1898 - Political Events

Political Events

The U.S. battleship Maine blows up in Havana harbor February 15 in an explosion that kills 258 sailors and two officers, precipitating a 113-day Spanish-American War (see Sagasta, 1897). The sinking of the Maine follows by 6 days the publication in William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal of a letter stolen from the mails at Havana, a private letter from the Spanish minister to the United States calling President McKinley a spineless politician (McKinley witnessed the carnage at Antietam in 1862 and has opposed going to war, saying, "I have seen the dead piled up, and I do not want to see another [war];" Madrid has recalled the undiplomatic minister).

Commodore George Dewey, 60, receives a secret cable February 25 from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt ordering him to proceed with his Asiatic squadron to Hong Kong and prepare for an attack on the Spanish squadron in the Philippines in the event of war.

Mobilization of U.S. Army forces begins March 9, and Congress votes unanimously to appropriate $50 million "for national defense and each and every purpose connected therewith." President McKinley has urged passage of the measure to show Madrid that America is serious, and the amount appropriated stuns the Spaniards; a U.S. naval court of inquiry reports March 21 that an external force such as a mine (torpedo), caused the destruction of the Maine, a Spanish board of inquiry reports March 22 that the explosion was internal, the U.S. report is made public March 28, a joint note to President McKinley from the ambassadors of six great powers April 6 calls for a peaceful solution to the Cuban problem, the Spanish queen Marie-Amelie acts on advice from Pope Leo XIII and orders a suspension of hostilities against Cuban rebels to "facilitate peace negotiations," but President McKinley sends a war message to Congress April 11. A Spanish squadron of four cruisers and several destroyers leaves the Cape Verde Islands for Cuba under the command of Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete, 59, who has sent repeated dispatches warning Madrid that his ships lack sufficient coal and ammunition.

A joint resolution of Congress April 19 recognizes Cuban independence, authorizes the president to demand Spanish withdrawal from the island, and disclaims any intention to annex Cuba. Congress passes a Volunteer Army Act April 22; the first shots are fired April 22, Spain declares that a state of war exists April 24, Congress formally declares war April 25, Commodore Dewey receives the news in Hong Kong April 26, and he enters Manila Bay just before midnight April 30. A Volunteer Cavalry—the "Rough Riders"—is organized by Col. Leonard Wood, 37, of the Army Medical Corps and Lieut. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, who resigns his Navy post in May. The Rough Riders are artistocrats, cowboys, and Native Americans who require no training in shooting and horsemanship.

The Battle of Manila Bay May 1 begins at 5:40 in the morning when Commodore Dewey says to the captain of his flagship, "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." Navigator Bradley A. (Allen) Fiske, 43, aboard the gunboat Petrel uses a stadimeter range finder that he has invented to communicate the ranges of enemy ships to U.S. gunners, and by the time a cease-fire is ordered at 12:30 in the afternoon, all 10 vessels in the Spanish squadron have been destroyed with a loss of 381 men, while eight Americans have been slightly wounded and one killed. Dewey is elevated to rear admiral May 11.

Image Pop-Up

Admiral Dewey's victory at Manila Bay in a brief war with Spain established the United States as a Pacific power.

San Juan, Puerto Rico, comes under attack May 12 from the commander-in-chief of the North Atlantic Squadron William T. (Thomas) Sampson, 58, who headed the board of inquiry into the explosion that sank the Maine. Sampson blockades Admiral Cervera y Topete's Spanish fleet in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba beginning May 29.

The cruiser U.S.S. Marblehead steams into Cuba's Guantánamo Bay June 6 and knocks out Spanish artillery mounted on the hills overlooking the bay. A battalion of U.S. marines goes ashore June 10: 623 men and 24 officers take over an area that will remain in U.S. hands into the 21st century. Some 25,000 soldiers pour into Tampa, Fla., June 10, coming by train on the single-track, narrow-gauge railroad; officers are billeted at the Moorish Tampa Bay Hotel, and the troops include 10,000 "immunes," most of them with some African blood, who are considered to be more resistant than whites to malaria and yellow fever; 16,887 men leave Tampa June 14 for Santiago de Cuba, singing, "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight."

Leading U.S. intellectuals meet at Faneuil Hall, Boston, June 15 and form an Anti-Imperialist League to oppose annexation of the Philippines in face of imperialist sentiment fired by the Battle of Manila. Local businessman Edward W. Atkinson, 38, lectures the founders of the league, headed by former secretary of the treasury George S. Boutwell. Now 80, Boutwell returns to the Democratic Party after more than 43 years as a Republican (see Carnegie, 1899).

U.S. Army forces under Major Gen. of Volunteers William Rufus Shafter, 63, arrives off Santiago de Cuba June 20 and disembark 2 days later with the Rough Riders of Col. Wood and Lieut. Col. Roosevelt. The Battle of Las Guasimas June 24 is the first land battle of the war and ends in a Spanish defeat at the hands of U.S. forces under the command of Major Gen. of Volunteers Joseph Wheeler, now 62, who fought in some 400 Civil War encounters on the Confederate side but has offered his services to President McKinley; Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt have pushed ahead of other troops with 1,000 regulars and Rough Riders.

The Battle of San Juan Hill July 1 to 2 ends in victory for U.S. forces under Gen. Hamilton S. (Smith) Hawkins, 63, whose infantrymen take the hill (actually Kettle Hill) after a charge led by Col. Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. Some 1,460 men and 112 officers are killed, wounded, or missing after the action.

The Spanish fleet steams out of Santiago de Cuba July 3 after Admiral Cervera y Topete receives politically-driven orders from Madrid to leave port; Commander Sampson is conferring at the time with Gen. Shafter, Admiral Winfield S. Schley is in command of the U.S. Navy forces outside the harbor, and the Spanish cruiser Vizcaya is set afire and driven ashore in the ensuing Battle of Santiago Bay. "Don't cheer, boys, the poor devils are dying," shouts Capt. John Woodward Philip, 58, of the U.S. battleship Texas, and although only 3 percent of U.S. high-caliber shells score hits the battle ends with 180 Spaniards dead and 1,800 captured, while the Americans have sustained just one wound casualty. Admiral Cervera y Topete, three of his captains, and 1,800 sailors and marines are taken to Portsmouth, N.H.

U.S. troops under Gen. Nelson A. Miles invade Puerto Rico July 25, landing at Guánica, and receive the surrender of Ponce July 28, promising to liberate the island from neglect and poverty after 400 years of Spanish monarchical rule. Miles promises "to give the people of your beautiful island the largest measure of liberty [and] to bestow upon you . . . the liberal institutions of our government," but the Americans will change the spelling of Puerto Rico to "Porto Rico" and treat its people as inferiors (see 1899).

A peace protocol is signed with Spain August 12, and the Treaty of Paris signed December 10 formally ends what Secretary of State John Hay, now 60, has called a "splendid little war." Spain's prime minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, now 73, comes under attack for signing the "humiliating" treaty; many prominent Americans oppose its ratification on grounds that it will corrupt the United States and turn it into a colonial power (see 1899).

Former Union Army general William S. Rosecrans dies near Redondo Beach, Calif., March 11 at age 78; former Union Army general Don Carlos Buell at Rockport, Ky., November 19 at age 80.

A Fleet Act approved by the German Reichstag calls for construction by 1904 of a high-seas fleet capable of limited offensive action in a possible war against France and Russia (see 1890). Introduced by German Imperial Navy Department secretary of state Admiral Alfred Tirpitz, 49, it provides funding for a flagship, 16 battleships, eight armored coastal ships, nine large cruisers, and 26 small cruisers (see 1900). Former German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, herzog von (duke of) Lauenburg, dies at Friedrichsruh, outside Hamburg, July 30 at age 83, having said at one point, "History is simply a piece of paper covered with print; the main thing is still to make history, not to write it."

"J'Accuse!" headlines the Paris newspaper L'Aurore January 13 over an open letter by novelist Emile Zola. His attack forces a new trial of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, who has been sent to the penal colony called Devil's Island off the coast of French Guiana (see 1897). The documents that convicted Dreyfus were forged by two other officers (a Col. Henry and Major Esterházy), it is revealed, and Dreyfus was the victim of an anti-Semitic plot. France's second Henri Brisson ministry ends after just 120 days October 25 when Gen. Jules Chanoine defies the cabinet, insisting upon the guilt of Capt. Dreyfus (see 1899).

Former British prime minister William E. Gladstone dies at Hawarden May 19 at age 88 (he is buried in Westminster Abbey).

Italian anarchist Luigi Luccheni stabs the Austrian empress Elizabeth September 10 at Geneva as she walks from her hotel to the steamer. She dies within a few hours at age 60.

The Battle of Omdurman September 2 gives Gen. Kitchener a decisive victory over the Sudan's caliph (khalifa) Abd Allah, who has assembled an army of 52,000 fanatical, spear-waving Dervishes to charge the Anglo-Egyptian line outside Khartoum, screaming as they come (see 1896). The 21st Lancers mount a useless cavalry charge on the left flank, but the badly outnumbered Black Watch regiment repels 20,000 Dervishes who try to turn the British line at the rear. Using howitzers, Maxim machine guns, and rifles, the British kill 11,000 Dervishes, wound 16,000, and take 4,000 prisoner, sustaining only 48 casualties. Kitchener's British army takes Khartoum from the Dervishes, reaches Fashoda September 19, and finds it occupied by French forces under Major Jean Baptiste Marchand. France claims the left bank of the Nile, Ethiopia the right bank; London demands that the French evacuate the territory that Britain claims for Egypt by right of conquest, the French try to obtain Russian support but fail, and Paris orders the evacuation of Fashoda November 3 (see Abd Allah, 1899).

Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza reads in the newspaper that he has been dismissed from his post as governor general of the French Congo (see 1891). His administration has been above reproach, but he has created animosities by requiring that all European traders pay African employees fair wages (while workers across the river in the Belgian Congo remain in slavery), and although he has established clinics, schools, and job-training programs his enemies have used xenophobic fears raised by the Dreyfus affair to organize a smear campaign in the newspapers, labeling Brazza a negrophile and foreigner (see 1905).

The Nishi-Rosen protocol signed April 25 by the Russian minister to Japan Baron Roman Romanovich Rosen, 51, pledges both Russia and Japan to refrain from interfering in Korea's affairs while permitting Japanese economic penetration of the country. Russia leases the Liaodong (Liaotung) Peninsula with its important Port Arthur naval base from China, obtaining territory that was denied to Japan in 1895 and provoking anger at Tokyo (see 1904).

Britain and China sign a treaty July 2 giving the British a 99-year lease on 400 square miles of Chinese mainland (the New Territories) adjoining Hong Kong (see 1860; 1997).

Chinese reformers who include Kang Youwei (Kang Yu-wei), 40, propose an alliance with Britain and Japan to check Russia's advance; they also propose reforms along the lines of those enacted under Japan's Meiji emperor, and they gain the support of the Qing dynasty emperor Guangxu (Kuang-hsü), now 27, who issues a series of edicts based on progressive ideas, but the dowager empress Cixi moves September 21 to crush the 100-day reform movement, which threatens to sweep aside her corrupt Manchu bureaucracy. She enlists the support of the imperial military commander Jung-lu and stages a palace coup, imprisoning the emperor but sparing his life in response to pressure from foreign governments.

A bill signed into law by President McKinley July 7 provides for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands (see 1897); Hawaiian sugar planters gain free access to U.S. markets (see statehood, 1959).

The United States reneges on promises to grant the Philippines independence and formally annexes the islands in July despite protests from Japan, paying Spain $20 million for the territory (see 1897). Revolutionist Emilio Aguinaldo has returned from exile in Hong Kong immediately following the Battle of Manila Bay May 1, declared independence June 12, and rekindles the insurrection begun 2 years ago, but this time against the United States, whose troops receive help from Filipino soldiers to force the capitulation of Manila's Spanish commander in August but refuse to let Filipino soldiers enter the city. Aguinaldo's right-hand man Apolinario Mabini, 33, initially urged cooperation with the United States as a way to obtain freedom from Spain, but he draws up a constitution for the independent republic proclaimed at a convention held at market town of Malolos in September and October, the United States announces that she will not annex the Philippines after all, Mabini and Aguinaldo renew their fight for independence, and when the peace treaty signed at Paris December 10 confirms cession of the Philippines to the United States, Aguinaldo and his followers feel betrayed (see 1899).

Former British colonial administrator Sir George Grey dies at London September 19 at age 86.

The new British viceroy to India George Nathaniel Curzon, Baron Curzon of Kedleston, now 39, arrives at Bombay December 30 with his wife, Mary, now 28. The Chicago department-store heiress will entertain lavishly and be far more popular than the stuffed-shirt vice regent (but make no effort in her 7 years as vicereine to span the gap between native Indians and the Raj) (see North-West Frontier, 1901).

New York City becomes Greater New York January 1 under terms of an 1897 state law uniting Kings County (Brooklyn), Richmond County (Staten Island), Bronx County, Long Island City, Newtown (Queens County), and Manhattan (New York County) to create a metropolis of just under 3.5 million inhabitants.