Part 11 (1/2)
A month after the battle of Manila Bay Aguinaldo proclaimed himself ”president” (in reality military dictator) of the ”Filipino Republic.”
But this republic existed only on paper. Dewey accurately states the condition of affairs when he says, ”Our fleet had destroyed the only government there was, and there was no other government; there was a reign of terror throughout the Philippines, looting, robbing, murdering.” A form of munic.i.p.al election was held, but if a candidate not favoured by the insurgents was elected, he was at once deposed. One candidate won his election by threatening to kill any one who got the office in his place. Persons ”contrary minded” were not allowed to vote. These happenings hardly suggest a republican form of government, but they are typical of conditions at that time.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AGUINALDO'S PALACE AT MALOLOS.]
Naturally the self-styled president was not recognized by the American officials, and they were justified, as is shown by the fact that before the year was up Aguinaldo himself had come to realize that he could not maintain order among his people, and tried to resign from his office.
Meanwhile his lack of recognition by the Americans, and his exclusion from the spoils of war, so far as Manila was concerned, showed him that his only hope of achieving his ambitions lay in driving these interlopers from the Islands. But for the time being, while awaiting a propitious moment for attack, he occupied himself and his men by conquering the Spaniards in the outlying provinces. Since there was no cooperation among the Spanish forces, he was quite successful. Having proclaimed the republic with himself at the head, he felt justified in maintaining, with the aid of his booty, a truly regal state in his palace at Malolos, aping the forms and ceremonies of the Spanish governors in Manila.
As fast as Church property, or property belonging to Spaniards, fell into his hands, it was confiscated and turned over to the State--if Aguinaldo can be considered the State. His houses and those of his generals were furnished from Spanish possessions, all t.i.tle deeds were systematically destroyed or hidden, and administrators were appointed for the property.
At the beginning of the new year (1899), he turned his attention to the Americans, and Manila. Because our forces seemed reluctant to fight, the Filipinos, like the Mexicans to-day, believed that they must be cowards and afraid to meet them. A Mexican paper has recently told its readers what a simple matter it would be, if war were declared, for their troops to cross the border and crush such slight opposition as may be offered to the capture of Was.h.i.+ngton. So it is no wonder that the Filipinos felt confident of success, especially after their victories over the Spaniards in the outlying regions.
By January, Admiral Dewey, General Anderson and General Merritt had left the Philippine Islands and General Otis was in command. He announced that the government of the United States would be extended over the islands of the archipelago. Next day Aguinaldo retorted with what was virtually a declaration of war. From then on he and his advisers hastened their preparations for the conflict. Members of the native militia who were living in Manila under the protection of the American garrison were warned to stand ready to receive the signal which should start the sack and pillage of the city and the ma.s.sacre of its inhabitants. By the end of January there were about thirty thousand Filipinos under arms fronting the American lines outside the city, all keyed up for the moment when they should be let loose to drive the Americans into the sea. This time the spoils of Manila should not be s.n.a.t.c.hed from them!
The signal for the advance was to be a conflagration in Manila. Ten thousand militiamen were to rise, set fire to the city, free the Spanish prisoners of war, arm them with arms stored in the a.r.s.enal, and attack the Americans. They were to be promptly aided in this last detail by the thirty thousand Filipinos waiting outside, who, surrounding the city, would drive back the fourteen thousand American soldiers upon their burning citadel and upon the two hundred thousand Filipinos, who would by this time have joined their countrymen. If everything had worked out as he had planned, Aguinaldo might very probably have entered the city.
He chose a night early in February, at a time when he knew the American reinforcements which had been ordered could not yet have arrived. Firing began about nine o'clock in the evening, near the San Juan bridge, and continued during the night. Meanwhile, the militia in the city tried to a.s.semble, but the groups were promptly fired on and dispersed. In the morning the s.h.i.+ps of Dewey's fleet opened fire from the flanks of the American line. A little later our troops sprang forward and swept their antagonists before their fierce attack. In this encounter the Filipinos lost about eight hundred, and the Americans two hundred and fifty.
For a week the insurgents were quite demoralized, and no wonder, for this was not the way they had expected the ”cowardly” Americans to act.
But when they saw that our men did not follow up their advantage by pursuit, their courage revived and they began once more to believe those things which they wished to believe. Our troops had to stay where they were because they had not sufficient transportation to take them anywhere else, because the enemy within the city still needed their attention, and because their reinforcements had not arrived.
When these came, General Otis divided his forces. General MacArthur began a movement from his right against the insurgents, who contested every village and locality capable of defense, and burned every train before abandoning it to American hands. The insurgent capital, Malolos, was occupied. In April, General Lawton took Santa Cruz. The American casualties during these operations were about ten thousand officers and men, but the sick report listed fifteen per cent of the expedition, mostly from heat prostration.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SAN JUAN BRIDGE.]
General Lawton, who went out early in 1899, and was killed in December of the same year at San Mateo, is believed to have been perhaps the most able of our commanders.
Uniformly the Filipinos lost, but when their courage waned their officers would announce that they had won a big victory somewhere else.
In one day, they reported, we had lost twenty-eight thousand men, in a region where in the entire month we had lost but fifty-six. On another occasion they announced that two thousand colonels had been killed. They must have thought our troops were all from Kentucky.
All summer and into the fall this more or less formal and regular warfare continued. But by that time Aguinaldo had decided that while a concentrated field army might appear more impressive to foreigners and be better for advertising purposes, it was not effective for his purpose, and some change must be made. The discontent among the conservative men who still had anything to lose was increasing, while the labourers in the fields, the fishermen, and the great ma.s.ses of the people were growing weary of the war and the exactions of the commanders of their troops. The spell which Aguinaldo had cast over Luzon was almost broken. The war was nearly over, it seemed--in a civilized country it would have been over.
To the Americans it appeared that the insurrection had been destroyed, and that all they now had to do was to sweep up the remnants of the insurgent forces by a system of police administration not likely to be either difficult or dangerous. In November, MacArthur had his force ready to strike anything within reach, but there seemed to be nothing within reach to strike. He soon came to the conclusion that there was no organized resistance left, that the insurgent army had broken into fragments which would soon become banditti. The disbandment of the insurgent field forces, which the American authorities took to mean the coming of a general submission to our rule, was followed by a long period of inactivity. This, of course, strengthened the impression, but the time was being used by the Filipinos to prepare for a new method of warfare and to organize for resistance by means of a general banding of the people together in support of the guerillas in the field.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL LAWTON.]
To obtain this necessary cooperation the leaders announced the inflexible principle that every native residing within the limits of the archipelago owed active individual allegiance to the insurgent cause.
This was enforced by severe penalties, including burial alive, which were systematically exacted. There was little resistance on the part of the victims, who accepted the new policy with a curious combination of loyalty, apathy, ignorance and timidity.
In this way there arose a strange system of dual government, in many cases the town officials openly serving the Americans while they were secretly aiding the insurrection, and with apparently equal solicitude for both. Each town was the base for the neighbouring guerillas, and when a band was too hard pressed it would dissolve and take refuge in its own community. This was easy enough to accomplish, with the aid of the people, for it took very little to transform a Filipino soldier into a good imitation of a peaceful native.
Several months before the formal declaration of guerilla warfare in November of 1899, the Filipino commanders had adopted a policy of occupying a succession of strong defensive positions and forcing our army to a never ending repet.i.tion of tactical deployments. This they did with such skill that they were for a time successful. The native force would hover within easy distance of the American camps, but would avoid close conflict and temporarily disband. This would not be regarded by them as a calamity, but simply as a change from one form of action to another, and even a positive advantage.
By February of 1900, General Bates had succeeded in scattering the larger bodies in the south of Luzon, and while some of the Filipino leaders and their followers abandoned the cause, which they saw was hopeless, others returned to the life of bandits, which in many cases had probably been their profession before the war. When their guns were gone they took up the knife and the torch. They did not cease to call themselves soldiers of the republic, but they were not in reality.
By September General MacArthur, who had succeeded General Otis in command of the American forces in the Islands, realized that the opposition to American control came from the towns, and that the guerilla bands could not exist without their support. At first he thought that on account of the efficiency of his troops, the natives would be actuated both by conviction and self-interest to support him.
But four months later he saw that further pressure was needed to secure this. So he ordered that all persons suspected of contraband traffic with insurgent organizations should be arrested and sent to Manila. In January, 1901, he ordered the deportation to Guam of twenty-six Filipino leaders, sympathizers, and agents, who were to remain there until peace had been formally declared. Two months later, Aguinaldo was captured by the dare-devil Funston of ”the Suicide Squad.”
The effect of this measure was to alarm the leaders, of course, who now realized that they could be held responsible for their acts. Orders were also issued that all men who surrendered should be disarmed but released at once, while those captured in the field or arrested in the towns should be held in custody till the end of the war. A letter was found, written by a bandit leader, in March, saying that he was ordered to ”proceed more rapidly” with his operations, ”as Bryan ordered Emilio (Aguinaldo) to keep the war going vigorously until April.” However true that may have been, it is certain that the encouragement which the insurgents received from the country they were fighting much prolonged hostilities and caused the loss of many lives on both sides.