Latest / Saberian History Lectures / Spanish American War Aftermath

Transcript

Spanish American War Aftermath · Saberian History Lectures

• 0:01
  Going back to the yellow journalism, they want
• 0:03
  a story. They want something that people are
• 0:06
  going to pull newspapers off the shelf because
• 0:09
  they want to read. You want to know when the
• 0:11
  ratings are highest. This election had very high
• 0:15
  ratings. You know what else has ratings? Wall
• 0:17
  -to -wall coverage. War. Y 'all haven't, I mean,
• 0:24
  y 'all remember, albeit vaguely, the invasion
• 0:28
  of Iraq. It was on TV, CNN, Fox News, 24 -7.
• 0:33
  I don't remember the invasion of Iraq. I was
• 0:35
  working on my grad thesis, came up for air, and
• 0:38
  somebody said, somebody was trying to put together
• 0:40
  care packages for the troops at A &M. I said,
• 0:42
  wait, there's been a war? And they said, yes,
• 0:44
  we invaded Iraq. I was like, you're kidding.
• 0:46
  Where have you been? Working on my thesis in
• 0:47
  the study carrel in the Evans Library. Oh, you
• 0:50
  poor grad student. But no, I even remember the
• 0:55
  first Persian Gulf War. It was the first televised
• 0:59
  war completely. They would freaking send the
• 1:02
  camera feeds of the cruise missiles. Alright.
• 1:11
  Alright. But anyway, so now let's look in this
• 1:16
  for a moment. So, if I'm looking in the newspaper,
• 1:21
  destruction of the warship Maine was not an accident.
• 1:24
  How would someone in New York even know? Well,
• 1:26
  Assistant Secretary Roosevelt was convinced the
• 1:29
  explosion was not an accident. Later forensic
• 1:39
  evidence is going to suggest it was actually
• 1:41
  probably a coal dust explosion. By the way, 1898,
• 1:45
  what powers most warships at the time? Coal.
• 1:48
  And when you pull into port, what do you typically
• 1:50
  take onto your ship? Coal. And when you shovel
• 1:52
  it, what typically gets stirred up? Coal dust.
• 1:55
  Coal dust, which is highly flammable in a country
• 1:57
  that is prized for its cigars and is remarkably
• 2:00
  hot. What could possibly go wrong? I mean, you
• 2:04
  know, it's like, you know, you got the one guy.
• 2:07
  He's taking a break from shoveling coal. He lights
• 2:10
  up a cigar that he got in town. He's like, oh,
• 2:12
  this is really good. He's got the fire in his
• 2:16
  mouth, and then here comes the boom, right? Yeah.
• 2:21
  Oh, like, dust particulates are remarkably flammable.
• 2:26
  This is why you don't smoke next to corn silos.
• 2:31
  Like, flour, if you spray it at the right dispersal,
• 2:36
  will become flammable. Y 'all didn't do that
• 2:39
  in science class? Did y 'all just not have enough
• 2:42
  pyros in your life? Yeah, it was probably flour.
• 2:53
  Right. Okay, so good to know there are still
• 2:56
  pyros in the world. Y 'all might save the species.
• 2:59
  Hey, hey, selection events are always interesting,
• 3:06
  right? But that being said, no, and actually,
• 3:11
  Marty, in your car... you have what's called
• 3:14
  a fuel injector. If you actually have a bucket
• 3:16
  of gasoline, you can take a lidded match and
• 3:18
  actually put it directly in. It will not ignite.
• 3:20
  The reason gasoline works is because in your
• 3:23
  fuel injector, it actually turns it into a spray.
• 3:26
  And so it's the spray aspect that allows the
• 3:29
  individual particulates to become more flammable
• 3:31
  when exposed to a lower heat source. And so,
• 3:33
  yeah, no. I mean, the principle is the same.
• 3:35
  There was actually... And I know I'm probably
• 3:38
  going to cut this out of the tape because it's
• 3:39
  not germane. Originally in Nazi Germany, when
• 3:42
  they were looking at the fact that they did not
• 3:44
  have petroleum coming in because they didn't
• 3:47
  successfully invade Russia, so they're like,
• 3:50
  okay, we're not getting oil from the Middle East,
• 3:53
  we're not getting oil from Russia, and we're
• 3:54
  not getting oil from Texas. So what they were
• 3:57
  trying to do is they were trying to modify their
• 3:59
  diesel trucks so that they could actually create
• 4:01
  miniature coal dust explosions to keep the trucks
• 4:04
  going. No, no, what you would do is you'd take,
• 4:08
  no, the concept is actually really quite remarkable.
• 4:11
  You take your cold chunk and you have some thing
• 4:13
  that actually like grinds it up and disperses
• 4:16
  it into a dust and it's basically the same. Auto
• 4:19
  cycle that you have in your car Except instead
• 4:21
  of using gasoline You use coal dust So you said
• 4:24
  that if you stick a lighter into a bucket Like
• 4:26
  if you actually had a straight match And you
• 4:28
  had a cool thing of gasoline Don't try it at
• 4:30
  home If gas is like on the ground No no I'm talking
• 4:35
  like in a container So it's like molten dense
• 4:37
  Right and so what it is Part of the reason why
• 4:40
  your car works Is because it's dispersed Yeah
• 4:44
  No Now do Do not try the experiment at home.
• 4:50
  But yes, the flammability of gasoline is in the
• 4:52
  spray, not in the... Not in the actual liquid?
• 4:57
  Huh? In the spray, not in the actual liquid.
• 5:00
  Well, it is in the liquid, but you need a higher
• 5:02
  temperature. So, like, a match probably wouldn't
• 5:07
  do it, but maybe... Yeah. Okay. Yeah, a fire,
• 5:13
  if you have a really hot fire and it melts through
• 5:15
  a gas can, yeah, it adds to the fire. Actually,
• 5:19
  that's the one part I always found really discomforting.
• 5:21
  It's like, oh, gas cans are now plastic. Plastic
• 5:24
  melts. Actually, the other thing is, well, you
• 5:29
  know, you light gasoline up. Gasoline burns at
• 5:31
  three times the melting point of steel. Okay,
• 5:35
  I went way more into incendiaries than I felt
• 5:38
  like doing today. I'm just saying, how do I know
• 5:40
  that gasoline burns at three times the melting
• 5:42
  point of steel? Gasoline is the major ingredient
• 5:44
  of napalm. So what did you say Bush did? Huh?
• 5:48
  What did you say Bush did? He doesn't understand.
• 5:55
  Oh no, gasoline, jet fuel will melt steel beams.
• 6:01
  It's a joke. It's the conspiracy theory. I know,
• 6:03
  I know. Wait, Zach, you see I am not wearing
• 6:06
  the tinfoil hat. It's not time for the conspiracy.
• 6:09
  No, it's over there today. Alright, I'm behind
• 6:12
  timeline on this. Okay. No, Afghanistan is the
• 6:19
  center of the world. No, I understand that. I'm
• 6:24
  about to tell you why you invade third world
• 6:26
  countries. You don't ever do it for their own
• 6:29
  sake. You do it so you can screw with other imperial
• 6:31
  powers and I'm about to show you that one. I'm
• 6:35
  being entirely serious. Why did the U .S. have
• 6:39
  an interest in... Okay, so let me get to this
• 6:43
  idea. U .S. declares war on Spain. Spain is the
• 6:46
  waning global power of the world. Now, typically
• 6:49
  when you have a waning global power, you also
• 6:51
  have some waxing global powers that you have
• 6:53
  to worry about. One is the United States. Name
• 6:56
  a few others. France and England. Hail Britannia.
• 7:02
  Yes, but they're expanding into the Far East.
• 7:09
  They were world powers, but if you look at it
• 7:11
  this way, France had lost India to the English.
• 7:18
  England had an empire over which the sun never
• 7:20
  set. In other words, they had Canada, they had
• 7:23
  Australia, they had England itself, they had
• 7:25
  South Africa, they had India, they had a collection
• 7:28
  of islands. France has, in its Outre -mer, its
• 7:32
  outer reaches, Morocco, other colonies in Africa,
• 7:37
  not all of which I can recall right now, and
• 7:39
  they're looking to go east to Indochina. Indochina
• 7:43
  is modern -day Vietnam. England is also interested
• 7:47
  in opening China up to the west for trade, Chinese
• 7:51
  goods. So rather than doing your... over land
• 7:54
  route where you actually have to take products
• 7:56
  from, okay, y 'all remember the Silk Road from
• 7:58
  world history, where you have to take it over
• 8:00
  land. Since you don't have any great empires
• 8:04
  anymore, to go from China to Britain, you don't
• 8:08
  want to have a train, you don't want to have
• 8:09
  a caravan, you want to go by ship because you
• 8:11
  can move more product and you don't want to have
• 8:13
  to pay the added tax of adding it on each time.
• 8:15
  Make sense? So if I move cargo entirely on British
• 8:18
  flag ships, my British merchants make money and
• 8:21
  they don't pay tariffs. Do you get the idea?
• 8:25
  So, the United States is at war with Spain. We
• 8:29
  talked about explosion of the mainland is fake
• 8:31
  news. That was a pretext. So, before he resigns,
• 8:35
  Assistant Secretary Roosevelt informs Commodore
• 8:40
  James Dewey, orders him to go to Hong Kong and
• 8:43
  then to attack Manila Bay. Manila Bay is the
• 8:48
  capital of the Spanish Philippines. Commodore
• 8:54
  Dewey steams in with his ships. They open fire
• 8:56
  and annihilate the coastal defenses of the Spanish
• 9:00
  forces. And basically it's a 400 to 1 kill ratio.
• 9:05
  There was one combat fatality for the American,
• 9:08
  400 combat fatalities for the Spanish. By the
• 9:11
  way, the one dude who died on the American ship
• 9:13
  did not die of injuries sustained in combat.
• 9:16
  He died of heat exhaustion. What a punk. Well,
• 9:21
  no, when you're in the heat of battle, you don't
• 9:25
  always remember to hydrate yourself. Things happen,
• 9:27
  but yes, they had one combat fatality. He died
• 9:29
  of heat stroke. Now, here's the problem. You
• 9:33
  are Commodore Dewey. You have annihilated the
• 9:37
  coastal defenses of Spanish Philippines. What
• 9:41
  do you do now? You and what army? If you're a
• 9:51
  Navy Commodore, do you have an army? No. You
• 9:57
  have ships. You have the crews for the ships.
• 10:00
  And for the long oceanic voyage over the Pacific,
• 10:03
  you don't have a large marine contingent. So
• 10:08
  what do you do? Well, the question becomes, and
• 10:11
  I'm going to go back. To occupy or not to occupy?
• 10:14
  Who else might be interested in the Philippines?
• 10:19
  Well, let's take a look. We've got the British
• 10:23
  in Hong Kong, and you have the French in Indochina.
• 10:27
  Now, Indochina is modern -day Vietnam. I'm going
• 10:30
  to move the cursor to about... Well, y 'all don't
• 10:33
  see the cursor, do you? Here, let me... Pointer
• 10:37
  options, here we go. So, Vietnam's about here.
• 10:45
  So I've got the French in Indochina. I've got
• 10:50
  the British in Hong Kong. Who else might want
• 10:53
  the Philippines? The French? The British? And
• 10:57
  there's one other group that might want to govern
• 10:59
  the Philippines after having been occupied by
• 11:01
  the Spanish. The Filipinos! It was like, oh yeah!
• 11:09
  We're free of the colonial oppressors. Oh, wait.
• 11:12
  Colonial oppressors showed up. So, you have the
• 11:17
  nationalist leader Emilio Aguinaldo declares
• 11:20
  Philippines independence from Spain. Then the
• 11:22
  Americans show up. It's like, hmm. This is a
• 11:24
  bit awkward. Okay, moving on. So, a couple of
• 11:31
  things I was going to say. So, you have Teddy
• 11:34
  Roosevelt resigns as Assistant Secretary of the
• 11:36
  Navy. to take command of a unit that he puts
• 11:39
  together called the Rough Riders. Cowboys, convicts,
• 11:43
  it's a relatively speaking motley crew. The American
• 11:50
  Navy comes out of Florida to Cuba. Here's a basic
• 11:55
  idea. Cuba has two major harbors, but the bulk
• 11:58
  of the Spanish fleet is in Santiago Bay. You
• 12:07
  have two U .S. fleets that basically encircle
• 12:10
  the island. They blockade the Spanish fleet at
• 12:13
  Santiago Bay. The army makes an amphibious landing.
• 12:20
  You have the Battle of San Juan Hill and Kettle
• 12:22
  Hill, which are strategic positions overlooking
• 12:25
  the city of Santiago. After you capture those
• 12:27
  hills, you basically have the city. And so the
• 12:30
  Spanish fleet can't land. and they can't leave.
• 12:35
  And so the Spanish fleet is annihilated. This
• 12:38
  is a war that lasts less than a year, and it
• 12:41
  is pretty much the end of the Spanish Empire.
• 12:44
  So, a couple of things. Actually, I'm going to
• 12:49
  go forward, and then I'm going to go back. Okay,
• 12:54
  so, through various treaties and whatnot, you
• 12:58
  have the Philippines annexed, Puerto Rico is
• 13:01
  declared a protectorate, And Cuba is given its
• 13:05
  independence, sort of. One of the things that
• 13:09
  was necessary for passing the declaration of
• 13:12
  war was an amendment. It was called the Teller
• 13:15
  Amendment. In the war resolution, it was explicitly
• 13:18
  stated that the United States would not annex
• 13:21
  Cuba. So what do you do? You don't annex them.
• 13:28
  You just get the provisional Cuban government
• 13:30
  to allow you to have a very large naval base
• 13:35
  on your shore. What's the large naval base in
• 13:40
  Cuba? Guantanamo. Now, Guantanamo is famous for
• 13:43
  Camp X -Ray, which is the internment facility
• 13:46
  for detainees in the war on terrorism. But it's
• 13:49
  actually been a major naval base going back to
• 13:52
  the immediate aftermath of the Spanish -American
• 13:55
  War. It's more than just Camp X -Ray. It's a
• 13:57
  naval hospital. It's a place where they refuel
• 14:00
  ships. I think it's also a naval air station,
• 14:02
  but I could be wrong. Actually, I have a former
• 14:05
  student who was... Navy corpsman stationed at
• 14:08
  Guantanamo Bay. I mean, it's a big base. Why
• 14:13
  didn't they want to annex Cuba? You had a wing
• 14:18
  of... in Congress that simply wanted to prove
• 14:21
  it was not an imperial war. So think about this
• 14:23
  for a moment. If you're going to declare war,
• 14:25
  you have to put a broad enough coalition together.
• 14:28
  So they didn't have enough votes to just say,
• 14:30
  okay, we're doing this entirely for imperialistic
• 14:32
  purposes. To get the resolution passed, you had
• 14:34
  some humanitarians that were like, no, we're
• 14:36
  doing this to free, you know, they had been reading
• 14:38
  the stories of people in the concentration camp
• 14:40
  dying of disease and whatnot. And so there were
• 14:43
  some people who wanted this to be a humanitarian
• 14:45
  armed conflict. I know that sounds awful, but
• 14:49
  no, there is this idea of helping oppressed peoples.
• 14:54
  The French did it for us, but they did it for
• 14:56
  their own reasons. You know, there's the stated
• 14:59
  reason, and there's the implied reason. Okay,
• 15:02
  let me go back real quick. So, the United States
• 15:05
  acquires a lot of territory from the Spanish,
• 15:08
  and here we go. So, the question is this. If
• 15:12
  you annex a territory... Do you let it become
• 15:16
  a state? Previously, what had been the MO of
• 15:21
  territories added to the United States? Once
• 15:25
  they became a certain population, they became
• 15:27
  states, right? Now, in the case of the Mexican
• 15:31
  Cession, that was fine because were there actually
• 15:33
  that many Mexican citizens in the remarkably
• 15:37
  desolate places of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah,
• 15:41
  etc.? No, but the Philippines, it matters. Cuba,
• 15:45
  it matters. And so I ask the question, yes, there's
• 15:48
  a matter of national pride, yes, there's territories,
• 15:50
  yes, there's markets, but do we want those people
• 15:54
  voting in American elections? And so you have
• 15:59
  people who aren't too crazy about having those
• 16:02
  people vote in American elections. I mean, it's
• 16:05
  not just a matter of skin tone, although there
• 16:07
  was, you know, straight racism on that one. But
• 16:10
  you also have... Did these people even speak
• 16:12
  English? No. These are not Americans. They're
• 16:16
  not Americans by language. They're not Americans
• 16:18
  by culture. They're not Americans by sense of
• 16:20
  history. And at this point in American history,
• 16:23
  they see themselves as a descendant of the Anglo
• 16:25
  -Saxon race. Now, you get to the main reason
• 16:30
  why the U .S. occupies the Philippines. First
• 16:33
  of all, in East Asia, the English are moving
• 16:36
  into Hong Kong. The Portuguese are moving into
• 16:38
  Macau. So the Chinese coast is opening up for
• 16:41
  commerce. And you already had the Opium War of
• 16:43
  1860. More to follow. See you.