THE years following the close of the Civil War in the United States were marked with momentous occurrences in various other countries, particularly in Cuba, and the two nations with which she had long been intimately connected, Mexico and Spain.

The beginning of the year 1866 in Peninsular Spain saw General Prim heading a revolutionary body of troops at Aranjuez and at Ocana. These operations caused great excitement, and feeling ran high throughout the kingdom, for they were generally regarded as indicative and provocative of a radical change of government. Martial law was, however, promptly proclaimed at Madrid, and thus countless sympathizers with the revolution were restrained from taking an active part in it. The army of the government, under General Zabala, hastened to the scene of the insurrection, and pursued the revolutionary troops with such vigor that the latter, including General Prim himself, were compelled to retreat across the Portuguese frontier near Barracas, since they were, in fact, only about six hundred strong and were not prepared to make a resolute stand. In the same month, January, 1866, other revolutionary bodies were dispersed in Catalonia and Valencia.

So confident was the royal government of its security, and of the completeness with which the incipient revolution had been quelled, that on March 17 it repealed the decree of martial law at the capital. It was, however, cherishing a fool's paradise. The spirit of revolution was at work, and was bound soon to reassert itself. Its next manifestation occurred in June, when two regiments of soldiers in Madrid itself mutinied and repudiated their officers, who had refused to join them in their action. These troops were well armed, having twenty-six cannon, and were soon reinforced by large numbers of volunteers from the populace, so that it was only by a supreme effort that the government troops were able to defeat and disperse them.

At the same time, a corresponding movement took place in the garrison at Gerona, where a considerable body of troops revolted and, when attacked by government forces, conducted a successful retreat across the French frontier. Having crossed the boundary, they laid down their arms, but the larger proportion of them soon found their way back into Spain to join the impending revolution. Other outbreaks occurred at other points, all of which were suppressed with difficulty, but with great severity, many of the leaders being summarily shot as a deterrent example. But this action instead of being deterrent was provocative. The next revolutionary manifestation was the formation of a junta at Madrid, which issued a proclamation setting forth the complaints of the insurgents against the government, in part as follows:

"Savage courts have led hundreds of victims to sacrifice, and a woman has contemplated passively and even with complacency, the scaffold which has been erected.

"The Cortes have abjectly sold to the government the safety of the individual, the civil rights and the well-being of the commonwealth. The government has overthrown the press and rostrum, and has entrusted the administration of the provinces to rapacious mandarins and sanguinary generals; military tribunals have despoiled the rich and transported the poor to Fernando Po and to the Philippines.

"The laws of the Cortes have been replaced by decrees squandering the resources of the country by means of obscure and ruinous laws, trampling under foot right and virtue, violating homes, property and family; and during all this time, Isabella II, at Zuranz, and Madrid, meditating a plot against Italy, our sister, for the benefit of the Roman curia, participating meanwhile in the depredations of violence of the pachas in Cuba, who tolerating the fraudulent introduction of slaves, are outraging public sentiment both in the Old and in the New World, and causing an estrangement between Spain and the great and glorious Republic of the United States."

Thereafter, a reasonable degree of quiet prevailed throughout the Kingdom, which was merely a lull before the renewal of the storm. On New Year's day of 1867, the Junta at Madrid issued another proclamation, announcing to the people of Spain that another revolutionary movement was about to begin, and inviting them to join it, and share its success. To this there was not apparently a sufficient response to seem to warrant action, and it was not until the following August that anything more was heard of the revolution. The revolutionists, however, were merely outwardly quiet. Propaganda and organization were being systematically carried on, and the way was being paved for a really effective revolt, which would have widespread and far-reaching results in purging Spain of a tyrannous rule and substituting in its place republican justice. When the time seemed propitious, in August, General Prim issued a third proclamation, calling the people to arms, the chief result of which was an increased degree of vigilance and severity on the part of the government. Many of the revolutionary leaders were apprehended and expelled from Spain on suspicion of sympathy and complicity with the revolution. Among this number were Generals Serrano, Cordova, Duke, Bedoya, and Zebula, and persons of no less high standing than the Duke and Duchess of Montpensier.

It is curious that all through history, movements like that which had gained such force and impetus in Spain have been met with the high hand of oppression. Instead of endeavoring to get at the root of the evil, to realize that since there was so persistent a dissatisfaction there must be real causes for grievance the removal of which would work toward a harmonious solution, it has seemed to be impossible for those born in the purple to understand the problems of the common people, and so when the latter have risen in revolt, cruelty and injustice, if not actual outrages, have marked the attempts to extinguish the trouble. The result has ever been the same. The story of the attempts to suppress the revolt in Spain differs not at all from the same story written on the pages of the history of other nations. The increased oppression on the part of the government only served to fan the smouldering fire into flame. The popular wrath and indignation against the queen and her underlings bade fair to burst into a huge conflagration.

In consequence, when the next overt act of insurrection occurred, at Cadiz, on September 17, there was a very general response throughout the Kingdom. General Prim was again at the head of the movement, supported by General Serrano and the other officers, to whom the sentence of banishment had not proved effective, since they had found their way back into Spain. Revolutionary Juntas were formed in almost all of the provinces, and in a number of the most important cities, and in the course of a few days the insurgents were in control of a considerable part of the Kingdom.

The City of Santander was seized for the revolution on September 21, but they were obliged to relinquish it to superior forces on September 24. However, the revolutionists were far from discouraged by this momentary reverse, and four days later they rallied for their first important victory, which was followed by a general revolt of the troops in and about Madrid, and General Concha, the commander of the royal forces, was compelled to resign. The revolution was now in full swing and gaining impetus and strength every hour. General Serrano at the head of a revolutionary army entered Madrid in triumph, followed four days later by General Prim. Their reception exceeded their wildest expectations. The city was on fire with revolt. The people greeted them with the warmest fervor, with shouts of welcome and rejoicing. They were hailed as the saviors of the nation, as the embodiment of Spain's hope for the future, and hourly their forces were increased by the addition of volunteers from all walks of life.

It is evident that Queen Isabella had not found Madrid a comfortable abiding place. There is no doubt that she entertained fears for her personal safety long before it was actually in jeopardy. Some time previous to these happenings she had, on some pretext, removed the court from Madrid to San Sebastian, in the Pyrenees, near the French frontier, and when news of the capture of the Spanish capital reached her, she lost no time in making her escape across the frontier into France, where she was met and welcomed by Emperor Napoleon III, at Hendye. Queen Isabella had good reason to fear the vengeance of the Spanish mob, for she had long been unpopular, an object of widespread hatred. She therefore had no intention of returning to Spain while matters were in such a turbulent condition, and shortly after her arrival in France, she proceeded to Paris, where she decided to make her home.

The Juntas which had been established throughout the Kingdom of Spain were amalgamated by the formation of a National Junta, on October 8, at Madrid, and a ministry was organized with General Serrano as Prime Minister, General Prim as Minister of War, Admiral Topete as Minister of Marine, SeÑor Figueroa as Minister of Finance, SeÑor Lorensano as Minister of Foreign Affairs, SeÑor Ortiz as Minister of Justice, SeÑor Sagasta as Minister of the Interior, SeÑor Ayala as Minister for the Colonies and SeÑor Zorilla as Minister of Public Works.

The next day, the United States Minister at Madrid, Mr. Hill, notified General Serrano that his government has given official recognition to the new order of affairs in Spain, being the first in the world to take this action. Such was the state of affairs in Spain at the beginning of the great struggle in Cuba known as the Ten Years' War.

Conditions in Mexico likewise deserve passing attention. For a number of years that country had been in a greatly troubled state. Years of successive revolutions had been followed by the military intervention of France, and the creation, under the protection of the French army, of a pinchbeck "empire," with the Archduke Maximilian of Austria as Emperor. The Mexican people, under the leadership of one of their greatest statesmen, Benito Juarez, never gave their allegiance to this usurping government, but maintained a more or less open resistance to it, and it was sustained for a few years only by the presence of a considerable French army.

The United States of America, at this time, was engaged in its great Civil War, and was therefore unable to do more than to register a formal protest against French aggressions, which were recognized as a great violation of the Monroe Doctrine. But when, in the spring of 1865, the Civil War ended, the triumphant federal armies were moved toward the Mexican frontier, and the United States Government sent to the French Government what was practically an ultimatum, requiring it to withdraw its forces from Mexico. Napoleon III demurred, temporized, and at length offered to withdraw if the United States would recognize Maximilian as the lawful emperor of Mexico. This the United States, with great promptness, refused to do, and the French army was thereupon unconditionally withdrawn, and the capture and military execution of Maximilian soon followed, the final tragedy occurring on June 19, 1867. This left the United States with its prestige immeasurably enhanced and free to pay such attention as might be necessary to the affairs of Cuba, the only part of the western hemisphere in which European despotism was still maintained.

The policy of the United States Government, and the sentiment of the people of that country toward Cuba, had been materially modified by the Civil War and its results. There was, of course, no longer any thought of acquiring Cuba for the sake of expanding and fortifying the slave power, but on the contrary, American influence was now exerted, so far as it could properly be, toward prevailing upon the Spanish Government to abolish slavery in Cuba. The Cuban revolutionists were almost without exception in favor of such emancipation of the negroes, and that fact caused them to be regarded with increased favor in the United States, both officially and popularly. American influence was also exerted toward the persuasion of Spain to give Cuba a more liberal and beneficent government and to improve the commercial relations between that island and the United States, for the benefit of both parties. There was some expectation in both Cuba and the United States—a very plausible belief—that the revolutionary movement in Spain, liberal and democratic in character, and aiming at the establishment of a republic in place of the Bourbon monarchy, would be accompanied by the grant of liberal institutions and democratic freedom to Cuba; but such was not the case.

During the Civil War, because of the suspension of the sugar industry in the southern part of the United States, there had been a vast and immensely profitable development of the sugar industry in Cuba, and this seemed to be dependent for its success upon the continuance of slave labor. These conditions strengthened the Spanish party in Cuba, which was equally devoted to the maintenance of slavery and to Spanish domination in the Island.

The Spanish party in Cuba, at this time, as we have seen, was known as the "Peninsulars," and it comprised a great majority of the office holders and wealthy planters and slave-holders. It was well organized throughout the Island for the assertion of political influence, and for the suppression of insurgent movements. Its central authority was in a wealthy club at Havana, called the "Casino Espagnol," and similar clubs on a more modest scale, existed in other cities and important towns throughout Cuba, and from these, and under their control, there arose a body known as the "Volunteers." This was ostensibly a military organization to whose battalions all white men in the Island were eligible, but as a matter of fact, membership in the Volunteers was substantially confined to conservatives, loyalists and Spanish sympathizers. The Volunteers, except in a few special cases, did not go into the field, but left the actual fighting with insurgents to be done by regular Spanish troops. They gave their own attention chiefly to the overawing of the inhabitants of the cities and towns, and to restraining them from joining the revolutions. They also acted as spies, discovering and reporting to the Spanish Government the doings of Cuban patriots. The leaders of the organization formed a "Council of Colonels," meeting at the Casino Espagnol, and forming a sort of imperium in imperio.

During the progress of the Ten Years' War, however, the Volunteers were organized and placed under the command of General Lersuno, and thereafter exerted a much more militant power than ever before. They were not under the direct orders of the Captain-General, but enjoyed an independent authority, and yet they were presently entrusted with the garrisoning of forts and cities, so that the regular Spanish troops could go into the field. They exercised far more military, naval and civil authority than the Captain-General and other royal officials. They actually compelled the retirement of General Dulce from the Captain-Generalship because they regarded him as too kindly disposed toward the Cubans. They similarly drove Caballero de Rodas from office, and they gave Valmaseda and Ceballos, who followed, to understand that the success of their administration depended upon their compliance with the demands and policies of the Volunteers.

It was due to their opposition that the so-called Moret law, which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in Cuba, remained a dead letter, and was not even published in the Island for several years after the outside world had supposed it to be in force. The Volunteers were also responsible for the numerous cases of violence against the patriot party, the most flagrant of which was the execution of eight Cuban students of the University of Havana.

There is no reason to suppose that there was any complicity or cooperation between the revolution in Spain and the outbreak of the Ten Years' War in Cuba. Nevertheless, the former practically gave the signal, for the result of the Spanish revolution was indeed regarded by Cuban patriots with much satisfaction and enthusiasm. Cries of "Hurrah for Prim!" "Hurrah for Serrano!" and "Hurrah for the Spanish Revolution!" were mingled with cries of "Viva Cuba Libre!" and it did not take long for the disappointed realization to dawn upon Cuba that liberalism in Spain did not necessarily imply the granting of freedom to Cuba, but that on the contrary the "Peninsular" revolutionists were scarcely less intent that the Bourbons had been upon retaining Cuba as an appanage, and especially as a source of revenue for Spain.