The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1895-08-22

charge bullets, those thousand little rivers
which, their right banks being conquered,
turn and reveal upon their left banks in
Vulnerable foes; those heights, upon one
side of which the guerrillas having been
destroyed, then offer the other side, upon
which the guerrlllas destroy the army
marching by-this and solely this Is par
tisan warfare it is the land In arms, the
territory, the geography, moving itself In
fight.
"The populace in Spain offers three types
the guerrilla, the smuggler and the high
way robber. Their aspect Is the same; only
In the moral sense is the difference between
them. Any of these types can be one of
the other two without any external varia-
ton, according as grain of moral sense,
more or less, falls in the conscience. The
bands of partisans that form so easily in
Spain may be consummately good or ex-
ecrably bad. Should we glorify this spe-
DIAL aptitude of Spaniards for constituting
themselves armed bodies and opposing
efficacious resistance to regular armiesp
Are the benefits of one day such that they
can make us forget the calamities of an
other dayp This do not say, and least Of
all in this book where 1 propose to extol
the exploits of notable guerrilla chief
whose conduct was always moved by noble
impulses, who was disinterested generous,
loyal and had no moral relationship with
the factions or smugglers or ruffans, and
whose purpose was very laudable, being
the cleaning of Spain from the French.
"The war of independence was the great
school Of the Spanish populace, because in
| 1t they were given the highest training in
the art, to others incomprehensible of inn
| provising armies and dominating for more
or less time o territory-they learned in
| surrectlon as science, and the wondrous
achievements of that time we have since
wept with tears of blood. But why 50
much sensitivenessi The guerrillas oonsti-
| tute our national essence. They are our
body and our soul; they are the spirit, the
| genius, the history of Spain. They are all
grandeur and misery, a formless conjuno
| tion of contrary qualities, nobleness dis
| posed to heroism, savagery inclined to pill
lage."
AT one time Juan Martin and his guer-
rilla forces were surrounded by an over
| whelming army of French soldiers and
supposedly almost exterminated. Many,
taken prisoners, were deliberately butcher
| ed after the battle was over. Martin was
| officially reported dead, just as Cuban
leaders frequently are, and the invader;
felicitated themselves upon having com
| pletely "wiped out" their most dreaded
foes. But within few weeks the redoubt
able chief, with new swarm of guerrillas
suddenly swooped down on large French
detachment and left none of them alive
when Il 10 engagement was over. Speak
ing of tho formation of that new force, the
author says: 1.-THE guerrillas do not need
like the armies, thousand prolix prelim
inarles in order TO organize themselves
They organize as they dissolve, by instinct
by the mysterious law of their restless ant
turbulent nature. They dispense them
selves, like the smoke, upon being van
quished and they oondense like the atmos
pherio vapors In order to pour down upor
the enemy when he least expects 1t"