Plaza de Armas

“ The hosts of ladies who scarcely ever appear in the streets unless in volantes, are obliged to make use of their tiny feet, and from the churches wend their way to the Plaza d’Armas, a beautiful promenade in front of the governor’s house, where by the light of the moon they can exchange glances and salutations with friends, and listen to fine music from the military band. ”

“ The houses built nowadays are mere shells in comparison with the edifices constructed by the Spanish conquerors and their successors, when a wall had to be made several feet thick to be satisfactory, and a door must be large 317enough to admit a mounted horseman, and massive enough to resist a battering-ram. From the principal public square, called here, as elsewhere in Spanish-America, the Plaza de Armas, the most important public buildings may be seen, the Prefecture, municipal buildings and other government offices overlooking this central paseo. ”

“ Silver-haired men, bending beneath the weight of years, alone passed along the deserted streets, and augured of the future in the now silent Plaza. The stores were closed, and anxiously the few Americans awaited the result; rising at dawn with the belief that ere twilight closed again their suspense would be terminated. On the morning of the 28th the booming of distant artillery was borne on the southern breeze. ”

“ But the streets leading to the plaza—all Spanish or Spanish-American towns have near their centres a square called a plaza—were commanded from all directions by artillery. The houses were flat-roofed and but one or two stories high, and about the plaza the roofs were manned with infantry, the troops being protected from our fire by parapets made of sand-bags. All advances into the city were thus attended with much danger. While moving along streets which did not lead to the plaza, our men were protected from the fire, and from the view, of the enemy except at the crossings ”

“ The troops garrisoned on San Francisco, ostensibly the loyal legion of the Dictator’s forces, were in reality watching the outward approaches only as doors through which they were to welcome friends. The guns that were trained and ready to belch fire on signal from Vegas, were the guns trained inward on the city, and, when they opened, the main plaza would resemble nothing so much as the far end of a bowling alley when an expert stands on the foul-line, and the palace of the President would be the kingpin for their gunnery. ”

“ The evening gun had long since boomed over the waters of the land-locked harbor from the grim, walls of Moro Castle, the guard had been relieved at the governor's palace and the city walls, and now the steady martial tread to the tap of the drum rang along the streets of Havana, as the guard once more sought their barracks in the Plaza des Armes. ”

“ The Americans avoided the heavy fire as well as possible by entering the city and securing rooms at the best hotel, leaving word at the office that they did not wish to be disturbed by the enemy. In fact, the soldiers did dig their way through from house to house to avoid the volleys from the windows, and thus fought to within a square of the Grand Plaza, when the city surrendered. The Grand Plaza is generally a sandy vacant lot, where Mexicans sell tamales made of the highly-peppered but tempting cutlets of the Mexican hairless dog. ”

“ Men began to rise from their beds and go to their windows to investigate, jalousies were thrown back here and there to enable those behind them to obtain a better view, and when, in the dim light afforded by some half a dozen lamps that were permitted to burn all night in the Plaza, armed men were seen to be moving hither and thither, with the feeble light from the lanterns glancing on their weapons, and with lighted matches glowing redly in the linstocks, a few of the bolder inhabitants summoned up courage enough to shout an inquiry as to what was amiss. ”

“ The four Pardo battalions marched on the capital in the hope of surprising it and disarming the national militia. Arrived at one of the chief gates, they divided into three columns, one making for the artillery park, a second to the Puerta del Sol, and a third to the [389] Constitution square. As fate so willed, the first column met a patrol of the Holy Battalion, and this circumstance decided the issue of the struggle. A few stray shots awoke the people. In an instant every patriot was afoot; each ran to his post, and the guards were driven from the artillery park and the Plaza Mayor. ”

“ Meanwhile the Americans began one of the most curious advances ever made by an army, for General Worth, finding that he could not force his troops through the streets leading to the Plaza without great loss of life, ordered them to enter the houses and break down the intervening walls, so that they could pass from one adjoining house to another under cover, directly to the heart of the city. ”

“ No groups of sullen men were standing there. Save for two mountain-guns and a half-dozen platoons of infantry, the little park was empty of living men.
But, though the plaza was empty, the houses surrounding it were not. This fact was proved by several motionless bodies dressed in uniforms as gaudy as the flowers among which they lay sprawling, and by three more lying under the guns. Against one of them a wounded man leaned wearily. Rifles cracked from windows everywhere, and two platoons of soldiers were firing at will. ”

“ The waiting hundreds of citizens who, for the last hour, had lined the curbs about the open place, began [284] to withdraw. They did not care to be caught between the clubs of the rioters and the bayonets of the militia.
The mob, filling the main street from wall to wall, entered the plaza like a rushing stream which, confined between barriers at the side, is powerful and resistless, but, spreading out over the broad lowland, loses its momentum and its destructive force. It was so with the marchers. ”

“ At dawn, the National troops, quartered in the Plaza Libertad, made another desperate attack on the Revolutionary positions in the Plaza Lavalle. The Krupp guns, mitrailleuses and gatlings went off at a terrible rate, and volleys succeeded each other, second for second, from five in the morning till half-past nine. The work of death was fearful, and hundreds of spectators were shot down as they watched from their balconies or housetops. Cannon balls riddled all the houses near the Cinco Esquinas. In the attack on the Plaza Lavalle, three hundred men must have fallen. ”

“ A clear and brilliant morning sun poured a flood of light athwart the picturesque plaza of San Roque, into which, as one may easily imagine, the whole male population of the town—about eight thousand—were crowded. This plaza resembled a sea of human heads covered with black or brown sombreros; though there were many who wore only their own coarse black hair in netted cauls, and a few had scarlet forage caps. Above this crowd glittered the bayonets and the glazed shakoes of a battalion of Infantry of the Spanish line, from the adjacent barracks. ”

“ It is useless to argue with a [245] Spaniard or Spanish-American about the brutality or inhumanity of these spectacles as they will immediately remind us of the prize-fights within our own borders which frequently result in death. This is a gentle hint that we should clean our own Augean stables before telling our neighbours what they should not do. Perhaps it is a rebuke that is not entirely out of place.
The Plaza de Toros is always a great, circular building of stone or wood with little pretence or ornament. It is built for the bull-fight and for no other purpose. ”

“ Men, women, and children, were constantly employed in the construction of additional defences. Alarm pervaded every breast, and was depicted on every countenance. Anxious groups were collected in the Plaza, and at the corners of the streets—each man eager to put forth the same inquiry, which rushed unbidden to his lips. ”

“ As I climbed the slippery, squeaky, small-cobbled streets toward the central plaza, I was quickly reminded that I was far from the haunts of civilized man, in an isolated world where even the sight of a strange face is a rare treat, to say nothing of a foreigner in shirt-sleeves, armed with a revolver and a sheath-knife, struggling to drag with him a diminutive, shaggy mountain pony laden with miscellaneous junk. ”

“ It was thought necessary to augment some of the British Guards in the neighbourhood of the Plaza; and the barrack occupied by the 88th being close to it, I, as the next subaltern for duty, was ordered to repair there to take charge of thirty soldiers, lest any rioting should take place during the night. It was five o’clock in the afternoon when I reached the square on my way to the barrack. It was already much crowded with people of all classes; some led by curiosity to see if any, and what, preparations had been made towards erecting the platform upon which the garrotte was to be fixed ”

“ We got a place sitting on an iron picket fence, and we saw the people coming up the street towards the Winter Palace, dressed mostly in blouses, and looking as innocent as a crowd of sewer diggers at home going up to the city hall to ask for a raise in wages of two shillings a day. Nobody had a gun, and no one would have known how to use a gun, and all looked like poor people going to prayers. There were troops everywhere, and every soldier acted as though he was afraid something would happen to spoil their chance of killing anybody. ”

“ While this was going on at the east, General Worth, with a small division of troops, was advancing towards the plaza from the opposite end of the city. He resorted to a better expedient for getting to the plaza—the citadel—than we did on the east. Instead of moving by the open streets, he advanced through the houses, cutting passageways from one to another. Without much loss of life, he got so near the plaza during the night that before morning, Ampudia, the Mexican commander, made overtures for the surrender of the city and garrison. ”

“ Every gallery, porch and window around the square were filled with the fair forms of beauty, in silent anxiety and alarm, waving their handkerchiefs to the gallant and devoted band which stood before them, prepared to die, or defend them from the rude intrusion of a foreign soldiery. It was a scene calculated to awaken emotions never to be forgotten. It appealed to the chivalry and patriotism of every officer and soldier—it inspired every heart, and nerved every arm for battle. ”

“ Men whose dwellings were a doorless tower which they entered and left by a basket on a rope, who tilled their fields with ever a rifle in their hand, strode now down the street, their dark eyes roving from side to side, and passed their adversaries with scarce a scowl. ”

“ The incessant groaning of big and small guns reduced to an uncanny murmur all the other sounds that came from armed men ceaselessly crying out to one another from barricade to barricade, and from one house to another, which they had broken through. Pitch brands burnt here and there, pale-faced figures lay prostrate around the watch-posts, half dead with fatigue, and any unarmed wayfarer forcing a path for himself was sharply challenged. Nothing, however, that I have lived through can be compared with the impression that I received on my entry into the chambers of the Town Hall. ”

“ It terminates at sunset, when just previous to evening gun-fire the activity round the provision stalls is tremendous, the spectacle of a vast concourse simultaneously preparing to eat anywhere and everywhere—in the palace, in the mansions of the wealthy, in the hovels of the poor, in the crowded street—no matter what any may be doing, as the signal breaks, being very singular. ”

“ The great towers, alive with soldiers, roll forward nearer and nearer to [Pg 129] the city wall, though its defenders fight desperately to stay the advance of the dreaded machines,—casting blazing arrows and balls of fire against the towers, aiming countless weapons at the Christians upon them. Women and children mingle in the fray, bringing missiles for the machines, or food and water for the soldiers. They lay hold on the towers and help to drag them forward.
On the tallest tower, high above all, stands Godfrey, fighting furiously, and urging his men to yet more heroic efforts. ”

“ And when one has passed under the arch, the street stretching away gives one the illusion of a Chinese street, with its houses of unequal height and its perspective of multi-coloured streamers. But one must go by another route to reach the field where the Federal shooting is established. A frightful uproar leads us unerringly to the place. Temporary barracks in the open fields, a crowd of people, gay and solemn, forming a procession. Here and there the picturesque costumes worn by the natives of some cantons still faithful to the old usages. ”

“ Every avenue emptied its curious hundreds, and almost every window exhibited half a dozen inquisitive heads, while peaceable shopkeepers ran to their doors, and beheld with amazement a lawless band of armed insurgents, in the midst of a peaceable city, an hour at least before dark. ”

“ The accompanying sketch is of the Market Square of Armentières, the building shown in the centre being the Town Hall. The cobble stones of the roadway and the lattice-shuttered windows are of the style which has lasted for generations. This quaint and picturesque town was devastated and almost totally destroyed; in fact, the bit of it I show was the only portion the enemy left uninjured. We captured the place, taking four machine guns, several horses, a quantity of equipment and ammunition. Two of the machine guns were mounted in the clock tower, a position commanding the range of the street. ”

“ When they come to the Plaza, where the Stalls and Scaffolds are built, and upon which the Feats of Chivalry are to be performed, it is often with a great deal of Difficulty that the Brutes are got in; for there are twelve Stalls, one for every Bull, and as their Number grows less by the enstalling of some, the Remainder often prove more untractable and unruly: In these Stalls they are kept very dark, to render them fiercer for the Day of Battle. ”