the spanish american war short essay

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Spanish American War

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 2, 2022 | Original: May 14, 2010

The Spanish-American War was an 1898 conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America.

Causes: Remember the Maine!

The war originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain, which began in February 1895.

Spain’s brutally repressive measures to halt the rebellion were graphically portrayed for the U.S. public by several sensational newspapers engaging in yellow journalism , and American sympathy for the Cuban rebels rose.

Did you know? The term yellow journalism was coined in the 19th century to describe journalism that relies on eye-catching headlines, exaggeration and sensationalism to increase sales.

The growing popular demand for U.S. intervention became an insistent chorus after the still-unexplained sinking in Havana harbor of the American battleship USS Maine , which had been sent to protect U.S. citizens and property after anti-Spanish rioting in Havana.

War Is Declared

Spain announced an armistice on April 9 and speeded up its new program to grant Cuba limited powers of self-government.

But the U.S. Congress soon afterward issued resolutions that declared Cuba’s right to independence, demanded the withdrawal of Spain’s armed forces from the island, and authorized the use of force by President William McKinley to secure that withdrawal while renouncing any U.S. design for annexing Cuba.

Spain declared war on the United States on April 24, followed by a U.S. declaration of war on the 25th, which was made retroactive to April 21.

Spanish American War Begins

The ensuing war was pathetically one-sided, since Spain had readied neither its army nor its navy for a distant war with the formidable power of the United States.

In the early morning hours of May 1, 1898, Commodore George Dewey led a U.S. naval squadron into Manila Bay in the Philippines. He destroyed the anchored Spanish fleet in two hours before pausing the Battle of Manila Bay to order his crew a second breakfast. In total, fewer than 10 American seamen were lost, while Spanish losses were estimated at over 370. Manila itself was occupied by U.S. troops by August.

The elusive Spanish Caribbean fleet under Adm. Pascual Cervera was located in Santiago harbor in Cuba by U.S. reconnaissance. An army of regular troops and volunteers under Gen. William Shafter (including then-former assistant secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt and his 1st Volunteer Cavalry, the “Rough Riders”) landed on the coast east of Santiago and slowly advanced on the city in an effort to force Cervera’s fleet out of the harbor.

Cervera led his squadron out of Santiago on July 3 and tried to escape westward along the coast. In the ensuing battle all of his ships came under heavy fire from U.S. guns and were beached in a burning or sinking condition.

Santiago surrendered to Shafter on July 17, thus effectively ending the brief but momentous war.

Treaty of Paris

The Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish American War was signed on December 10, 1898. In it, Spain renounced all claim to Cuba, ceded Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States and transferred sovereignty over the Philippines to the United States for $20 million.

Philippine insurgents who had fought against Spanish rule soon turned their guns against their new occupiers. The Philippine-American War began in February of 1899 and lasted until 1902. Ten times more U.S. troops died suppressing revolts in the Philippines than in defeating Spain.

Impact of the Spanish-American War

The Spanish American War was an important turning point in the history of both antagonists. Spain’s defeat decisively turned the nation’s attention away from its overseas colonial adventures and inward upon its domestic needs, a process that led to both a cultural and a literary renaissance and two decades of much-needed economic development in Spain.

The victorious United States, on the other hand, emerged from the war a world power with far-flung overseas possessions and a new stake in international politics that would soon lead it to play a determining role in the affairs of Europe and the rest of the globe.

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The Spanish American War (1898)

April 21, 1898–August 12, 1898

The Spanish American War was fought between the United States and Spain. The U.S. won the short war, which took place primarily in Cuba. The outcome signaled the emergence of the United States as a global power and the end of Spain’s empire in the Americas.

This 1898 print by Louis Dalrymple is called “Uncle Sam’s Picnic.” It depicts Uncle Sam helping four girls labeled Philippines, Ladrones, Porto Rico, and Cuba. On the old man’s hat are the words, “Monroe Doctrine.” Image Source: Library of Congress .

Spanish American War Summary

The Spanish-American War (April–August 1898) was fought between the United States and Spain, primarily on the island of Cuba. American forces were able to capture the port city of Santiago, defeating Spanish land and sea forces. In the aftermath of the victory, Spain ceded Guan, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the U.S., and Cuba became an independent nation. The outcome of the war signaled the emergence of the United States as a global power, the end of Spain’s empire in the Americas, and the rise to prominence of Theodore Roosevelt who became the 26th President of the United States in 1901 . 

Spanish American War Facts

• President: William McKinley was President of the United States during the Spanish American War.
• Belligerents: The United States of America and Cuban Insurgents fought against Spain during the war.
• Start Date: The Spanish American War started on April 21, 1898, when the U.S. Navy blockaded Cuba and Spain severed diplomatic ties with the U.S.
• End Date: Fighting ended on August 12, 1898.
• Duration: The war lasted for about 4 months.
• Location: Major battles were fought in the Philippines and Cuba.
• Who Won: The United States won the Spanish American War.
• Outcome: Cuba gained independence and the U.S. gained Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
• Slogan: The popular slogan was “Remember the Maine!,” which was used as a rallying cry for Americans following the destruction of the USS Maine on February 15, 1898.
• Fun Fact: Former Confederates, including Joseph Wheeler and Fitzhugh Lee , served with U.S. forces during the war.

Spanish American War Dates

Important dates in the Spanish American War.

• April 25, 1898 — President William McKinley signed the Declaration of War.
• May 1, 1898 — The Battle of Manila Bay takes place in the Philippines. The U.S. Navy defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay.
• June 22, 1898 — U.S. ground forces landed at Daiquiri.
• July 1, 1898 — U.S. forces won the Battle of El Caney and the Battle of San Juan Heights.
• July 3, 1898 — The U.S. Navy defeated the Spanish Navy at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.
• July 17, 1898 — Spanish forces in Cuba surrendered.
• August 12, 1898 — U.S. and Spanish officials signed the Protocol of Peace, ending hostilities in the Spanish American War.
• December 10, 1898 — The two nations signed the Treaty of Paris.
• February 6, 1899 — The U.S. Senate ratified the 1898 Treaty of Paris.

The Shrinking Spanish Empire

By 1895, Spain’s empire had been reduced to Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, some Pacific islands, and African territories. 

Cubans revolted in 1895, which was viewed in the United States as a struggle for freedom from a corrupt monarchy — reminiscent of the American Revolutionary War. Americans also had economic interests in Cuba and wanted to help protect them. In an effort to aid the Cuban revolutionaries, some Americans smuggled weapons to the island.

Spain’s methods were harsh and destructive in dealing with the Cubans, which endangered American investments in railroads and sugar plantations. Cuban markets were also vital to America, as businesses looked to expand into markets in Latin America, South America, and the Pacific. In order to aid that expansion, the United States envisioned a canal in Central America that would help ports along the East Coast to access markets in East Asia.

The Monroe Doctrine and the Spanish American War

The Monroe Doctrine was established by President James Monroe in 1823. Monroe warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. The purpose of the Doctrine was to prevent European colonization and the establishment of puppet regimes in the Americas. 

Although the Doctrine was not well-enforced early on, it became a basic tenet of American foreign policy. Over time, the principles of the Doctrine were invoked in various disputes with European powers and interventions in Latin America in the 19th century, especially in Cuba.

By 1898, several incidents took place that caused the U.S. and Spain to be on the brink of war.

Causes of the Spanish American War

The causes of the Spanish American War included:

• The Virginius Affair (1873)
• The De Lôme Letter (1898)
• Destruction of the USS Maine (1898)
• Yellow Journalism (1895–1901)

The Virginius Affair

In 1873 the United States was nearly pulled into the Cuban Revolution due to the Virginius Affair. 

The Virginius was a former Confederate blockade runner, owned by Cubans, that was used to smuggle guns, ammunition, and men to the Cuban insurrectionists. These rebels had been in conflict with the Spanish government since 1868. 

On October 31, 1873, the Virginius, which was illegally flying the American flag was spotted near the coast of Cuba by the Spanish warship Tornado . Ironically, the Tornado was also a former Confederate blockade runner. A pursuit ensued, and the Virginius was chased within six miles of Jamaica before being captured and towed to Santiago, Cuba by the Tornado .

General Juan Burriel, the Governor of Santiago, convened a court-martial that promptly convicted the crew of the Virginius of piracy. The court responded by sentencing the crew and passengers to death. On November 4, four of the crewmen were executed, which was celebrated by Spaniards living on the island. 

When Spanish government officials in Madrid were informed of the situation. President Emilio Castelar ordered an immediate halt to the executions, pending a government review. Unfortunately, a disruption in the telegraph lines prevented his instructions from reaching Santiago. As a result, a total of 53 men, including 8 American citizens were executed. 

The executions ended when the British warship Niobe arrived. Although there were questions regarding the right of the Virginius to fly the American flag, Americans were outraged by the executions.

Secretary of State Hamilton Fish instructed the American minister to Spain to demand the return of the ship, the release of the remaining crew and passengers, financial compensation, and punishment for General Burriel. Fish made it clear that if the demands were not met, the American minister was to sever diplomatic relations with Spain and return to the United States, which could lead to war between the two nations.

The Spanish government responded by asking for negotiations, which took place in Washington, D.C. The Spanish ambassador, Admiral Don José Polo met with Fish and the two negotiated an agreement that was acceptable to both nations. Spain agreed to adhere to international law, return the Virgnius , return the surviving crew and passengers, and pay $80,000. Burriel remained in power but died soon after.

De Lôme Letter

In December 1897, Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, the Spanish minister to the United States, composed a letter to an acquaintance in Cuba, which was critical of U.S. President William McKinley.

De Lôme accused the President of being “weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd,” portraying him as a political opportunist who tried to please both sides while aligning with the more aggressive factions within his party. The letter was stolen from the Havana post office and published in the New York Journal by William Randolph Hearst on February 9, 1898, with a headline that read, “WORST INSULT TO THE UNITED STATES IN ITS HISTORY.”

The relationship between the United States and Spain was already strained due to Spain’s handling of affairs in Cuba and the ongoing military support from Americans to Cuban revolutionaries.

Americans were outraged by the letter, but McKinley decided to ignore the letter, refusing to dignify it with a response. De Lôme, realizing his mistake, offered his resignation on February 10.

Despite de Lôme’s resignation, Congress was not easily appeased, and there was talk of officially recognizing the Cuban rebels and even declaring war against Spain. The American press also called for McKinley and Congress to take action against Spain 

In order to appease the U.S., Spain issued a formal apology on November 14.

Remember the Maine

Just before the uproar over the de Lôme Letter, the U.S. battleship Maine arrived in Cuba at 11:00 a.m. on January 25, 1898. 

American battleships had avoided visiting Maine since 1895 due to Spain’s ongoing conflict with the Cuban rebels. However, as American sympathy for the Cuban rebels grew, so did anti-American sentiments among Spanish loyalists in Havana. 

A riot took place in Havana on January 12, 1898, prompting the American consul, Fitzhugh Lee, to send a telegraph that warned “ships may be necessary later but not now.” McKinley ordered the Maine to Havana on January 24, under the command of Captain Charles D. Sigsbee.

Upon arrival, Sigsbee was treated cordially by Spanish officials, but he refused to allow his crewmen to go ashore, fearing their presence could lead to violence. Security on the ship was tight. The ship’s watch was expanded, and sentries were armed. Both boilers were kept operational, which deviated from the usual practice of running only one, in case the ship needed to be swiftly mobilized. Shells were also positioned in proximity to all of the Maine’s guns.

At 9:40 on the evening of February 15, a massive explosion rocked the Maine , causing it to sink to the depths of Havana harbor. The explosion obliterated the entire forward section of the ship, resulting in the loss of 260 lives from a crew of 355.

A commission was formed to investigate the incident. On March 20, it was determined an underwater mine was responsible for the explosion, but the commission was unable to determine who placed the mine. American newspapers blamed the explosion on Spain and called for war. 

In an attempt to resolve the issue, Spain offered to submit the matter to arbitration, aiming to settle the cost of the damage. They even agreed to an armistice for the ongoing conflict with the Cuban rebels, to be determined by the judgment of the commanding general in Cuba. 

Although President McKinley, a veteran of the Civil War, hoped for a peaceful resolution to the incident, public sentiment leaned toward war. The media also published stories of atrocities committed by Spain in Cuba — both real and sensationalized — which increased public support for the Cuban rebels.

On April 11, 1898, President McKinley asked Congress to declare war on Spain, for the purpose of ending the fighting in Cuba, establishing a stable government, and maintaining order for citizens of the U.S. and Cuba.

Congress deliberated for a week before reaching an agreement on April 19 through a joint resolution. President McKinley signed it on April 25, officially starting the Spanish American War.

Yellow Journalism

Yellow Journalism was a style of reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts. Newspaper publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer used the tactic to influence the public into favoring war in Cuba and the Philippines, along with the acquisition of overseas territories.

Overview of the Spanish American War

The most significant fighting of the Spanish-American War took place in the Philippines and Cuba. The most famous battle of the war is the Battle of San Juan Heights, which is also known as the Battle of San Juan Hill and the Battle of Kettle Hill. It was during that battle that Theodore Roosevelt, the former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and future President, helped lead American forces in a bold uphill charge to attack Spanish defenses.

Spanish American War in the Philippines — the Battle of Manila Bay

Shortly after war was declared, Commodore George Dewey led the American Asiatic Squadron to the Philippines. Dewey’s mission was to prevent a deteriorating Spanish fleet from making a lengthy journey to reinforce Spanish naval forces in Cuba.

On the morning of May 1, just off Cavite in Manila Bay, the American fleet engaged the Spanish fleet. The Americans won the battle and forced the surrender of Spanish ground forces and artillery batteries on the shore.

While Dewey awaited the arrival of troops, the Filipinos revolted against the Spanish government, seeking their independence. They coordinated with the American army when it arrived to lay siege to Manila. Spanish officials surrendered Manila to American forces on August 14, 1898, pushing the Filipino rebels to the side.

When the Filipino rebels realized the U.S. intended to retain control of the Philippines and annex it as a territory they revolted against the Americans, starting the Philippine-American War.

Spanish American War in Cuba

At first, Havana was the main target for American forces. However, on May 19, 1898, Spanish Rea Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete evaded American warships and went to Santiago Harbor. 

American officials decided to shift their focus to capturing Santiago and destroying the Spanish warships there. 

Rear Admiral William T. Sampson set up a naval blockade but hesitated to enter the harbor due to Spanish mines and coastal defenses. 

Instead, he awaited U.S. ground forces, hoping they could capture Santiago and engage the Spanish ships from the land, either destroying Cervera’s squadron or forcing it to leave.

Ultimately, the U.S. strategy for Cuba included the naval blockade of the island to disrupt Spanish supply lines while the army launched a ground assault on the port of Santiago de Cuba.

Engagements at Cienfuegos — April 29 and May 11

U.S. ships under the command of Commodore Bowman H. McCalla were deployed to enforce the blockade at Cienfuegos, Cuba. He was also tasked with cutting the communication cables at Cienfuegos that linked Cuba to Spain.

On the morning of April 29, 1898, McCalla, commanding the Marblehead , arrived off Cienfuegos along with the gunboats Nashville and Eagle to enforce the blockade and a short battle ensued: 

• The Nashville intercepted and captured the Argonauto , which was carrying mail, military supplies, and some Spanish troops.
• The Galicia , accompanied by two small gunboats and protected by batteries on the shore, engaged in a firefight with the Eagle . 
• When the Marblehead arrived, the Galicia retreated further into the harbor, ending the brief naval battle.

On May 11, 1898, McCalla returned for the cable-cutting operation, this time with additional support from the ships Windom and Saturn .

The Nashville and the Marblehead moved close to the shore to provide protective fire. A group of around 50 men, led by Lieutenant Cameron M. Winslow, loaded onto boats and sailed to shore.

The ships bombarded the shore while Winslow and his men located two large cables and one small cable. They managed to cut the two large cables. However, they were under heavy fire from Spanish forces and were unable to completely sever the third cable. The third cable was the communication line between Cuba and Jamaica and remained in operation throughout the course of the short war.

Battle of Guantánamo Bay — June 9–17

Guantánamo is on the southeast coast, 45 miles east of Santiago. At the start of the war, there was a garrison of nearly 6,000 Spanish troops at Guantánamo, under the command of General Félix Pareja Mesa. The Spaniards expected the Americans to attempt a landing at Guantánamo, so Mesa had his men build extensive defensive works around the town.

On May 28, Secretary of the Navy John Davis Long decided to send an expedition to take control of Guantánamo. He wanted to control Guantánamo for several reasons:

• A Spanish fleet under the command of Rear Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete was at Santiago.
• He wanted to have a safe harbor that would protect U.S. ships from hurricanes.
• He wanted a port that had access to coal for U.S. ships.

Long instructed Commodore Winfield Scott Schley to take control of Guantánamo, and American forces were deployed and moved into position, taking action on June 7:

• The 1st Marine Battalion departed from Key West, Florida, bound for Guantánamo. 
• The Marblehead and Yankee , led by Commander McCalla, entered Guantánamo Bay on June 7. They forced the Spanish to evacuate fortifications at the bay’s entrance, pushing the Sandoval further into the bay, and disembarked a small group of marines. The Marines successfully destroyed the cable station before returning to their ships.

On June 9, McCalla returned to Guantánamo in preparation for the arrival of the 1st Marine Battalion. The following day, his ships bombarded Spanish positions guarding the harbor. 

Soon after, Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Huntington and the 1st Marine Battalion landed on the east side of the outer harbor, accompanied by the battleship Oregon . The Marines established Camp McCalla.

The battle started on June 11 when the Spanish fired upon the camp. On June 12, the Americans were joined by roughly 60 Cuban insurgents. 

A smaller battle took place at Cuzco Hill on June 14. American forces, assisted by U.S. naval gunfire, forced the Spanish to retreat from the eastern coast of the lower bay on June 15. 

Following Cuzco Hill, Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Huntington sent an expedition that included Americans and Cuban insurgents to attack a well that supplied Spanish troops with water. With support from the Dolphin , Huntington’s men successfully destroyed the well and captured around 20 Spanish soldiers.

On June 15, Rear Admiral William T. Sampson ordered the Texas , Marblehead, and Suwanee to bombard Spanish positions along the shore and eliminate a small fort. The fort was destroyed in about 30 minutes. The ships also cleared a minefield that had been laid by the Sandoval .

The main hostilities ended on June 17. General Mesa, concerned about a potential U.S. land offensive from Guantánamo Bay, proceeded to reinforce the interior defenses of the island.

Guantánamo Bay became a crucial base for fuelling and resupply activities and played an important role as a launching point for the invasion of Puerto Rico. 

Major General Nelson A. Miles departed from Guantánamo Bay for Puerto Rico on July 21. On July 25, Guantánamo officially surrendered. The Marines occupied Guantánamo until August 5.

• The Battle of Guantánamo Bay was documented by journalist Stephen Crane for McClure’s Magazine .
• The Battle of Guantánamo Bay was the first significant land battle of the war. 

Landing at Daiquiri — June 22

The first U.S. ground troops landed in Cuba at Daiquirí, a village on the southeast coast, 16 miles east of Santiago, on June 22.

Major General William R. Shafter, commander of the 5th Corps, intended to land his expedition at Daiquiri, march seven miles to Siboney, and then head northwest toward El Caney and Santiago. 

At 9:40 a.m. on June 22, five American battleships, under the command of Captain Caspar F. Goodrich, started to bombard Spanish defenses. However, the Spanish had evacuated and there was no return fire.

30 minutes later, the division of Brigadier General Henry W. Lawton started their landing. By nightfall, there were 6,000 American troops on the beach. 

However, many of the captains of the transport ships refused to pull closer than a half mile to the beach, believing the beach was still defended and the Spanish were waiting to launch an attack. The troops were forced to wade to shore, which led to the loss of equipment and supplies. 

The Americans also discovered the Spanish had destroyed the railroad to Santiago, meaning they would have to move the entire expedition over a road that ran along the coast. Shafter instructed Lawton to advance along this road and seize Siboney. 

Unfortunately, by the time Lawton’s division left the beachhead, it was too late to make the trip to Siboney. That night, the troops set up camp on the road. They expected a Spanish counterattack, but it did not happen.

The next morning, Lawton’s division advanced to Siboney, which was also deserted. General Shafter promptly designated Sibony as the primary headquarters for the assault on the city.

Battle of Las Guásimas — June 24

Las Guásimas, approximately three miles from Siboney, sat at the intersection of a narrow footpath and the El Camino Real Road leading to Santiago. Las Guásimas had been deserted by its inhabitants by June 1898, but it had an elevated ridge that provided the Spanish with a strong defensive position.

The 5th Corps started its primary march towards Santiago, departing from the Daiquirí landing site. Simultaneously, on the same day, General Lawton’s division started its advance toward Siboney with instructions to stop any potential Spanish assault along El Camino Real Road.

Lawton found Siboney abandoned and informed Shafter, who responded with an order for the Americans to proceed to Santiago. However, Shafter addressed the orders to the senior office on-site, instead of directly to Lawton.

The senior officer in Lawton’s force was Major General Joseph Wheeler, a former Confederate who had been appointed by President McKinley to lead the only cavalry division in the expedition. The orders were delivered to Wheeler, while Lawton was reporting to Shafter.

Wheeler was eager to engage the Spanish and was happy to take advantage of the fact the orders were addressed to the senior officer. He decided to take a small contingent that included U.S. troops and Cuban insurgents and move toward the Spanish forces that were on the ridge at Las Guásimas, under the command of Brigadier General Antero Rubín Homet.

Frustrated, Lawton tried to communicate with Shafter and stop Wheeler’s attack, but he was unable to and Wheeler moved out on the 24th. As Wheeler moved toward Las Guásimas, Homet received an order from General Arsenio Linares, the Spanish commander in Santiago, to withdraw to Santiago.

Wheeler might have known about the Spanish withdrawal, likely obtained through intelligence provided by Cuban revolutionaries under the command of General Demetrio Castillo. Wheeler’s force included the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, famously known as the Rough Riders.

American forces arrived at Las Guásimas and artillery batteries opened fire but were quickly silenced by heavy fire from the Spanish, forcing the attack to proceed without artillery support. 

Brigadier General Samuel B. M. Young divided his brigade into two columns, with the 1st and 10th Regular Cavalry Regiments under his direct command on the right flank, and the Rough Riders, led by Colonel Leonard Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, on the left.

Wood ordered Roosevelt to execute a flanking maneuver behind the Spanish defenses. Supported by covering fire from Young’s brigade, the Rough Riders moved forward. Roosevelt led from the left, Wood assumed command in the center, and Wheeler commanded the right. In the midst of the intense battle, Wheeler is said to have shouted, “Advance — our adversaries appear to be in retreat.”

After two hours of fighting, General Rubín decided to follow his instructions and ordered his men to withdraw to Santiago, allowing the Americans to occupy the town and heights. Although it was a victory for the Americans, it did slow the advance toward Santiago.

Naval Blockade

While American and Cuban forces pushed across the island to Santiago, the navy trapped the Spanish fleet in Santiago Bay, while the army crossed through the dense jungle terrain from the coast to San Juan Heights, overlooking the city of Santiago.

American Forces Advance on Santiago

Following the victory at Las Guásimas, General Shafter intended to capture Santiago by taking control of the high ground east of the city, specifically San Juan Heights, which included San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill.

On July 1, American forces attacked Spanish forces at El Caney and San Juan Hill. The American forces included Cuban allies, regiments from the Buffalo Soldiers, and Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. First Lieutenant John J. Pershing led the 10th Cavalry Unit.

Battle of El Caney — July 1

General Henry W. Lawton led the 5th US Division, comprised of nearly 7,000 men, in an attack on 600 Spanish troops at El Caney. 

At El Caney, the Spanish had constructed six blockhouses made of earth and wood to the north and west of the village. To the southeast, on a hill, stood the old stone Spanish fort, El Viso, which had a commanding view of the entire area. Brigadier General Joaquín Vara del Rey y Rubio led 520 troops defending El Caney.

Before dawn on July 1, Lawton’s division positioned itself for the attack, with the expectation that once El Caney was secured, they would then join the main American offensive on San Juan Heights, located six miles to the southwest.

The battle started when artillery batteries under the command of Captain Allyn Capron opened fire on the Spanish. However, the bombardment had little impact on the Spanish defenses. Meanwhile, Lawton’s three brigades formed the American Line and prepared to attack: 

• Brigadier General William Ludlow and his brigade held the left flank.
• Brigadier General Adna R. Chaffee and his brigade were in the center.
• Colonel Evan Miles commanded the brigade on the right. 

Unfortunately, there was confusion along the line, and none of them were prepared to move forward at the scheduled time, leading to a disorganized, uncoordinated advance. The American advance stalled about a half mile from the Spanish line.

Around noon, the fighting started to subside. After Lawton called up reinforcements from the brigade of Brigadier General John C. Bates, the Americans resumed the attack. 

Although General Rubio was killed in the attack, the Spanish forces continued to fight and maintain their positions. Lawton responded by ordering artillery to fire on the El Viso, which allowed the Americans to breach the walls and overwhelm the garrison.

When the Spanish ran out of ammunition, they were forced to retreat to Santiago. Around 8:00 that night, Lawton moved out and marched toward Santiago.

San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill — July 1

To protect Santiago, General Arsenio Linares, the Spanish commander, created a defensive line. The most formidable part of this line was positioned on San Juan Heights. Approximately 500 troops, backed by two artillery pieces, were positioned between Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill, which were about 400 yards apart.

At San Juan Heights, Shafter’s strategy called for:

• Brigadier General Jacob Ford Kent and his division to attack San Juan Hill
• Major General Joseph Wheeler and his cavalry division to attack Kettle Hill. When Wheeler fell ill, Brigadier General Samuel S. Sumner replaced him.

The original plan called for Lawton to quickly capture El Caney, in two hours or less, and then join the assault on San Juan Heights. Kent and Sumner took their positions at El Pozo and waited for Lawton. While waiting, they received heavy fire from Spanish forces on the heights.

The Americans attacked San Juan Hill first, starting at 8:00 a.m. with an artillery bombardment from batteries under the command of Captain George Grimes. However, the bombardment was ineffective and was forced to stop due to heavy fire from Spanish batteries.

At 9:00, three brigades of Kent’s troops moved forward, under the command of Brigadier General Hamilton S. Hawkins, Colonel E. P. Pearson, and Colonel Charles A. Wikoff. The remaining units moved into position.

The Spanish batteries continued to fire on the Americans, even as they advanced. Some of the Americans panicked and fled due to the intense fire, which was partially directed by an observation balloon hovering over the battlefield. The well-coordinated Spanish defenses led to a delay in orders to attack San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill.

By 1:00, the officers were tired of waiting and ordered their men to advance on both hills, under a heavy covering fire that was provided by a battery of Gatling Guns commanded by Lieutenant John D. Parker.

As the American forces advanced, they were exposed to heavy Spanish rifle fire in an area known as “Hell’s Pocket,” with little cover except for the tall jungle grass. The Americans split into two groups and rushed up both hills.

Theodore Roosevelt, riding his horse, led the way as his Rough Riders and the Buffalo Soldiers charged up Kettle Hill and assaulted the Spanish line. The Spanish fled from the hill and took refuge in blockhouses, which were also captured by the Americans. 

With the hill under their control, the Americans on Kettle Hill joined the Gatling guns in firing at the Spanish positions on San Juan Hill. By the time the Americans reached the top of the hill, the Spanish forces were retreating. The Americans dug in and established defensive positions, anticipating a Spanish counterattack.

Battle of Santiago de Cuba — July 3

Realizing U.S. forces were on the verge of capturing Santiago, the Spanish fleet tried to break out of the harbor on July 3. Led by Admiral Pascual Cervera’s flagship, the Infanta Maria Theresa , the fleet moved out of the harbor. The American fleet attacked and destroyed the Spanish fleet. The battle lasted for four hours and all six Spanish ships were either lost or scuttled.

Capitulation of Santiago — July 16–17

Cuba’s Governor, General Ramón Blanco y Erenas agreed to terms of surrender on July 16, and it went into effect on July 17. The provisions of the capitulation surrendered the garrison at Santiago to the U.S., along with Guantánamo and six more military outposts in eastern Cuba.

American Forces Withdraw

In the aftermath of the capitulation, more than 1,600 Spanish troops were taken captive and held at Camp Long. They stayed there until mid-September. According to most accounts, they were treated well by the Americans before they were returned to Spain.

Soon after, Yellow Fever spread through the American ranks, rendering an estimated 75% of the men unfit for service.

American troops started leaving Cuba on August 7. Some of the Buffalo Soldiers remained on the island to provide support for the Cuban insurgents.

Hostilities officially ended on August 12.

Fitzhugh Lee, the former Confederate General, was part of the occupation force that remained in Cuba, and he served as the military Governor of Havana and Pinar del Río until April 1899.

The Spanish American War Ends with the 1898 Treaty of Paris

Spain sued for peace, and negotiations led to an agreement that was signed in Paris on December 10, 1898. The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate on February 6, 1899.

In the agreement, Spain ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the U.S. Prior to the war, Congress had agreed to the Teller Amendment, which prohibited the U.S. from annexing Cuba. As a result, Cuba was granted its independence, however, the U.S. continued to be involved in the formation of the government and the subsequent Platt Amendment authorized the U.S. to intervene in Cuban affairs.

Spanish American War Significance

The Spanish American War is important to United States history for the role it played in helping the United States free Cuba and other territories from Spain. This is despite criticism from William Jennings Bryan and Mark Twain, who opposed the war and the acquisition of overseas territories, which was viewed as American imperialism and an expansion of Manifest Destiny . The war helped Theodore Roosevelt rise to prominence, and the performance of the Buffalos Soldiers proved they were as capable as their white counterparts.

Spanish American War APUSH

Use the following links and videos to study the Spanish American War, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Monroe Doctrine for the AP US History Exam. Also, be sure to look at our Guide to the AP US History Exam .

Spanish American War Definition APUSH

The Spanish American War for APUSH is defined as a conflict fought between Spain and the United States in 1898. The war was sparked by the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor and the desire of the U.S. to expand its influence in the Caribbean and Pacific. The U.S. quickly defeated Spain and as a result, Spain lost control of Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

Spanish American War Video for APUSH Notes

This video from Heimler’s History covers the Spanish American War, which is part of APUSH Unit 7.

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Principal Causes and Consequences of the Spanish-American War Essay

Introduction, causes of the spanish-american war, the consequences of the spanish-american war, list of references.

By far and large, the Spanish-American war is viewed by most scholars as one of the major turning points in the history of both America and Spain in terms of their political, social, cultural and even economic structures (Schoultz, 2009). 1

In essence, the Spanish-American was a short-lived war that was fought between the US and Spain beginning in April 1898 and ending in August this same year. However, in the course of the war, other players like Cuba, Puerto Rico, Germany and the Philippines got involved based on their directly or indirect vested interests in the outcomes of the war.

On one hand, there are scholars who are of the opinion that, in spite of the casualties of the war, the Spanish-American war was a necessary endeavor. To support this argument, such scholars point to the positive results that came from the war—especially with regards to the territories that got colonized (Kaplan, 2003).

On the other hand, some scholars criticize the war basing their arguments on the deaths, loss of properties worth millions of shillings, and signing of some treaties which favored the winners of the war while looking down upon the losers, among many other effects that will be duly detailed in the course of this paper.

If we are to get the real picture of the Spanish-American war, then it is inherent for us to dig into the annals of history and get authoritative information on the specifics of the war. It is with that in mind that this paper seeks to give a succinct, yet inclusively representative, chronology of the events of the war—with major emphasis being laid on the causes and effects. Once these events are analyzed, a summative recapitulation will be given.

Preliminarily, it is worth noting that, just like many wars in history, the Spanish-American war was a culmination of any factors all coming together at one time. In this section of the paper, some of the major factors that contributed to the war are going to be divided into three broad areas:

• The Spanish world domination and the American need to overthrow them: This will entail the political, economic, social and cultural factors that pushed the two sides towards the war.
• The influence of the mass media and “Yellow Journalism”: Here, emphasis will be laid on the journalistic practices and stories that contributed to the war.
• The Cuban Connection: This will specifically focus on the Cuban interest by both America and Spain and how the need to control it led to the war.

The Spanish World Domination and the American Need to Overthrow Them

According to Lennon (2002), Spain was considered as the most powerful nation on earth around the mid 1600s. 2 During this time, it controlled several colonies across the world especially in Central and South America, the Caribbean and some sections of Asia.

However, as time progressed, Spain lost some of its colonial territories majorly through civil wars and the struggle for independence. In spite of loosing these territories, Spain still managed to hold on to a few of its colonies like Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Islands and the Philippines in Asia.

Shifting our focus temporarily to USA during this time, Musicant, (1998) says that, having been a former colony of Britain; the United States was initially opposed to the issue of colonization as they deemed it as being immoral and unfair to the countries being colonized.

However, as the 20 th century approached and the dominance of countries like Spain continued to spread like a wildfire; some leaders in USA who ascribed to the notions of mercantilism began promoting ideas in favor of imperialism.

A key principle in Imperialism was ethnocentrism—which purported that some cultures and tribes were more superior to others thus necessitating the need for control of the weaker cultures (Lennon, 2002). It is on the basis of such ideologies that leaders like of Roosevelt and William Jennings Brian encouraged the people in USA to embrace the ideologies of colonialism.

Many other people also came up to provide moral justifications for engaging into colonization including the need to spread Christian and protestant ideas, viability for trade encouraged by linking up with other nations and the better culture that would result from blending with other cultures (Immerman, 2010).

Resultantly, the demand for the US acquiring her own territories grew exponentially and by the 1890s; America had acquired a fair share of colonial territories making it a vibrant and easily noticeable player in the game of world power dominance (Roosevelt, 1913/1967).

It is during this time (the 1890s) that the idea of colonizing nearby assets such as Cuba and Puerto Rico came into central focus. 3 After a few futile attempts of peaceful negotiations for the colonization of these countries failed, it was eminently clear that the only way to colonize the likes of Cuba and Puerto Rico was through war or some form of battle (Loveman, 2010). 4

The influence of Mass Media and “Yellow Journalism”

In the 1890s, very few media organizations existed based on immense costs that were needed to run the outlets (Kaplan, 2003). In America, the domination of the media was by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer.

The competition between these two media bigwigs led to the birth of journalism whereby facts and ideas would be exaggerated or twisted to get public attention and increase the sale of newspapers (Lennon, 2002). This competition is what later came to be known as Yellow Journalism.

Owing to the increasing rivalry between America and Spain in their world dominance and colonization efforts; Hearst and Pulitzer chose to capitalize on the opportunity by exaggerating facts and events—obviously favoring the USA, which was their mother country.

For example, in the bid to make the Spanish look bad and unwilling to allow Cuba to gain their independence; Lennon (2002) reports that Hearst and his journalists produced fictitious and ridiculously salacious stories of how the Spaniards were oppressing the Cubans.

Soon, public interest in USA regarding the alleged suffering and oppression in Cuba began to grow with several people calling upon President McKinley (USA president at that time) to “do something” so as to change the situation and help the Cubans (DeGuzmán, 2005). 5

It is based on these reports that President McKinley sent American troops into Cuba—something which angered the Spanish and, after a series of other unfortunate events in Cuba which will be explained later, soon led to the war (Schoultz, 2009).

The Cuban Connection

In many ways, the Cuban connection was the major highlight and cause of the war. As was earlier mentioned under the contribution of Yellow Journalism towards the war, the public outcries in USA regarding the Spanish oppression in Cuba pushed the President McKinley towards taking an action—even though, personally, he was not a big proponent of the war (DeGuzmán, 2005).

In January 1898, President McKinley eventually found a reason for justifying his response to the public outcry regarding Cuba when reports by various media indicated that there were escalated riots by Anti-American “Volunatrios and Pro-Spanish people in Havana detesting against the USA saying that it (the US) was poking its nose where it does not belong (Herring, 2008).

It is also around this time that the Spanish Minister to US, Mr. Enrique Dupuy de Lôme is reported to have said that President McKinley was “weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd” (Lennon, 2002).

Not being able to stomach the criticisms anymore, President McKinley decided to send US warships to Cuba. A few weeks later, one of the US warships was sunk and, as earlier stated; the yellow journalists together with the US navy soon corroborated a story alleging that the US Maine disaster, which resulted in deaths of around 250 people, was an act of saboteur by the Spanish (Lennon, 2002).

On the other hand, the Cubans who were in dire need for independence had promised support to the USA, in case they decided to help them fight the common enemy—the Spanish. The culmination of these factors is reason why the war eventually erupted. 6

Before delving into the effects of the war, it is worth taking note of the following facts about the war. To begin with, the war reportedly began on 3 rd July 1898 with the battle of Santiago de Cuba, the fiercest of the naval battle between the Spanish and Americans. In this battle, the Spanish Caribbean fleet was destroyed courtesy of the American soldiers supported by the Cuban independence fighters thus resulting into the besieging of Santiago de Cuba, and, eventually the entire island (Lennon, 2002).

Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt, together with his Rough Riders, were very monumental in the war based on their dedicated attacks and assaults on San Juan Heights and San Juan Hill—two important hills close to the Santiago Harbor which was in great contention (Roosevelt, 1913/1967). 7 Seeing that they were overpowered by the Americans, the Spanish tried to flee from the Santiago Harbor. However, the Americans captured them, sunk their ships and killed 323 people with only one American dying as a casualty (Lennon, 2002). This paved the way for retreat and surrender.

In finality, the Spanish-American war ended after 109 days with the signing of the “Treaty of Paris” being the major highlight. It is from this point where the treaty was signed that we are going to consider the consequences of the war.

Treaty of Paris and The Political Effects

Primarily, this treaty was signed on the December of 1898 (109 days after the war had began) between the US and Spain—with the Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Filipinos being sidelined from negotiations of the treaty.

So, even though the treaty mentioned Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Filipinos, it is clear that the treaty was mainly signed to benefit and satiate the interests of the Spanish and Americans (who were the war winners) while sidelining the losers and people who had apparently contributed greatly towards the starting and ending of the war (Musicant, 1998). 8

In the treaty, America’s possessions, in terms of colonial power, was increased as they were given control of Puerto Rico, and Guam while they sold the Philippines for $20 million (Lennon, 2002). Also, the treaty managed to free Cuba who, for long, had been fighting for their freedom. On the other hand, the US gave back the city of St. Augustine Florida to the Spanish.

It is worth mentioning that, unlike the treaties signed previously, the Treaty of Paris did not give the acquired territories a promise of rights for citizenship or statehood. In other words, the treaty considered the acquired territories like Puerto Rico of being unable to self-govern their own based on their inferior ranks going by the imperialistic characteristic of ethnocentrism (DeGuzmán, 2005).

Additionally, America’s name was added to the list of existing colonial empires—something which they had previously fought against and branded as demeaning during the days when they were subjects of Britain (Lennon, 2002). Other treaties, or rather legal amendments also saw their way into the extensions of this treaty.

For example, before the war, US congress (which chiefly constituted of Anti-imperialists) had passed the Teller Amendment committing to grant Cuba Independence. After the war and Cuba being awarded its freedom, the senate (mainly consisting of pro-imperialists) passed the Platt Amendment which forced a peace treaty on Cuba which forbade the Cubans them from getting into treaties with other nations.

According to Herring (2008), the Platt Amendment was considered to be a stab-in-the back move to the Cubans who had trusted the US and helped them during the war, only for US to go against their words after the war.

As a matter of fact, the Platt Amendment gave the US control of Cuba in terms of providing a permanent Navy base in Cuba and giving them freedom to stabilize Cuban Militarily as they wished. It is from such freedoms that later treaties were signed between US and Cuba thus paving way for the rise of imperialistic strongholds of US in Cuba like the famed Guantanamo Bay.

The Philippine-American War

The annexation of the Philippines, as a result of the Treaty of Paris, caused huge problems. In essence, the Filipino had allied with US during the Spanish-American war hoping that they, just like Cuba, would be able to gain their independence. Failing to accord them independence infuriated the Filipinos and made them feel betrayed. Consequently, on the 23 rd day of January 1899, the Filipinos forcefully proclaimed independence and elected Emilio Aguinaldo as their president.

Immediately, the US responded by sending its army to put down the fake Filipino government thus resulting in war and protests from the natives silently supported by Germans who had vested interests in Puerto Rico.

In spite of not having a strong military influence, the Filipinos dragged the US into a hot battle that lasted longer than the Anglo-Spanish war claiming close to 4000 American lives and immense destruction of properties being witnessed.

However, on 21 st March 1901, America finally managed to capture Aguinaldo, forced him to oath loyalty, take a pension from the US and retire peacefully while ensuring that no more revolts were witnessed from the Filipinos. This, eventually, led to the calming down of the Filipinos and thus the halt of the Philippine-American War.

Socio-Economic and Cultural Effects

The Spanish-American war has both positive and negative socio-economic and cultural effects. Starting with the negative side, Loveman (2010) asserts that the war expectedly resulted in the loss of properties, deaths of useful individuals in the society, and the loss of freedoms and political power—all which had a direct negative economic impact.

To this effect, Herring (2008) reports that the collapse of the Spanish empire—especially in losing Cuba—caused national trauma which, in effect, reduced their economic strength. 9

Still on the negative side, the war resulted in blood between some Spaniards and Americans, Filipinos and the US, Cubans and Spaniards, Germans and Americans (based on the Filipino contention) thus destroying the moral fabric of the relatively good cultural and social environment that previously existed (Musicant, 1998).

On the positive side, however, the war resulted in better economies by some nations, like the US who had new trade avenues in their colonized countries (Lennon, 2002). Cuba’s freedom also had a relative positive impact as the exit of the Spanish paved way for investments by their own people (Schoultz, 2009).

In Spain, modicum economic gains were witnessed from the investments made by Spaniards who came back from US and Cuba pumping money and business ideas into their home economy.

Socially and culturally, some good language patterns emerged. For example, the intermingling between the US and Puerto Rico led to a hybrid of people able to speak English and Spanish on top of their native languages.

Similarly, Filipinos were also able to speak German, Spanish and English on top of their native language (Immerman, 2010). Also, there was an improved interrelation between the Northern and Southern people who, prior to the war were not able to speak to one another (Lennon, 2002).

Other General Impacts of the War

• The birth of opinion-based and hyperbole journalism (Yellow Journalism)
• The shift in global power and recognition of the US as a superpower and the rise of a new generation of imperialist leaders in the USA like Theodore Roosevelt.
• Increased Involvement of Africans into the military based on their monumental impact during the war, for example, Booker T. Washington.

Increased involvement of political groups like the rough riders in national politics

In conclusion, the increase of imperialist leaders getting into the US government led to more expansionist ideas being circulated around the country thus creating the thirst for power consolidation rather than just focusing on progress.

Nonetheless, the lessons learnt from the war by all the involved parties served, and still serves, as a great reminder for the importance of dialogue, peaceful coexistence and good international relations amongst various nations and countries regardless of their different ethnicities.

This, probably, is the reason why, up to date, the politics of international relations still plays an irreplaceably key role in the balance of social, political, cultural, technological and social aspects of our lives.

DeGuzmán, M., 2005. ‘Consolidating Anglo-American Identity around the Spanish-American War’, Ch.3 of Spain’s Long Shadow. The Black Legend, Off-Whiteness and Anglo-American Empire, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Herring, G. C., 2008. From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign relations since 1776. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Immerman, R. H., 2010. Empire for liberty: a history of American imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz . New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Kaplan, R. L., 2003. American journalism goes to war, 1898–2001: a manifesto on media and empire. Media History, 9 (3).

Lennon, K., 2002. Causes and Impacts of the Spanish-American war , https://luceo.net/spanish-american-war/

Loveman, B., 2010. “The New Navy’, Ch.6 of No Higher Law. American foreign policy and the western hemisphere since 1776 , Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Musicant, I., 1998. ‘State of the Union’, Ch.1 of Empire by Default. the Spanish-American war and the dawn of the American century, New York: Henry Holt.

Roosevelt, T., 1913/1967. ‘An Autobiographical Defense’, Ch.11 of The writings of Theodore Roosevelt, New York: Bobbs-Merrill.

Schoultz, L., 2009. That Infernal little Cuban republic: the United States and the Cuban revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

1 Schoultz, L., 2009. That Infernal little Cuban republic: the United States and the Cuban revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. P.10-20.

2 Lennon, K., 2002. Causes and Impacts of the Spanish-American war .

3 DeGuzmán, M., 2005. ‘Consolidating Anglo-American Identity around the Spanish-American War’, Ch.3 of Spain’s Long Shadow. The Black Legend, Off-Whiteness and Anglo-American Empire, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

4 Loveman, B., 2010. “The New Navy’, Ch.6 of No Higher Law. American foreign policy and the western hemisphere since 1776 , Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

5 DeGuzmán, M., 2005. ‘Consolidating Anglo-American Identity around the Spanish-American War’, Ch.3 of Spain’s Long Shadow. The Black Legend, Off-Whiteness and Anglo-American Empire, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

6 Musicant, I., 1998. ‘State of the Union’, Ch.1 of Empire by Default. the Spanish-American war and the dawn of the American century, New York: Henry Holt.

7 Roosevelt, T., 1913/1967. ‘An Autobiographical Defense’, Ch.11 of The writings of Theodore Roosevelt, New York: Bobbs-Merrill.

8 Musicant, I., 1998. ‘State of the Union’, Ch.1 of Empire by Default. the Spanish-American war and the dawn of the American century, New York: Henry Holt.

9 Herring, G. C., 2008. From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign relations since 1776. Oxford: Oxford University Press. P.15-25.

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Looking Back on the Spanish War

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First of all the physical memories, the sound, the smells and the surfaces of things.

It is curious that more vividly than anything that came afterwards in the Spanish war I remember the week of so-called training that we received before being sent to the front – the huge cavalry barracks in Barcelona with its draughty stables and cobbled yards, the icy cold of the pump where one washed, the filthy meals made tolerable by pannikins of wine, the trousered militia-women chopping firewood, and the roll-call in the early mornings where my prosaic English name made a sort of comic interlude among the resounding Spanish ones, Manuel Gonzalez, Pedro Aguilar, Ramon Fenellosa, Roque Ballaster, Jaime Domenech, Sebastian Viltron, Ramon Nuvo Bosch. I name those particular men because I remember the faces of all of them. Except for two who were mere riff-raff and have doubtless become good Falangists by this time, it is probable that all of them are dead. Two of them I know to be dead. The eldest would have been about twenty-five, the youngest sixteen.

One of the essential experiences of war is never being able to escape from disgusting smells of human origin. Latrines are an overworked subject in war literature, and I would not mention them if it were not that the latrine in our barracks did its necessary bit towards puncturing my own illusions about the Spanish Civil War. The Latin type of latrine, at which you have to squat, is bad enough at its best, but these were made of some kind of polished stone so slippery that it was all you could do to keep on your feet. In addition they were always blocked. Now I have plenty of other disgusting things in my memory, but I believe it was these latrines that first brought home to me the thought, so often to recur; ‘Here we are, soldiers of a revolutionary army, defending democracy against Fascism, fighting a war which is about something, and the detail of our lives is just as sordid and degrading as it could be in prison, let alone in a bourgeois army.’ Many other things reinforced this impression later; for instance, the boredom and animal hunger of trench life, the squalid intrigues over scraps of food, the mean, nagging quarrels which people exhausted by lack of sleep indulge in.

The essential horror of army life (whoever has been a soldier will know what I mean by the essential horror of army life) is barely affected by the nature of the war you happen to be fighting in. Discipline, for instance, is ultimately the same in all armies. Orders have to be obeyed and enforced by punishment if necessary, the relationship of officer and man has to be the relationship of superior and inferior. The picture of war set forth in books like All Quiet on the Western Front is substantially true. Bullets hurt, corpses stink, men under fire are often so frightened that they wet their trousers. It is true that the social background from which an army springs will colour its training, tactics and general efficiency, and also that the consciousness of being in the right can bolster up morale, though this affects the civilian population more than the troops. (People forget that a soldier anywhere near the front line is usually too hungry, or frightened, or cold, or, above all, too tired to bother about the political origins of the war.) But the laws of nature are not suspended for a ‘red’ army any more than for a ‘white’ one. A louse is a louse and a bomb is a bomb, even though the cause you are fighting for happens to be just.

Why is it worth while to point out anything so obvious? Because the bulk of the British and American intelligentsia were manifestly unaware of it then, and are now. Our memories are short nowadays, but look back a bit, dig out the files of New Masses or the Daily Worker , and just have a look at the romantic warmongering muck that our left-wingers were spilling at that time. All the stale old phrases! And the unimaginative callousness of it! The sang-froid with which London faced the bombing of Madrid! Here I am not bothering about the counter-propagandists of the Right, the Lunns , Garvins et hoc genus ; they go without saying. But here were the very people who for twenty years had hooted and jeered at the ‘glory’ of war, at atrocity stories, at patriotism, even at physical courage, coming out with stuff that with the alteration of a few names would have fitted into the Daily Mail of 1918. If there was one thing that the British intelligentsia were committed to, it was the debunking version of war, the theory that war is all corpses and latrines and never leads to any good result. Well, the same people who in 1933 sniggered pityingly if you said that in certain circumstances you would fight for your country, in 1937 were denouncing you as a Trotsky-Fascist if you suggested that the stories in New Masses about freshly wounded men clamouring to get back into the fighting might be exaggerated. And the Left intelligentsia made their swing-over from ‘War is hell’ to ‘War is glorious’ not only with no sense of incongruity but almost without any intervening stage. Later the bulk of them were to make other transitions equally violent. There must be a quite large number of people, a sort of central core of the intelligentsia, who approved the ‘King and Country’ declaration in 1935, shouted for a ‘firm line’ against Germany in 1937, supported the People’s Convention in 1940, and are demanding a Second Front now.

As far as the mass of the people go, the extraordinary swings of opinion which occur nowadays, the emotions which can be turned on and off like a tap, are the result of newspaper and radio hypnosis. In the intelligentsia I should say they result rather from money and mere physical safety. At a given moment they may be ‘pro-war’ or ‘anti-war’, but in either case they have no realistic picture of war in their minds. When they enthused over the Spanish war they knew, of course, that people were being killed and that to be killed is unpleasant, but they did feel that for a soldier in the Spanish Republican army the experience of war was somehow not degrading. Somehow the latrines stank less, discipline was less irksome. You have only to glance at the New Statesman to see that they believed that; exactly similar blah is being written about the Red Army at this moment. We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don’t take the sword perish by smelly diseases. The fact that such a platitude is worth writing down shows what the years of rentier capitalism have done to us.

In connexion with what I have just said, a footnote, on atrocities.

I have little direct evidence about the atrocities in the Spanish Civil War. I know that some were committed by the Republicans, and far more (they are still continuing) by the Fascists. But what impressed me then, and has impressed me ever since, is that atrocities are believed in or disbelieved in solely on grounds of political predilection. Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence. Recently I drew up a table of atrocities during the period between 1918 and the present; there was never a year when atrocities were not occurring somewhere or other, and there was hardly a single case when the Left and the Right believed in the same stories simultaneously. And stranger yet, at any moment the situation can suddenly reverse itself and yesterday’s proved-to-the-hilt atrocity story can become a ridiculous lie, merely because the political landscape has changed.

In the present war we are in the curious situation that our ‘atrocity campaign’ was done largely before the war started, and done mostly by the Left, the people who normally pride themselves on their incredulity. In the same period the Right, the atrocity-mongers of 1914-18, were gazing at Nazi Germany and flatly refusing to see any evil in it. Then as soon as war broke out it was the pro-Nazis of yesterday who were repeating horror stories, while the anti-Nazis suddenly found themselves doubting whether the Gestapo really existed. Nor was this solely the result of the Russo-German Pact. It was partly because before the war the Left had wrongly believed that Britain and Germany would never fight and were therefore able to be anti-German and anti-British simultaneously; partly also because official war propaganda, with its disgusting hypocrisy and self-righteousness, always tends to make thinking people sympathize with the enemy. Part of the price we paid for the systematic lying of 1914-18 was the exaggerated pro-German reaction which followed. During the years 1918-33 you were hooted at in left-wing circles if you suggested that Germany bore even a fraction of responsibility for the war. In all the denunciations of Versailles I listened to during those years I don’t think I ever once heard the question, ‘What would have happened if Germany had won?’ even mentioned, let alone discussed. So also with atrocities. The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it. Recently I noticed that the very people who swallowed any and every horror story about the Japanese in Nanking in 1937 refused to believe exactly the same stories about Hong Kong in 1942. There was even a tendency to feel that the Nanking atrocities had become, as it were retrospectively untrue because the British Government now drew attention to them.

But unfortunately the truth about atrocities is far worse than that they are lied about and made into propaganda. The truth is that they happen. The fact often adduced as a reason for scepticism – that the same horror stories come up in war after war – merely makes it rather more likely that these stories are true. Evidently they are widespread fantasies, and war provides an opportunity of putting them into practice. Also, although it has ceased to be fashionable to say so, there is little question that what one may roughly call the ‘whites’ commit far more and worse atrocities than the ‘reds’. There is not the slightest doubt, for instance, about the behaviour of the Japanese in China. Nor is there much doubt about the long tale of Fascist outrages during the last ten years in Europe. The volume of testimony is enormous, and a respectable proportion of it comes from the German press and radio. These things really happened, that is the thing to keep one’s eye on. They happened even though Lord Halifax said they happened. The raping and butchering in Chinese cities, the tortures in the cellars of the Gestapo, the elderly Jewish professors flung into cesspools, the machine-gunning of refugees along the Spanish roads – they all happened, and they did not happen any the less because the Daily Telegraph has suddenly found out about them when it is five years too late.

Two memories, the first not proving anything in particular, the second, I think, giving one a certain insight into the atmosphere of a revolutionary period:

Early one morning another man and I had gone out to snipe at the Fascists in the trenches outside Huesca. Their line and ours here lay three hundred yards apart, at which range our aged rifles would not shoot accurately, but by sneaking out to a spot about a hundred yards from the Fascist trench you might, if you were lucky, get a shot at someone through a gap in the parapet. Unfortunately the ground between was a flat beet-field with no cover except a few ditches, and it was necessary to go out while it was still dark and return soon after dawn, before the light became too good. This time no Fascists appeared, and we stayed too long and were caught by the dawn. We were in a ditch, but behind us were two hundred yards of flat ground with hardly enough cover for a rabbit. We were still trying to nerve ourselves to make a dash for it when there was an uproar and a blowing of whistles in the Fascist trench. Some of our aeroplanes were coming over. At this moment a man, presumably carrying a message to an officer, jumped out of the trench and ran along the top of the parapet in full view. He was half-dressed and was holding up his trousers with both hands as he ran. I refrained from shooting at him. It is true that I am a poor shot and unlikely to hit a running man at a hundred yards, and also that I was thinking chiefly about getting back to our trench while the Fascists had their attention fixed on the aeroplanes. Still, I did not shoot partly because of that detail about the trousers. I had come here to shoot at ‘Fascists’; but a man who is holding up his trousers isn’t a ‘Fascist’, he is visibly a fellow creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him.

What does this incident demonstrate? Nothing very much, because it is the kind of thing that happens all the time in all wars. The other is different. I don’t suppose that in telling it I can make it moving to you who read it, but I ask you to believe that it is moving to me, as an incident characteristic of the moral atmosphere of a particular moment in time.

One of the recruits who joined us while I was at the barracks was a wild-looking boy from the back streets of Barcelona. He was ragged and barefooted. He was also extremely dark (Arab blood, I dare say), and made gestures you do not usually see a European make; one in particular – the arm outstretched, the palm vertical – was a gesture characteristic of Indians. One day a bundle of cigars, which you could still buy dirt cheap at that time, was stolen out of my bunk. Rather foolishly I reported this to the officer, and one of the scallywags I have already mentioned promptly came forward and said quite untruly that twenty-five pesetas had been stolen from his bunk. For some reason the officer instantly decided that the brown-faced boy must be the thief. They were very hard on stealing in the militia, and in theory people could be shot for it. The wretched boy allowed himself to be led off to the guardroom to be searched. What most struck me was that he barely attempted to protest his innocence. In the fatalism of his attitude you could see the desperate poverty in which he had been bred. The officer ordered him to take his clothes off. With a humility which was horrible to me he stripped himself naked, and his clothes were searched. Of course neither the cigars nor the money were there; in fact he had not stolen them. What was most painful of all was that he seemed no less ashamed after his innocence had been established. That night I took him to the pictures and gave him brandy and chocolate. But that too was horrible – I mean the attempt to wipe out an injury with money. For a few minutes I had half believed him to be a thief, and that could not be wiped out.

Well, a few weeks later at the front I had trouble with one of the men in my section. By this time I was a ‘cabo’, or corporal, in command of twelve men. It was static warfare, horribly cold, and the chief job was getting sentries to stay awake at their posts. One day a man suddenly refused to go to a certain post, which he said quite truly was exposed to enemy fire. He was a feeble creature, and I seized hold of him and began to drag him towards his post. This roused the feelings of the others against me, for Spaniards, I think, resent being touched more than we do. Instantly I was surrounded by a ring of shouting men: ‘Fascist! Fascist! Let that man go! This isn’t a bourgeois army. Fascist!’ etc. etc. As best I could in my bad Spanish I shouted back that orders had got to be obeyed, and the row developed into one of those enormous arguments by means of which discipline is gradually hammered out in revolutionary armies. Some said I was right, others said I was wrong. But the point is that the one who took my side the most warmly of all was the brown-faced boy. As soon as he saw what was happening he sprang into the ring and began passionately defending me. With his strange, wild, Indian gesture he kept exclaiming, ‘He’s the best corporal we’ve got!’ ( ¡ No hay cabo como el! ) Later on he applied for leave to exchange into my section.

Why is this incident touching to me? Because in any normal circumstances it would have been impossible for good feelings ever to be re-established between this boy and myself. The implied accusation of theft would not have been made any better, probably somewhat worse, by my efforts to make amends. One of the effects of safe and civilized life is an immense oversensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions seem somewhat disgusting. Generosity is as painful as meanness, gratitude as hateful as ingratitude. But in Spain in 1936 we were not living in a normal time. It was a time when generous feelings and gestures were easier than they ordinarily are. I could relate a dozen similar incidents, not really communicable but bound up in my own mind with the special atmosphere of the time, the shabby clothes and the gay-coloured revolutionary posters, the universal use of the word ‘comrade’, the anti-Fascist ballads printed on flimsy paper and sold for a penny, the phrases like ‘international proletarian solidarity’, pathetically repeated by ignorant men who believed them to mean something. Could you feel friendly towards somebody, and stick up for him in a quarrel, after you had been ignominiously searched in his presence for property you were supposed to have stolen from him? No, you couldn’t; but you might if you had both been through some emotionally widening experience. That is one of the by-products of revolution, though in this case it was only the beginnings of a revolution, and obviously foredoomed to failure.

The struggle for power between the Spanish Republican parties is an unhappy, far-off thing which I have no wish to revive at this date. I only mention it in order to say: believe nothing, or next to nothing, of what you read about internal affairs on the Government side. It is all, from whatever source, party propaganda – that is to say, lies. The broad truth about the war is simple enough. The Spanish bourgeoisie saw their chance of crushing the labour movement, and took it, aided by the Nazis and by the forces of reaction all over the world. It is doubtful whether more than that will ever be established.

I remember saying once to Arthur Koestler, ‘History stopped in 1936’, at which he nodded in immediate understanding. We were both thinking of totalitarianism in general, but more particularly of the Spanish Civil War. Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories, and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’. Yet in a way, horrible as all this was, it was unimportant. It concerned secondary issues – namely, the struggle for power between the Comintern and the Spanish left-wing parties, and the efforts of the Russian Government to prevent revolution in Spain. But the broad picture of the war which the Spanish Government presented to the world was not untruthful. The main issues were what it said they were. But as for the Fascists and their backers, how could they come even as near to the truth as that? How could they possibly mention their real aims? Their version of the war was pure fantasy, and in the circumstances it could not have been otherwise.

The only propaganda line open to the Nazis and Fascists was to represent themselves as Christian patriots saving Spain from a Russian dictatorship. This involved pretending that life in Government Spain was just one long massacre ( vide the Catholic Herald or the Daily Mail – but these were child’s play compared with the continental Fascist press), and it involved immensely exaggerating the scale of Russian intervention. Out of the huge pyramid of lies which the Catholic and reactionary press all over the world built up, let me take just one point – the presence in Spain of a Russian army. Devout Franco partisans all believed in this; estimates of its strength went as high as half a million. Now, there was no Russian army in Spain. There may have been a handful of airmen and other technicians, a few hundred at the most, but an army there was not. Some thousands of foreigners who fought in Spain, not to mention millions of Spaniards, were witnesses of this. Well, their testimony made no impression at all upon the Franco propagandists, not one of whom had set foot in Government Spain. Simultaneously these people refused utterly to admit the fact of German or Italian intervention, at the same time as the Germany and Italian press were openly boasting about the exploits of their ‘legionaries’. I have chosen to mention only one point, but in fact the whole of Fascist propaganda about the war was on this level.

This kind of thing is frightening to me, because it often gives me the feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. After all, the chances are that those lies, or at any rate similar lies, will pass into history. How will the history of the Spanish war be written? If Franco remains in power his nominees will write the history books, and (to stick to my chosen point) that Russian army which never existed will become historical fact, and schoolchildren will learn about it generations hence. But suppose Fascism is finally defeated and some kind of democratic government restored in Spain in the fairly near future; even then, how is the history of the war to be written? What kind of records will Franco have left behind him? Suppose even that the records kept on the Government side are recoverable – even so, how is a true history of the war to be written? For, as I have pointed out already, the Government also dealt extensively in lies. From the anti-Fascist angle one could write a broadly truthful history of the war, but it would be a partisan history, unreliable on every minor point. Yet, after all, some kind of history will be written, and after those who actually remember the war are dead, it will be universally accepted. So for all practical purposes the lie will have become truth.

I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written. In the past people deliberately lied, or they unconsciously coloured what they wrote, or they struggled after the truth, well knowing that they must make many mistakes; but in each case they believed that ‘the facts’ existed and were more or less discoverable. And in practice there was always a considerable body of fact which would have been agreed to by almost everyone. If you look up the history of the last war in, for instance, the Encyclopaedia Britannica , you will find that a respectable amount of the material is drawn from German sources. A British and a German historian would disagree deeply on many things, even on fundamentals, but there would still be that body of, as it were, neutral fact on which neither would seriously challenge the other. It is just this common basis of agreement, with its implication that human beings are all one species of animal, that totalitarianism destroys. Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as ‘the truth’ exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as ‘science’. There is only ‘German science’, ‘Jewish science’ etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past . If the Leader says of such and such an event, ‘It never happened’ – well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five – well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs – and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement.

But is it perhaps childish or morbid to terrify oneself with visions of a totalitarian future? Before writing off the totalitarian world as a nightmare that can’t come true, just remember that in 1925 the world of today would have seemed a nightmare that couldn’t come true. Against that shifting phantasmagoric world in which black may be white tomorrow and yesterday’s weather can be changed by decree, there are in reality only two safeguards. One is that however much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing, as it were, behind your back, and you consequently can’t violate it in ways that impair military efficiency. The other is that so long as some parts of the earth remain unconquered, the liberal tradition can be kept alive. Let Fascism, or possibly even a combination of several Fascisms, conquer the whole world, and those two conditions no longer exist. We in England underrate the danger of this kind of thing, because our traditions and our past security have given us a sentimental belief that it all comes right in the end and the thing you most fear never really happens. Nourished for hundreds of years on a literature in which Right invariably triumphs in the last chapter, we believe half-instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long run. Pacifism, for instance, is founded largely on this belief. Don’t resist evil, and it will somehow destroy itself. But why should it? What evidence is there that it does? And what instance is there of a modern industrialized state collapsing unless conquered from the outside by military force?

Consider for instance the re-institution of slavery. Who could have imagined twenty years ago that slavery would return to Europe? Well, slavery has been restored under our noses. The forced-labour camps all over Europe and North Africa where Poles, Russians, Jews and political prisoners of every race toil at road-making or swamp-draining for their bare rations, are simple chattle slavery. The most one can say is that the buying and selling of slaves by individuals is not yet permitted. In other ways – the breaking-up of families, for instance – the conditions are probably worse than they were on the American cotton plantations. There is no reason for thinking that this state of affairs will change while any totalitarian domination endures. We don’t grasp its full implications, because in our mystical way we feel that a régime founded on slavery must collapse. But it is worth comparing the duration of the slave empires of antiquity with that of any modern state. Civilizations founded on slavery have lasted for such periods as four thousand years.

When I think of antiquity, the detail that frightens me is that those hundreds of millions of slaves on whose backs civilization rested generation after generation have left behind them no record whatever. We do not even know their names. In the whole of Greek and Roman history, how many slaves’ names are known to you? I can think of two, or possibly three. One is Spartacus and the other is Epictetus . Also, in the Roman room at the British Museum there is a glass jar with the maker’s name inscribed on the bottom, ‘ Felix fecit ’. I have a vivid mental picture of poor Felix (a Gaul with red hair and a metal collar round his neck), but in fact he may not have been a slave; so there are only two slaves whose names I definitely know, and probably few people can remember more. The rest have gone down into utter silence.

The backbone of the resistance against Franco was the Spanish working class, especially the urban trade union members. In the long run – it is important to remember that it is only in the long run – the working class remains the most reliable enemy of Fascism, simply because the working class stands to gain most by a decent reconstruction of society. Unlike other classes or categories, it can’t be permanently bribed.

To say this is not to idealize the working class. In the long struggle that has followed the Russian Revolution it is the manual workers who have been defeated, and it is impossible not to feel that it was their own fault. Time after time, in country after country, the organized working-class movements have been crushed by open, illegal violence, and their comrades abroad, linked to them in theoretical solidarity, have simply looked on and done nothing; and underneath this, secret cause of many betrayals, has lain the fact that between white and coloured workers there is not even lip-service to solidarity. Who can believe in the class-conscious international proletariat after the events of the past ten years? To the British working class the massacre of their comrades in Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, or wherever it might be, seemed less interesting and less important than yesterday’s football match. Yet this does not alter the fact that the working class will go on struggling against Fascism after the others have caved in. One feature of the Nazi conquest of France was the astonishing defections among the intelligentsia, including some of the left-wing political intelligentsia. The intelligentsia are the people who squeal loudest against Fascism, and yet a respectable proportion of them collapse into defeatism when the pinch comes. They are far-sighted enough to see the odds against them, and moreoever they can be bribed – for it is evident that the Nazis think it worth while to bribe intellectuals. With the working class it is the other way about. Too ignorant to see through the trick that is being played on them, they easily swallow the promises of Fascism, yet sooner or later they always take up the struggle again. They must do so, because in their own bodies they always discover that the promises of Fascism cannot be fulfilled. To win over the working class permanently, the Fascists would have to raise the general standard of living, which they are unable and probably unwilling to do. The struggle of the working class is like the growth of a plant. The plant is blind and stupid, but it knows enough to keep pushing upwards towards the light, and it will do this in the face of endless discouragements. What are the workers struggling for? Simply for the decent life which they are more and more aware is now technically possible. Their consciousness of this aim ebbs and flows. In Spain, for a while, people were acting consciously, moving towards a goal which they wanted to reach and believed they could reach. It accounted for the curiously buoyant feeling that life in Government Spain had during the early months of the war. The common people knew in their bones that the Republic was their friend and Franco was their enemy. They knew that they were in the right, because they were fighting for something which the world owed them and was able to give them.

One has to remember this to see the Spanish war in its true perspective. When one thinks of the cruelty, squalor, and futility of war – and in this particular case of the intrigues, the persecutions, the lies and the misunderstandings – there is always the temptation to say: ‘One side is as bad as the other. I am neutral’. In practice, however, one cannot be neutral, and there is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction. The hatred which the Spanish Republic excited in millionaires, dukes, cardinals, play-boys, Blimps, and what-not would in itself be enough to show one how the land lay. In essence it was a class war. If it had been won, the cause of the common people everywhere would have been strengthened. It was lost, and the dividend-drawers all over the world rubbed their hands. That was the real issue; all else was froth on its surface.

The outcome of the Spanish war was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – at any rate not in Spain. After the summer of 1937 those with eyes in their heads realized that the Government could not win the war unless there were some profound change in the international set-up, and in deciding to fight on Negrin and the others may have been partly influenced by the expectation that the world war which actually broke out in 1939 was coming in 1938. The much-publicized disunity on the Government side was not a main cause of defeat. The Government militias were hurriedly raised, ill-armed and unimaginative in their military outlook, but they would have been the same if complete political agreement had existed from the start. At the outbreak of war the average Spanish factory-worker did not even know how to fire a rifle (there had never been universal conscription in Spain), and the traditional pacifism of the Left was a great handicap. The thousands of foreigners who served in Spain made good infantry, but there were very few experts of any kind among them. The Trotskyist thesis that the war could have been won if the revolution had not been sabotaged was probably false. To nationalize factories, demolish churches, and issue revolutionary manifestoes would not have made the armies more efficient. The Fascists won because they were the stronger; they had modern arms and the others hadn’t. No political strategy could offset that.

The most baffling thing in the Spanish war was the behaviour of the great powers. The war was actually won for Franco by the Germans and Italians, whose motives were obvious enough. The motives of France and Britain are less easy to understand. In 1936 it was clear to everyone that if Britain would only help the Spanish Government, even to the extent of a few million pounds’ worth of arms, Franco would collapse and German strategy would be severely dislocated. By that time one did not need to be a clairvoyant to foresee that war between Britain and Germany was coming; one could even foretell within a year or two when it would come. Yet in the most mean, cowardly, hypocritical way the British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis. Why? Because they were pro-Fascist, was the obvious answer. Undoubtedly they were, and yet when it came to the final showdown they chose to stand up to Germany. It is still very uncertain what plan they acted on in backing Franco, and they may have had no clear plan at all. Whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most difficult questions of our time, and at certain moments a very important question. As to the Russians, their motives in the Spanish war are completely inscrutable. Did they, as the pinks believed, intervene in Spain in order to defend democracy and thwart the Nazis? Then why did they intervene on such a niggardly scale and finally leave Spain in the lurch? Or did they, as the Catholics maintained, intervene in order to foster revolution in Spain? Then why did they do all in their power to crush the Spanish revolutionary movements, defend private property and hand power to the middle class as against the working class? Or did they, as the Trotskyists suggested, intervene simply in order to prevent a Spanish revolution? Then why not have backed Franco? Indeed, their actions are most easily explained if one assumes that they were acting on several contradictory motives. I believe that in the future we shall come to feel that Stalin’s foreign policy, instead of being so diabolically clever as it is claimed to be, has been merely opportunistic and stupid. But at any rate, the Spanish Civil War demonstrated that the Nazis knew what they were doing and their opponents did not. The war was fought at a low technical level and its major strategy was very simple. That side which had arms would win. The Nazis and the Italians gave arms to their Spanish Fascist friends, and the western democracies and the Russians didn’t give arms to those who should have been their friends. So the Spanish Republic perished, having ‘gained what no republic missed’.

Whether it was right, as all left-wingers in other countries undoubtedly did, to encourage the Spaniards to go on fighting when they could not win is a question hard to answer. I myself think it was right, because I believe that it is better even from the point of view of survival to fight and be conquered than to surrender without fighting. The effects on the grand strategy of the struggle against Fascism cannot be assessed yet. The ragged, weaponless armies of the Republic held out for two and a half years, which was undoubtedly longer than their enemies expected. But whether that dislocated the Fascist timetable, or whether, on the other hand, it merely postponed the major war and gave the Nazis extra time to get their war machine into trim, is still uncertain.

I never think of the Spanish war without two memories coming into my mind. One is of the hospital ward at Lerida and the rather sad voices of the wounded militiamen singing some song with a refrain that ended:

‘Una resolucion, Luchar hast’ al fin!’

Well, they fought to the end all right. For the last eighteen months of the war the Republican armies must have been fighting almost without cigarettes, and with precious little food. Even when I left Spain in the middle of 1937, meat and bread were scarce, tobacco a rarity, coffee and sugar almost unobtainable.

The other memory is of the Italian militiaman who shook my hand in the guardroom, the day I joined the militia. I wrote about this man at the beginning of my book on the Spanish war, and do not want to repeat what I said there. When I remember – oh, how vividly! – his shabby uniform and fierce, pathetic, innocent face, the complex side-issues of the war seem to fade away and I see clearly that there was at any rate no doubt as to who was in the right. In spite of power politics and journalistic lying, the central issue of the war was the attempt of people like this to win the decent life which they knew to be their birthright. It is difficult to think of this particular man’s probable end without several kinds of bitterness. Since I met him in the Lenin Barracks he was probably a Trotskyist or an Anarchist, and in the peculiar conditions of our time, when people of that sort are not killed by the Gestapo they are usually killed by the G.P.U. But that does not affect the long-term issues. This man’s face, which I saw only for a minute or two, remains with me as a sort of visual reminder of what the war was really about. He symbolizes for me the flower of the European working class, harried by the police of all countries, the people who fill the mass graves of the Spanish battlefields and are now, to the tune of several millions, rotting in forced-labour camps.

When one thinks of all the people who support or have supported Fascism, one stands amazed at their diversity. What a crew! Think of a programme which at any rate for a while could bring Hitler, Pétain , Montagu Norman , Pavelitch , William Randolph Hearst , Streicher , Buchman , Ezra Pound , Juan March , Cocteau , Thyssen , Father Coughlin , the Mufti of Jerusalem , Arnold Lunn , Antonescu , Spengler , Beverley Nichols , Lady Houston , and Marinetti all into the same boat! But the clue is really very simple. They are all people with something to lose, or people who long for a hierarchical society and dread the prospect of a world of free and equal human beings. Behind all the ballyhoo that is talked about ‘godless’ Russia and the ‘materialism’ of the working class lies the simple intention of those with money or privileges to cling to them. Ditto, though it contains a partial truth, with all the talk about the worthlessness of social reconstruction not accompanied by a ‘change of heart’. The pious ones, from the Pope to the yogis of California, are great on the ‘changes of heart’, much more reassuring from their point of view than a change in the economic system. Pétain attributes the fall of France to the common people’s ‘love of pleasure’. One sees this in its right perspective if one stops to wonder how much pleasure the ordinary French peasant’s or working-man’s life would contain compared with Pétain’s own. The damned impertinence of these politicians, priests, literary men, and what not who lecture the working-class Socialist for his ‘materialism’! All that the working man demands is what these others would consider the indispensable minimum without which human life cannot be lived at all. Enough to eat, freedom from the haunting terror of unemployment, the knowledge that your children will get a fair chance, a bath once a day, clean linen reasonably often, a roof that doesn’t leak, and short enough working hours to leave you with a little energy when the day is done. Not one of those who preach against ‘materialism’ would consider life livable without these things. And how easily that minimum could be attained if we chose to set our minds to it for only twenty years! To raise the standard of living of the whole world to that of Britain would not be a greater undertaking than the war we are now fighting. I don’t claim, and I don’t know who does, that that wouldn’t solve anything in itself. It is merely that privation and brute labour have to be abolished before the real problems of humanity can be tackled. The major problem of our time is the decay of the belief in personal immortality, and it cannot be dealt with while the average human being is either drudging like an ox or shivering in fear of the secret police. How right the working classes are in their ‘materialism’! How right they are to realize that the belly comes before the soul, not in the scale of values but in point of time! Understand that, and the long horror that we are enduring becomes at least intelligible. All the considerations that are likely to make one falter – the siren voices of a Pétain or of a Gandhi, the inescapable fact that in order to fight one has to degrade oneself, the equivocal moral position of Britain, with its democratic phrases and its coolie empire, the sinister development of Soviet Russia, the squalid farce of left-wing politics – all this fades away and one sees only the struggle of the gradually awakening common people against the lords of property and their hired liars and bumsuckers. The question is very simple. Shall people like that Italian soldier be allowed to live the decent, fully human life which is now technically achievable, or shan’t they? Shall the common man be pushed back into the mud, or shall he not? I myself believe, perhaps on insufficient grounds, that the common man will win his fight sooner or later, but I want it to be sooner and not later – some time within the next hundred years, say, and not some time within the next ten thousand years. That was the real issue of the Spanish war, and of the present war, and perhaps of other wars yet to come.

I never saw the Italian militiaman again, nor did I ever learn his name. It can be taken as quite certain that he is dead. Nearly two years later, when the war was visibly lost, I wrote these verses in his memory:

The Italian soldier shook my hand Beside the guard-room table; The strong hand and the subtle hand Whose palms are only able

To meet within the sound of guns, But oh! what peace I knew then In gazing on his battered face Purer than any woman’s!

For the flyblown words that make me spew Still in his ears were holy, And he was born knowing what I had learned Out of books and slowly.

The treacherous guns had told their tale And we both had bought it, But my gold brick was made of gold – Oh! who ever would have thought it?

Good luck go with you, Italian soldier! But luck is not for the brave; What would the world give back to you? Always less than you gave.

Between the shadow and the ghost, Between the white and the red, Between the bullet and the lie, Where would you hide your head?

For where is Manuel Gonzalez, And where is Pedro Aguilar, And where is Ramon Fenellosa? The earthworms know where they are.

Your name and your deeds were forgotten Before your bones were dry, And the lie that slew you is buried Under a deeper lie;

But the thing that I saw in your face No power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst Shatters the crystal spirit.

Written August 1942, Sections I, II, III, and VII printed in New Road , June 1943

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