Customer Reviews

Crucible Of Empire: The Spanish American War [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like a few of America's other wars, the Spanish-American war was basically an exercise in expansionist policies disguised as an idealistic crusade. There is no question that the Spanish occupation of Cuba had a brutal side and the people of Cuba had no desire to remain in the Spanish empire. There was a popular rebellion in Cuba and a great deal of sympathy in the United States for the rebels. However, for many years, it remained only sympathy, as while there was a push for American involvement, it was not very strong. This is made clear in this tape, as they do a good job in explaining the atmosphere in the United States before the war began. However, the producers do miss one point. In the years before the American Civil war, there were many attempts by southerners to annex Cuba and make it a slave state. Several U. S. presidents had to intervene to prevent military forces from leaving U. S. soil to attack Cuba. There is no mention in the tape of these events. Therefore, the American interest in Cuba was decades old and not something that rose only in the late 1890's. That is a very important point that should have been made.
Much has been said about the destruction of the Maine being the catalyst for the start of the war. While it was the trigger, there is a great deal of evidence to indicate that the social and political forces in the United States would have eventually pushed McKinley into a war with Spain. This was a time of imperialism, where the nations of Europe were dividing up the world into colonies. Since it was busy taking control of the North American continent and fighting an internal war, the United States was largely not involved in the earlier drive for colonial spoils.
However, by the late 1890's the mood in the United States had shifted from an anti-imperialistic mindset into one that considered it more acceptable. There was the perception that the possession of colonies had made the European powers stronger and it was believed that the United States needed to compete to be strong. Spain was the perfect adversary for American expansion. It was a very weak nation with no stronger allies to support it. At that time, any attempt by the United States to challenge any other global European power would have led to certain defeat of the United States. The powerful and experienced navies and ground forces of nations such as Great Britain and even Belgium would have chewed up the hapless and inexperienced Americans. This is another point that should have been made in the tape, namely that the United States was picking a fight with the only imperialistic nation they had a chance of defeating.
Militarily, the Spanish in Cuba were no match for the American forces, despite their many mistakes in logistics and leadership. American forces won a relatively easy victory on land and on the sea; a few legends were made that went well beyond the events. However, the United States immediately made it clear that the price of their aid was a naval base at Guantanamo and they reserved the right to intervene in Cuban affairs. The Cubans found this deeply offensive and there was a great deal of resentment when the United States acted on this "right." The producers have been criticized for showing the video of Fidel Castro making a reference to these events when he took control of Cuba. This criticism of the producers is totally unwarranted. The fact that Castro is a communist and one finds that repugnant does not change the fact that what he said was an accurate representation of Cuban feelings. Most of the greatest mistakes the United States made in the battle against communism was when the leadership failed to understand that the statements of the communists were representations of what the majority of the population believed.
The case in the Philippines was quite different, although the military victory there was even easier than in Cuba. Once they were taken, the question was what to do with them. It was over this issue where the anti-imperialist forces in the United States were the strongest. Under orders from McKinley, the United States signed a treaty with Spain where they would take control of the Philippines. The leaders of the Philippines were not consulted and it appeared that the U. S. Senate would not approve the treaty. However, there was a skirmish between the Filipino rebels and the U. S. forces days before the vote and a few U. S. soldiers were killed. This led to one of the silliest forms of patriotic reaction, as some senators changed their stance to favor the treaty in order to "support the troops." The ratification of the treaty led to years of one of the dirtiest wars the United States has ever fought. The entire male population of whole villages and at times even islands were slaughtered in order to control the insurgency. These were not combat deaths; the men were simply shot where they were found. And of course, not all of the victims were men; many women and children were also killed. It is a tribute to the producers of this film that they did not gloss over this point. They mentioned the specific order of an American general to kill all males found on an island over the age of ten years of age.
This tape is a very good description of the Spanish-American war. Although some major points are missed, the producers do an excellent job in describing all of the social and political factors that caused a war to be fought where the American leadership made decisions where no one considered the potential consequences. No one really considered the consequences of U. S. control over the Philippines before Dewey won his victory. The aftermath of those decisions was an insurgency that lasted for years and was only defeated by the most brutal actions ever taken by U. S. military forces. The recent events in Iraq show us that the lessons of the Philippines were not learned.

The Spanish American War and the question of imperialism receive comparatively little attention from historians. This video fills a gap by using period photos and songs to explain the war in a fair and balanced manner. It also provides rare coverage of the Filipino-American War. A Vietnam-like affair, this conflict gave the U.S. a colony in the Pacific at the cost of an enormous number of American and Filipino lives. Crucible of Empire is used in college classrooms and it is an especially good buy.

A growing number of Americans, including our soldiers, are witnessing first-hand how unbridled US imperialism can devastate core values that all citizens of a democratic-federal republic should hold dear. At such a time, it becomes critically important for our citizens to consider the larger historical framework out of which this imperial trend emanated. Toward this end, Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War, represents an engaging, scholarly, sensitive, and entertaining documentary film, one that is likely to serve as the definitive documentary film on this subject for many years to come.

There is so much praise to offer the makers of Crucible of Empire: the lively and well written script, the extraordinary film footage, the thoughtfully selected background music and songs and the impressive range of insights drawn from informed, fair and important historians. Crucible of Empire manages to capture the essence of turn of the century America's ineluctable advance toward the wider global domination. The skillful manner in which this film depicts America's betrayal of Cuban and Filipino independence movements in favor of serving the exigencies of its own imperial designs make for indispensable viewing, especially if one juxtaposes heart-rendering scenes of American massacres of Filipinos, whom William Howard Taft called "little brown brothers," with US policies that in the 20th century involved the wholesale slaughter of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Indonesians, Guatemalans, Chileans, Nicaraguans, Iraqis and countless other people inhabiting the planet.

While my enthusiasm for this film is wholehearted, I would disagree with the choice of title by its authors. A crucible is a cup-shaped piece used in a laboratory to contain chemical compounds when heating them to very high temperatures. Use of the term denotes a severe test of a belief, the formulation, expansion point, or, as it were, its matrix. Although the authors certainly provide a case for referring to the Spanish-American War as a "Crucible of Empire,"a fuller account, one that includes some treatment of the earlier violent roots of the American republic, would have given the film greater historical cohesion. To my mind, a thorough rendering of America's imperial roots cannot rely as much as the film did on the events surrounding the sinking of the Battleship Maine in 1898 nor upon the shameless manner in which Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers exploited this event. I nevertheless remain grateful here for the vivid and interesting way this portion of the film was presented. While I appreciate constraints involved in providing a fuller analysis of America's imperial affliction, a more detailed mention could have been made of, for instance, America's legacy of institutionalized slavery and racism, repeatedly treacherous treatment of natives dating back to the establishment of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, further brutal expansion and betrayal of the natives during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the nature of the "War Hawks" whose policies helped lead America to the War of 1812, or key historical and psychological factors contributing to the implementation of the Mexican Conquest of 1847-48. Moreover, a brief treatment that outlined racial and economic hatreds leading to a Civil War, a conflict that erupted a little more than three decades before this "splendid little war" began offers critical background and insight needed to put the Spanish American War into sharper historical perspective. Pertinent as they are, these subjects fall out of the scope of the main issue being investigated here and it was understandable that this should have been so. Notwithstanding, Crucible of Empire affords us a skillful and insightful look at a critical phase that accompanied America's rise to global pre-eminence in the 20th century.

Regrettably, an analysis of America's all too frequent violent past leads one to the inescapable conclusion that the crucible of America's "manifest propensity" for securing a global-based destiny was formed far in advance of the 1890's, in spite of the warnings of the "Great Commoner" William Jennings Bryan and Massachusetts Senator George Hoar that participation in this war would ultimately destroy our collective souls. Crucible of Empire portrays Senator Hoar, Bryan and many others in this film such as Presidents Grover Cleveland,William McKinley, Filipino General and Politician Emilio Aguinaldo, Cuban poet, journalist and orator Jose Marti, Spanish General Valeriano Wyler, American journalist Richard Harding Davis, William Randolph Hearst and the beautiful Evangelina Cisneros, who became a symbol of Cuban patriotism and suffering, in a most sensitive, thoughtful and lively fashion.

We do not know for absolute certainty what brought about the demise of the Battleship Maine and the tragic death of so many of its crew members. It is likely that even without the sinking of the Maine, the United States was bound to challenge Spain's power in the Pacific and Carribean. In spite of strong opposition voiced by some in Congress (noted above) and elsewhere including Steel Magnate Andrew Carnegie, US corporate interests, the mass media and the military structure on the whole applauded this development, just as they did in 2003 with respect to war with Iraq.

There remains here a disturbing sense of the inner heartlessness of the jingoistic march that accompanied this war in 1898, one which aimed above all at joining an already well-advanced race for global domination that would later inspire the unspeakable death and destruction of two world wars. In this regard, a pernicious trend in American foreign policy continues. Weakened, but still very much embedded in authority, American "neo-cons," the corporate dominated mass-media and the American military establishment, seem bent on planning and delivering a devastating attack upon Iran - even while the American military remains caught in the throes of a catastrophic war in Iraq. As in 1898, good faith diplomacy among Washington policy makers seems to be nowhere in evidence. An important documentary film such as Crucible of Empire helps to elucidate a critical aspect of American history and reminds us all the while just how little we have progressed in a moral sense as a nation during the century that has elapsed between the aftermath of the Spanish-American War and the present-day.

This PBS documentary constitutes a pretty thorough video history of the Spanish-American War, and makes good use of archival photographs and film footage of the battles in Cuba and the Philippines. It starts out providing a suprisingly balanced and fair account of the war. (I say "surprisingly," given that the PBS video documentary of the U.S.-Mexican War is little more than an anti-American diatribe from beginning to end.) Despite the fact that the documentary was largely financed by American taxpayers, however, the video has an ending that will satisfy the most ardent of America-haters.
Anti-American historians portray the Spanish as innocent victims of slander in the U.S. media - especially by the Hearst newspapers. This video does not dispute, however, that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Cuban civilians died in concentration camps that Spanish General Weyler set up for Cuba's rural population - but the video then makes an issue of the U.S. news media's not inaccurate reporting of this genocide. Similarly, the video admits that there was evidence indicating that the U.S. ship The Maine was blown up by a Spanish mine - but again makes an issue of the U.S. news media's probably accurate reporting of the incident (an incident in which 266 Americans were killed). The same goes for the treatment of Cuban political prisoners held by Spain, and the U.S. media's reporting of this treatment.
The video does not dispute the fact that Spain declared war first, nor does it denigrate Theodore Roosevelt's charge up "San Juan Hill," as many Afrocentric, multi-cultural historians have done. The role of Black troops during the battle is sigled out for attention, but their contribution is not exagerrated as it is by politically correct historians.
The final frames of the documentary, however, are devoted to the dubious theory, concocted more than seven decades later, that the explosion that sunk the Maine was the result of internal combustion inside the boat itself. Forget the evidence of the mine, we are told, the whole war was a mistake. And just before these final frames, the second to last word comes from Communist dictator Fidel Castro. (What is it about American liberals that they can't control their enthusiasm for communist tyrants?) We are also shown the monument to the victims of the Maine, approvingly defaced by Castro's communist government as a monument against American imperialism.
Having said all that, the video is certainly worth watching.