Customer Reviews

The Philippine War, 1899-1902

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is evident that the author spent a great deal of time researching, cataloguing and organizing this tale of the Philippine and American conflicts that occurred in the Philippine Islands, resulting from the Spanish American War. Probably no other text, has succinctly described an often confusing dilemma which existed between the Filipinos, who were fighting for their independence, and the Americans who were fighting to quell the rebellion as their benevolent benefactor. The book more than adequately covers the phases of the conflicts which occurred throughout the islands. The initial phase of conflict was the Filipino frontal assaults in and around Manila. Failing to achieve lasting victories, their frontal assault strategy gradually evolved into guerilla warfare; a harbinger, many years later, of what America would face in Vietnam. To adequately understand the locations and occurrences, the reader needs to purchase a medium scaled map of the Philippines. The book lacks maps and graphics which adequately give the reader a visual image of where the conflicts happened. In about a half dozen, or more, instances, the author has a problem with describing accurately locational directions. For example, he states that a place is west of another place when in reality it is definitely east of that place. This problem becomes minor when considering the amount of information the author relates to the reader. An excellent read for anyone having an interest in Philippine History.

Continuing the fine University Press of Kansas's Modern War Studies series, Brian Linn magnificently illustrates both the difficulties and the triumphs of American arms in the Philippines in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Using both American and Philippine sources, Linn shows how the US Army, vastly outnumbered, dependent upon ill-prepared volunteers, and constantly weakened by tropical disease, managed to defeat a fractured nationalist opposition, nominally led by Emilio Aguinaldo. Far from being a foregone conclusion, the war very well could have gone differently had Aguinaldo been able to unite a widely diverse native population. Many ethnic groups refused let the elitist Tagalogs in Luzon dictate the terms of Philippine independence, however. Linn also dismantles the commonly held view that American forces won the war by brutalizing the population. In other words, American policy in the archipelago was much more sophisticated than "civilizing the natives with a Krag." Highly recommended.

The National Interest 2000 Summer:

...the Philippine War, which formally lasted from 1899 to 1902 but in reality dragged on for several more years as a series of police actions.

Though the Korean War is called the "forgotten war", it is well remembered in comparison to what was once known as the Philippine Uprising. Oddly enough, even the Spanish-American War, which begot the conflict in the Philippines, is much better remembered, in spite of the fact that it involved fewer combatants, fewer casualties and considerably less time. No doubt this is because the Spanish-American War is widely thought to have heralded America's rise to world power, whereas, in the view of most historians, the Philippine War was a blind alley -- a short-lived U.S. foray into colonialism.

When the Philippine War is remembered, it is typically for the purpose of denouncing the United States as an imperialist power. Here, after all, was another U.S. war fought in the jungles of Asia that generated considerable opposition at home and charges of atrocities committed by U.S. troops. (By their own count, U.S. forces claimed to have killed 16,000 Filipinos in battle, four times the U.S. casualties.) New Left histories, such as Stuart Miller's Benevolent Assimilation and Leon Wolff's Little Brown Brother, depict the U.S. war effort in the Philippines in a distinctly grim light. In their telling, the war is reduced to a simple tale of racist U.S. soldiers torturing, killing and raping Filipinos. Such works aim to prove that My Lai was no aberration -- that this is how U.S. soldiers usually behave, or at least how they usually behave when fighting non-Westerners.

Brian McAllister Linn, a history professor at Texas A&M University who has been studying the Philippine War for two decades, offers a welcome alternative to this tendentious catalogue. Whereas the New Left writers focus almost exclusively on alleged U.S. atrocities and public opinion in America, Linn recounts what actually happened on the battlefield. What he reveals is one of the most successful counterinsurgency campaigns of modern times (rivaled among Western powers only by the British in post-World War II Malaya).

True, the U.S. victory can be credited in some measure to mistakes by the enemy. Emilio Aguinaldo, the first president of the Philippine Republic, was no Ho Chi Minh -- and Antonio Luna, his top general, was no Vo Nguyen Giap. Aguinaldo committed the fatal error of trying to engage the U.S. Army in a conventional war. His forces were mauled during a series of battles in 1899 that began just outside Manila in February and finished in northern Luzon ten months later. Thereafter, Aguinaldo resorted to guerrilla warfare, but his government, dominated as it was by ilustrados (wealthy landowners), never succeeded in rallying the Filipino people to its cause.

Still, the eventual U.S. triumph was hardly foreordained. There were never more than 70,000 U.S. troops in the islands, and an average of only 24,000 men in the field, facing at least 80,000 insurgents. (By way of comparison, in the first Chechen war of 1994-95, the Russians had a 3 to 1 manpower advantage and still managed to lose.) The American technological advantage was not great -- in the beginning of the war, most U.S. troops were armed with Civil War-vintage Springfield rifles that were inferior to the rebels' Mausers (eventually, all U.S. regiments received more modern Krag-Jorgenson rifles). The United States could bring to bear superior firepower from artillery and navy gunboats, but even in the war's early days these advantages were to some extent obviated by the difficult jungle and mountain terrain; later on, heavy weaponry proved almost entirely irrelevant to combating the elusive guerrillas. Moreover, while the insurrectos were acclimated to local conditions, foul weather and disease ravaged U.S. ranks. Finally, the rebels, with informers in every barrio, possessed better intelligence about the U.S. Army than the army had about them.

Ultimately the army pacified the islands using a two-pronged approach -- what has been dubbed "attraction" and "chastisement." The policy of attraction -- renamed "hearts and minds" in Vietnam -- has been slighted by New Left historians, but it contributed significantly to the U.S. victory. The army ran schools, hospitals, sanitation programs and other charitable works. The colonial administration also granted generous terms to rebels who surrendered, and held out the promise of eventual independence for the islands. Eventually, more and more Filipinos tired of the war and concluded that American rule was in fact preferable to the "dons" who had come before, and perhaps even to Aguinaldo's oligarchy.

It is the policy of chastisement that has drawn unwelcome attention to the U.S. war effort, both in the early 1900s and in the years since. The American press avidly reported tales -- some confirmed, some not -- of U.S. soldiers shooting prisoners, burning down towns, gathering up natives in "reconcentration" camps and administering the "water cure" (restraining a suspect and forcing water down his throat) to gain information. This led to Mark Twain's mordant suggestion (not mentioned by Linn) that Old Glory be redesigned, with "the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and crossbones."

Many of these abuses did occur, but Linn puts them into proper perspective. He notes that isolated garrisons in the boondocks (a Tagalog word) had to operate against an unseen enemy who would kill or mutilate their buddies one day and be smiling "amigos" the next. It is hardly surprising that in such trying circumstances soldiers did not always heed Marquess of Queensbury rules. Then, too, it is not entirely fair to judge the actions of turn-of-the-century soldiers through a lens of contemporary norms. This was a more brutal time, when police departments in America routinely used the "third degree" to elicit confessions and U.S. soldiers themselves were subject to harsh hazing and physical punishment that would not be tolerated today. Indeed, by the standards of the day, the conduct of U.S. soldiers was probably better than average for colonial wars -- certainly nothing the Americans did rivaled the depredations of the Belgians in the Congo. What Linn does not point out, but could have, is that U.S. forces probably killed more civilians in one night of bombing Dresden than in all of the Philippine War.

This is easy to overlook because most histories of the war concentrate on only a few of its more brutal episodes; for instance, General J. Franklin Bell herding thousands of residents of Batangas province into "reconcentration" zones where many died of disease. Linn widens this focus to look at what was happening outside the main island of Luzon, the heartland of the Tagalogs and hence of resistance to the occupation. He notes that in half the archipelago's provinces there was no fighting at all. Many of the minority ethnic groups were resentful of Aguinaldo's Tagalog-dominated government and were more than ready to cooperate with the occupiers. Thousands of local men even signed up to fight alongside the Americans in battalions such as the Macabebe Scouts, a unit renowned for its courage and ferocity (and which is today denounced as collaborationist by patriotic Filipino historians).

In the end, the success of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort owed not to atrocities committed but to the attention paid to the rudiments of counterinsurgency strategy. Unlike in Vietnam, the army did not squander its resources on fruitless search and destroy missions; rather, it concentrated on cutting off the guerrillas from civilian assistance by garrisoning the countryside. Even more important, U.S. forces interdicted the guerrillas' lines of supply. Linn credits the navy with an often overlooked role in blockading the Philippines, which "not only prevented foreign arms shipments but also effectively ended inter-island trade", making it difficult for Aguinaldo to raise money and move reinforcements. Geography also played a key role: in the Philippine Islands, there were no sanctuaries and no Ho Chi Minh trails to keep the guerrillas in business.

Even with the insurrectos cut off from outside support, it nevertheless took a long time to bring the insurgency to an end. Optimistic estimates that the archipelago would be pacified in 1899 were not borne out; neither were similar predictions in 1900 and 1901. Just when the army thought it had the situation under control, some fresh setback would occur to remind Americans that victory was not around the corner -- the most notable disaster being the massacre of forty-six men from Company C, Ninth Infantry, at Balangiga on the island of Samar on September 28, 1901. Even after President Roosevelt declared the war over on July 4, 1902, resistance continued for years on outlying islands among the Muslim Moros. (In fact, Moro resistance to rule from Manila has never really ended; even today, Moros battle the Philippine Army.)

Presumably, if the War Department had been in the grip of the Weinberger/ Powell Doctrine in the early 1900s, it would have thrown up its hands in despair. But the generals of that day had a more realistic, or at any rate more resigned, attitude. They realized that only police work could ultimately produce lasting victory. That is true not only in the Philippines but in most wars. When American forces withdraw immediately after winning a battle, as they did in the Gulf War, very little is left decided. As Michael Howard has argued, only long-term occupation can transform battlefield victory into more than a temporary armistice. The U.S. Army applied this insight in the post-1865 South and post-1945 Germany and Japan, but seems loath to apply it today in places like Kosovo. To be sure, the stakes are considerably smaller there, but so is the U.S. commitment.

The Philippine experience is worth recalling because in the post-Cold War era the United States is once again undertaking imperial policing. It is doubtful that any conflict we fight will be as prolonged or bloody as the Philippine War, but the experience of 1899-1902 ought to teach us that guerrillas should not be feared unduly. They can be defeated by a regular army -- so long as it abjures a conventional military mindset.

Counterinsurgency requires a police department, not a war department, mentality. This in turn means demonstrating greater patience than is typical of our instant gratification culture. No one expects the New York Police Department to declare victory tomorrow in the war against crime and go home. Likewise, we should not expect that our mission in the Balkans will be completed anytime soon. In real life, few military commitments offer easy "exit strategies." But that does not mean we will find ourselves trapped in a "quagmire" or headed for "another Vietnam." It simply means that for military professionals there remains a hard, wearying, inglorious job ahead.

Whether the US won the Philippine war due to tactical expertise or due to the Filipino leaders' internal factions is up to debate; as much as the notion that it is America's moral responsibility to make the conquest in the first place. The Philippines, Vietnam, the Gulf War and the smaller, intermittent wars will always be in America's conscience not so much due to the fact that they happened at all than to the self-imposed dissection of America's moral everytime they happen.

As its initial attempt to being a colonizer, the Philippine War could have warned the US to its other, later exercises of might. Was it benevolence assimilation or misguided principles? McAllister Linn may not have provided an answer but this is history writing at its best - sans sentiments and judgement. But if the saying that history is always written from the point of view of the victors, the book can forcefully argue that America has lost a (moral) victory on this war.

This book just was selected to the Army Chief of Staff's Reading List and has won numerous prizes. It is THE book on the subject and the only thorougly researched history of this war. Linn provides a detailed account of the big-battle operations of 1899 and then looks at the guerrilla war in the various islands. There is a detailed and fair analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of American and guerrilla forces--and the notes show Linn did research in both American and Filipino sources. This book has a lot to teach about our current military situtation, which may be why troops in Iraq are reading it.

The author definately shows a mastery of his subject and has written a well-researched, well written account of the war. He goes into great detail on "benevolent assimilation", talks in detail of the respective commanders, and shows a certain expertise in the aspects of guerrilla warfare. This is one of the most authoritative accounts of the Philippine insurrection you can find.

There is one greivance I have with the author's work. The maps. They are, simply, atrocious, and for a military work of this kind they significantly detract from the overall presentation. Many of the fights in the beginning of the book are generally conventional, and the standard US doctrine was a frontal attack in a skirmish line, coupled with flanking efforts, usually against a Filipino defense in dug-in positions. There are no tactical or operational maps that depict the relevant maneuvers. Given that most readers are not familiar with rural Filipino towns this is a significant failing. Eventually the reader must focus on the generalities and campaign level issues because the tactical fights are hard to understand.

The author provides maps of the provinces, on occaision. Rather then provide a simple bar scale, he, for example, provides a a 4 by 4 inch map (p 141)with a scale that reads "1:2,027,520". For the amount of time he spent on this work the poor cartography is a significant fault. One that I hope is reworked in a later issue.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of American military affairs. The goal of Brian McAllister Linn's book The Philippine War, was to debunk what he perceived as biased scholarship about one of America's least known wars, which also happened to be its only victory overseas in a counterinsurgency operation. The breadth of his research in American military archival holdings, personal papers from senior and junior officers, captured Filipino documents, and secondary American and Filipino sources, gave real impetus to his thesis that America's victory in the war was a combination of its military prowess and Filipino failures. "So accepted is this view that the specialists now argue over levels of degrees" (323). The only real criticism of the book is that Linn initially set out to write his account of the war using Filipino archival documentation, but due to its theft, he was unable to include them in his book. Thus, it became heavily weighted toward the American conduct of the war.

The first half of Linn's book focused on the conventional warfare conducted on Luzon in 1899. The second and more compelling half of the book, examined the Filipino guerrilla warfare and American pacification operations conducted in the different regions of the archipelago. Historical events recounted in this part of the book is what Linn, on the centennial of the Philippine War, successfully aimed his main focus on to correct what he perceived as misinterpretations by past historians. Once Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine resistance, took his army into the hills to fight a guerilla action, the American's responded by effectively using its Navy to blockade the archipelago. This denied the Filipino guerrillas the capability to smuggle weapons and supplies, and it also kept them from freely moving between the islands. In addition, the Army divided the archipelago into U.S. Army departmental and district commands and gave its local commanders broad leeway to use the "carrot and stick" approach in "winning the hearts and minds" of the populace. One of the great strengths of the book was in Linn's account of how American "progressively minded" commanders used their institutional memory from their frontier service to institute civic improvement projects for the Filipino's in their districts. Such projects as building roads, schools, providing medical care, and forming locally elected governments, all helped the Americans to attain their goal of pacifying the population so they would accept American sovereignty. At the same time, in most instances these commanders used their troops effectively to search out and destroy the guerrilla forces. Linn did not shy away from recounting instances where the American forces exceeded General Order No. 100 delineating the laws of war and committed war crimes. However, he did not think these atrocities were numerous enough to besmirch the reputation of the American forces overall with prosecution of the Philippine War as has been done by so many history textbooks over the years. Linn also found in his research that the ultimate success of the American campaign was due to several factors beyond American control. One of the most important reasons for American success was the political and military actions of Aguinaldo. "Beyond outlining general policies--to pursue a war of attrition through guerrilla tactics, to keep the population from collaborating with the Americans, to launch an offensive in the fall of 1900 to influence the U.S. elections--he did very little to determine the course of the war" (185-186). Historians as well as military officers should read Linn's book.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in military history, and American history.

I agree with many other reviewers that this is an informative book and that the author has clearly done his homework. However, a combination of style and organization of the material makes it extremely boring to read. This is a book for those who are REALLY interested in the topic not for the casual reader.

As Linn makes clear in this book, the conflict between the Americans and Phillippines after the Spanish-American War was unexpected. The Fils wanted independence and the American government did not know what it wanted. When McKinley finally figured out he could establish a base in the Pacific and get a colony, the Phillippinos fought the Americans for Manila and subsequently waged a standard and then guerrilla war in the islands for the next three years.

Linn makes it plain that the behavior of American troops overall was very good (my reading). There were some incidents such as stopping inter island trade and concentrating the rural peasants in the towns but there were few killings and torture sessions. In fact, the Phillippino insurgents used more grisly techniques on those who worked with the Americans. They included assassinations and torture. There were some instances of American troops looting and killing innocents, but they were the exception rather than the rule.

Although this book does not preport to be the overall history of this conflict, it gives a good insight as to what happened when the U.S. grabbed the Phillippine Islands as a colony. The book shows the perspective of the common American soldiers from general down to volunteer.

Dr. Linn's account of the Philippine war describes the complexities of fighting the Filipino insurrection both politically and militarily. Opposing the "popular history" accounts of this war, Linn suggests that victory in the Philippines was not merely a result of massacres and US atrocities against the Filipinos, but that Emilio Aguinaldo more so lost the conflict as a result of his inability to unite the insurrection under one, unified command. The American Forces also did much for the Filipinos in building infrastructure, making it difficult to produce a mass anti-American sentiment.
Linn researched this book extensively using dozens of primary sources from national archives, both in the US and in the Philippines. A fantastic book and a great perspective.