On the Malecón, just to the north of the Hotel Nacional, stands the Monumento al Maine, erected in the memory of the crew members of the US warship USS Maine that lost their lives by a mysterious explosion, when the warship had anchored in the harbor of Havana in 1898.

The sinking of the USS Maine set off the events that US declared war against Spain by accusing Spain of the organization of this tragic event. Even though more than 120 years had passed away, the truth has never been clarified completely. However, if the question can be answered, who would benefit of such a terrible event, maybe some clues can be found. Therefore, it is necessary to have a look at the episode, when this event had occurred.

HISTORY

At the beginning of 1880s the modernization of the navies of some Latin American countries like Brazil, Argentina and Chili alarmed the US authorities, so that the government prepared a plan to construct new warships for the US Navy that would be bigger and heavier than the former ones, as they would carry more efficient armament. The construction of the first warship of this series, the USS Maine, started in the naval shipyard in New York in 1888, and it took nine years for the ship to enter service due to the limitations of the American industry at that time. The USS Maine was about 100 meters long, about 17 meters wide and it weighed about 6.800 tons. However, the technology of the USS Maine was already obsolete, when it was launched to the sea.

Even though the Cuban rebel army had lost its leaders like José Martí (1895) and Antonio Maceo (1896), the rebels were successful in defeating the Spanish in various encounters, so that the island to the east of Camaguey was under their control at the end of 1896. The success of the rebel army in invasion from the east to west, had great repercussions all over the world, but also in the US. However, the US government had some projects about Cuba that was totally different than that of the population in the US that were sympathizing the rebels in Cuba. Cuba, the biggest island in the Caribbean Sea, was still the key for the Gulf of Mexico and the world should be shared once again among the imperialist countries, because there were new actors on the scene.

The yellow press ran a campaign to propitiate a favorable atmosphere among the citizens of the USA that sympathized Cuba by black propaganda. Some politicians and writers in the US, as well as in Cuba, that were the proponents of the idea that Cuba would be freed from Spain to become a mandate or an autonomous country, dependent to the US, were supported. At the end of 1987, the US gave a note to the Spanish government to declare urgent measures to end the war in Cuba. Spain proposed to give an autonomous statute to Cuba to please the US; however, the Liberation Army in Cuba rejected this maneuver and continued the rebel. The colonial government was powerless, even on the western part of Cuba; thus, the weakening of the dominance of Spain on the island offered the US to put its plan about Cuba into action. But there should be a valid pretext to be involved into the conflict between the rebels in Cuba and Spain.

In 1898, a group of Cuban Spanish loyalists run a riot against the new government by destroying the printing machines of four local newspapers that were publishing articles about the atrocities of the Spanish army. Immediately afterwards, on the demand of the ambassador of the US in Havana, the warship USS Maine was sent to Havana to guard the American citizens in Havana. Even though, it was declared that this would be a friendly visit to Havana, predicted for 3 weeks, it was another maneuver of the US to put pressure on the colonial government, consequently to Spain.

The USS Maine arrived in Havana in January 1898, and the cruise ship Montgomery in Matanzas ten days later. On February 15, 1898 the USS Maine was shattered by an explosion that led the warship to sink in the harbor of Havana, dragging the crew with it to the depth of the sea. When the explosion occurred, most of the crew was asleep, or resting, but the high officer of the warship was on the ground at that time. 258 men died during the explosion, whereas 8 men lost their lives hours later than the disaster due to the injuries that they had suffered, making 266 victims in total.

The tragic event was investigated first by a commission, established by the colonial government of Cuba two days after the sinking of the USS Maine and headed by the Captain Pedro del Peral y Caballero. US rejected to establish a mixed commission with the Spanish authorities to investigate the event. The commission members were not allowed to access the ship and to explore its interior, so that they had to comply with their visual inspection of the remains of the USS Maine that were not submerged. The commission determined that the sea was tranquil at that time, so that the detonation of a mine, as argued by the US, was not possible. Furthermore, the ammunition stores don’t explode usually, when mines sink the ships. The commission concluded that the explosion depended most probably on an internal cause.

On the other hand, the politicians and the press in the US argued that the USS Maine was sunk by a mine intentionally and claimed Spain as war criminal. The press in the US was exaggerating and distorting the information, even fabricating many nonexistent news. The campaign had great support of the American businessmen that had invested large sums in Cuba, expecting the replacement of Spain by the US in the island. The atmosphere gave the opportunity to the North American press to boost the circulation.

The commission, established by the US and headed by the Captain William Thomas Sampson, investigated the case for almost one month. During this period the US President William McKinley increased the defense budget to 50 million dollars. Finally, the commission concluded that the ship suffered two explosions: a small one that was produced from the outside and caused the huge internal explosion. Ten days later, William T. Sampson rose to the rank of Rear Admiral, going above for more than a dozen officers that preceded him in the rank, and was appointed head of the North Atlantic Squadron, the highest command post in the US Navy.

The US used the submerge of the USS Maine as a pretext to declare war against Spain and to interfere in the war between the rebels and Spain in Cuba. Thus, in April 1898 the US government declared officially war against Spain and the first troops of the US disembarked east of Santiago de Cuba in June 1898, initiating a period in that Cuba became dependent to the United States economically and politically.

Later, the sinking of the USS Maine was investigated by several prestigious objective institutions, a lot of articles were written about this event and it became the theme of several books. Even though, the majority refers something inside the ship as the cause of such an explosion on such a scale that led to the sinking of the warship, the exact cause is still unknown, as the evidences were already obscured.