CHAPTER XI.

THE BLOCKADE OF CUBA.

BY

CAPT. H. C. TAYLOR, U. S. N.

Τ

HERE are different kinds of blockades, varying with the objects to be attained. In a general way they

may be said to be naval and commercial. The former has a military object in view, the holding within a port of an enemy's fleet, preventing its exit and thereby destroying for the time its power for harm, its warlike offensive quality, compelling it to that inactivity which in itself is a form of strategic paralysis. Such was the blockade of Cervera's fleet in Santiago by our squadron. This form of blockade is of a directly warlike character,-force is matched against force,—a battle is always probable, usually imminent. If the enemy within attempts to escape, he knows he must fight, must lose heavily in ships and men; if the force outside means to make sure of its object and keep the enemy in, it must for its part keep close to shore and chance heavy losses from the enemy's sorties, from land batteries and submarine mines. The situation assumes an actual fighting character, one actively hostile.

A commercial blockade, on the other hand, although an act of war and frequently of great weight in determining the final issue, is not directly warlike in its nature. It does not necessarily nor usually involve the sinking of ships or the killing of men. Attempts to evade it when discovered, are met by threats, such as firing a shot across the bows or the milder menace of a blank charge. Should the blockade runner think his chances of escape good, he disregards the gun which orders him thus to heave to and he may escape; but should there appear the slightest sign of fighting or loss of life,

the delinquent surrenders at once and without bloodshed. When in the possession of the capturing force, the prize passes to judicial trial to decide whether it is justly captured. Whatever that decision may be, the people of the prize are not regarded as prisoners of war and are released as soon as convenient, without any pledge or guarantee required from them that they will not repeat the offence. In fact there are several instances in our own War of the Rebellion of persons returning more than once, only to be recaptured in new attempts to run the blockade. Commercial blockade has the general features of a game to be played, of great hazards and high stakes, but not the quality of war and killing, nor the sanguinary tinge which marks the incidents of an active campaign carried on by a military or naval force properly opposed.

war.

The blockade of Cuba as generally understood was the effort to close its ports, prevent trade and prohibit the entry of all articles which could assist the enemy in prosecuting the The subject had received attention before the war came. It had been decided that a blockade of the western half of Cuba would practically isolate the Spanish force in the island. The axial railway running east and west has branches to the north and south coast, but the continuity of this road is broken after it passes to the eastward of a line joining Cienfuegos on the south coast and Sagua la Grande on the north. A blockade therefore extending from Cienfuegos around the west end to Sagua la Grande would include all points from which goods, if landed, could be shipped conveniently or in any way successfully to Havana and to the army in its vicinity. There was no doubt in naval minds generally that this blockade could be made effective, as blockades go, as thorough in fact as any we know of in history; but there had been at times differences of opinion as to how effective the most perfect blockade could be. Some there were who held that the Spanish army, depending as it did from day to day upon the arrival of provision ships, would actually begin to starve within a few days, in a week would be at the last gasp and in a fortnight would surrender unconditionally and even gladly. Thus would be avoided the loss, misery and bloodshed of a protracted campaign by sea and land. The statement that a

passive blockade, however thorough, could produce such results was contrary to the nature of things. It was the effort so often made before to find a short cut to success, a royal road to learning.

It should be said that the great majority of practical men among naval officers recognized the impossibility of such results flowing from a simple blockade. Students of the art of war learn early in their studies that there are no easy roads by which to travel toward the goal of victory,-it is in war as in other trades and pursuits, the object to be obtained will require vigorous work and persistent effort in proportion to its value. The blockade of Cuba was but one of several factors which combined could compel the surrender of the Spanish. Vigorous offensive movements must accompany a blockade. The closing of our southern ports in the War of the Rebellion was very satisfactory after experience had taught us the proper methods. Perhaps none in history has been more successful, and it is well-known that the suffering of the Southern Confederacy was much increased by its inability to procure the munitions of war as well as the necessities of life in sufficient quantities; yet the starving out of the South by this means took four years to achieve. It was forced by necessity to produce many of the articles needed, but this was not altogether the reason for the tenacity of its resistance. That was in great part due to the fact that a large majority of the blockade runners did succeed in passing through the lines, both in and out. Not more than a third of the attempts were unsuccessful. Not more than that proportion were captured or otherwise prevented from landing their cargoes in the Confederacy and departing outward bound with cotton which was largely used to pay the cost of goods imported. There was no reason to expect a higher percentage of captures by our blockading line at Cuba than in our Civil War, certainly not in the opening months of such a war before experience in the methods of blockading was gained. The conditions of our blockade of Cuba were distinctly favorable to those attempting to evade it. South of Cuba lies Jamaica with good ports and with but a short distance intervening between it and Manzanillo, where a network of reefs,

permeated by deep but dangerous channels badly surveyed or in some cases quite unknown, offer every opportunity to such a traffic. Farther to the west but still within easy distance. of Jamaica is another similar labyrinth of islands and reefs in the neighborhood of the Isle of Pines, whose channels, known only to the local pilots, afforded access for light-draught vessels to Batabano and other landing places inside the Isle of Pines. All blockade runners of whatever country could take their goods on board at Jamaica and start thence to any one of the south Cuba ports. Jamaica is an English possession and that government was neutral, even friendly in its disposition towards us, but there is no international law or general custom which would regard the use of this island for that purpose as an act of enmity, a blockade being, as has been said before, of a commercial rather than a warlike nature. Similar conditions prevailed to the north of Cuba. The Bahamas, an English group of islands whose reefs and islets extend southward over the Great Bahama banks to within sight of Cuban shores, offered every chance of concealment to those attempting to violate the blockade. Nassau in the center of this group was used for years as the starting point of blockade runners during the War of the Rebellion, and the Bahama bank, to the south of that port, makes the passage to Cuba even more feasible than to the United States for those vessels whose errands require secrecy. The closer the examination of existing conditions was carried the more certain it became that, whatever an ideal and theoretical blockade might accomplish, a practical blockade, such as a fleet could maintain ought not to be counted upon for more than a small part in deciding the campaign against Spain in the West Indies.

It was felt of course that the blockade must be as stringent as it was possible to make it and, to insure this, it was decided to concentrate the force at the government's disposal upon the western half of the island and to close all ports from Sagua la Grande on the north around the western end of Cuba to Cienfuegos on the south and thus to stop or at least check the influx of goods destined for the Spanish forces.

On the twenty-second day of April, 1898, the President of the