_Signed_) MAXIMO GOMEZ,
General-in-Chief.

Such an address doubtless savors of bombast to many Americans, but in the
history of political and military oratory in their own land they can find
an endless number of speeches that, in that particular quality, rival if
they do not surpass it. The Cuban situation was desperate, and the Cuban
attitude was one of fixed determination. Productive industry was generally
suppressed, and much property was destroyed, by both Cubans and Spaniards.
This necessarily threw many out of employment, and drove them into the
insurgent ranks. The Cubans are a peaceful people. All desired relief from
oppressive conditions, but many did not want war. While many entered the
army from patriotic motives, many others were brought into it only as a
consequence of conditions created by the conflict. The measures adopted
were severe, but decision of the contest by pitched battles was quite
impossible. The quoted figures are somewhat unreliable, but the Spanish
forces outnumbered the Cubans by at least five to one, and they could
obtain freely the supplies and ammunition that the Cubans could obtain only
by filibustering expeditions. The Cubans, therefore, adopted a policy, the
only policy that afforded promise of success. Spain poured in fresh troops
until, by the close of 1895, its army is reported as numbering 200,000 men.

The Cubans carried the contest westward from Oriente and Camaguey, through
Santa Clara, and into the provinces of Matanzas, Havana, and Pinar del Rio.

[Illustration: ALONG THE HARBOR WALL _Havana_]

The _trocha_ across the island, from Jucaro on the south to Moron on the
north, originally constructed during the Ten Years' War, was a line of
blockhouses, connected by barbed wire tangles, along a railway. This
obstructed but did not stop the Cuban advance. The authorities declared
martial law in the provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio on January 2,
1896. Gomez advanced to Marianao, at Havana's very door, and that city was
terrified. Maceo was operating immediately beyond him in Pinar del Rio,
through the most important part of which he swept with torch and machete.
The Spaniards built a _trocha_ there from Mariel southward. Maceo crossed
it and continued his work of destruction, in which large numbers of the
people of the region joined. He burned and destroyed Spanish property;
the Spaniards, in retaliation, burned and destroyed property belonging to
Cubans. Along the highway fr