PREFACE/TEASER
The modern world was born at the turn of the last century. Written correspondence, oil lamps, wooden sail ships, and messengers on horseback transformed into telephone conversations, electrical lights, steam-powered ships of steel, and telegraph lines. Within a century man had traveled to the bottom of the sea, climbed the highest mountain, and entered orbit around the globe.
The first signs that the twentieth century would not be one of peace and understanding were also present. The British-run “concentration camps” of South Africa were the clear forerunners of the slave-cities of Siberia. Scientists in Europe were already exploring the secrets of the two-edged sword, radioactivity. The ideologies that would provide the intellectual basis for monstrous governments like those of Constantine Romanov and Boris Varine were coalescing around dangerous thinkers like Glinka and Ulyanov.
It was during this change-filled turn of the century that the Spanish-American War occurred. Though it only lasted for a few months in 1898, had an outcome that was practically a forgone conclusion, and is confined to a few brief paragraphs in the history textbooks of the victorious nation today, it was a defining moment in the history of the modern world. This was the first major war fought to feature prolific use of twentieth century staples such as the machine gun, steel artillery, and the battleship. Armies and fleets were given orders from ministries thousands of miles away from the front lines. The press played an important role in influencing military strategy and planning in both nations, foreshadowing the use of information control as a weapon of war. Politically, the Spanish-American War signified the rise to prominence of the United States, and the end of the 400 year old Spanish Empire forged by Columbus, Cortez, and Magellan.
Spain’s performance in the Spanish-American War was, for the most part, pitiful. The destruction of the fleets at Manila Bay and Cienfuegos at anchor were caused by a combination of poor leadership, obsolete equipment, and a weakness of morale: the fruits of a century of political unrest and spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy that permeated the Spanish state. The demoralized armies of Spain fared little better, capitulating ignominiously at Manila and Santiago.
Yet even in a war that concluded so disastrously for Spain, there was one point of pride that the Spanish people could look to as they entered the era of renewal and rejuvenation that culminated in the stunning victories of 1940. A small squadron of under-equipped and unfinished ships with untrained crews steamed thousands of miles in an unprecedented display of logistical and navigational skill, fighting with both competence and bravery against an enemy squadron that had conquered their comrades with ease. This is the story of the Spanish Empire’s Last Armada.
Below: The Reserve Squadron at Port Said; June 26, 1898
