The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-11-19
SPANISH WAR PLANS
SENIOR NUNEZ CONTRIBUTES AN IN
TERESTING VOLUME ON
THEIR FAILURE
MISTAKES OF sPANIARDs

| M1S1AhES UE SfAN1AhUS
Writer Contends That Privateers
! Should Have Been Fitted Out to
Prey Upon American Commerce.
Tells How Admiral CerVera Fall
ed to Go to Key West, Where He
Might Have Met Admiral Schiey.
| WASHINGTON, Nov. N-An interest
| Ing volume on the late war, from the
| Spanish point of view, has just been
translated by the bureau Of naval in
telligence. 1t is entitled 'Bockades and
Coast Defense" by Severe Gomez Nunez,
captain of artillery. He bases nearly all
his conclusions as to coast defenses on
long extracts from several articles writ
ten since the war by Capt. Mahan, of
our navy.
Capt. Nunez blames Spain. first of all,
for having neglected to make use of
privateers. He says that this was the
more reprehensible since the United
States did covertly make use of this
form OF warfare, farming over 12S mer-
chant vessels under the name of auxil-
larry cruisers, to prey upon the commerce
Of SPAIN
Spain, he says, could easily have done
the same, and the presence of a fleet of
such auxiliary vessels over the track Of
American commerce would have forced
the American naval commander to have
divided his force and prevented him in
large measure from concentrating them
for the final crushing blow against Ger
vera at Santiago.
HORRORS OF BLOCKADE
OF the blockade system employed by
the United States the writer makes even
more bitter complaint. He says:
The blockade as practiced in Cuba
caused a thousand times more victims
and more horrors than bursting shells,
the burning Of cities, the massacre Of
battles and all the cruelties of weapons
The blockade makes living expensive, ex-
Inguishes the means Of livelihood, grad
uaIIy decimates the population, destroys
family life, annihilates human beings
without diStinctiOn-Or, rather, with one
distinction-for it strikes particularly the
feeble, the children. the women and the
sick"
Capt. Nunez adds that the blockade of
Cuba had to be repeatedly raised, owing
to the apprehension of the American YES
sells as to the approach Of Cervera's
fleet. He says:
1.-The blockade of Havana must have
several times ceased by law had the
facts been properly laid before the ma
tions of the civilized world"
Regarding the cable cutting, his COM
plants are equally pathetic. Capt.
Nunez says that the United States failed
utterly to respect this sacred property"
(cables) both in Cuba and Philippine
waters, and he expresses establishment
that this violation of law should have
been allowed by other nations.
WHAT CERVERA INTENDED.
1t is interesting to note that the real
object Of sending Cervera to Cuba was
a hne strategic move, according to Span
lsh authority, and failed in effect only
because of the lamentable condition Of
the vessels composing the fleet Had
their real efficiency been what it was re-
ported on paper, Cervera was to have
passed into the Caribbean at night with
out stopping at Curacao, sailed round
the west end of Cuba and made a dash at
the American shipping at Key West, and
then have fed for refuge to Havana.
Had this plan not miscarried for lack
OF coal and the foul bottoms Of the fleet.
CerVera probably would have encounter
ed Schley when the latter sailed from
Key west round the west end of Cuba
TO checkmate just such a Spanish move.