Battle of Manila (1899)

The Battle of Manila was fought on February 4th and February 5th 1899 during the Philippine American War, between 12,000 Americans and 15,000 Filipinos. It was the first and largest battle fought during the war. For the Spanish-American War battle of the same name, see: Battle of Manila (1898)

It began when an American sentry fired and killed a Filipino who did not halt when the American told him to. Soon after, firing broke out across the ten mile Filipino and American lines. Allthough the sentry might have been drunk, he was following orders. In fact, the American generals ordered the men to instigate a fight between themselves and the Filipinos, or make them attack in order to justify a war between the two countries.

But contrary to American belief that the Filipinos would run at the first sign of a fight, they galantly stood their ground. They even mounted a charge, routed a company of American soldiers, and succeeded in capturing a few artillery pieces, inflicting heavy casualties on the Americans. This was an impresive achievment considering nearly all of their high ranking officers were attending a dance, celebrating their victory over Spain. They were for the most part leaderless.

But even when their officers did arrive to the field, the more influential ones wanted to stop the fighting. Aguinaldo sent many emmissaries to negotiate a peace treaty, but when they arrived, General Otis replied: "Fighting having begun, must go on to the grim end."

They still managed to hold the American advance in check for 10 hours, before their positions were shelled with powerful artillery barages from the warships in the bay, that desimated their positions and ground they had taken. Many Philippine soldiers were literally blown to pieces. Then after the demoralizing bombardment, the Americans attacked with a force of 5,000 men and routed the worn and bloodied Filipino forces.

Both sides suffered extremely heavy losses. The Americans suffered nearly 300 casualties, 60–70 of which killed. The Filipinos inturn suffered hundreds more, around 2,000 killed, wounded, or captured. The high casualty figures are do mostly to the Americans lethal use of artillery, and warships.

Shortly after this battle, Aguinaldo and his forces were pushed north, where they suffered defeat after defeat, untill they shifted to guerilla warfare, that only prolonged an already unrelenting war.

See Also

• Battles of the Philippine-American War