The Admiral and the Ambassador (21 page)

Porter was vigilant about defending the American line in France. In early June he learned of a cadet in the French school for the Infanterie de la Marine, “a corps corresponding to our Marines,” who pushed through a student body resolution “expressing their sympathy for Spain in the present war and sent it to Madrid.” Porter, peeved that future military men were contravening France's official position of neutrality, complained to the French foreign affairs office and asked “that the cadets be disciplined…. The minister of foreign affairs, however, took the initiative of informing me that he had taken official notice of the incident and would see that the Cadets were properly reprimanded. He now informs me that this has been done. It was not much more than a boyish prank, but I deemed it worthy of some attention.”
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Porter seemed to be itching to play a larger diplomatic role in the war. Before American troops began moving through Cuba, Porter had long, informal talks with Gabriel Hanotaux, France's foreign minister and a noted historian, in which the French diplomat asked Porter to pass along to Washington his readiness to serve as an intermediary in talks with Spain
aimed at ending the fighting. “His relations are very close with the Spanish Ambassador here, who is a man of ability, has always been desirous of peace, and possesses the confidence of his government,” Porter wrote to Washington on June 7. “Mr. Hanotaux is, I feel certain, the person whom Spain would trust rather than any other statesman in Europe to bring about negotiations for peace. His relations with me are so intimate that he talks with the utmost frankness upon every phase of the question.”
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It didn't seem to occur to Porter that such intimacy was less a mark of personal cordiality than it was a practiced diplomat's way of sending out feelers.

Hanotaux's concerns—and those of the French government he represented—came through clearly. He feared the war “might possibly start a conflict among the European nations. He sees that a continuance of hostilities will further depress Spanish bonds held by Frenchmen who have already lost enormously.” Money was a concern to the Spanish too. Government finance officials were making the rounds of European capitals and banks seeking to borrow 250 million francs, using as collateral Spain's state tobacco company, which relied on the Cuban crops for much of its business. Porter and other American diplomats leaned on their counterparts in the European capitals to not invest in the company. “The Rothschilds have refused to take part in it, and it is very difficult to come to terms with any of the bankers,” Porter reported to Washington. “There is a rumor that an effort will now be made to obtain the money in Brussels. It is thought that eventually a part of the sum named may be obtained but upon ruinous terms. Active steps are being taken to show to bankers the insufficient and uncertain character of the security offered and the risks to which lenders would be liable.” In a mark of the delicacy of the diplomacy over Spain, French officials approached Porter wondering if the United States would object to the French national mint contracting with Spain to mint coins. A couple of days later Porter cabled to Washington that France had turned down the Spanish contract and that the coins would likely be minted at a private facility in Belgium.
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After the long and frustrating run-up to the war, the United States wasn't ready to talk peace. Hanotaux's overture went nowhere as the American blockade of Cuba tightened and the troop count increased there and in the Philippines. Two weeks after that first offering, Hanotaux met with
Porter again, this time as a private citizen—the Faure cabinet had resigned June 15 in a political shakeup sparked in part by the infamous Dreyfus affair, in which anti-Semitic French military officials had framed Jewish captain Alfred Dreyfus for espionage. Dreyfus was eventually exonerated, but not until he had served nearly five years of a life sentence in the notorious Devil's Island prison; the case exposed deep undercurrents of anti-Semitism in French society and government and in some ways presaged the collaboration between the Vichy government and the Nazis during the World War II German occupation of France.

It's unclear why Hanotaux continued to involve himself in diplomacy around the showdown between the Spanish and the Americans, especially since he was “tired of office,” in the eyes of
New York Times
London correspondent Harold Frederic. “He wants to write history, and instead is grinding at the thankless task of making it.” And while Hanotaux was a respected political figure and writer, he had lost credibility—along with the rest of the French government—over the handling of the Dreyfus affair. “His position has been rendered very unpleasant in the past two years by the fact that the entire diplomatic corps at Paris possesses complete knowledge of Dreyfus's innocence,” Frederic wrote. “Hanotaux also knows he is innocent, but he must keep his lips sealed on the subject, with the result that diplomatic intercourse at the capital of the republic has been stiffened and embarrassed to a distressing extent.”
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Still, Hanotaux called on Porter to convey a message from the Spanish ambassador in Paris that “he wishes to meet [with Porter] on the part of his government for the purpose of opening negotiations looking to a declaration of peace.” The Spanish ambassador, Leon y Castillo, had recently returned from Madrid, where the newspapers reported political gossip that Castillo was being considered for a larger role as Spain's foreign minister. With the war progressing badly and with Spanish pride on the line, there was growing political pressure within Spain to make peace with the United States. The Spanish government decided that France would be the best place for any peace talks that might occur—and that Castillo would be Spain's best representative at the table.

Porter listened to Hanotaux's message, but he demurred from signaling any intent on behalf of his government. He told Hanotaux that as an
ambassador to a neutral country he felt it was outside his portfolio to meet with Spanish representatives. He told Hanotaux he would pass along to his superiors any formal overtures Spain wished to make through the French diplomat. “I hardly expect anything to come about very suddenly,” Porter wrote to Secretary Day after the meeting, “but it would seem the idea of peace is gaining ground in Spain.”
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While Porter was listening to Hanotaux and reporting the French official's overtures to Day back in Washington, President McKinley was quietly sending messages to Spain via Ambassador Hay in London. In early June, McKinley set the conditions for peace: Spain must give up Cuba and Puerto Rico but could retain the Philippines, though the United States would maintain control of an unspecified port, presumably to aid in its desires for a stronger presence with Asian trading markets. And he demanded Spain cede a port in the Marianas Islands as a coaling station, again to foster US trade with the Far East.

The Spanish government balked, and the United States pressed forward, intent now on military victory rather than diplomacy. More American troops arrived in Cuba, where they fought in concert with Cuban rebels, as other American forces made their way to the Philippines, which was experiencing its own independence movement, led by Emilio Aguinaldo (who would soon become an enemy of the United States).

Some two months after Dewey's triumph, the Spanish were all but done, their troops surrendering across the war zones—including Puerto Rico and Guam—as Spanish diplomats asked the French to serve as intermediaries in negotiating the peace. McKinley amended his demands slightly, broadening the Philippines component to allow a future role for the insurgents led by Aguinaldo. Spain continued to drag out the process, offering counterarguments and proposals. McKinley, losing patience, sent word that he was done negotiating, and in early August the terms of the ceasefire were agreed to through the French ambassador in Washington, Jules Cambon. By mid-August, the “splendid little war,” as Ambassador Hay so
famously described it, was over. Paris was set as the site for the formal peace conference, with the future of the Philippines hanging in the balance.
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The negotiators began filtering into the City of Light in late September. The American delegation was led by Day, who had stepped down as secretary of state to direct the American negotiating team himself. Ambassador Hay was recalled from London to become McKinley's new secretary of state. Porter was pleased with the shift, writing in a private letter to McKinley that “you remember in one of our conversations in Canton I advocated his original appointment to that place and I am very happy personally and officially to see that he is now to take the portfolio.”
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The rest of the American delegation included three US senators—William P. Frye of Maine, Cushman Kellogg Davis of Minnesota, and George Gray of Delaware—and the expansionist editor of the
New York Tribune
Whitelaw Reid, whom Porter had endorsed as the Republican's 1892 vice presidential candidate. Porter and other embassy officials met the delegates at the train station as they arrived.

The United States might have won the war, but they had yet to win the hearts of the French press, which intensified its cultural and political criticism of the Americans. “The French and Spanish papers, because they don't dare say anything against our system of carrying out a war, are attacking our peace commissioners, saying they looked like Cooks Tourists” in town to visit the sites, Elsie Porter wrote in her diary on October 2. The commissioners did look like they were on holiday, with wives and entourages in tow as they checked into suites in the Continental, Paris's premier hotel. The delegation, numbering thirty people in all, also rented out three connecting rooms for office space. “Our commissioners came in grand style with the secretaries and attaches,” Elsie wrote. “Each gentleman and family had his parlor and rooms, the ladies of course with maids.”

Horace Porter played the host, getting some of the Spanish and American negotiators together for occasional informal breakfasts and setting them up with French president Faure to attend the opera as his guests in the president's private box. On October 18, Porter hosted a dinner for the negotiators, American and Spanish alike. More than forty people dined at a long link of tables in the grand room, which ran the length of one floor of
Porter's rented mansion. Antique weapons and armor hung on the walls, along with medieval tapestries and modern oil portraits. Stained-glass windows filled one end wall, and at the other end, the room opened into a round conservatory similarly windowed with stained glass. The table was decorated with baskets of fruit and roses, with small electric lights tucked in among the displays. A small group of musicians hidden in the conservatory played softly, their music flowing through the banquet room. “It was a brilliant scene when the music played, the hundreds of lights sparkled, and the ladies in their rich dresses leaned forward to talk, and in turning their heads the little lights seemed to reflect the glitter of their jewels a thousand fold,” Elsie recorded in her diary.

Four days after the Americans celebrated Thanksgiving, the Spanish delegation accepted the terms for peace, giving up Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in return for $20 million from the United States. The treaty was signed a couple of weeks later, and even before the US Senate ratified it, McKinley issued orders to the US military to use force if necessary to extend American sovereignty over the archipelago, setting the stage for the next American war—this one against Aguinaldo's insurgency, a brutal exercise in repression that would display to the world that the United States was no more benevolent a colonial power than its European peers.

In the midst of the war, John Paul Jones remained a touchstone for those seeking to amplify the reputation of America's military history, which was rooted in the early days of the nation—from the Revolution through the War of 1812—and in the Civil War. There had been other battles, from the border-setting war with Mexico to the relentless campaigns to subdue the resistant Native American tribes as they were pushed westward or onto pockets of land set aside as reservations.