Page 72 - NS-2 Textbook

THE RISE TO WORLD POWER STATUS 65

cleared the harbor mouth and before they could fire a seagoing navy a necessity. The United States had become
single torpedo. a formidable naval power. But the new possessions in the
Sampson, on the New York, steamed valiantly west- Pacific posed many problems.
ward to try to get into the battle but never made it. A bit- Attempts to find solutions to these problems would
ter dispute later arose between him and Schley over who dominate much of the U.S. Navy's thinking for the next
deserved credit for the victory. Schley was also later forty years. Most perplexing was the issue of how to de-
roundly criticized for hls tardiness in blockading Santi- fend the Philippines against a militaristic, expansionist
ago and his wrong-way hIm when Cervera emerged. Japan. Located some 8,000 miles from the U.s. West
The entire action took a little more than three hams. Coast and only a few hundred miles from Japan, defense
One American was killed and another wounded. Spanish of the Philippine Islands would require naval superiority
losses were heavy, over 300 killed and 150 wounded, in Far Eastern V\'aters. This, in turn, would require base
with 1,800 captured, including Admiral Cervera. The facilities in the Pacific far beyond anything the United
Spanish fleet had been annihilated by a superior fleet, States had in 1898. Thus, in addition to annexing Hawaii,
despite the latter's tactical errors and surprisingly poor early in 1899 the United States laid claim to Wake Island,
marksmanship. and later the same year it annexed part of the Samoa Is-
lands, including a fine harbor at Pago Pago. In the face of
growing anti-imperialist sentiment at home, however,
END OF THE WAR
that was as far as Congress could go.
The Battle of Santiago de Cuba had given the American Spain, having lost all her principal colonies, decided
people another Fomth of July victory. In only two to divest herself of all her remaining empire and concen-
months, the u.s. Navy had destroyed the Spanish fleets trate on domestic development. In 1899 she put up for
in both the Pacific and Caribbean. Santiago surrendered sale all her remaining Pacific possessions-nearly a thou-
its 22,000 troops on 14 July to General Shafter, after a sand islands. The United States was not interested, so
brief siege assisted by long-range naval bombardment. Germany acquired many of them, including several 10-
An expeditionary force was sent to Puerto Rico; it cated betw'een the United States and the Philippines.
quickly overcame all resistance after capturing San Juan,
the capital. American arms 'were victorious everywhere THE RISE TO WORLD-POWER STATUS
by the end of July, and the U.s. Navy made plans to
cruise against the Spanish mainland. Before that hap- The first decade of the twentieth century saw major
pened the Spaniards sued for peace. The two countries changes in the world balance of naval power. In the
signed a peace treaty in Paris on 10 December 1898. United States, the recent victories over Spain had kindled
Spain recognized the independence of Cuba and turned a national pride in the Navy and helped convince Con-
over Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the gress to accept as a national goal the building of a navy
United States. that would be second only to that of Great Britain. The
Notwithstanding the U.S. success in the war, there chief rivals of Britain and the United States soon became
were several lessons learned from it. First, the war clearly Germany and Japan.
showed that American military and political leaders had While Mahan had provided the basic philosophy for
to understand the principles of naval warfare, as elabo- the American rise to major power status in the years fol-
rated by Mahan. Second, the American people had to un- lowing the turn of the century, the forceful young leader
derstand that to be effective, the Navy had to be a mobile who made it all happen was Theodore Roosevelt. Fol-
seagoing organization supported from overseas bases. lowing the war with Spain, he had rehIrned as a national
Defense of American cities against attack was not an ob- hero and won the governorship of New York in 1898.
jective of the Navy. TIllid, it was clear that a sound am- Two years later he was selected as President McKinley's
phibious doctrine had to be developed and gunnery and vice presidentialnuming mate. When McKinley was as-
fire control techniques had to be improved. None of the sassinated in 1901, Roosevelt asstuned the presidency.
rather disorganized landings in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and The brash young proponent of naval power who had
the Philippines could have succeeded in the face of seri- done much to get the United States prepared for war
ous opposition. Gunnery at Manila Bay and Santiago de with Spain four years earlier as assistant secretary of the
Cuba proved effective only against old ships and un- navy was now the youngest preSident in American his-
trained crews. As Mahan himself warned, "We cannot tory. Roosevelt had always been openiy enthusiastic
expect ever again to have an enemy as entirely inept as about the idea of a large navy. In 1890 he had publicly
Spain showed herself to be." stated that the United States needed" a large navy, com-
Probably the most important long-term consequence posed not merely of cruisers, but containing also a full
of the war was America's fieV\' overseas enlpire. The proportion of powerful battleships able to meet those of
United States now had territories and bases that made a any other nation."