The Spanish Government, contrary to custom, acted at this time with some energy: it put two hundred thousand soldiers into the island; it raised large levies of loyal Cubans; it was almost always victorious; yet the revolution would not down.

Martinez Campos, the "Pacificator" of the first revolution, was this time unable to protect the plains.

In 1896 he was replaced by General Weyler, who undertook a new system.

He started to corral the insurgents by a chain of blockhouses and barbed wire fences from ocean to sea--the first completely guarded cross-country line since the frontier walls of the Roman Empire in Europe and the Great Wall of China in Asia.

He then proceeded to starve out the insurgents by destroying all the food in the areas to which they were confined.