First War Film

History Channel video clip on the reenacted war films.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Spanish
• American
• War

[askwhyz]

"Angry Americans held their breath for President McKinley to declare war..." Is it too much to ask that the History Channel not inaccurately portray which branch of our constitutional system of government declares war? It is bad enough that Congress routinely abdicates its authority to decide today- we don't need to misrepresent the past on top of it...

[snakes3425]

THey should release these Spanish-American War movies to DVD, because of their historic signifigance

[vaibanez17]

@DrmrGuy1979 I know it was staged stuff. After scrolling other videos, I found one on how they staged shots including putting boats in a tub of water and pretending they filmed a naval battle in action and the fake firing squad video.

[vaibanez17]

Was the guy holding the US flag at 0:51 shot down?

[ultradumbass]

@snakes3425 chances are the british never would have aided anyway since the usa and england were still in a bad relationship then and would be until the 1950's, but the spanish and british had been rivals along with the french, russians and more recently the germans and chances are the british would have wanted to find an excuse to crush spain, as it eventually found a way to defeat germany when the german navy started to threaten england's dominance of the sea.

[ultradumbass]

@snakes3425 yes most of the spanish army they fought were colonials plus a small garrison force of spanish soldiers who happened to be stationed in cuba and the philipines at the time, the war may have started eventually but i don't think it would have happened while mckinnley was in power since he was too worried of making alliances and spain didn't send a real army because it did not want to risk a war between the usa and possibly england. PS: you don't seem to ever come on MSN anymore.

[snakes3425]

@ultradumbass

There's little doubt that the despute over Cuba was the real cause of the war, in 1854 the US offered to buy Cuba from Spain, and Congress authorizied military action if Spain refused, which they did but the plans were shelved because of the Northern States and Europe condemining it, in the US the North was against it because the plan was to annex Cuba as a Slave State, and in europe Spain still viewed it's empire as a gift from god, even though the Empire was falling apart

[snakes3425]

@ultradumbass

At the time all that the American people cared about was that American blood was spilt in Spanish Territory, the actual cause of the Maine's sinking didn't matter and when the war began people wanted to see gallant charges, example a film showing the Battle of Las Guasimas showed charging calvary but in reality it was a minor skirmish between infanry with light casualties to both sides and to be fair the US was fighting Spanish Colonial Troops not the regular Spanish Army

[ultradumbass]

@snakes3425 well it can be disputed however mckinnley was reluctant to risk an all out war with spain. it was the american public that asked for war because they believed the spanish really did sink the maine. whether or not the americans would have gone to war with spain without that incident is unlikely since most americans would not have supported it and mckinnley was not a war type of president. though with his assisination though theodore roosevelt might have done it.

[snakes3425]

@ultradumbass

the actual cause of the war was the despute over Cuba, by 1898 tensions between the US and Spain were at the breaking point, over Spanish Gen. Weyler's draconian policies in dealing with the US backed Cuban Rebels, and war had become inevitabe, even if the Maine hadn't sunk relaitions between the US and Spain over Cuba were so bad that all it would take was a hot headed US or Spanish soldier to set off a war, as happened in the Phillippines in 1899