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| Guam |
Imagine you
are the admiral of a navy in the Pacific, 1898, and you are drawing near an
enemy settlement in the coast. To heat things up, you fire some shots to the
coast, so that your newbie crew start experiencing what war looks like - but
the shots don’t even hit a wall. Suddenly, to your surprise, you see a small
boat row close to your ship. It is the enemy Governor, who tells you that he is
sorry not to respond your cannon salutes, as they don’t have ammunition and
their cannons are rusty, and he is afraid that they might explode if they are
fired…
Well, that
actually happened, in the American-Spanish war of 1898, in Guam. The Mariana
Islands Governor, Juan Marina, wasn’t even informed that they were in war
against the USA, and, as the shots fired by the American navy appeared failed
on purpose, he thought they were salutes, not attacks.
The
American admiral, Henry Glass, politely informed him of the situation of both
their countries, of that he captured him as war prisoner, and ordered him to go
back to shore and sign surrender… but Spanish laws didn’t permit a soldier or a
military official to obey any orders coming from an enemy official. Henry Glass
was considered, and ordered one of his soldiers to go with him and so he could
demand the settlement surrender. This was the surrender paper Juan Marina
signed:
Sin defensas de ninguna clase, ni elementos que oponer
con probabilidad de éxito a los que usted trae, me veo en la triste decisión de
rendirme, bien que protestando por el acto de fuerza que conmigo se verifica y
la forma en que se ha hecho, pues no tengo noticia de mi Gobierno de haberse
declarado la guerra entre nuestras dos naciones.
Juan Marina,
General del destacamento en Guaján, 1898
Translation to English:
Having no defences of any
kind, nor any means of presenting successful opposition to yours, I see myself
in the saddest situation of surrender, nonetheless protesting the way I verify
and I have been done, that I had no notice of my Government that our two
nations engaged in war
Juan Marina,
General del destacamento en Guaján, 1898
After the
surrender, the Spanish army was disarmed and taken as prisoner, and the native
army celebrated their departure.
As a fact,
Henry Glass didn’t know that the settlement he captured was the very capital of
the entire region of Guam, and so the Spanish could sell the rest of the
archipelago to Germany – causing more conflicts between Germany and USA.
When Henry
Glass left, as he left no garrison, the Spanish officers hang back the Spanish
flag, but that action was purely ceremonial and had no actual effects
whatsoever.
Hey, but not only Spain is so sad to have such a miserable defeat! Next time we will take a look at the battle of Austria were Austria killed 10,000… Austrians. Don’t forget to comment!
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