The Philippine War, 1899-1902

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 wi

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.

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.

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.

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.