The Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American War
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The Spanish American War
America’s brief war with Spain is considered the nation’s first leap to the status it enjoys today; that of the world’s powerful country. The conflict resulted as America’s intervention on the Cuban Independence War that was on going, the American’s attacked the Pacific Possession of Spain which led to the Philippine Revolution and consequently the Philippine-American War. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the events that led to the war and the consequences that arose as a result. At the end of the paper, I will try to speculate what would have happened had the USA not intervened. This will definitely make a person understand the importance of the Spanish-American War.  Cuba was a Spanish territory and it had rebelled since 1895. The rebellion by the Cubans was met by such force and brutality by the Spanish that the American sympathised with the Cuban insurgents. In the eve of January 1898, the Americans sent a US battleship Maine to the Havanna harbour and were under strict instructions to protect American interests and exhibit force towards the Spanish. However, in the evening of February 15 the same year an explosion ripped the boat apart and sent the ship sinking. The damages were catastrophic with 266 out of a possible 345 crew members perishing. After the explosion, media houses and newspapers reported that the Spanish were to blame for the catastrophic event and they supported their arguments by exposing some of the atrocities the Spanish had done to the Cuban People. The news was exaggerated, and it was clear that the situation in Cuba was not as bad as the papers put it. The war started due to what is referred to as ‘yellow journalism’ which used the principle of the papers to furnish the news and the state will have enough justification to furnish a war. America had to act anyway because the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 signed by President James Monroe provided that the US would not stomach any European government to colonise any of...