On May 28, 1898, after several days of confusion and misinformation, the United States Navy confirmed that the Spanish fleet of Admiral Pascual Cervera was in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba. This fortuitous event drastically changed U.S. war strategy.
The U.S. High Command had been looking into the feasibility of landing a 70,000 men-army in Mariel to fight the final battle at the gates of Havana. The news that Cervera’s fleet was in Santiago induced a reevaluation of the military objectives of the American theater of operations in Cuba.
The U.S. Armed Forces were immediately re-directed to the eastern end of the island (Oriente), where the decisive battles, both on land and sea, were to be fought. For some military experts nothing could have been more fortunate for the Americans than the presence of the Spanish fleet in Santiago.
By stroke of chance, the crucial battles went from the West, where the Spanish army was stronger, to the East where the Spaniards were weak, marching through dilapidated roads, and fighting the Cuban Army of Independence, under the command of General Calixto García, who had become a powerful force of experience and well led veteran fighters.
For few faithful days, before the U.S. Navy blockaded Santiago’s harbor, Cervera’s senior officers proposed a dash of the fleet to Havana. The Admiral refused the advice, (Cienfuegos was an alternative) deciding the final stage of the war in Oriente province, the heroic cradle of Cuban independence.
*Pedro Roig is Executive Director of the Cuban Studies Institute. Roig is an attorney and historian that has written several books, including the Death of a Dream: A History of Cuba. He is a veteran of the Brigade 2506.
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