Introduction

The oft-quoted Duke of Wellington once distilled war’s essence down to a simple statement-“The whole art of war consists of getting at what is on the other side of the hill.” The Spanish-American War started out with an equally simple premise-a humanitarian intervention effort to provide military assistance for the liberation of Cuba from Spanish domination. Once having arrived “on the other side of the hill” however, the war took on an unexpected twist with the creation of an American empire-made up of former Spanish island colonies in the Caribbean and the western Pacific. Indeed, the decision by the William McKinley administration to annex the Philippine Islands would lead not to peace but a decade long unpopular military suppression of Filipino efforts to obtain their independence with political consequences which remain unresolved to the present time.