Philippine Insurrection, Research Paper Example

American involvement in the Philippine’s begun after the Naval Officer Dewey asked for additional manpower from Washington. This resulting from his lack of sufficient manpower (troops) in order to capture the Spanish garrison in Manila. The US Naval secretary responded by sending him an additional 5,000 troops and this ultimately resulted in the defeat of the Spanish.  The battles were not without significant cost and resulted in the loss of 4,234 Americans, thousands more wounded and tens of thousands Philippine casualties.

The Americans were introduced to a new kind of warfare from the Spanish, that of guerrilla warfare tactics. In 1989 General Antonio Luna favoured this approach in order to harass the Americans, hoping that they would get frustrated and leave the Islands. They switched from the use of large battalions to that of small mobile units engaged with ‘hit and run’ tactics. Additional military tactics included that of ambushing American supply columns, setting up booby traps on the trails that the Americans used, putting trip wires on paths connected to bows and arrows or spears, destroying telegraph poles and disrupting communications. They avoided casualties by selecting soft target where they had numerical advantage of troops. The insurgents also conducted a terror campaign against the local people in order to gain their forced cooperation and support. “Unfortunately, even with 60,000 troopsoccupying over 400 garrisons, the Americans could notprotect the entire population of the Philippines.” (Andrews, August 2002).

The Philipinos were delighted with the fall of Spanish power and believed independence would follow. Dewey stated that initially they needed to be governed by an American force because of others who were looking at potential conquest of the Islands “German Far Eastern fleet threatened Dewey’s smaller navy prior to the events at Manila Bay. Only the timely appearance of British ships enabled the Americans to continue their conquest” (US History, 2010).  The British did not necessarily want to see the Americans become a major power in the Pacific but they recognized a pending war looming with Germany and as such wanted to retain America as allies.  The prospect of Americans staying and failure to obtain independence created a further period of war in 1899 “The insurrection raged for more than two years, exacting a far higher toll than the Spanish-American War. More than 120,000 American soldiers served in the conflict; at least 4,200 were killed. More than 16,000 Filipino fighters died” (US History, 2010).

Works Cited

Andrews, F. L. (August 2002). The philippine insurrection (1899-1902):. Louisiana: Louisiana State University.

US History. (2010). Wars and Battles, Aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Retrieved 10 19, 2010, from US History: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h830.html