| Show ah 00 1151 for I 1 es ua inter ve ion in itil an unpardonable lack of tact or a grew brew some attempt at a sinister piece of humor gen Valer Val orlane latie weyler the former spanish captain gen 2222 eral of cuba who gained for himself the unenviable title af pf at butcher has allowed the publishers to print the title or of the book in which he attempts to defend hla fits conduct while the representative of the spanish crown on oil that IsI lalni tind ul all MANDO EN CUBA my command in ili cuba in letters of gory scarlet on a paper of livid gray whatever tho the motive may have b been cen that prompted such a choice 10 fir 0 Z of 1 I 1 v n ra 13 11 0 0 I 1 0 0 is 4 14 4 inai moody bloody eye catcher of a line fitly the man and the work which caused so 30 many years ol of discontent in ill cuba weyler has been on oil trial before public opinion for ills enemies instead of fighting thein and he be flaunts in our faces tho the ugly that show where he be wiped off hla his knife captain G general of 0 the most fertile province of 0 spain and a province which more than once onca manifested lier her Intent intention lon to throw on off bourbon yoke he makes ruch a case against tho the country that buys hla big services as aa no citizen of 0 tho the united states slates could have ever male made to A r I 1 i x AIM 0 W gr 4 justify americas attitude in the ihu cuban mix up weyler wa wai i tho the boat best hated man mail in ili cuba when tho the government ot at his nation finally recalled lihn him this look book will causo cause him to bo be cursed the length ion th and breadth at 0 tho the peninsula 1 1 I wrote it he says saya to give all tho the facts about my conduct as aa general in ili chief a conduct admired not only by army officers high anti and low who wrote me innumerable letters but by privates who on oil their return to tho the peninsula spoke of me with an all enthusiastic fer voi vor for which I 1 can never thank them enough lV various arious reasons prevented me from doing years ago when I 1 could not havo freed my mind from ii certain bias a work which I 1 can now do in perfect peace of mini mind thanks thank to the time that tins has passed anti and which has soothed the irritation due to tile the injustice I 1 suffered at the hands of some men I 1 fill did not it to sadden sail liell senor sagasta by retelling tile lie story of our colonial disasters neither did I 1 feel any pleasure in c cen on buring the illustrious gen don martinex Martt nex Carn campos pos my aly predecessor in cuba however uncharitably b lie acted toward me after its his return to the capital A perusal of the book falls to prove that W weyler ey ler kept his promise to treat the tha subject with perfect moderation tho the generals blood Is still boiling and with some justification for atrocious its as his conduct was in many instances it could not very well be criticized in ili spain by the spanish government had weyler been endowed with the literary genius of at a marbot or it a las cazes he could have made a much stronger case against spain and presented hla his own actions in a much moral inora favorable light unfortunately his knowledge knowl edgo of at the writers craft la Is as deficient as its his fund of information touching political economy general history national anad international politics la is meager weyler Is not a diplomat the slippery lanil of nuances and innuendos Innuendo a Is to him terra incognita a primitive brute with rudimentary ethics etelca though unflinchingly frank and straightforward he be never ventures in an assertion which cannot be supported eup ported hy by documents lie ho nover never pays any attention to hearsay but quotes peoples oples ie letters in ex extensor tenso A fascinating type titter after all for thip the observer blessed ested lil with the sense at 0 history just imagine what a weyler would have developed into it lie hu had bud not been born soine BOD 50 years too late cad c nl in steel he hail had been riding a caparisoned caparison ed man jouit 1 or it ho he hail had been allowed to range over curole during the thirty years war general wellers Wey lers style la Is wry very tying trying even ili hla proclamations vainly modeled arter after napoleon I 1 a oratorical gems rarely sound thel tha note that moke makes a a people or nit an army aminy vibrate ills his relations eions of the cuban campaign with all the facts recorded in haphazard fashion lay day by day Is well nigh unreadable 01 but guethe the documents lie he publishes in support of hla his thesis bonit of them of a confidential character acter Fand and which must have been secured through diplomatic means malto make it well worth while walla wading through an art otherwise dull shapeless anti anil indigestible piece at 0 writing first of alt all we are made to realize how hopeless the plight of the spanish commanders hail become in the island when weyler took the situation la in hand the many rala who pre preceded cedel him bial had been losing ground irom from day to day their cables to the tha spanish government gave information of a pessimistic character of which the ho public and the press were seldom apprised their confidential correspondence betrayed heartrending facts more than once poor gen martl nez campos hd humbly confessed himself beaten while tile thu cabinet tell led the spanish nation to believe that the war was practically all abec weyler wayler hi himself when placed lr in coal command mand of the cuban army was not oven even given what 11 ho 0 was to an honest account of the situation ulan wl en I 1 landed in cuba he be writes 1 I did f si ir wel cL the terrible condl condil tous lous that pre tn liland I 1 did not know anything VA gg A M A dinst I 1 gave ave them ron constant stant aid and kept them informed int ormed of f every movement of the spanish regiments says general weyler of all tile the measures meas urea I 1 tools tool the most moat bitterly criticized was the concentration which my troops from being uselessly decimated and prevented tile tho landing lai idine of arms and munitions consigned to tho the enemy I 1 need not defend that thai system whoever has haa a smattering odthe of the history of modern wars knows that it was C cop op led by tho the english in tile the transvaal and the americans americana in t the he philippines a tact fact most flattering to my illy pride as a general if individuals welo summarily shot under my generalship eral ship as it happens in the course of every war they were put to death in obedience to tho laws lawa and regulations never for the mere reason that they were insurgents I 1 pardoned those who returned to the fold anti and showed shoed much clemency to all those who came to me however black their heir past may have been it la Is a matter of regret that general weyler should not have deemed it advisable to volunteer more inore information as to tile the organization of the ahe concentration camps ile he says that one pound of meat and a quarter of it pound of rice were allowed to every individual over fourteen anti and one half that ration to children log A a 4 0 r A g 14 rd aa 1 0 boa I 1 1 log I os witt tilt ster or of war hail old nie nia and what I 1 half had read jn ili the aa a p per or a or in 01 04 F ati anonymous lot A tern tera sent by spaniards living in a cuba still and I 1 thought that all of them exaggerated 0 th the 0 facts I 1 had no knowledge of tile the secret documents I 1 have a 1 P e n d e d to how flow tile the vas vaa Is set foith in ill a billil atu froni fro n gen martinez calapos tj t canaan d ajl castallo Castl llo prime of spain although from the very clr ehst t I 1 lealia ed tile gravity of at situ situation atlen I 1 refused to t 0 bellow believe 0 it my illy visits in ili cub coln principe and ami ilo hoi I 1 gin appalled me however in ili order I 1 not ic to appear pessimistic I 1 lid not express till nil my illy t acu anil and I 1 decided to visit not on Y the maritime ne conium communities ill but tile towns in tile the interior the elih few feu span lards who live in the island Is lallI do not dire dare to men tion their origin except tn ill tile the cities the rest of tile the population hates spain wherever you pass a farm farin und and ask the where their husbands husband Is are they answer with terrifying finn kness in ili the mountains with chief so anti anil so ho you could not af rat t inyonie to 10 llly carry a messa message ge for foi COO nor 10 o pesetas ref pes lie hn be ba hanged it he were ever caught the rebels who charged weyler with wanton Iru cruelty elty seldom from accomplishing plis shing lillig decetis of likely to terrorize the tha fow few remaining ol of the spanish rule to quote weyler the insurgents 11 not return in ili any way the tha considerate treatment accorded to them by this generous nerous corun iander martinez Martl nez campos at the ba or of tile war wai maximo gomez showed ailin bif very fair but DIa diacek ceo as an I 1 shall dball prove by at an I 1 thecle c docu mentor ordered derel or ills his bands to set fief alre to till all the sugar mills whose owners were not pay ins in v ir tribute to plunder and loot the country to to sl s out all the messengers men chii bt repairing railroad ral road lines or bringing provisions into the villages village 3 worse yet et the insurgent checo tild did not hesitate hea lUite to kill with their own weapons defenseless islanders anti and maximo in it lils his Memol confesses to having shot ahot perio personally nally a man inan lie hail had sentenced to death a deed which I 1 call willful murder and still that individual to call tile nie assassin As aa ills authority for the foregoing statement general ceyler not only quotes extracts from the cuban balers pa pm lers ers but appends a proclamation of maceo gomels lieutenant to his bands comrades in arms destroy Desti oy destroy avery j ery thing tiny day and night to now bow up tilt bridges to derall derail trains to burn up villages til lages and ami sugar mills to annihilate cuba la Is the only way to defeat our on enemies 0 we have not to account for our conduct to anyone diplomacy public opinion and history dont matter it would bo be sheer insanity to seek the laurels of the battlefield to bear be mr the fire of the enemas ell artillery and contribute to the rory cory of at the spanish commanders the essential thing la Is to convince spain that cuba will bo be but a heap of ruins what compensation will she receive then for the sacrifice entailed by the campaign we must burn and raze everything it would bo be folly to fight na as though we were an european army where rifles are of no avail let dynamite do the work A MACEO 11 tho the only way to subdue ruch bloodthirsty desperate pirates was to adopt their own tactics the insurgents of their own admission never gave nor accepted battle but haras harassed lied the regulars Teg ulars and ana destroyed their sources of concentration seemed to be the only to lution of 0 the problem tor for the wives alvea and children of the insurgents which seems quite sufficient under the cincu circumstances instances A lew few paragraphs par however couched in hla his blunt soldierly style setting at naught the terrible charges preferred against him in connection with that stern system of war fare would 11 have 9 v P b boon ce it interesting but tile v were lacking ills hla silence amounts to a confession of guilt ile he makes 1 weak attempt nt at explaining that the wives and children of inbur gents bents were not alcon con contrat cd b but it I 1 obliged to betake themselves thema elvea w where it e r e the heat head of the family was supposed to be found this la in worse yet tor for oue one can call conceive tile the appalling abuses which such euch nn an order emanating from the general in chief must have countenanced and justified As the revolutionary bands were constantly oving moving from east to west and from west to east and could not be located with any certainty what an existence must have been that of families whose nen men were not serving in ili the ranks of the regular 1 army Ile refused fused army rations compelled r ellel t to roain roam from ono one devastated village to it burnt down to wrt they could not but succumb to hunger rand and exhaustion hail had fryler been less brutally honest tie lie would have omitted such a damaging admission alp ilp U to 0 o this day we have had books of many kinds jen centing ting with the cuban war pamphlets put forth by the insurgents anti and notoriously unfair to spain spanish publications which misrepresented grossly sly the tha attitude of tho the united stat states es arlicks in i european lr newspapers almost unanimously censuring the americans tor for robbing spain of her colony now ii r we have the facts presented almost without tiny any comments anti and certainly without p by a spaniard who loves his country and frankly detests the americans once or twice he registers a protest agail against rist tile the senates decision concerning the recognition of or the campaign of defamation dirc directed eted against him in american papers lie ile complains that in ili march when ho be hail had the situation well under control the senate of the united states interfered most unfairly for it recognized the belligerency of the insurgents thereby giving them hem now new courage this thin Is less convincing than the majority of ills his arguments for it if we compare fates dated we tind find letters letera in ili which he admits his failure to stop tile the progress of the insurrect In insurrection t foil ills his gravest charge against tile the united states la is couta contained hied in the following paragraph which la Is too vague to be taken as seriously at as sonic some other statements or of ills the united states were against everything that would bring about a termination of tile the war american citizens held several millions borth of cuban bonds issued with ith tile lie provision that tile the island would pass under the domination of the file united states ten years after cuba would have Nepa separated rated herself from spain the yankees saw that with the pace I 1 set the much longed for anle of cuba and its corollary tilt the a annexation thereof was becoming it a more anti and more remote pas possibility nut but there was no io reason why the ii hould have rabbet d all the gossip which originated in ili america hut ou on the whole the picture his letters wid and reports as yell well as the letters of I 1 martinez Martl nez canos camos jos hia publishes present to our ayes of cuba in the years preceding preci ding the malau ii incident would have ave justified any notion nation near or re remote note in intervening for the sake aake of humanity a population unanimous in ili its desire for independence it a bloody war ar which could only lead to an ep ephemeral heill peace anti and at boat would have left the island a dreary waste for cars to come the rights at 0 foreign land owners anti and investors In vestora trampled under foot all this horror had bad to be stopped spain did not lose cuba is as a consequence of the united states by the very admission of militar millano representatives in that ill fated colony cuba was irretrievably lost to spain in and tho the few SParil spaniards ards residing in the coast towne kowm the only safa auto abode tor for them felt fait aherns e tv es 4 a ostracised ostracized minority I 1 |
