PREFACE

66

This work is intended as a study of the relations of the United States with Spain during the late Cuban insurrection and the resultant Spanish war. The history of the conduct of the belligerents from the standpoint of international law has been emphasized. The method of treatment is not without numerous precedents in recent monographic literature: Amédée Brenet, "La France et L'Allemagne devant le droit international pendant les opérations militaires de la guerre de 1870-71," Paris, 1902; Takahashi, Cases on International Law during the Chino-Japanese War," 1899; Baty, "International Law in South Africa; Smith and Sibley, "International Law as interpreted during the Russo-Japanese War," Boston, 1905; and Hershey, "International Law and Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War," are conspicuous and more or less ambitious undertakings of the same kind. The French writers have given this aspect of recent history the most careful attention. They have several monographs on the Spanish-American war: Viallate, "Essais d'histoire diplomatique américaine," Paris, 1905;1 Lebrand, "La guerre hispano-américaine et le droit des gens," Paris, 1904, and Le Fur, "Étude sur la guerre hispano-américaine de 1898, envisagée au point de vue du droit international public," Paris, 1899. The latter by a well-known professor of international law at Caen, France, is the fullest study of the subject that 1Reviews in Am. Hist. Rev., XI, p. 423; Pol. Sci. Quar., 1906, p. 319.

has appeared, and in many particulars is an excellent treatise. However, it was written before the publication of the "Foreign Relations of the United States," and is based almost exclusively on Spanish and French sources, and correspondingly shares the severe antiAmerican prejudices of an enemy. This fact, together with its appearance before the problems connected with the transfer of the islands had been met, makes it inadequate. The custom, however, which M. Le Fur has followed, of printing extended quotations from the continental newspapers and Spanish Documents, makes it an invaluable source book, and one which has been very freely used. A study by Dr. Horace E. Flack, "Spanish-American Diplomatic Relations Preceding the War of 1898," has been very helpful for the first part of the period. I take this oppor

tunity to express my deep gratitude to Professor W. W. Willoughby of Johns Hopkins University, in whose seminar and under whose guidance this study was originally begun; to my colleague, Professor Henry E. Bourne of Western Reserve University; and to the editor of this series, Professor John M. Vincent of Johns Hopkins University, for criticism and helpful suggestions that have been made in course of the preparation. It is only fair to say that none of these are in any way responsible for the conclusions that have been reached or for the errors that appear. Further particular acknowledgments are made throughout in the footnotes.

Owing to the greater resources and activity of the American forces during the war, Spain was placed upon the defensive from the beginning. The result 'Johns Hopkins Studies, series 24, nos. 1-2, 1906.

was to give comparatively few chances to test or criticize Spanish practice except for the period of the Cuban war. For the succeeding time the study becomes of necessity almost entirely a criticism of American usages in warfare. A serious effort has been made to present the subject dispassionately, but the point of view throughout is American, the greater part of the sources have an American origin, and the aim has been to exhibit the foreign policy and practice of the United States during this period, both as a neutral and as a belligerent. No pretension of doing the same for Spain is made at this time.

TANFORD LIBRARY

CHAPTER I

CUBA AND NATIONAL POLICY

Every nation places its own interpretation upon the rights and obligations which belong to it under international law. This is to say that national policies constitute a strong and determining influence upon the principles or usages of international law which a state is willing to recognize and to observe in practice. On the borderlands of international law are disputed questions, and national interests influence the attitude toward such. England, with coaling stations at convenient intervals around the world, has held a doctrine of neutral obligations on coaling which France has been unwilling to recognize. Spain, without a large navy, has refused to accept the rule for the abolition of privateering after all the great powers have made it an established principle of action. Russia, placed at a disadvantage by the suddenness of the first acts of war inflicted by Japan, insisted upon the necessity of a preliminary declaration of war, even though such a position ran counter to opinion and practice. This principle of action, based on selfish national interests, has held true in all international affairs. Writers upon international law who are supposed to speak without bias are divided on controverted points along the line of national policies.

The history of American diplomacy forms no exception to the domination of national interests in national policy. This seems axiomatic, so fully is it