The School of Sophisticated Drinking by Kerstin Ehmer

Author:Kerstin Ehmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-77164-120-3
Publisher: Greystone Books
Published: 2015-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

A Splendid Little War

IN CUBA IN the middle of the nineteenth century the calls for independence from Spanish colonial dominion became ever louder. In Cuba’s Wild East, progressive plantation owners, entrepreneurs, peasants, and Creoles rebelled. Many liberated their slaves. Ill-equipped, often armed only with machetes, these mambises fought unswervingly alongside their former masters against the militarily superior Spanish. The black general Antonio Maceo advanced with his guerillas on Havana, and victory seemed within their grasp.

Only at this late stage did the US decide on all-out support for the rebels. When the armored cruiser the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor under mysterious circumstances, the press fanned public outrage with the headline “Remember the Maine—To Hell with Spain!” Three hundred thousand troops were ordered to Cuba under General Shafter, a man who during the Indian Campaigns was awarded high military honors but who also had the dubious reputation of being an outright racist. Also among the troops were Wood’s Weary Walkers under Lieutenant-Colonel Woods, who despite being a cavalry unit fought as infantry because of the lack of horses. Woods’s deputy and later US president Theodore Roosevelt personally recruited American Indians, cowboys, college athletes, and professional competition riders as members of his Rough Riders—the unit’s other nickname. Shafter, who was so overweight that he had to be driven in a buckboard,15 noticed on his first encounter with the mambises that many of the rebels carried a bottle of rum attached to their saddles or belts. They willingly allowed the foreign general to try a drop. Canchanchara, a mixture of aguardiente (a coarse sugarcane spirit), lime juice, and honey, was the drink that this motley band of warriors used as a food substitute, to strengthen body and mind, and as a narcotic for the wounded. “The only missing ingredient is ice,” was Shafter’s laconic comment.16 A prophetic remark, as we shall soon learn.

In 1898 the decisive battle took place at Santiago. The Rough Riders had taken San Juan Hill, and together with inland Cuban units they began to besiege Santiago. The American fleet had destroyed the Spanish Navy in a sea battle, isolating the town. When the Spanish troops surrendered, this first “splendid little war” had lasted exactly four months.

The Cubans were not involved in peace negotiations. Spain handed over Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the US, and Cuba was placed under American military authority until 1902. But even after this date America secured military bases for itself and occupied key positions in agriculture, transport, and mining. Many Cubans today feel that the US intervention in 1898 cheated them out of victory over Spain.

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