page_title: Casus belli
section_title: Spanish–American War
hierarchical_section_title: Casus belli / Historical examples / Spanish–American War
caption_attribution_description: Cartoon of belligerant Uncle Sam placing Spain on notice, ca. 1898 Independence Seaport Museum Photos of many items (mostly, public domain paintings) are followed by photos of official descriptions. Please transfer the description to the photos, updating the description here, and consider deleting the descriptions.
context_page_description: Casus belli is a Latin expression meaning "an act or event that provokes or is used to justify war". A casus belli involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a casus foederis involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one bound by a mutual defense pact. Either may be considered an act of war.
  The term came into wide use in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through the writings of Hugo Grotius, Cornelius van Bynkershoek, and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, among others, and due to the rise of the political doctrine of jus ad bellum or "just war theory". The term is also used informally to refer to any "just cause" a nation may claim for entering into a conflict. It is used retrospectively to describe situations that arose before the term came into wide use, as well as present-day situations, including those in which war has not been formally declared.
  In formally articulating a casus belli, a government typically lays out its reasons for going to war, its intended means of prosecuting the war, and the steps that others might take to dissuade it from going to war.
context_section_description: While the destruction of the Maine did not result in an immediate declaration of war with Spain, it did create an atmosphere that precluded a peaceful solution. The Spanish investigation found that the explosion had been caused by spontaneous combustion of the coal bunkers, but the US Sampson Board's Court of Inquiry ruled that the explosion had been caused by an external explosion from a torpedo. The McKinley administration did not cite the explosion as a casus belli, but others were already inclined to go to war with Spain over perceived atrocities and loss of control in Cuba. Advocates of war used the rallying cry, "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!"
caption: Cartoon of belligerent Uncle Sam placing Spain on notice, c. 1898
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2448", "Image ImageLength": "3264", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ18", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2013:01:29 17:15:10", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "584", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1250", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10321", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:02:26 23:48:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:02:26 23:48:21", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "415241/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2332", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3110", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1124", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "37", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}