they complained that it tore their clothes.

In the face of the American navy Spain had little prospect of sending any further reinforcement to her army in Cuba. The strength of her garrison there at the outbreak of the war was not known with anything like exactitude. According to Mr. Springer, vice-consul at Havana, official records showed that since February, 1895, she had despatched 237,000 men across the Atlantic; a few of these had been killed in action, many thousands had died of disease, many more thousands had been invalided home. Consul-General Lee testified before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, on April 12th, that there were probably 97,000 or 98,000 Spanish troops then in the island, of whom only about 55,000 were capable of bearing arms. This

was far too low an estimate; the figures given by General Miles-150,000 men with 183 guns—were much nearer the truth. At the end of the war, after some 23,000 troops had left Santiago, the American commissioners in Cuba-Admiral Sampson and Generals Wade and Butler-reported that there were in the island about 118,000 Spanish regulars, 21,000 volunteers on duty, and 52,000 volunteers armed but not on duty.

The Spanish navy.

It has been repeatedly stated that Spain's naval power, on paper, was quite equal to that of the United States; but the navy lists do not bear this out. Her total number of vessels in service was given as 137, against 86 in the American navy; but such figures mean nothing. Of armoured men-of-war-the ships that win sea fights-she had in commission six, against seven, and her vessels were individually inferior. In its second line the United States had thirteen good modern steel cruisers-besides the New Orleans, bought just in time for the war; Spain had only five that could be classed as such. The rest of her navy consisted mainly of old iron and wooden vessels and of small gunboats used in patrolling the Cuban coast. Of her six first-rates, only one was a battle ship-the Pelayo, a steel vessel of 9,900 tons, launched at La Seyne (Toulon) in 1887 and since fitted with new boilers. Another battle ship, the Emperador Carlos V, launched at Cadiz in 1895, was at Havre taking her armament aboard when the war began. In June she was hurried off with Camara's squadron, her equipment still incomplete. Spain had no other ship of this class in service or building.

The fighting strength of the Spanish navy lay in its armoured cruisers. Nine of these were listed, but two of the nine were unfinished, and two-the Numancia and the Vittoria-were iron ships more than thirty years old, very slow, and practically useless for distant work. The other five cruisers were

fine modern vessels. Four-the Almirante Oquendo, the Infanta Maria Teresa, the Princesa de Asturias, and the Vizcaya-were sister ships, built in the Spanish yards, mainly by British constructors, during the last eight years. Each was of 7,000 tons, with a speed stated at twenty knots an hour, and costing three million dollars. The fifth was the Cristobal Colon, built at Sestri, Italy, as the Giuseppe Garibaldi II, the purchase of which was reported by the American newspapers, in March, 1898, as part of Spain's hostile preparations. As a matter of fact the Colon was bought in 1897, an order being placed with the same builders for a sister ship, which has never been delivered.

At the Spanish yards-the most important are those at Cartagena, Cadiz, Ferrol, and Bilbaosome other ships were building. Two were the unfinished cruisers Cardinal Cisneros and Cataluna, similar to the Vizcaya class. Another, the Isabel la Catolica, a 3,000-ton cruiser, was to be paid for by a fund raised in Mexico; a third small cruiser, the Rio de la Plata, was building at Havre, as a gift from the Spaniards of South America. None of these could be made ready for service, but two swift torpedo cruisers had just been completed in Thomson's yard, at Glasgow. In bringing them south their Spanish crews ran afoul of the Irish coast, and one was badly damaged.

Never, since the days of the Armada, has Spain's navy been famed for good seamanship. Her people, as has been said, do not possess the mechanical ability that is proverbially an American characteristic; and in handling so complicated a piece of machinery as the modern war ship a lack of intelligent care is speedily ruinous to efficiency. During the last three years her vessels had suffered many mishaps, and four had actually been lostone being the cruiser Reina Regente, which went down with all on board off Cape Trafalgar in 1895.