66 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION
government, it was quite likely to run into the same problems
it faced in the Philippines:
It is one of the most difficult operations in the world, as military
history abundantly shows, to completely disarm a hostile population
as skillful in the arts of concealment and deception as is the Latin
Race. ... In dealing with such people, Mr. President, it is not a
question of military strength and fighting quality. The heart breaking
feature of it all is that you organize an army and it goes forth with
military ardor, with all the pomp and panoply of war, enthusiastically
to meet and conquer the enemy, only to discover it can find nothing to
fight.
Instead, Bell continued, the guerrillas and terrorists hid among
the sympathetic people who provided arms, food, recruits,
and information, and a pacification program became essential.
If the President was considering supporting Estrada Palma,
Bell wrote, the Army should immediately send officers to
Cuba to collect military intelligence: the insurgents' names,
arms, suppliers, residence, and occupation. A widespread net
work of spies would have to get the names of "every individual
secretly connected with their supply, information and com
munication service" if the rebellion was to be broken.
Though Bell's experience with insurgents was limited to
the Philippines, his analysis of the Cuban rebels' potential
for guerrilla warfare coincided with Brigadier General Fred
erick Funston's views. On August 28, Funston wrote Bell to
give the Chief of Staff the essence of his two years of experi
ence in the Army of Liberation.^25 In 1898, Funston said, the
United States Army had an erroneous impression of the
Cuban insurgents because it saw the worst troops in the
Army of Liberation. The Cuban insurgents were formidable
guerrillas because of their mobility, scouting skills, and in
telligence services. Although they were not good marksmen,
they were experts in the ambush and were never ambushed
themselves. Their cavalry was excellent. Funston believed that
the Cubans had never lost the military initiative in 1895-98.
The Spanish were defeated, Funston continued, because
they could not match the speed of the rebel forces or the