War of the Spanish Succession

“ Never, before the treaty with France of 1796, concluded by this wiseacre (which made him a Prince of Peace, and our Government the Sovereign of Spain) , was the Spanish monarchy reduced to such a lamentable dilemma as to be forced into an expensive war without a cause, and into a disgraceful peace, not only unprofitable, but absolutely disadvantageous. Never before were its treasures distributed among its oppressors to support their tyranny, nor its military and naval forces employed to fight the battles of rebellion. The loyal subjects of Spain have only one hope left. ”

“ If she were to yield to the superior power of the United States without a struggle, Spanish revolutionists would overthrow the dynasty before he could come to the throne. However well she might know that the logical outcome of a war would be overwhelming defeat to Spanish arms, political necessities compelled her to take the position dictated by Spanish pride. ”

“ Even the martial glory of the armies of Napoleon, seen through the War of Independence, which shrouds it{286} like a veil, appears to the eyes of the Spanish less splendid than to any other people in Europe. The idea of a foreign invasion provokes among the Spaniards a smile of proud disdain; they do not believe it possible to be conquered in their own country; one should hear the tones in which they speak of Germany when it is rumored that the emperor William has determined to uphold the throne of the duke d’Aosta with his arms. ”

“ The war in Spain, on the contrary, is made up of events which seem to have no dependence on each other. The turns of fortune resemble those which take place in a dream. Victory and defeat are not followed by their usual consequences. Armies spring out of nothing, and melt into nothing. Yet, to judicious readers of history, the Spanish conflict is perhaps more interesting than the campaigns of Marlborough and Eugene. The fate of the Milanese and of the Low Countries was decided by military skill. The fate of Spain was decided by the peculiarities of the national character. ”

“ This campaign, the most successful the French had made in Spain since the first, Napoleon rewarded by creating Suchet duke of Albuféra, and granting him the royal domain of that name in Valencia, as an inalienable fief of the French empire.
The dissensions with the colonies likewise diverted both the attention and the resources of the Spanish government from the vigorous prosecution of the war. In every American province insurrection now raged. In Mexico, after a severe struggle, the Spaniards regained the ascendency. ”

“ It is since the loss of Cuba and the Philippines that Spanish national securities have doubled in value. (At the outbreak of the Hispano-American War Spanish Fours were at 45; they have since touched par.) If Spain has shown in the last decade a social renaissance, not shown perhaps for a hundred and fifty years, it is because a nation still less military than Germany, and still more purely industrial, has compelled Spain once and for all to surrender all dreams of empire and conquest. ”

“ Should any one, by chance, feel a wish to read it, he can find it everywhere. My Spanish War, the great political event of my life, was a gigantic undertaking. The Legitimacy was for the first time about to burn powder under the White Flag, to fire its first gun-shot after those gun-shots of the Empire which will be audible to the utmost posterity. To bestride Spain with one step, to succeed on the same soil where formerly a conqueror's arms had encountered reverses, to do in six months what he was unable to do in seven years: who could have laid claim to that prodigy? ”

“ Having stripped Spain of its best troops, introduced his armies into the heart of the country, seized the most important fortresses, inveigled into captivity the whole Royal Family, and extorted from them a formal renunciation of the crown in his favour; the people, he thought, if they dared attempt any partial opposition, would be effectually intimidated by the first slaughter, and the military executions which should follow it. His calculation was erroneous, because the Spanish character, and the strength of good principles, had not been taken into the account. ”

“ She must amend and strengthen her government; she must improve the administration of her resources, and the structure and discipline of her armies, before she can become capable of deriving [480] benefit from foreign aid. Spain has proved untrue to our alliance, because she is not true to herself.”—“Until some great change shall be effected in the conduct of the military resources of Spain, and in the state of her armies, no British army can safely attempt to co-operate with the Spanish troops in the territory of Spain.” ”

“ It was difficult to conceive any situation which would better warrant hopes of ultimate success than that of Spain. The people were unanimous in their resistance to the invader; and it was the only instance since the French revolution in which a whole people had taken up arms in their own defence. The territory of Spain was as large as that of France within its ancient limits, and the country possessed many local advantages for defence, ... advantages, the value of which the Spanish history in former times ought to teach us duly to appreciate. ”

“ But any great immediate advantage, any rapid acceleration of the deliverance of Spain, ought not to have been expected, unless it was supposed that the Spanish deputies would proceed like the French national convention, and that a revolutionary delirium might have produced a preternatural and overpowering strength. There was as little reason to look for this, as there could be for desiring it. The Spaniards, more than any other Europeans, are attached to the laws and customs of their country. Spain is to them literally a holy land ”

“ Here is one incident out of many to show the heights to which temper had risen.
'Long peace,' says someone, addressing the Privy Council early in Elizabeth's time, 'becomes by force of the Spanish Inquisition more hurtful than open war. It is the secret, determined policy of Spain to destroy the English fleet, pilots, masters and sailors, by means of the Inquisition. The Spanish King pretends he dares not offend the Holy House, while we in England say we may not proclaim war against Spain in revenge of a few. ”

“ That Spain, even without a serious insurrection on her hands, was unequal to the task of meeting so powerful an antagonist as the United States must have been evident even to Spaniards. Be that as it may, an early collapse of the Spanish defence was not anticipated, and however one-sided the war may have been seen to be, it furnished examples illustrating rules as old as naval warfare. ”

“ The signal fact that will present itself to the student of Spanish history is that from the earliest times the country has been in a continual state of conflict, internal, with its colonies, and with other nations; and seldom has it been a war of defense. In almost every instance Spain has been the aggressor. The Spaniard has ever been perfidious, avaricious, ferocious. In his veins still flows the blood of Ferdinand, of Torquemada, and of Philip II. Weyler is a prototype of Alva, and in Blanco we find another Antonio de Mendoza. Spain is the China of modern Europe. ”

“ But, unfortunately, Spanish dominion must always be accompanied by infamy, and although the errors and wrongful acts of the last war seemed to be corrected at the beginning of this one, to-day it has become manifest that it was only by closing our eyes to invariable personal antecedents and incorrigible traditional arbitrariness that we could have imagined Spain would forget forever her fatal characteristic of ferocity towards the defenseless. But we cannot help believing evidence. ”

“ Upon the whole, a survey of the problem offered by the conditions of the Spanish war reveals a shrewd and unerring strategy on the part of the United States. On the other hand, while we came to respect the124 Spanish in the highest degree as brave and dutiful men, we cannot regard the strategy of the Spanish War Office as anything but puerile. Spain saw the war coming before we did, and she might have put up a far better fight with no greater loss. ”

“ NO modern European nation has endured such vicissitudes of good and evil fortune as the Spanish. From the virtual anarchy of the Castilian kingdoms under Juan II and Enrique IV, the resolute wills of Ferdinand and Isabella evoked order and, by the union with Aragon, the conquest of Granada, Naples and Navarre and the acquisition of the New World, they left Spain in a most commanding position. ”

“ Meanwhile the army of invasion had been gathering on the border under the Duke of Angoulême, nephew of Louis XIV. From Bayonne, on April 2d, he issued a manifesto to the effect that he did not come to make war but to liberate a captive king, to restore the Altar and the Throne, to release the priesthood from exile, and the whole people from a domination that was preparing the destruction of Spain. On April 7th the army crossed the Bidassoa, consisting of 91,000 men, of whom 35,000 were Spanish royalists. ”

“ The sounds of war died away before they reached the foot of the Pyrenees. Spain, it is true, sent forth her sons, from time to time, to serve under the banners of Charles; and it was in that school that was perfected the admirable system of discipline and tactics which, begun by the Great Captain, made the Spanish infantry the most redoubtable in Europe. But the great body of the people felt little interest in the success of these distant enterprises, where success brought them no good. Not that the mind of Spain was inactive, or oppressed with the lethargy which stole over it in a later age. ”

“ Spain, from the earliest historical periods, had ever been the victim of foreign colonial despotisms or imported tyrants until Philip II., under whom the Inquisition becoming firmly established, it thenceforward continued a Catholic province of the Roman Church, until Rome and the Papal Spanish empire fell together by the hands of Napoleon. From that time onward, Spain and all her former provinces have continued the sport of military insurgents—a melancholy evidence of the mental, physical, and moral ruin that overtakes a country abandoned to the despotism of priests. ”

“ Spain could not preserve the gifts of Columbus.
SPAINS COLONIAL POLICIES. The logic of events and the progress of civilization have commanded that Spain should withdraw from her possessions in the western hemisphere. Never has there been such a record of ferocity and barbarity in conquest, as that which blackens the pages of Spanish history in connection with Spain's acquisition and subjection of her newly discovered territories. Whether it was the peaceful Indians of the Antilles, the highly civilized Aztecs of Mexico, or the Incas of Peru, the policy pursued was always the same. ”

“ Spaniards, think not that the Junta speak thus to excite you by the arts of language; what need of words, when things speak for themselves? Your houses are destroyed; your churches demolished; your fields laid waste; your families dispersed and wandering through the country, or hurried into the grave. Have we made so many sacrifices, have the flames of war consumed half Spain, that we should abandon the other half to the far more deadly peace which the enemy prepares for it? For no one will beguile himself with the insidious parade of the improvements which the French hold out. ”

“ The kings of the various provinces of Spain, ever at war with the Moors, were, of course, in a state of great dependence on their warrior nobles. They needed their subjects to form expeditions against the enemy or to resist their encroachments. Often, also, the Spanish princes were at enmity with each other; and civil discord, or the war of one Christian kingdom against the other, caused temporary alliance with the Mahometans. This brought the chivalry of the two nations into contact. The Spaniards learned the arts of civilisation from their conquerors—they learned also the language of love. ”

“ The time had passed when it was possible for Spanish despotism to regain its footing on American soil. Many of the provinces had already claimed their independence, and the others were prepared for the same decisive step. The ascendency of Europe over the American continent had ceased. But Spain followed England in her attempt to compel the allegiance of subjects whose affection she had forfeited. In her deep poverty and exhaustion she entered upon a costly war, which, after inflicting for sixteen years vast evils on both the Old World and the New, terminated in her ignominious defeat. ”

“ Like most dishonest men, the Prince and the favourite complained that the people whom they had deluded were dishonest. They made such misrepresentations of the treachery of the Spaniards in this business of the Spanish match, that the English nation became eager for a war with them. Although the gravest Spaniards laughed at the idea of his Sowship in a warlike attitude, the Parliament granted money for the beginning of hostilities, and the treaties with Spain were publicly declared to be at an end. ”

“ France, at the height of her power under Louis XIV, was unwilling to wait for the death of Charles II before profiting by Spanish weakness, and therefore engaged in several wars of aggression, directed primarily against Spain’s possessions in the Low Countries and against the Protestant Netherlands. In many of these wars other powers fought on the side of Spain and the Dutch, notably the Holy Roman Emperor, many princes of Germany, and Sweden, while England and the pope joined the allies against the French military lord in the last war of the period. ”