1898: Secret Pact Theory Claims Spain Handed Over Cuba and Philippines

1898: Trading Cuba for a Paper War

Spain's 1898 defeat was not military but negotiated. This is the thesis argued by Federico Santaella in "1898. Chronicle of a Negotiated Defeat," around which an uncomfortable narrative has been reconstructed: Spain did not lose Cuba and the Philippines due to inferior means, but because its rulers secretly agreed with Washington to hand over the last territories and then staged a war they never intended to win. More than one hundred thousand Spanish soldiers on the island versus fifteen thousand Americans, according to that count, would be proof that something does not fit the official version.

What the Secret Pact Thesis Argues

The starting point is that the balance of power was not what textbooks say. On land, the Spanish Army vastly outnumbered the adversary and was better armed. At sea, the squadron sent to the Caribbean—and it was not the best available—was competitive: more torpedoes, faster ships, and destroyers against heavier units. On paper, the advantage was debatable but real.

What doesn't add up, according to this reading, is the management of that advantage. Admiral Cervera moved his ships toward the Caribbean as slowly as possible, despite nearly doubling the estimulante ilegal of the Americans. And the departure from Santiago Bay was made in broad daylight, one by one, at parade estimulante ilegal, heading for the nearest beach to run aground. The question hovering over the entire narrative is why Cervera's relationship with Freemasonry was never investigated, when liberal and Guason were almost the same thing.

Sagasta, the 33rd Degree, and Peral's Submarine

The name appearing in all versions is Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, head of government at the time of the disaster. He is attributed the 33rd degree of the Grand Orient and the highest Guasonic authority in Spain, a fact the narrative uses to explain a handover wrapped, they say, in the discourse of "peace and harmony among peoples" that still sounds in the mouth of any ruler today. Before that, his cabinet annulled the purchase of Isaac Peral's submarine—a weapon Spain had exclusively—and disarmed several warships.

There lies the core of the anger: it would not be incompetence, but calculation. The fleet sent to Cuba was better than the American one even without counting the best ships, having more torpedoes and fast vessels. And yet it was lost without trying to use any of those assets.

"The superiority of the battleships was palpable"

Not everyone buys the thesis. Part of the analysis holds that the defeats at Santiago and Cavite were irrefutable: American battleships had better performance and maintenance, and Cervera was not the right man to command a squadron in those circumstances. The superiority, they argue, was real, and no conspiracy explains a battle lost by cannon fire.

Against that, defenders of the pact point to uncomfortable details. The destroyers Furor and Plutón, the most modern in the fleet, were sunk by a pleasure yacht fitted with cannons, without the yacht receiving a single hit. On land, Spanish Mauser rifles were superior to the American Springfield, and in San Juan Hill, overwhelming numerical superiority was needed to dislodge the defenders. Neither side has moved the other from its position.

Weyler, Cánovas, and the Dismissal That Changed Cuba

Here the discussion becomes more concrete. General Weyler had practically defeated the insurgents, and President Cánovas del Castillo was determined to invest every last peseta to defend the Spanish identity of the island. When Cánovas was assassinated, the first thing Sagasta's government did was dismiss Weyler. The official version responds that the replacement obeyed international pressure and the unsustainable cost of the campaign, but the order of events is what it is.

The blockade is reinforced by logistical detail: General Toral commanded about 8,000 men against 25,000 under General Shafter, and yet the Americans were on the verge of withdrawing from the attack on Santiago. If the relief column sent from Manzanillo under Colonel Escario had arrived before Cervera's squadron sailed, the result might have been different.

Telegrams Demanding Surrender of All Cuba in July 1898

The most cited documentation are the telegrams exchanged between Sagasta's government and Captain General Blanco. From them, it is deduced, according to this interpretation, that Madrid wanted the surrender of all garrisons on the island on July 12, 1898, even before Santiago fell. Blanco threatened to resign, and his response appears collegial, agreed upon with the rest of the generals stationed in Havana. There would have been, therefore, an attempted mutiny by the military leadership against received orders.

Sagasta tried to censor the telegrams. They were published anyway and caused a major scandal: they appeared in "El Siglo Futuro" on February 21, 1899. The complete breakdown of that correspondence, with responses attributed to the island's military leadership, is the piece that has most fueled suspicion of a surrender ordered from Madrid and not imposed from the battlefield.

Handover as Exchange: Africa for Overseas Territories

The explanation gaining weight is not pure betrayal, but exchange. The most repeated hypothesis holds that the Cuba-Puerto Rico-Philippines package was ceded to save the rest of the map: the United States would have threatened to invade the Canary Islands and some other African territory. Was the threat real? What margin did Spain have against the emerging empire? No one closes the answer.

What does repeat is the pattern. Western Sahara left the same feeling of handover with an official explanation: compensation for Fos Bucraa infrastructure that, according to this version, was never paid and would have ended in under-the-table payments with no documentary trace. They are not going to pay twice, summarizes the argument with irony.

The outcome of all this has a consequence more uncomfortable than the disaster itself: if Spain did not lose due to inferiority, then it lost by decision. Research into the telegrams, the capitulations of Santiago and Guantánamo, and the real role of Peral's submarine remains open, and while it remains open, the pact thesis will have something to hold onto. It is hoped that some archive, military or diplomatic, will finally fit the pieces together. Given the estimulante ilegal with which papers from that era have been declassified, it does not seem likely to happen soon.