The cession of the Philippines involved payment of $20 million ($650 million today) to Spain by the U.S. The treaty ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine islands from Spain to the United States and granted the United States temporary control of Cuba. The war ended with the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the United States. Madrid sued for peace after two Spanish squadrons were sunk in the battles of Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay, and a third, more modern fleet was recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts. The invaders obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila despite the good performance of some Spanish infantry units, and fierce fighting for positions such as San Juan Hill. As United States agitators for war well knew, United States naval power would prove decisive, allowing expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already facing nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further devastated by yellow fever. The 10-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. Both sides declared war neither had allies. On the same day, the United States Navy began a blockade of Cuba. In response, Spain severed diplomatic relations with the United States on April 21. On April 20, 1898, McKinley signed a joint Congressional resolution demanding Spanish withdrawal and authorizing the President to use military force to help Cuba gain independence. So the government preferred to wage a lost war beforehand, rather than risk a revolution, that is he opted for a "controlled demolition" to preserve the Restoration Regime. If the Spanish government transferred Cuba it would be seen as a betrayal by a part of Spanish society and there would probably have been a new revolution. However, after the United States Navy armored cruiser Maine mysteriously exploded and sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed McKinley into a war that he had wished to avoid.Īs far as Spain was concerned, there was a nationalist agitation, in which the written press had a key influence, causing the Spanish government to not give in and sell Cuba to the US, as it had previously transferred Florida to that country in 1821. President William McKinley ignored the exaggerated news reporting and sought a peaceful settlement. Accordingly, most business interests lobbied vigorously against going to war. The business community had just recovered from a deep depression and feared that a war would reverse the gains. Yellow journalism exaggerated the atrocities to further increase public fervor and to sell more newspapers and magazines. But in the late 1890s, American public opinion swayed in support of the rebellion because of reports of concentration camps set up to control the populace. There had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. The United States backed these revolts upon entering the Spanish–American War. Revolts had been occurring for some years in Cuba against Spanish colonial rule. That process was interrupted only for a few years by the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. On the other hand, throughout that century the US expanded economically by purchasing territories such as Louisiana and Alaska, by other militarily actions such as the Mexican–American War, and by receiving large numbers of immigrants. In the Spanish case, the decadence, which already came from previous centuries, accelerated first with the Napoleonic invasion, which in turn would cause the independence of a large part of the American colonies, and later political instability (pronouncements, revolutions, civil wars.) bled the country socially and economically. The 19th century represented a clear decline for the Spanish Empire, while the United States went from becoming a newly founded country to being a medium regional power. It led to United States involvement in the Philippine Revolution and later to the Philippine–American War. acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions. The war led to the United States emerging predominant in the Caribbean region, and resulted in U.S. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. The Spanish–American War (April 21 – August 13, 1898) was a period of armed conflict between Spain and the United States.
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