ning to station 50,000 troops on this barrier to confine
the insurrection to the east, where he expected
effectually to suppress it. There was only a series
of desultory movements and preparations until
November, when Generals Pando and Marin arrived
with 30,000 more troops from Spain. The insurgents
did not concentrate and wait to be suppressed,
but by dividing into small bands and moving about
in a bewildering manner they worked their way
west of the trocha to the vicinity of Santo Espiritu
and then to the valley of Cienfuegos. When Campos
undertook to make a stand against their advance,
with a force concentrated in front of them, they
scattered and eluded him, and zigzagged back and
forth until they got into Matanzas province. If
they encountered a small Spanish detachment they
worsted i t ; and if they found a strong one in their
way they evaded it. So they gathered force as they
went, coercing those to join them who would not
do so voluntarily, and appearing at the beginning
of 1896 within a dozen miles of Havana with a force
of nearly 12,000 men. Maceo made his way into
Pinar del Rio with 4000 men, and Gomez stopped
the cane-grinding and ravaged the plantations of the
rich provinces of Matanzas and Havana, to deprive
the Spanish army of its chief support.
T he general policy of Campos was one of conciliation,
and he could find no chance to conciliate. His
military campaign was systematic on paper, but it
was deranged and his forces were scattered by the
irregular and baffling movements of the insurgents,
who were gathering strength and carrying everything
before them, at a distance from the cities and
military stations. In short, Campos’s whole plan
of campaign was a failure, because his efforts to
carry it out were constantly thwarted. A cry was
raised for his recall, and he left Cuba, January 17th,
turning the command over to General Sabas Marin.
His successor, General Nicola Valeriano Weyler,
Marqués de Tenerife, arrived at Havana, February
10th, to institute a campaign of vigour and of rigour.
General Weyler had a command in the former war,
and by his ruthless methods earned the sobriquet of
the “ butcher.” He now proceeded to justify it.
Maceo had been having things his own way in Pinar
del Rio ; and, in spite of a new trocha which General
Marin established from Mariel to Majana in the
western province, he got back to join Gomez in
ravaging, burning, and destroying in Matanzas and
Havana.
General Weyler undertook to gather the scattered
Spanish forces and reorganise an army for attack
upon the insurgent " army,” which consisted of
agile bands of guerillas chiefly engaged in avoiding
attack while devastating the country. He ordered
the “ pacificos ” of the rural sections, who were assumed
to be aiding and supporting the insurgents,
to be concentrated in the towns under military
guard, about which were “ zones of cultivation,”
where they were to sustain themselves as best they
might. T he Spanish commander then set forth
on a campaign of destruction and extirpation of
rebels, as if determined to “ make a solitude and
call it peace.” He found his concentrated army