Battle of Santiago de Cuba
The Battle of Santiago de Cuba, fought on July 3, 1898, was the largest naval engagement of the Spanish-American War, and resulted in the destruction of the Spanish Caribbean Squadron (also known as the Flota del Ultramar) and dashed the hopes of Spain for preventing a blockade of Cuba. Cuba was the heart of the American campaign against Spain. It was in Cuba that USS Maine had met her untimely demise, in Cuba that the Americans had chosen to make their stand against Spanish “imperialism”.
The scope of the land war is beyond the range of this article, as is the questionable morality on both sides regarding the Cuban question. Nevertheless, it is important to point out that key fact - that Cuba was the heart of the American war effort, and it was in Cuba that the Americans sought to achieve most of their military aims against the Spanish.
The Spanish, too, realized that the war could be made or broken by the campaign in Cuba. Even before the opening of hostilities, Almirante Pascual Cervera y Topete had been dispatched from Spain with the ultimate destination of Cuba. At best, the Spanish hoped to show the flag in their largest remaining New World colony; at worst, the Spanish hoped to have a force prepared to meet the relatively inexperienced, but powerful, U.S. Navy. Cervera’s squadron and the squadron lost by Patricio Montojo at the Battle of Manila Bay could not have been more different, statistically.
Montojo’s squadron had been composed largely of relics and cast-offs meant for patrol and revenue collection; Cervera’s squadron was composed of modern warships, most of them less than a decade old. Montojo’s squadron had virtually no torpedo launching capability; Cervera brought with him destroyers Pluton and Furor, two of the most feared torpedo armed warships in the world at the time. Montojo’s squadron was almost entirely unarmored; nearly all of Cervera’s vessels were protected by armor of some kind.
However, it is evident from the records of the time and from Cervera’s own writings, that the Spanish Admiral had the feeling that he was sailing to his doom. The breech mechanisms in many of the Spanish guns were dangerously faulty, causing jams and other mishaps; many of the naval boilers were in desperate need of repair; some ships, such as the respected armored cruiser Vizcaya, desperately needed a bottom-cleaning and were suffering from extra drag. Worst yet, some of the gunners were long out of practice, having little experience with firing live rounds. The most well protected ship in Cervera’s fleet, Armored Cruiser Cristobal Colon, had not even had her main battery installed and carried wooden dummy guns instead.
Early in the year, Cervera had attempted to convince the Ministero de Marine - the bureaucratic body responsible for governing Spain’s admiralty - that the best strategy lay in resisting the Americans near the Canary Islands. Here, the fleet could be repainted, recoaled, and overhauled. The fleet could then lay within range of the vast reserves of ammunition established in Spain and the firepower of the Home Squadron. The fleet could then meet the Americans, he argued, still exhausted from their trip across the Atlantic, and destroy them. It was a strategy endorsed by every officer under his command, and many in the Home Squadron besides; it was a strategy utterly rejected by the Admiralty. Cervera’s own misgivings belie the seriousness of the situation faced:
“It is impossible for me to give you an idea of the surprise and consternation experienced by all on the receipt of the order to sail. Indeed, that surprise is well justified, for nothing can be expected of this expedition except the total destruction of the fleet or its hasty and demoralized return.” On April 30th, Cervera set sail from Cape Verde. Panic gripped the American populace - would he attack the largely undefended East Coast while the fleet sailed about in a vain effort to engage him? Would he prey upon American shipping? Would he sail up the Potomac and set fire to Washington, D.C.?
Following was a classic game of cat and mouse. Cervera managed to evade the American fleet for several weeks, evading his bewildered American counterparts and managing to re-coal in the process. Finally, on May 29, after several misadventures, Cristobal Colon was spotted in the harbor at Santiago by a bewildered American squadron. Contact was now inevitable.
