General Vasquez returned with an army, arriving before Santo Domingo City at the end of March. The ensuing siege was one long battle, during which a portion of the suburban town of San Carlos was destroyed by fire. On April 18, 1903, Generals Alvarez and Cordero, the best generals of the besiegers, made a violent attack on the city and effected an entrance, but fighting continued in the streets and these leaders and most of the storming party were killed. Vasquez thereupon fled to Santiago, resigned his post, and left the country for Cuba. On the triumph of his party a year later, he returned to Santo Domingo and retired to his plantation in Moca.
Woss y Gil, who thus became president of the provisional government, called a session of Congress and by appointments favorable to his interests so intrenched himself that his continuance as president became assured. Jimenez, who arrived shortly after, advanced the claim that he was still president de jure, since the constitutional term of four years for which he had been elected had not expired, and he denominated the Vasquez government a temporary and illegal usurpation of power. In his efforts to regain office he sent his friend Eugenio Deschamps to treat with Gil, but Deschamps, seeing Gil obdurate, made an agreement by which Woss y Gil was to become president and Deschamps vice-president, Jimenez was obliged to yield to the inevitable and returned to Porto Rico in the hope of eventually succeeding Woss y Gil. An election was held in which Woss y Gil and Deschamps were the only candidates and on June 20, 1903, they were inaugurated.
In General Alejandro Woss y Gil the Republic had a very talented man as president. Born in Seibo, he had entered politics in his youth, and became a friend and follower of Heureaux. At times he was governor of a province, later for a long period Dominican consul at New York, and from 1885 to 1887 president of the Republic. He had received a good education and traveled extensively, spoke several modern languages, had some knowledge of the classic languages, and was a poet, musician and writer.
Unfortunately the talents of Woss y Gil did not extend to the securing of an honest and efficient administration. The ministers appointed by him were exceedingly injudicious selections, and a carnival of fraud and dishonesty was soon in progress. Discontent grew general, and by the end of October, 1903, General Carlos F. Morales, governor of Puerto Plata, raised the standard of revolt and his troops marched on the capital. The revolution was supported by both parties, the Jimenistas and Horacistas, and was known as the "war of the union." Morales, the leader of the insurrection, had been a follower of Jimenez and favored the aspirations of the latter to the extent even of sending requests to Jimenez to come to Santo Domingo at once. The siege of Santo Domingo City lasted for about three weeks. On November 24, 1903, Woss y Gil, finding himself vanquished, permitted Morales' troops to enter the city and sought refuge in the British consulate. Three days later a German man-of-war carried him to Porto Rico, and he later continued to Cuba, where he long resided in the city of Santiago.