The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-02-02
"The Late War With Spaln,'

The "Battle of Dorking"-a literary,
not martial, event-created a great
sensation in its day. The Battle"
which derived its name from town
southwest of London, was narrative
of an imaginary invasion and conquest
of England by foreign army, written
by Sir George 7. Chesney in 1871. Its
purpose was to call the attention Of
Englishmen to the need of an improved
system of national defense.
Sir George has his imitators in the
production of imaginary military his
tory, who have been recording recently
the events of a war between the United
States and Spain, growing out of the
Cuban question. A Spanish author
has written book bearing the title,
"The War Against the United States"
and an American writer in the Cosmo-
politan has been giving in that publ
cation ga Brief History of Our Late
War with Spain," concluded in the Feb
ruary number.
The Spaniard follows, with Castiian
pride and enthusiasm, the daily events
of fanciful war. After many VIC
tories by land and sea, the United
States, weary of the struggle, sues for
peace, and the government humbles
itself before the lion of CASTLE. This
unexpected result, in the opinion of
the writer, is due to the circumstance
that "Spanish pride is never abated be-
fore an enemy" and that "Spain never
surrenders." Therefore, the United
States government, desiring to end a
hopeless and interminable strife, .and
actuated further by its ruling spirit of
commercialsm, signs treaty by the
terms of which Cuba is returned to
Spain and large war indemnity is
paid the government at Madrid.
A reviewer of this book discovers in
its statements some historical mac
curacies. For example, it is not quite
true that Spain never surrenders, and
that she has always recovered territory
lost in war. When did she recover
Naples and Sicily, or the Netherlands?
Or when did she reunite to her domin-
ions, Portugal and Gbralter, detached
by force of arms from her own Iberian
Peninsula? When did she recover the
South American countries, once in her
possession, that embraced 80 large a
part of the Southern continent? Or
Santo Domingo of the Greater An
titles, or Mexico of the North continent
of the Americas? All these lands and
islands Spain surrendered to military
force and Spanish pride was "abated
before the enemy" that conquered them.
And as to indemnities, these are mat.
ters of pure fancy, not of sober history.
The purpose of the author, however,
was not to deal with facts, but to dis
regard them in order to tickle the fancy
of the Spanish dons, and he seems to
have succeeded.
The intention of the unknown histo-
rian of sour Late War with Spain," as
stated in foot note at the close of his
narrative, was to illustrate the horrors
of war, and the importance of the aver
age citizen adopting as his maxim,
"L'etat, c'est moi" The need of the
illustration, in this day and generation
is hardly apparent Apension roll bear
ing million names, and statistics
showing more pensioned soldiers thar
there are survivors of the late war with
the Confederacy, illustrate with sufh
cient vividness the horrors, physica
and moral, of armed conflict; and tn,
average citizen, or the citizen or
either side of the average, seems to b,
fully alive to the claim that he is tn,
State. The difficulty is rather to restrain
his assumption of importance within thu
limits of decent regard for the State.
The historian of the imaginativ,
war with Spain finds his "casu