Jungle of Snakes Read Online Free Page B

president told Congress, “No effort will be spared to build up the vast places desolated by war and by long years of misgovernment.
     We shall not wait for the end of strife to begin the beneficent work. We shall continue, as we have begun, to open the schools
     and the churches, to set the courts in operation, to foster industry and trade and agriculture.” Thereby the Filipino people
     would clearly see that the American occupation had no selfish motive but rather was dedicated to Filipino “liberty” and “welfare.” 9
    In fact, Otis and other senior leaders had completely misjudged the situation. They did not perceive that the apparent disintegration
     of the insurgent army was actually the result of Aguinaldo’s decision to abandon conventional warfare. Instead, the ease with
     which the army occupied its objectives throughout the Philippines brought a false sense of security, hiding the fact that
     occupation and pacification—the pro cesses of establishing peace and securing it—were not the same at all. A correspondent
     for the New York Herald traveled through southern Luzon in the spring of 1900. What he saw “hardly sustains the optimistic reports” coming from headquarters
     in Manila, he wrote. “There is still a good deal of fighting going on; there is a wide-spread, almost general hatred of the
     Americans.” 10 Events would show that victory required far more men to defeat the insurgency than to disperse the regular insurgent army.
     Before the conflict was over, two thirds of the entire U.S. Army was in the Philippines.
    How the Guerrillas Operated
    Otis’s offensive had been final, painful proof to the insurgent high command that they could not openly confront the Americans.
     Consequently, on November 19, 1899, Aguinaldo decreed that henceforth the insurgents adopt guerrilla tactics. One insurgent
     commander articulated guerrilla strategy in a general order to his forces: “annoy the enemy at different points” while bearing
     in mind that “our aim is not to vanquish them, a difficult matter to accomplish considering their superiority in numbers and
     arms, but to inflict on them constant losses, to the end of discouraging them and convincing them of our rights.” 11 In other words, the guerrillas wanted to exploit a traditional advantage held by an insurgency, the ability to fight a prolonged
     war until the enemy tired and gave up.
    Aguinaldo went into hiding in the mountains of northern Luzon, the location of his headquarters secret even to his own commanders.
     He divided the Philippines into guerrilla districts, with each commanded by a general and each subdistrict commanded by a
     colonel or major. Aguinaldo tried to direct the war effort by a system of codes and couriers, but this system was slow and
     unreliable. Because he was unable to exercise effective command and control, the district commanders operated like regional
     warlords. These officers commanded two types of guerrillas: former regulars now serving as full-time partisans—the military
     elite of the revolutionary movement—and part-time militia. Aguinaldo intended the regulars to operate in small bands numbering
     thirty to fifty men. In practice, they had difficulty maintaining these numbers and more often operated in much smaller groups.
    The lack of arms badly hampered the guerrillas. A U.S. Navy blockade prevented them from receiving arms shipments. The weapons
     they had were typically obsolete and in poor condition. The ammunition was homemade from black powder and match heads encased
     in melted-down tin and brass. In a typical skirmish, twenty-five rifle-armed guerrillas opened fire at point-blank range against
     a group of American soldiers packed into native canoes. They managed to wound only two men. An American officer who surveyed
     the site concluded that 60 percent of the insurgents’ ammunition had misfired. Although the insurgents typically had prepared
     the ambush site complete with their guns