Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/496

104 sea, at one or two points, and have these trochas strongly held by Spanish troops, the connection of the different bodies of insurgents on the island would be severed, and that he could then pen or corral them, and afterwards march his soldiers first into one of these pens and then into another until he had captured or killed all those within who were opposed to the Spanish flag. These trochas are curious in their construction. When the ditches are dug, the dirt is thrown up on one side, while on the other is a barbed wire fence, and every few hundred yards a blockhouse is built capable of holding a few soldiers and generally with two stories—the upper one being occupied by the vidette or sentinel who is posted to report any advance of his enemy. It cannot be said that this method of warfare proved successful, though. It cost large sums of money to construct trochas, and now they have been practically abandoned. One light battery of artillery could have opened the way for passage of troops. The insurgents always found many ways of crossing them at night or where these lines ran through swamps, or around by the water at either end. Maceo, it will be remembered, who was supposed to have been shut off in the western end of the province by what is known as the Mariel trocha, found no difficulty in crossing when he desired to go east, though, unfortunately for the Cuban cause, it resulted in his death afterwards.

Captain General Weyler, more active in Cuban campaign work than his successor General Blanco, did but little to suppress the insurrection. He organized columns to move from the cities and operate against the bands of roving insurgents in their vicinity, but the Spaniards have so little idea of modern warfare and of the necessary attributes to mobilize an army, that these columns, after having been out a very few days and exchanged fire with the insurgents, would invariably return to the cities because out of rations or burdened with a few wounded, while the insurgents who had assembled to temporarily check their march would scatter out again and return to their various little camps, with the result, probably, to each side, of only two or three men killed and a few wounded.

It was evident, therefore, that this style of guerrilla warfare as practiced by the insurgents could be maintained for years because a generous soil, tilled by the peasantry