annexation of Cuba to the United States he would have offered the most resolute opposition of which he was capable. In view of those facts, that utterance in his message was of epochal import. It foreshadowed precisely what did occur less than a year and a half later. It was in effect a declaration of intervention and of war with Spain in behalf of Cuban independence, made more than a year before the steamer Maine entered Havana harbor.

CHAPTER VI

WE have said that the death of Antonio Maceo moved Cuban patriots to redouble their efforts to atone for the grievous loss which their cause had thus suffered. Unfortunately not all of them were capable of so doing, while those who did so were unable to make devotion and zeal take the place of consummate military genius. In consequence, despite the utmost efforts of Gomez and his colleagues matters went badly for the revolution through most of the following year. Gomez himself indeed felt that he had lost his right arm. He was at La Reforma, near Sancti Spiritus, at the beginning of 1897, and he summoned the other revolutionary leaders to meet him there, to concentrate their forces, and to plan a new campaign. They came promptly and eagerly, some of them unfortunately thus leaving without protection important strategic points and centers of revolutionist industry, which were pounced upon and captured by the Spanish. When the patriot forces were thus gathered it was expected that there would be immediately undertaken a general advance westward, into Matanzas and Havana; for which it was believed the Cuban army was strong enough, and which the Spanish were not believed to be able to resist.

Instead, Gomez decided first to effect the reduction of Arroyo Blanco. This was a small and unimportant town in the Province of Camaguey, near the Santa Clara border; containing a Spanish garrison under Captain Escobar. Gomez first summoned Escobar to surrender,

in order to avoid the destruction which would be caused by the bombardment of the place with a dynamite gun, which he threatened to begin forthwith. Escobar defied him, and the bombardment was undertaken, but proved ineffective, and before Gomez could capture the place strong Spanish reenforcements arrived and the attempt had to be abandoned. Thereafter Gomez contented himself with sending several strong bands westward, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Spaniards wherever they could, while he himself remained near Sancti Spiritus, also engaging in irregular operations.

There he was presently menaced by Weyler himself. That formidable foe had practically achieved the conquest of Pinar del Rio. After Maceo's death the Cuban forces in that province had largely dispersed, some abandoning the struggle altogether as hopeless, and others going to the east, to join themselves with Gomez, Garcia or other surviving leaders. Only a few roving bands remained. Accordingly Weyler announced that the western province was pacified. That was sufficiently true; but it was conspicuously true in the sense expressed by Tacitus, and Byron. They had made a solitude, and called it peace. Seldom had any comparable region. been so thoroughly devastated and desolated. Then Weyler felt himself free to lead his army elsewhere.

He set out from Havana with an imposing array of troops, and marched through the heart of the province and of Matanzas, into Santa Clara. On the way there was little fighting to do, not even to beat off guerrilla bands. His attention was given, therefore, to devastating the country, and to driving the inhabitants into "concentration camps," where they were doomed to starve to death by thousands. By the end of February he was triumphantly encamped at the foot of the Guamuhaya

Mountains, between Santa Clara and Trinidad, and had the satisfaction of having wrought vast destruction upon the property of Cubans and upon the essential supplies of the Cuban army.

A few weeks later Quintin Bandera with a small force came from Camaguey and, by wading through the shallow water of the Bay of Sabanabamar, got around the trocha and joined Gomez. The latter directed him to continue westward, and to harass the Spaniards with guerrilla attacks. This was done, and Bandera proceeded as far as Trinidad. Then failing to receive necessary support he turned back, and on July 4 was killed in a skirmish at Pelayo. East of the trocha Calixto Garcia continued his formidable career against such Spanish forces as remained in that region. He captured Las Tunas after forty-eight hours of almost incessant fighting. In Matanzas and Havana the revolutionary bands were badly broken up by the Spaniards, and they seemed to lack efficient leadership. Their leader, General Lacret, fell into an unfortunate controversy with Gomez over his treatment of Cubans who disregarded government orders, especially in their attitude toward the Spaniards. Gomez, remorseless, would have had them shot as traitors, but Lacret insisted upon more lenient treatment of them, realizing that they were almost literally "between the devil and the deep sea" and were therefore entitled to sympathetic consideration. The outcome was that Gomez relieved Lacret of his command and appointed Alexander Rodriguez in his place, in Matanzas. That officer failed to command the loyalty of his troops, and the result was that the latter generally deserted and dispersed. Mayia Rodriguez was then ordered to the scene, but was unable to collect a sufficient force, and remained in Santa Clara, hemmed in by the

Spanish. General Jose Maria Aguirre, who died in December, 1896, was succeeded in command in the Province of Havana by Nestor Aranguren, who performed some creditable minor operations, particularly against Spanish railroad communications, but achieved nothing of real importance. His lieutenant, General Adolfo Castillo, in the southern part of the province, was killed in battle, in September, and was succeeded by Juan Delgado. The Spanish General Parrado in October marched without opposition as far as Los Palos, and there received the surrender of a small Cuban band; and in November General Pando with a powerful army made his way without serious opposition from Havana to the western part of Oriente.

It was during this year that Weyler's ever infamous "concentration" policy, which was really a policy of extermination, reached its infernal climax and was then repudiated and abandoned. This system, as already related, was decreed on October 21, 1896. It required all Cubans, men, women and children, to leave their homes in the rural regions and enter concentration camps. These were simply huge pens, enclosed with fences and barbed wire and guarded by Spanish soldiers. There the hapless prisoners were huddled together, without shelter from the elements, and with little or no food save such as could be procured by stealth. There was none to be had within the enclosures, of course, and the prisoners could not go out to get any, even if any was to be found in the devastated country around them. Their friends outside seldom dared approach the camps to bring them food, because as they had not themselves surrendered as commanded by Weyler, they were liable to be shot at sight.

Elsewhere Cubans by thousands were driven into towns