The “Disaster”, with capital letters, is an expression established in the Spanish imagination to refer to the loss in 1898 of the last overseas colonies and its consequences. The adjective could be admissible for the military defeat due to the cost in lives, but were its effects so calamitous in other areas? The historiography of recent years tends to recognize that they had been oversized.
The Disaster continues to be a concept spread by certain intellectual and political sectors, which, in certain circumstances, presented the events as a tragedy that inaugurated the most absolute prostration. However, outside of the elites and large percentages of the middle layers of society, the dominant impression seems different. In the economic and political order there were, of course, consequences, but nothing that justified the catastrophism.
If you think about the popular classes and their interests, the end of a war for which their children resisted being mobilized must have been a tremendous relief. Carlos Gil has written an original microhistory book, Piedralén, about a peasant who deserted in 1895 to avoid going to fight in Cuba. His motivations were similar to those of thousands of humble Spaniards who rejected military service, and this aversion translated into a very high number of fugitives.
The popular classes saw conscription as a hateful “blood contribution.” Every year, thousands of young people nervous and devastated attended the dreaded draw for the fifths, while wealthy families, if they wished, could free their children from the bad luck by paying the so-called “cash redemption,” or even a substitute. The law allowed, in this way, the exemption to be purchased.
Apart from individual escapes, there was no shortage of collective expressions of popular discontent. Already in August 1896, for example, a demonstration of women – mothers, wives, sisters – was organized in Zaragoza shouting “Enough of war!” and “No more sons to war!” Other times, the protests took on a violent character, as in the riot that broke out in Gijón at the end of 1897, where people shouted “Down with the war!” and “Long live Cuba!”, among other slogans.
Needless to say, censorship limited the information that emerged about episodes of this type, whose protagonists were seen as simple traitors. Then came the revolts that, in May 1898, devastated more than sixty towns, due to a subsistence crisis that had a lot to do with the effects of the war.
The socialists, for their part, promoted a campaign for equality in the service in 1897, under the graphic slogan “Either all or none!” The bulk of republicanism, on the other hand – with the exception of the federals of Francisco Pi and Margall – allowed themselves to be carried away by patriotic fever. The socialists did see their support grow after 1898, but neither of them knew how to channel popular discontent to establish themselves as alternatives.
As the war intensified, that rejection only grew in the face of the tragic human cost. It has been estimated that the number of Spanish soldiers killed in Cuba ranged between fifty thousand and sixty thousand, although the vast majority fell victim to disease (more than 90%). Dozens of deaths occurred, even on the return journey to the peninsula, where the survivors arrived exhausted and consumed. And we must add the thousands of people disabled for life, destined to live off of charity.
To what extent would the loss of the colonies worry those who saw their children being taken to the slaughterhouse against their will? The truth is that, with the defeat, the sacrifice of so many young people thousands of kilometers from their families came to an end. At least until the theater of operations shifted to Morocco.
The story of the Disaster responded to the concerns of certain groups and did not, in general, reflect the feelings or interests of the popular classes. The loss of those territories was not the greatest of their problems. Even among the middle classes, there was no paralyzing affliction. In the opinion of Ricardo Macías Picavea, the war was, from beginning to end, “flatly unpopular”
In the remains of the vast Spanish Empire, Cuba was traditionally the place that concentrated the greatest economic interests. The main defenders of maintaining the status quo had been the Creole sugar planters of the local oligarchy and the peninsular merchants who exported their products to the island. However, the relevance of that market had been decreasing throughout the century and reorienting itself towards Europe.
In 1898, was the loss of these overseas possessions so catastrophic for the country's economy? The surrender also put an end to a significant drain on resources, and the economic losses suffered by Spain were soon compensated. On the other hand, dependence on the metropolis was not reciprocal: at the beginning of the 1990s, the United States received 87% of Cuban exports, including 95% of the island's sugar.
In reality, the greatest victims of the Disaster were some very specific groups and, by extension, certain provinces with greater ties; In short, those who had been the main beneficiaries of those markets, to whom, in any case, they did not take long to look for alternatives.
Furthermore, specialists have emphasized that the repatriation of capital led to investments in the peninsula that, in turn, benefited the progress of industrialization, as well as an increase in bank deposits. In fact, some of the great banks of the 19th century were created just at the beginning of the century, such as Hispano-Americano (1900), Vizcaya (1901) or Español de Crédito (1902). After the war, foreign investments and customs revenue even grew. Hence, authors such as Juan Pan-Montojo deny that there was “an economic disaster in the short or medium term.”
At the same time, the Disaster conditioned economic policies, highlighting the fiscal reform of Minister Raimundo Fernández Villaverde, which, although it did not break with the previous model or evolve towards equitable formulas - such as income tax -, it did manage to increase collection and contain the spending to the point of keeping the State in surplus from 1899 to 1908.
It is also admitted that the defeat stimulated economic nationalism, for some counterproductive, and reinforced the awareness that true progress required some intervention from governments. Thus, reformism in the workplace was still another effect of that crisis and the regenerationist environment.
Indirectly, there were new political challenges that, in some way, are related to the economic consequences of '98, such as the growth of regionalisms and sub-state nationalisms. After losing that market, for example, the Catalan bourgeoisie gave wings to the Lliga Regionalista, which was born in 1901.
In 1900, Luis Morote wrote that “the Spanish people had not yet recovered from their astonishment, wondering if there would be sanctions, punishments, punishments for those responsible for such misfortunes,” and that “they were wrong to believe that the system of things and people that had led us to such an incredible misfortune would collapse on its own.”
In effect, there were no significant consequences for those who engaged in this suicidal adventure, nor for those who incited extreme bellicosity and patriotism, based on an alleged Spanish superiority that soon turned out to be false and self-serving.
In the last decade of the 19th century, it did not seem that it would be possible to retain those territories for long; singularly, Cuba. After several decades of misguided and anachronistic colonial policy, the opportunity to introduce reforms that could have modified – if applicable – the course of events had passed.
Sagasta himself admitted in May 1897 that, after sending two hundred thousand men, spilling so much blood and spending more than a billion pesetas, barely half the island was pacified. And since the colonial war led to a conflict with the United States, the outcome was clear. There was an overwhelming imbalance between both countries, and any minimally informed person knew this, starting with the high command; but those who had the last word did not consider the option of surrendering.
In the upper echelons of power, war was still seen as a lesser evil, because what was decisive was the survival of the regime, including the monarchy. Once diplomatic mediation failed, it was feared that the abandonment or sale of Cuba would mean dishonor and an irreversible crisis. He also worried that popular discontent was being exploited by anti-dynastic sectors, although the latter did not happen.
What was threatened in 1898 was the system institutionalized in 1876 (the monarchical restoration in the figure of Alfonso XII) and a specific project of national and administrative construction. And the opportunity to change that was lost at that moment. It was a vain and costly endeavor to persist in retaining Cuba and other territories against the will of the majority of its inhabitants, a reality that became more evident as the war progressed.
Even the autonomist positions were diminishing as the horrific consequences of the reconcentration ordered by General Weyler were transcended, which crowded the civilian population in certain places to prevent their support for the insurgents, in such a way that the combination of hunger and diseases wreaked havoc. (up to one hundred and seventy thousand dead, according to some studies).
For certain sectors, the defeat and the consequent loss of the last overseas possessions did represent a hard emotional blow. There were “opinion creators”, such as journalists, writers and politicians, whose statements contributed to this atmosphere of pessimism and demoralization. While other powers tried to consolidate their empires a decade after the Berlin Conference, in Spain the patriotic pride was undermined by the speeches of people like Lord Salisbury, who spoke of “dying nations” and the decline of the “Latin race.”
And the disgrace experienced in Spain had its correlation – more or less intense – in other countries: Portugal experienced it following the British ultimatum (1890); China, against Japan (1895); Italy, with its defeat in Abyssinia (1896); and France with the Fachoda incident (1898). Hence some authors speak of “other 98”.
As Rafael Núñez Florencio summarizes, “disaster enhances lament,” although many of the regenerationist proposals were not new (Lucas Mallada published Los males de la patria already in 1890). It must be admitted that, despite its limitations, the reflection process that emerged at that juncture was a positive consequence of the trance. And it left some room for optimism, because it stimulated analysis and reasonable proposals to tackle Spain's old ills, even if practical attempts failed or had limited scope.
98 thus had the virtue of intensifying criticism of a political system corrupted by electoral falsification and despotism. The regeneration of Spain – which some linked to greater levels of freedom, democracy and well-being – would benefit the majority of the country if it occurred. More timidly, there was some regenerationism from power, embodied by figures from the two formations of the party turn, such as Silvela, Maura and Canalejas. Perhaps the fear that the regenerative impulse would come from below served as an incentive.
At the end of the 20th century, when – on the occasion of the centenary – historiography revisited the year 1898 and the situation in which it had occurred, an interpretive shift was noticed. 98 no longer represented a tragic fracture. The new works relativized the Disaster and put an end to the centuries-old Jeremiah lament. They even managed to glimpse glimpses of optimism in what had been described as a national agony that inexorably presaged the end of Hispaniae.
