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1[[quoteright:325:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spanishamericanwarpropaganda.JPG]]
2[[caption-width-right:325:''"Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!"'']]
3->''"You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war."''
4-->-- '''William Randolph Hearst''', [[BeamMeUpScotty allegedly]] and semi-quoted in ''Film/CitizenKane''
5
6The Spanish-American War of [[TheGayNineties 1898]] was what happened when [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the United States of America tried to conquer most of the Kingdom Of Spain's overseas territories]], i.e. Cuba and the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} (though not Spanish Morocco or Spain itself).
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8Through the mid-to-late 19th century, Cuban nationalism and separatism was on the rise. The result, given Spain's utter reluctance to let the island go, was inevitably violent. Uprisings were attempted, but they were all crushed with varying degrees of brutality. ''All'', that is, with the exception of the very last one; in 1898, with half the entire island in-revolt, it looked as if Cuba really would gain her independence. In the midst of this process, the USS ''Maine'' (an American armored cruiser sent to [[GunboatDiplomacy implicitly threaten Spain with war if they didn't hurry up and give Cuba to the USA]]) blew up and sank in Havana Harbor. The US quickly seized upon this opportunity to intervene in the war before the rebellion could throw the Spanish out entirely and declare independence, with the US's investigation into the incident implicating the Spanish - who were quite right to have stated that it was a tragic US Navy accident at best (probably due to a coal fire)[[note]]This theory has been vindicated by multiple investigations by the US Navy, from the initial inquiry to an exhaustive one commissioned by Admiral Hyman Rickover in the 1970s using modern analysis of eyewitness accounts and forensic evidence of ''Maine'''s salvaged wreckage. The only major point of contention is whether the coal fire was the result of operator error by the crew or an electrical short[[/note]] and a WoundedGazelleGambit at worst.[[note]]This view is propagated by the [[UnreliableNarrator Castro regime]] with little, if any, supporting evidence[[/note]]
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10While US President UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley was personally reluctant to make a war of the matter, the US public were baying for Spanish blood and the USA's law-making body - Congress - passed a resolution which effectively forced him to demand that Spain give Cuba "independence" in very short order. This proposal would mean that the USA would effectively run its government and economy just as it did every other nominally-independent country in Latin America bar Argentina. ''Or else''. For their part part, though a far weaker country by this point of history, the Spaniards were a proud people holding onto the last remnants of their disappeared global empire, so they naturally refused. Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo claimed to be willing to fight "to the last man, to the last peseta" in a Quixotic enterprise to either prevail or die trying, and even the least passionate elements of their high society followed on the hope that the US would just give up on the idea if Spain put up a good fight. After this, the US declared war upon them.
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12While Spain's giving up Cuba was the original ''casus belli'', the US ended up demanding the same deal for all of Spain's overseas territories. The people of Puerto Rico also took the opportunity to demand independence, for instance, as did the peoples of the Philippines, who were already in open revolt, and the US negotiated with the Filipino provisional government-in-exile in Hong Kong, later ferrying their leader, General Emilio Aguinaldo, back to the Philippines to "resume" (more like, again take charge of) their revolution against Spain.
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14US naval power was employed to great effect, though the performance of the US Army, which had been underfunded in the post-Civil War Reconstruction and whose only experience for the past three decades had been assymetrical warfare against the Indians, was hampered by inexperience, hasty training, and inferior equipment. American and Cuban Revolutionary forces soon worked together to make good use of their numerical superiority over the Spanish loyalist and government forces, however. The infamous Charge at San Juan Hill[[note]]The Rough Riders actually assaulted adjacent Kettle Hill. San Juan Hill was taken by the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry in a charge led by Black Jack Pershing[[/note]] (in which future US President UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt first attained national fame) and the Battle of Manila Bay,[[note]]It should be noted that the US Navy was praised for its seamanship, but regarded as a laughingstock for its [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy gunnery]]. The Spanish Royal Navy, however, was somehow even ''[[EpicFail worse]]''. American ships missed most of their shots. Spanish ships seemed to have a hard time hitting ''the ocean''. At Manila Bay, the only American fatality was due to heat stroke[[/note]] a CurbStompBattle if ever there was one, are good illustrations of the course of the war at large.
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16Spain soon sued for peace, and a Treaty concluding the war was signed in Paris later in the year of '98. In what was termed domestically as 'the Great Disaster' they ceded Cuba, the Philippines, Guam,[[note]]As an aside, Guam [[ToWinWithoutFighting surrendered without a fight]] because an American cruiser showed up off their capitol [[PoorCommunicationKills before they even knew they were at war]], and had no ammo to respond to what they thought was a maritime greeting, but was really a warning shot.[[/note]] and Puerto Rico to the United States. It was a blow to the Spanish national psyche and pride, one which gave birth to a wave of Spanish writers called The Generation of '98. It didn't soften the blow much that the US agreed to pay Spain $20 million for seizing the Philippines after the armistice.
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18Meanwhile, despite [=McKinley=]'s promise of "benevolent assimilation," the Filipinos felt very left out of all this - the negotiations had been concluded without any reference to them or their representatives - and demanded the same independence terms as Cuba (though Cuban independence was not formally granted until 1902). The US refused and a second, more brutal guerilla war ensued as the Americans clashed with the since re-established Philippine Republic[[note]]Now called the First Philippine Republic, with the current Republic of the Philippines as the fifth, though there were predecessor governments with the same or much the same name headed by the same guy[[/note]] while establishing their own colonial regime over the islands. The UsefulNotes/PhilippineAmericanWar (the older US-centric term is the "Philippine Insurrection") was officially declared to have ended with the collapse of the Philippine Republic in 1901, but there were still hostilities for years afterwards due to its remnant military forces and other resistance groups, and these goings-on were officially labeled as "banditry" or "brigandage". Meanwhile, the Muslim Moro peoples of the southern Philippines,[[note]](from the Spanish word for Moor, long since applied by them to the local Muslims)[[/note]] who had never been completely conquered by the Spanish (and had never quite allied with the Philippine Republic, despite the latter claiming to include them), continued to resist American rule as well in what was called the "Moro Rebellion" until 1913. As a whole, the Philippine-American war is estimated to have killed up to 200,000 Filipinos (with some estimates going even higher) and several thousand American soldiers as well. Many Americans were actually very much against annexing all of these overseas territories, with the most prominent of them forming the Anti-Imperialist League and including the ranks of such figures as Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Gompers, William James, Jane Addams, UsefulNotes/GroverCleveland, and Creator/MarkTwain.[[note]]Before you laud these people as social progressives ahead of their time, keep in mind that one of the reasons they opposed expansion was because they didn't want more foreign peoples coming under US rule.[[/note]]
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20The conclusion of the war marked a new height of US national pride and also the zenith of belief in "Manifest Destiny" - the notion that the US was destined to rule over (all of the) Americas by virtue of its... well, innate virtue and (racial-moral) superiority. The USA's ability to project its influence into the Pacific, China, and Latin America was of course enhanced by its newest conquests, leading to a period of 'imperialism' (in the bad sense) and events such as US involvement in the [[ImperialChina Qing Empire's 'Boxer Rebellion']] and ''The Banana Wars''.
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22Not to be confused with the UsefulNotes/SpanishAmericanWarsOfIndependence.
23
24!!In Fiction:
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26* In ''Film/CitizenKane'' Charles Foster Kane, as a William Randolph Hearst {{expy}}, manipulates the public opinion for the war.
27* The Western ''Pursued'' (1947) starring Creator/RobertMitchum, whose protagonist wins the Medal of Honor fighting in Cuba.
28* John Milius's ''Series/TheRoughRiders'', a 1997 miniseries depicting the Cuban campaign. Starring Creator/TomBerenger as Roosevelt, Creator/GaryBusey as General Joseph Wheeler and Creator/SamElliott as Captain Bucky O'Neill.
29* ''Theatre/TheGoldenApple'' begins with Angel's Roost holding a victory parade for the "boys in blue" returning from the war.
30* Humorist George Ade wrote two satirical dialogues, "Children Cannot Understand These Things" and "Two Rebellions," condescendingly explaining the benevolent purpose of the American occupation of the Philippines to a little boy and a Filipino native, respectively. Ade's musical ''Theatre/TheSultanOfSulu'' is a thinly-veiled portrayal of the same.
31* ''Film/{{Amigo}}'' (2010) is an indie production about a "typical" battle of the Philippine-American war, featuring a village head torn between collaborating with the American invaders and assisting his brother who has joined LaResistance.
32* The Filipino biopic ''Film/HeneralLuna'' (2015) revolves around the life and campaigns of General Antonio Luna, one of the major leaders in the Philippine-American War.
33** And its sequel, ''Film/GoyoAngBatangHeneral'' (2018), about the "Boy General" Gregorio del Pilar, one of the right-hand men of the Filipino revolutionary leader, and republican president, Emilio Aguinaldo.
34* ''Film/{{Posse}}'' opens in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Colonel Graham orders the 10th to rob a Spanish gold shipment; planning to use this as an excuse to brand them deserters and execute them. The 10th escape with the gold, and Graham and his men chase them across the WildWest.
35* The English version of Music/{{ABBA}}'s "Fernando" is rumored to be about two Mexican veterans of the war, with one of them becoming nostalgic for it when they hear drumming outside.
36* In ''Film/{{Hardcase}}'', the protagonist Jack Rutherford is a veteran of the Spanish-American War who was declared missing in action. He was actually a prisoner-of-war, and by the time he is released and returns home, he finds his wife has sold their ranch and run off with a Mexican revolutionary. He goes after her and gets caught up in the early days of UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution.
37* The 1997 Creator/{{TNT}} two-parter ''Rough Riders'', a realistic take on war in the style of ''Series/ANZACs'' or ''Series/BandOfBrothers''.
38* In John Jakes' novel ''Homeland'', the patriarch of the Crown family becomes a general in Cuba and gets wounded. His nephew serves as a photographer and filmographer as well, too.
39* Spain produced two films in 1945 and 2016 about the Siege of Baler, where a Spanish garrison holed up in a remote town church against Filipinos for months, surrendering only long after the Spanish surrender to the Americans, of which they had no idea. Thus, these men were called ''Los ultimos de Filipinas'' (the last [men] of the Philippines), which is what those two movies were both titled. The 2016 film was filmed in [[CaliforniaDoubling the Canary Islands and Equatorial Guinea]] instead, though they did wrangle some actual Filipinos for speaking roles. The Philippines also made a 2008 movie about the same events called ''Baler'', which was filmed on location, but with a whopping RomanticPlotTumor in evidence.
40* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "Brother's Little Helper", while Bart rampages through Springfield in a stolen tank, a witnessing Mr. Burns (who is often shown as ''way'' behind the times) is convinced the country's gone to war and says "Leave it to the Democrats to let the Spaniards back in the pantry."
41* Sidney Howard's play ''Yellow Jack'' (1934) is mainly set at a U.S. Army barracks near Havana in 1900, when the fighting may already have stopped but plenty of soldiers are still stationed in Cuba. Here the Medical Corps, led by Major Walter Reed, is conducting experiments to prove that yellow fever is transmitted by certain mosquitos on human subjects, some of them [[UnwittingTestSubject unwitting]].

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