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	The shift to guerrilla warfare, however, only angered the Americans into acting more ruthlessly than before. They began taking no prisoners, scorching whole villages, and routinely shooting surrendering Filipinos. Much worse were the concentration camps that civilians were forced into, after being suspected of being guerrilla sympathizers. Thousands of civilians died in these camps. In nearly all cases, the civilians suffered much worse than the actual Filipino guerrillas.		The shift to guerrilla warfare, however, only angered the Americans into acting more ruthlessly than before. They began taking no prisoners, scorching whole villages, and routinely shooting surrendering Filipinos. Much worse were the concentration camps that civilians were forced into, after being suspected of being guerrilla sympathizers. Thousands of civilians died in these camps. In nearly all cases, the civilians suffered much worse than the actual Filipino guerrillas.

	The subesquent American ~~repression~~ towards the population decreased tremendously the materials, men, and morale of many Filipino resistance fighters, compelling them in one way or another to surrender.		The subesquent American aggression towards the population decreased tremendously the materials, men, and morale of many Filipino resistance fighters, compelling them in one way or another to surrender.

	While some measures to allow partial self-government were implemented earlier, the guerrilla war did not subside until ] when US President ] proclaimed a change in policy that would, after a transitional period, grant the Philippines full independence. In the south, ] Filipinos resisted until ]— the so-called ]. During this conflict, the Americans realized a need to be able to stop a charging tribesman with a single shot. To fill this need, the ] was developed for its larger .45 calibre ammunition (]), resulting in additonal ].		While some measures to allow partial self-government were implemented earlier, the guerrilla war did not subside until ] when US President ] proclaimed a change in policy that would, after a transitional period, grant the Philippines full independence. In the south, ] Filipinos resisted until ]— the so-called ]. During this conflict, the Americans realized a need to be able to stop a charging tribesman with a single shot. To fill this need, the ] was developed for its larger .45 calibre ammunition (]), resulting in additonal ].

Revision as of 05:35, 28 December 2005

Military history of the Philippines
Military history of the United States

Conflict

Philippine-American War

Date

1899–1913

Place

the Philippines

Result

Continued U.S. annexation of the Philippines

Battles of the Philippine-American War

Combatants
United States of America	The Philippines
Strength
126,000 soldiers	80,000 soldiers
Casualties
4,324 American soldiers killed 2,818 wounded; 2,000 killed, dead, or wounded of the Philippine Constabulary	16,000 soldiers killed estimated 250,000 to 1,000,000 civilians died of war, famine, or disease

The Philippine-American War was a war between the armed forces of the United States and the Philippines from 1899 through 1913.

This conflict is also known as the Philippine Insurrection. This name was historically the most commonly used in the U.S., but Filipinos and an increasing number of American historians refer to these hostilities as the Philippine-American War, and in 1999 the U.S. Library of Congress reclassified its references to use this term.

Origins of the War

In December 1898, the U.S. purchased the Philippines and other territories from Spain at the Treaty of Paris for the sum of 20 million United States dollars, after the U.S. defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. The U.S. government made plans to make the Philippines an American colony. However, the Filipinos, fighting for their independence from Spain since 1896, had already declared their independence on June 12. On August 14, 11,000 ground troops were sent to occupy the Philippines. On January 1, 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo was declared the first President. He later organized a Congress at Malolos, Bulacan to draft a constitution.

The start of the War

Tensions between the Filipinos and the American soldiers on the islands existed because of the conflicting movements for independence and colonization, aggravated by the feelings of betrayal on the part of the Filipinos by their former allies, the Americans. Hostilities started on February 4, 1899 when an American soldier named Robert William Grayson shot a Filipino soldier who was crossing a bridge into American-occupied territory in San Juan del Monte, an incident historians now consider to be the start of the war. U.S. President William McKinley later told reporters "that the insurgents had attacked Manila" in justifying war on the Philippines. The Battle of Manila (1899) that followed caused thousands of casualties for Filipinos and Americans alike.

The administration of US President McKinley subsequently declared Aguinaldo to be an "outlaw bandit", and no formal declaration of war was ever issued. Two reasons have been given for this:

One is that calling the war the Philippine Insurrection made it appear to be a rebellion against a lawful government, although the only part of the Philippines under American control was Manila.
The other was to enable the American government to avoid liability to claims by veterans of the action.

American Escalation

A large American military force (126,000 soldiers) was needed to occupy the country, and would be regularly engaged in war against Filipino forces for another decade. Also, Macabebe Filipinos were recruited by the United States Army. Twenty-six of the 30 generals who served in the Philippines from 1898 to 1902 had fought in the Indian Wars.

By the end of February, 1899, the Americans had prevailed in the struggle for Manila, and the Philippine Army of Liberation was forced to retreat north. Hard-fought American victories followed at Quingua (April), Zapote Bridge (June), and Tirad Pass (December). With the June assassination of General Antonio Luna and the death of Brigadier General Gregorio del Pilar at Tirad Pass, the Filipinos' ability to fight a conventional war was rapidly diminishing.

The Guerrilla Phase

As of 1900, Aguinaldo ordered his army to engage in guerrilla warfare, a means of operation which better suited them and made American occupation of the archipelago all the more difficult over the next few years. In fact, during just the first four months of the guerrilla war the Americans lost nearly 500 men who were either killed or wounded. The Filipino resistance fighters began staging bloody ambushes and raids. Most infamous were the guerrilla victories at Pulang Lupa and Balangiga. At first, it even seemed as if the Filipinos would fight the Americans to a stalemate and force them to withdraw. This was even considered by President McKinley at the beginning of the phase.

The shift to guerrilla warfare, however, only angered the Americans into acting more ruthlessly than before. They began taking no prisoners, scorching whole villages, and routinely shooting surrendering Filipinos. Much worse were the concentration camps that civilians were forced into, after being suspected of being guerrilla sympathizers. Thousands of civilians died in these camps. In nearly all cases, the civilians suffered much worse than the actual Filipino guerrillas.

The subesquent American aggression towards the population decreased tremendously the materials, men, and morale of many Filipino resistance fighters, compelling them in one way or another to surrender.

While some measures to allow partial self-government were implemented earlier, the guerrilla war did not subside until 1913 when US President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed a change in policy that would, after a transitional period, grant the Philippines full independence. In the south, Muslim Filipinos resisted until 1916— the so-called Moro rebellion. During this conflict, the Americans realized a need to be able to stop a charging tribesman with a single shot. To fill this need, the Colt M1911 Handgun was developed for its larger .45 calibre ammunition (45 ACP), resulting in additonal stopping power.

Americans opposition to the war

Some Americans, notably William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and other members of the American Anti-Imperialist League, strongly objected to the annexation of the Philippines. Other Americans mistakenly thought that the Philippines wanted to become part of the United States. Anti-imperialist movements claimed that the United States had betrayed its lofty goals of the Spanish-American War by becoming a colonial power, merely replacing Spain in the Philippines. Other anti-imperialists opposed annexation on racist grounds. Among those who opposed annexation were individuals such as Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina, who feared that annexation of the Philippines would lead to an influx of non-white immigrants, thus undermining white racial purity in America. As news of atrocities committed in subduing the Philippines arrived in the United States, support for the war flagged.

Consequences

During the war, 4,324 American soldiers were killed and 2,818 were wounded. There were also 2,000 casualties that the Philippine Constabulary suffered during the war, over a thousand of which were fatalities. Philippine military deaths are estimated at 20,000 (16 thousand actually counted) while civilian deaths numbered in 250,000 to 1,000,000 Filipinos.

The high casualty figures are due mostly to the combination of superior arms and even more superior numbers of the Americans. They had the most modern and up-to-date weapons in the world with the most superb bolt action rifles and machine guns they were also lavishly armed and well led. Even better were the U.S. warships at the ready to fire their big guns and decimate Philippine positions when needed. In contrast the Filipinos were armed with motley rifles, a number of which were taken from dead Spanish or American soldiers, or smuggled in by Philippine patriots. Their artillery was not much better, mostly worn out artillery pieces captured from the Spanish. Although they did have a few Maxim and Gatling machine guns, along with a few modern Krupp artillery pieces, these were highly prized and taken to the rear for fear of capture before they could play any decisive role. Ammunition along with rifles also became scarce as the war dragged on, and they had to manufacture their own, like the homemade paltik. Still most did not even have firearms. Many used bolos, spears, and lances in fighting, which also contributed to high casualty figures when such obsolete weapons were used against the American's superior arms. The Filipinos knew their own country and rough terrain well, however, in contrast to the Americans fighting on foreign terrain.

In 1914, Dean C. Worcester, U.S. Secretary of the Interior for the Philippines (1901-1913) described "the regime of civilization and improvement which started with American occupation and resulted in developing naked savages into cultivated and educated men."

In recognition of United States military service, during the Philippine-American War, the United States military created two service decorations which were known as the Philippine Campaign Medal and the Philippine Congressional Medal.

In 1916 the United States granted the Philippines self-government and promised eventual independence.

American torture and scorched earth campaigns

In 1908, Manuel Arellano Remondo, in a book entitled General Geography of the Philippine Islands, wrote: "The population decreased due to the wars, in the five-year period from 1895 to 1900, since, at the start of the first insurrection, the population was estimated at 9,000,000, and at present (1908), the inhabitants of the Archipelago do not exceed 8,000,000 in number."

U.S. attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, torture (water cure) and the concentration of civilians into "protected zones". Many of these civilian casualties resulted from disease and famine. Reports of the execution of U.S. soldiers taken prisoner by the Filipinos led to savage reprisals by American forces. Many American officers and soldiers called war a "nigger killing business".

American soldiers letters and response

From almost the beginning of the war, soldiers wrote home describing, and usually bragging about, atrocities committed against Filipinos, soldiers and civilians alike. Increasingly, such personal letters, or portions of them, reached a national audience as anti-imperialist editors across the nation reproduced them.

Once these accounts were widely reproduced, the War Department was forced to demand that General Otis investigate their authenticity. General Otis forwarded the press clippings to the writer’s commanding officer, who would then convince the soldier to write a retraction.

Private Charles Brenner of the Kansas regiment, resisted such pressure. He insisted that Colonel Funston had ordered that all prisoners be shot and that Major Metcalf and Captain Bishop enforced these orders. Otis was obliged to order the sector commander, General MacArthur, to look into the charge. Brenner confronted MacArthur’s aide with a corroborating witness, Private Putman, who confessed to shooting two prisoners after Bishop of Metcalf ordered, “kill them! Damn it, Kill them!” MacArthur sent his aide’s report on to Otis with no comment. Otis ordered Brenner court-martialed “for writing and conniving at the publication of an article which...contains willful falsehoods concerning himself and a false charge against Captain Bishop. The judge advocate in Manila convinced Otis that such a trial could open a Pandora’s box, as “facts would develop implicating many others.”

General Otis sent the Brenner case to Washington writing: “After mature deliberation, I doubt the wisdom of court-martial in this case, as it would give the insurgent authorities a knowledge of what was taking place and they would assert positively that our troops had practiced inhumanities, whether the charge should be proven or not, as they would use it as an excuse to defend their own barbarities;” and Otis went on, justifying the war crimes, “and it is not thought that his charge is very grievous under the circumstances then existing, as it was very early in the war, and the patience of our men was under great strain.”

Towards the end of 1899, General Otis attempted to repair his battered image. Otis began to work to win new friends among the journalists in Manila and bestowed favors on any journalist who gave him good press.

Filipino attrocities

To counter the bad press back in America, General Otis stated that insurgents tortured American prisoners in “fiendish fashion”, some of whom were buried alive, or worse, up their necks in anthills to be slowly devoured. Others were castrated, had the removed parts stuffed into their mouths, and were then left to suffocate or bleed to death. It was also stated that some prisoners were deliberately infested with leprosy before being released to spread the disease among their comrades. Spanish priests were horribly mutilated before their congregations, and natives who refused to support Emilio Aguinaldo were slaughtered by the thousands. American newspaper headlines announced the “Murder and Rapine” by the “Fiendish Filipinos.” General “Fighting Joe” Wheeler insisted that it was the Filipinos who had mutilated their own dead, murdered women and children, and burned down villages, solely to discredit American soldiers.

Other attrocities included those by General Vincente Lukban, the Filipino commander who masterminded the surprise attack in the Balangiga Massacre, that killed over fifty American Soldiers. Media reports stated that many of the bodies were mutilated.

Sergeant Hallock testified in the Lodge committee said natives were given the water cure, "...in order to secure information of the murder of Private O'Herne of Company I, who had been not only killed, but roasted and otherwise tortured before death ensued."

Reporters and Red Cross accounts contradict Otis

During the closing months of 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo attempted to counter General Otis’s account by suggesting that neutral parties—foreign journalists or representatives of the International Red Cross inspect his military operations. Otis refused, but Emilio Aguinaldo managed to smuggle in four reporters—two English, one Canadian, and a Japanese into the Philippines. The correspondents returned to Manila to report that American captives were “treated more like guests than prisoners,” were “fed the best that the country affords, and everything is done to gain their favor.” The story went on to say that American prisoners were offered commissions in the Philippine army and that three had accepted. The four reporters were expelled from the Philippines as soon as their stories were printed.

Emilio Aguinaldo also released some American prisoners so they could tell their own stories. In a Boston Globe article entitled “With the Goo Goo’s” Paul Spillane described his fair treatment as a prisoner. Emilio Aguinaldo had even invited American captives to the christening of his baby and had given each a present of four dollars, Spillane recounted.

Naval Lieutenant J.C. Gilmore, whose release was forced by American cavalry pursuing Aguinaldo into the mountains, insisted that he had received “considerable treatment” and that he was no more starved than were his captors. Otis responded to these two articles by ordering the “capture” of the two authors, and that they be “investigated”, therefore questioning their loyalty.

When F.A. Blake of the International Red Cross arrived at Emilio Aguinaldo’s request, Otis kept him confined to Manila, where Otis’s staff explained all of the Filipino's violations of civilized warfare. Blake managed to slip away from an escort and venture into the field. Blake never made it past American lines, but even within American lines he saw burned out villages and “horribly mutilated bodies, with stomachs slit open and occasionally decapitated.” Blake waited to return to San Francisco, where he told one reporter that “American soldiers are determined to kill every Filipino in sight.”

Ratio of Filipinos wounded

The most conclusive evidence that the enemy wounded were being killed, came from the official reports of Otis and his successor, General Arthur MacArthur, which claimed fifteen Filipinos killed for every one wounded. In the American Civil War, the ratio had been five wounded for every soldier killed, which is close to historical norm. Otis attempted to explain this anomaly by the superior marksmanship of rural southerners and westerners who had hunted all their lives.

MacArthur added a racial twist, asserting that Anglo-Saxons do not succumb to wounds as easily as do men of "inferior races."

English Education and the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church was disestablished, and a considerable amount of church land was purchased and redistributed.

During the U.S. occupation, English was declared the official language, although the languages of the Philippine people were Spanish, Visayan, Tagalog, Ilocano and other native languages. Also, six hundred American teachers were imported aboard the USS Thomas.

As one historian wrote about Marinduque, the first island with concentration camps: "The triple press of concentration (camps), devastation, and harassment led Abad (the Marinduque commander)...to request a truce to negotiate surrender terms...The Army pacified Marinduque not by winning the allegiance of the people, but by imposing coercive measures to control their behavior and separate them from the insurgents in the field. Ultimately, military and security measures proved to be the (essential element) of Philippine pacification." This assessment could probably be applied to all of the Philippines.

Quotes

In the fall of 1899, MacArthur, who was still loyal to General Otis said to reporter H. Irving Hannock:

When I first started in against these rebels, I believed that Anguinaldo’s troops represented only a faction. I did not like to believe that the whole population of Luzon—the native population that is—was opposed to us and our offers of aid and good government. But after having come this far, after having occupied several towns and cities in succession, and having been brought much into contact with both insurrectos and amigos, I have been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Filipino masses are loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he heads.

Footnotes

Recent evidence from the National Historial institute of the Philippines indicates that the Filipino soldier shot by the (said drunk) American soldiers is not in San Juan del Monte, but in present-day Sociego Street in Manila. The National Historical Institute has put a marker there.
. ISBN 046500721X. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help) p. 127
. ISBN 0300030819. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help) p. 189;Philippine History Group of Los Angeles The Balangiga Massacre: Getting Even; Senate Document S. Doc. 331, 57th Congress, 1st Session, p. 637-639, 894-898
In 1902 Funston toured the United States speaking to increase public support for the war in the Philippines. He said: "I personally strung up thirty-five Filipinos without trial, so what was all the fuss over Waller's "dispatching" a few "treacherous savages"? If there had been more Smiths and Wallers, the war would have been over long ago. Impromptu domestic hanging might also hasten the end of the war. For starters, all Americans who had recently petitioned Congress to sue for peace in the Phillipines should be dragged out of their homes and lynched.--Colonel Frederick Funston at a banquet in Chicago. New York Sun March 10, 1902; p. 234-235
Miller p. 88; For a small sampling of some of the letters and statments see: Wikiquote: American Torture and Attrocities against Filipinos, Wikisource: Anti-Imperalist summary of the findings of the Lodge Committee, Misplaced Pages: Lodge Committee, particularly the testiony of: Charles S. Riley, Private William L Smith, Sergeant Edward J. Davis, and ex-Corporal Richard Thomas O'Brien
Miller, p. 89 Template:Journal reference
Miller, p. 91
Miller, p. 92-93
Miller, p. 93; Template:Journal reference p. 4; Public Opinion volume 27 (1899), p. 291; San Francisco Call February 14, 21, 23, March 30, 31, May 29, june 9, July 17, 1899
Miller, p. 93; Literary Digest Volume 18 (1899), p. 499
Miller, p. 94; Boston Globe June 27, 1900, Literary Digest Volume 20 (1900), p. 25; San Francisco Call December 8, 1899, February 16, 1900
Miller, p. 94 San Francisco Call March 31, September 1, 1899
Boot, p. 102
The Water Cure Described. Discharged Soldier Tells Senate Committee How and Why the Torture Was Inflicted. New York Times May 4, 1902. p. 13
Template:Journal reference

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