War of Frontier and Empire

by David J Silbey

  Three

  “AT THE CANNON’S MOUTH”

  As morning dawned on February 5, both sides gathered themselves after the night’s fighting. The combat had been small-unit work, with squads and platoons attacking and counterattacking. Both high commands were short of information and unclear as to exactly what was going on. But now the darkness had cleared, and the two sides were ready to brawl.

  There were roughly 13,000 American soldiers under the command of General Otis that morning. About 11,000 of those were in the lines around Manila, while roughly 2,000 were in the city itself. Most of these were volunteers serving in units from the Western states. Despite the fact that, technically, their enlistments were up with the end of the Spanish-American War, these men seemed eager and enthusiastic to fight. Their frustration at the previous six months of inactivity and the perceived arrogance of the insurgents only added fuel to the fire. As one member of the First Nebraska said, shortly before the fighting broke out: “If they would turn the boys loose, there wouldn’t be a nigger left in Manila twelve hours after.”1

  The soldiers were organized into two divisions, each with two brigades. Commanding the First Division, with responsibility from the southern beach line to the Pasig River, was Major General Anderson. Anderson’s Second Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Samuel Ovenshine, consisted from south to north of the Fourth U.S. Cavalry Regiment (six troops), the First North Dakota Regiment, and the Fourteenth U.S. Infantry Regiment. The First Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Charles King, consisted of the First Wyoming Regiment (one battalion), the First Idaho Regiment, the First Washington Regiment, and the First California Regiment. Commanding the Second Division, with responsibility from the Pasig River to the northern beach line, was Brig. Gen. Arthur MacArthur. MacArthur’s units, in order from the bay to the river, were: the First Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. H. G. Otis (no relation to Elwell Otis), which consisted of the Twentieth Kansas Regiment, the Third U.S. Artillery Regiment, the First Montana Regiment, and the Tenth Pennsylvania Regiment; and the Second Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Irving Hale, which consisted of the First South Dakota Regiment, the First Colorado Regiment, and the First Nebraska Regiment. Both divisions were backed up by artillery, the First Division by units of the Sixth U.S. Artillery and the Second Division by the Utah Light Artillery.

  The morning of the fifth, both commanders asked Otis for permission to go over to the attack. Otis agreed and both MacArthur and Anderson launched their troops into the assault. The prospect was not, at first, promising. The Filipinos had had many months to fortify their lines and connect the blockhouses with lines of trenches and other emplacements. If they fought tenaciously, they could inflict heavy casualties on the attacking Americans.

  The troops in MacArthur’s Second Brigade attacked first, at 8:10 a.m. The First Colorado and First Nebraska Regiments struck Blockhouses 5, 6, and 7, and the lines in between. In both cases, the units took their targets relatively easily. The First Nebraska, in fact, made it past Blockhouse 7 and captured the San Juan Bridge and Hill beyond it, putting them across the San Juan River.

  To the south, Major General Anderson ordered a general advance against the lines of the Army of Liberation. It met with similar success as had greeted the Coloradans and Nebraskans. Anderson recounted, in his after-action report, the assault by seven companies of the First Wyoming and First California:

  The movement began at 8:20 A.M. with a rush over the creek on our front, a cheer, and rattling volleys as the whole line advanced, not by rushes, but with a rush. The insurgent line fell back before our advance, fighting, however, with spirit. The rice-fields in our front were intersected with little irrigating dykes, and behind each of these, a stand was attempted, the Filipinos firing from behind them. Our men disdained these shelters and moved steadily on until raking fire was opened on them from the redoubt in the neck of the bend between Pandacan and Santa Ana. The Idaho Regiment made a turn to the left, charging the redoubt, carrying it at the point of the bayonet, and driving a regiment of insurgents to the bank of the river.2

  It is here that we begin to see what would become a common theme in the six months of conventional war between the Army of Liberation and U.S. forces in the islands. The Philippine forces found it enormously difficult to hold any positions against a determined American attack. Even, as noted here, when the fortifications were as strong as six months of building could make them, U.S. units could usually storm them successfully, and with relatively light casualties. Even frontal assaults against a “redoubt” capable of “raking fire” proved successful and usually much more costly to the Philippine forces than the American.

  Why?

  The question is why? American troops—especially the volunteers—did not have extensive training. They had little recent fighting experience, with most limited to the Manila walkover as their introduction to combat. The Army of Liberation, on the other hand, had a fair bit of experience, having spent most of 1898 capturing large chunks of the archipelago from the Spanish. They were on their home ground, supposedly fighting to defend their people and their government. Theodore Wurm, for one, was reasonably impressed with the military capability of the Filipinos. As he wrote, after nearly a month of fighting:

  It must not be supposed that these people are an untrained mob, for such is not the case. They can deliver a perfect volley by company, and understand taking advantage of any shelter which is offered.3

  But his estimation is not borne out by what happened on the ground. The point is not only that the Americans defeated the Army of Liberation, it is that the defeat was so completely lopsided. American casualties during the first few days of fighting—fifty-nine dead and three hundred wounded—were minuscule compared to Filipino, which numbered in the thousands. This ratio is odd enough, but doubly so for an attacking force. Compare American casualties on February 5, 1899, in which nearly the entire Eighth Corps was involved, with the casualties of the one serious fight between the Americans and the Spanish in Cuba on July 31, 1898. There a Spanish assault on the American lines south of Manila was repulsed by the Tenth Pennsylvania and the First California. Losses amongst the Pennsylvania regiment were nine killed and forty wounded; numbers for the California regiment were likely similar. In a much smaller engagement, the Americans, who were on the defensive, experienced roughly 30 percent of the total casualties of February 5. On February 5 the Tenth Pennsylvania suffered one dead and six wounded, substantially less than in the July attack.4

  Compare this also with the American campaign in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The major battle, for the city of Santiago during early July 1898, witnessed the same sort of frontal assault by American troops against prepared positions as occurred at Manila. The number of American troops engaged was about the same as at Manila, but the number of enemy troops at Santiago was much smaller, about 1,700. Despite that, American casualties in Cuba numbered 210 dead, with 1,180 wounded. Why? “To carry earthworks on foot … when these earthworks are held by unbroken infantry armed with the best modern rifles, is a serious task,” explained the former assistant secretary of the navy and then Rough Rider, Theodore Roosevelt.5

  There seem to be a number of explanations for the poor showing of the Army of Liberation. The effect of naval gunfire should not be underestimated. At both the north and south ends of the American semicircle around Manila, Admiral Dewey’s ships pulled up close to the shore and unleashed barrages on Philippine forces. In addition, American gunboats pushed up the Pasig River and brought the weight of gunfire to bear farther inland than the guns in the bay could reach. The effect of large-caliber naval weapons on a land force was devastating. But we should note that even in areas where the naval guns could not reach—such as in the suburbs northwest of Manila—the American advance was still relatively easy.

  Another possible factor was a difference in technology. Some of the American soldiers had much better small arms than the Filipinos. The 1898 Krag-Jorgensen rifle was one example. It fired a .45-calibe
r bullet accurately to about five hundred yards. Though the rifles the Filipinos were armed with, mostly German Mausers, supposedly had the same range, Philippine ammunition was inferior and often home-made, with all the consequences for accuracy that such a fact implies. And even that ammunition was in short supply. As early as September 1898, commanders were pleading with Aguinaldo for more ammunition:

  We have no Mauser cartridges; I hear there are many in Batangas. Americans pay a good price for empty cartridges and shells. I ask your excellency to order General Noriel to send us shells; the General has a factory at Paranaque. I am sorry for our soldiers. I see that the more they work and the more they expose their lives, the less they receive.6

  The limited amount of ammunition meant that the Filipinos had little opportunity to train with live ammunition. In addition, many of the insurgents did not even have rifles and were forced to rely on native weapons like bolos. Finally, although the insurgents did have a number of light artillery pieces and a few machine guns, they do not seem to have had anything that matched some of the heavier American artillery.7

  But that is not quite enough. The Krag-Jorgensen had its own problems. The war came shortly after its introduction, when the army was having to deal with the rifle’s teething pains. Munitions factories were having great difficulty producing consistent ammunition with the new smokeless powder, various rifle ranges could not be used because the Krag-Jorgensen’s field of fire outranged their safety limits, and army rifle doctrine had not been rewritten to reflect the new technology.8 Worse, the Krag-Jorgensen’s magazine had to be reloaded cartridge by cartridge instead of by multiround clip, as the Mauser used. The difference was enough that the army replaced the Krag-Jorgensen almost immediately after the war with a new model, the 1903 Springfield, which relied on a mechanism similar to the Mauser’s.9

  Second, many of the American soldiers, especially those in the volunteer units, did not have the Krag-Jorgensen rifle, but the old Springfield, a single-shot rifle that used black powder. It was slow to fire, inaccurate, and, worse, emitted a great cloud of smoke when fired, fatally marking the firer’s position. The soldiers of the First North Dakota, for example, all had Springfields during February and March. On March 31 each company of the First North Dakota received twelve Krag-Jorgensens, enough to outfit the scouts and designated sharpshooters. The rest continued on with the Springfields. The tactical effect of this could be profound. Frank White, a lieutenant in the First North Dakota, forbade his men to fire at insurgents from their prepared position so as not to disclose its location: “I have ordered our men not to do any firing unless we are attacked and so we do not shoot at individuals or squads of soldiers passing along our front.”10 In essence, the range difference meant that the Americans had to attack constantly simply to get into range of the insurrecto trenches.

  Further, the insurgents had had similar problems and worse when fighting against the Spanish, and had nonetheless been impressively successful against them. Clearly, the lack of ammunition and the sparse training had an influence, but it seems unlikely that it could have caused such a disparity in casualties.

  What, then? Let me suggest that another factor was the client-patron relationship that still dominated Filipino society. The Army of Liberation was, in essence, a collection of patrons along with their clients, the ordinary soldiers. Aguinaldo’s control over them was limited, but more importantly, there were certain distinct limitations to how much each patron could demand of each client. For many, death was not one of those demands. The result, in many instances of combat, was that the insurgents would fight fiercely for a certain amount of time, and then make individual retreats when they felt that they had done their duty by their patron.

  Further, the duties demanded of the client were best done in a visible public way that the patron had to lead or, at least, acknowledge. During the period between August 1898 and February 1899, the insurgents staged a number of public displays that seemed designed to demonstrate their loyalty and dedication. Sgt. Charles Mabry, of the Utah Light Artillery, remembered one such event, though his account is filtered through his own preconceptions:

  One insurgent officer was particularly abusive. He would gather a crowd of drunken natives, and they would march down to the bridge for the purpose of harassing and scoffing at us. They were encouraged by the apparently submissive attitude of the Americans, whom they had begun to look upon as cowards.11

  There is a sense here of demonstration that, despite Mabry’s evaluation, was more calculated to satisfy Filipino needs than to intimidate the Americans. On the fateful February 5, a Sunday, many of the officers were absent from their units visiting family. The result was that units were left without leadership—fatal enough for any military—but also that clients were left without patrons for whom to demonstrate.

  This is certainly not true of all the insurgents; thousands fought and died on February 5, trying to hold the Americans back. But thousands did not, and the limited resistance they offered allowed American soldiers to get in and around the Philippine lines with minimal casualties. When the Tenth Pennsylvania attacked up the road to Caloocan on February 5, the insurgents followed exactly that pattern, as the Tenth’s commander remembered:

  Cheering and yelling, the Pennsylvania soldiers advanced rapidly, the enemy replying with heavy volley firing, until the men of the Tenth Regiment were within three hundred yards of the hostile position. Then the insurgents broke and made a precipitate retreat.12

  In essence, the Filipinos fulfilled their obligations by firing volleys at the Americans until the risk became unacceptable and then retreated. Such behavior had two critical effects on the defense. If the insurgents retreated when the Americans closed within three hundred yards, then most of their fire was likely from much farther than that, well beyond accurate range. At that range, with homemade ammunition and a general lack of live-fire training, one would expect that the defensive fire would miss by going over the heads of the Americans (troops unused to the heavy recoil of rifles would let the barrel rise as the bullet fired, sending the projectile high in the air).

  That is, in fact, exactly what the commander of the Tenth reported.

  Their [the Filipinos’] fire had been high and wild and the regiment’s casualties were one man shot through the right lung and one slightly wounded in the right hand.13

  None of this is to suggest that the Filipinos were cowards or were being cowardly. The thousands who died fighting on February 5 testify to that. It is, however, to suggest that many Filipinos, officers and men alike, had a different cultural conception of what war meant and how far to take the fighting. Combined with difficulties of logistics and training, and coming up against a Western army unified by a potent nationalist ideology, such cultural preconceptions created serious difficulties for the Army of Liberation.

  By contrast, American soldiers seem to have come from a life that prepared them well for service in the military. Many of them were country boys with extensive experience with firearms. Many could, as Herbert Reddy bragged upon enlisting, “hit a squirrel in the eye at thirty paces.”14

  These cultural differences came together on February 5. Throughout the day, American offensives continually overwhelmed the defenses of the Army of Liberation and pushed American lines outward. Inside the city the story was similar. Otis had been long worried about a simultaneous offensive by the Army of Liberation and an uprising in Manila proper. That is, in fact, exactly what Aguinaldo was planning. The clearest evidence for the fact that the events of February 4 took the Filipinos by surprise is that there was no real and concerted assault within the city limits. Instead, as news of the fighting in the suburbs spread, there was a sporadic and disorganized series of attacks in various parts of Manila. But the army commanders were prepared. As soon as news of the fighting on the outskirts poured in, Otis ordered the Provost Guard to take to the streets and impose martial law. This they did. The Second Oregon and Thirteenth Minnesota Regiments patrolled Manila and skirmished with
the insurgents they found. There was a certain amount of fighting and a large amount of arson, but the insurgents never came close to disrupting American control of the city. As the lines outside the city expanded, some of the Provost Guard was pushed out to occupy critical areas, most particularly the area around the reservoir and waterworks.

  Thus, by the time evening came, the U.S. Army had won a substantial victory inside and outside the city at little cost to itself. The Filipinos, on the other hand, had suffered a substantial defeat and thousands of casualties. Conventional war had begun, and so far all the advantages lay with the United States.

  The War Continues

  Manila was safe. General Otis spent the next few days stabilizing his line and reorganizing his troops. The unexpected success of the attack had caused the Americans some problems. For example, they could not find the First California Regiment. As Otis recalled later: