America At War - Concise Histories Of U.S. Military Conflicts From Lexington To Afghanistan (15 page)

However, in administering the Philippines, the Americans were far different than the Spanish. The Americans strengthened native municipal governments. They established schools and reformed both the legal system and the tax code. They improved the Filipino police force and established the Philippine Scouts as an effective partner of the U.S. Army. As important, the Americans brought with them economic prosperity. The result of all this was to make American rule more than acceptable to many Filipinos, though not to all.

Reinforcing this U.S. commitment to the Philippines was an increase in the number of American soldiers stationed there. As tension between the insurgents and U.S. troops grew, Merritt called for additional men. These soon arrived. When, in February 1899, war broke out between the insurgents and the U.S. army of occupation, the Americans were not outnumbered. Indeed, as this new war progressed—and it was a war—even more soldiers were sent. By the fall of 1899, the United States had 17,300 troops on the islands. By December of the next year that number had risen to 69,420.

In battle against the insurgents the U.S. Army did well. They did so well that as a conventional fighting force, the Filipino Army of Liberation dissolved, becoming a guerilla force. Over time, however, it inflicted nearly 4,000 casualties on the Americans, of whom 1,004 were killed. But, once again, disease was a more powerful force. Cholera, typhus, smallpox, malaria, and typhoid fever caused more American deaths than did combat. The War Department later reported that 2,748 men died of disease in the Philippines.

The number of Filipinos killed is uncertain, although casualties far exceeded those of the Americans. Some of those killed or wounded had been subjected to torture, which in the guerilla war made an appearance on both sides.

The last year of the war—President Theodore Roosevelt declared it over in July 1902—saw mostly small-scale actions. Patrols were ambushed, villages overrun, and supply lines attacked. Ten to thirty soldiers might be involved in a firefight. This stage of the conflict was not unlike a later war, in Vietnam, though the outcome was far different. U.S. successes in battle and more peaceful American endeavors in governing the islands caused the insurrection to fade away.

Many of the rebellious Filipinos simply gave up. Many of those then aided the Americans, as did many who were captured. Perhaps the most daring event of the war was the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the insurgents. He was hiding out in the mountains of Luzon. When the Americans learned of his whereabouts, they hatched an audacious plan. Colonel Frederick Funston and several other officers posed as prisoners of Filipino soldiers allied with the Americans, who themselves were disguised as insurgents. They trekked to Aguinaldo’s mountain hideout and surprised the Filipino commander. According to David J. Sibley, one of but a few American historians of the war, the plan was “beyond daring. It was suicidal.” But it worked. Surprise was complete and Aguinaldo was taken prisoner. The capture took place on March 23, 1901. It was Aguinaldo’s birthday. Yet he was to have the last laugh, or more important, realize his dream of Philippine independence. In 1946, when the United States relinquished its claim to the archipelago, Aguinaldo, by then a very old man, was present at the ceremony.

Might Spain, in 1898, have defeated the United States?

The United States quickly and decisively defeated the army and navy of Spain. Could the outcome have been different? Could Spain have won?

It seems unlikely. Her navy was no match for America’s. The U.S. ships were modern warships, well armed and well crewed. Spanish vessels were the opposite. Control of the sea was certain to fall to the Americans. This meant that the U.S. invasions of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines were not to be contested at sea. Only on land might the Spaniards have successfully confronted the invaders. Their best hope of victory was to have prevented the landings at Daiquiri and Siboney. When they failed to do so, the outcome no longer was in doubt. The American army, despite inadequacies, was not lacking in numbers or courage. Once ashore, it was intent on winning. And so it did. The Spanish might have fought on beyond the August 12 armistice, but the end result would have been the same.

Might the second war, the war in the Philippines, have been avoided?

Once Major General Wesley Merritt and his men took control of Manila, the future of the Philippines became an issue. Who was to govern the archipelago? When the United States decided on annexation, thereby becoming a colonial power, it not only had to put in place a civil administration, it also had to deal with thirteen thousand armed native insurgents who, naturally enough, were suspicious of American intentions. Given that the United States was not going to leave or prematurely grant independence to the island inhabitants, these insurgents were bound to resist, as they had done with the Spanish. War was inevitable. What is remarkable is not that armed conflict broke out, but that the Filipinos did so poorly. The U.S. Army fought well, and triumphed. In this little war—about which most Americans know little—the United States relatively easily subdued those who challenged its control.

Who was responsible for the loss of the
Maine
?

On January 25, 1898, the United States battleship
Maine
dropped anchor in the harbor of Havana. The ship was there to protect American interests and to remind the Spanish of America’s military might. Twenty days later, the warship blew up. The ship was a total loss. Of a 358-man crew, 253 men were killed. Americans everywhere were outraged, pointing the finger at Spain. “Remember the
Maine
!” became a battle cry as the United States went to war.

The U.S. Navy immediately convened a court of inquiry to investigate the loss of the ship. Late in March 1898, it concluded that the
Maine
had been destroyed due to an explosion in an ammunition bunker. The cause of the explosion, the court reported, was a submerged mine situated near the bottom of the vessel. Who placed the device close to the ship was not addressed.

Spain denied it had done so. Certainly, blowing up the
Maine
was not in the best interests of the Spanish. The ship’s destruction brought war with the United States much closer, a war—as we’ve seen—that Spain was unlikely to win.

The one group to benefit from the destruction of the American warship was the Cuban insurgents. To rid the island of the Spanish required the intervention of the United States. What better way to achieve this than to do something guaranteed to inflame the American public. No Cuban, then or later, has said they planted the mine. But if the Spanish did not, who did? Assuming the Cuban insurgents were responsible is not a far-fetched proposition.

However, it may be that a submerged mine did not cause the explosion.

As with other warships of the day, the
Maine
was powered by steam generated by the burning of coal. Hence ships carried large quantities of the black fuel. The coal was stored in bunkers, compartments well below the main deck. On occasion, small fires spontaneously broke out in the coal bunkers. These would be detected and extinguished. What if, as many now believe, a fire had started in one of the battleship’s coal bunkers and, undetected, had spread to where the ammunition was stored? The result would have been a very destructive explosion. It is therefore quite possible that a small, onboard coal fire and not a mine brought about the loss of the battleship.

In truth, we simply do not know with certainty what caused the explosion that doomed the
Maine
. It may have been a mine set in place by the Spanish, or by the Cubans. Or it may have been a fire in one of the ship’s coal bunkers.

Why, for Americans, is the War with Spain worth recalling?

The war itself was brief and won with relatively few casualties. True, men did die and the casualties of the two conflicts are not inconsequential. But the numbers are small and the sacrifice seems long forgotten. Yet the victories of 1898 and of 1902 had important consequences for the United States. Puerto Rico became an American responsibility (and is now a self-governing commonwealth associated with the United States). Guam and Wake, two islands in the Pacific, became American territories. But most important, the United States took control of the Philippines. This meant that America had to govern the archipelago, which, in the event, it did quite well. It also meant that the United States assumed responsibility for the defense of the islands. This required a navy, a rather large navy. With the Philippines as an American outpost, the United States was forced to become a Pacific power. No longer would the president and the military tilt toward Europe and Latin America. Now they would look west as well.

6

WORLD WAR I

1914–1918

In June 1914, a single act of political murder in Bosnia set in motion a sequence of events that resulted in a war in Europe, a war that soon reached far distant parts of the globe. The impact of this conflict would be devastating to both individuals and nations. More than eight million soldiers would lose their lives. They would die in mud, in the desert, on snow-covered mountains, and at sea. They even would die in the air. In France, 630,000 women would become widows. In Belgium, Serbia, Turkey, and elsewhere innocent civilians, including women and children, would perish, many of them simply executed. Countries too would die, and maps would need to be redrawn. The Austrian-Hungarian Empire of the Hapsburgs would disappear. The German Imperial State would collapse and its kaiser would move to Holland, emperor no longer. The Ottoman Empire, ruler of what is now Turkey and much of the Middle East, would share the fate of the Hapsburgs and cease to exist. The tsar and Romanov rule in Russia would come to a violent end, replaced by the Bolsheviks. America, late to the war, would emerge relatively unscathed, in better shape than all the nations that earlier had sent their young men to fight and die.

The conflict of 1914–1918 was to be a milestone in human history. Nothing like it had ever occurred. Those who lived through it called it the Great War. Today, less aware of its impact, we refer to it simply as World War I.

***

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the throne of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. This was an empire that had seen better days. Comprised of many different nationalities—its subjects spoke twelve different languages—the Austrian-Hungarian state in 1914 was a ramshackle affair, conservative to the core, with an army that was large but not terribly effective. On June 28, their wedding anniversary, Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, which, though part of the empire, contained many Serbs. To the south and adjacent to Bosnia was Serbia, an independent nation many of whose people, then, as now, were prone to violence. The Serbs detested the empire of Austria-Hungary, whose rulers reciprocated the feeling.

Thus, no one was surprised when with the complicity of Serbia, a young Bosnian radical shot and killed the archduke and his wife. Correctly blaming Serbia, the empire, with Germany’s approval, declared war on its southern neighbor. That upset Russia, which, because of race and religion, considered itself the protector of Serbia. Russia mobilized its armed forces. That in turn alarmed Germany, which saw Russia and its vast number of men eligible for military service as a direct threat to its security. Germany then put its armed forces on notice, which in turn made the French extremely nervous. Forty years earlier, France had been invaded by Germany and, defeated in battle, had ceded to the victor the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. These the French considered theirs, and they hoped someday to regain them. When the German army mobilized, France naturally enough brought its own military to full alert.

In 1914 most military experts believed that in any war the army that attacked first would win. Armies that found themselves on the defensive, these experts predicted, likely would lose. Once mobilization had been ordered, most generals, and certainly those of the kaiser, believed the war in effect had begun. Once Russia had ordered its army to get ready, German generals considered their country at war.

Though formally at peace with one another, the nations comprising Europe in 1914 were highly distrustful of those countries they viewed as adversaries. Competing desires for empire, rivalry in trade and industry, different political traditions and forms of government, as well as armies and navies that planned for war all made Europe a tinderbox ready to explode. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand provided the spark. True, diplomacy could have doused the flame, but it didn’t. The result was that in August 1914, the world went to war, and the killing began.

Geography had not been kind to Germany. To its east lay Russia, to its west France. With good reason, these countries viewed the kaiser’s army with alarm. They had an agreement that if one were attacked, the other would come to its aid. Hence, Germany found itself trapped. Each of the two, so the kaiser believed, sought to deny Germany’s rightful place in Europe and the world. But France and Russia were not the only nations he considered to be holding Germany back. With its huge navy, Great Britain also stood ready to limit Germany’s influence. In response, Imperial Germany, under the guidance of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, had built a strong navy. It was not as powerful as Britain’s, but it was a force sufficient to command respect.

German war strategy in 1914 took into account both geography and the armed forces of Russia, France, and Britain. First developed by Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1906, its essence was retained by Helmuth von Moltke, who in 1914 was the German army’s commander in chief. Moltke and Schlieffen reasoned that Russia could not mobilize its troops quickly. Germany’s best bet then was to strike first at France and do so with overwhelming strength. The plan was to defeat Germany’s enemy in the west, then, by rail, transport the victorious army to the east, there to confront the Russian horde. The kaiser’s generals estimated that they had forty days in which to beat the French. After that, the Russian menace in the east had to be addressed. Moreover, given that Russia would grow stronger over time, it would be best to strike sooner rather than later.

France too had prepared for war. It had constructed a series of powerful forts along its border with Germany. Any attack there by the kaiser’s troops would run into interlocking fields of fire intended to halt the German advance. But General Joseph Joffre, chief of the French army, wanted to do more than simply hold back the Germans. He wanted his forces to attack. His plan, labeled War Plan XVII, envisioned an offensive into Germany, the goal of which was to retake Alsace and Lorraine.

Aware of the forts and of France’s desire to recover Alsace and Lorraine, Schlieffen had developed an extremely bold plan. The German army would strike not across the border with France. Rather, it would attack from the northwest, through Belgium. The army’s right wing, its most powerful element, would swing wide, crushing both Belgian and French forces, then sweep south to the west of Paris, coming around the city to hit from the rear those French forces that were facing the rest of the German attack.

Though aware that marching through Belgium might bring Great Britain into the war, Germany’s generals were not concerned. The British army was small and not likely to arrive in time. And if it did, it easily could be pushed aside. As to Belgium, its army too was small. The forts on which it relied for defense simply were to be blown to pieces by specially designed heavy guns. Could Moltke and the eight separate field armies he had at his disposal execute von Schlieffen’s plan?

***

On August 4, 1914, German forces crossed into Belgium, heading for France. Two armies were kept home to protect Alsace and Lorraine. Another, the Eighth, was positioned to the east, guarding the nation’s border with Russia. Thus Moltke dispatched five separate German armies to hit the French. Two of them, the First and the Second, constituted the strong right wing of the strike force. Commanded respectively by Generals Alexander von Kluck and Karl von Bulow, they together numbered well over half a million men. It was an impressive force. The kaiser and his army commander in chief believed it was unstoppable.

It was true that Belgium’s army was small, but when King Albert ordered it to oppose the Germans, it did so, and it did so bravely, delaying the German advance.. The results, however, were as the kaiser’s generals had predicted. The forts Belgium had built were destroyed, and those Belgian soldiers not killed or wounded retreated, joining up with the French Fifth Army, which itself was defeated in battle.

Nevertheless, the French commander in chief, true to his desire for offensive action and consistent with War Plan XVII, had sent two armies into Alsace and Lorraine. Attacking along a seventy-five-mile front, the soldiers ran into the two armies Moltke had deployed there. At first the French did well. But by late August they had given way in the face of strong German counterattacks.

By this time, the British too had suffered losses. Once Belgium’s neutrality had been violated by the Germans, the government in London had sent most of the British army to France. What was called the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) began arriving on August 14. It went into action almost immediately. At Mons and Le Cateau, the soldiers of King George V fought hard, inflicted casualties on the Germans, but fell back. At Le Cateau, a small village southeast of Cambrai, the BEF had eight thousand men killed or wounded. Not since Waterloo in 1815 had Britain’s army seen such combat.

So far the Germans had done quite well. They had pushed aside the Belgians, defeated the French, and caused the British to retreat. Closing in on Paris, they reached the Marne River on September 3. That same day the French government abandoned the capital, setting up shop in Bordeaux, far to the south. Soon, German troops crossed the Marne. Some of their heavy guns began shelling Paris. Victory for the kaiser and his generals seemed close at hand.

However, Joseph Joffre did not panic. Calmly, as the Germans advanced, he redeployed his troops (as each day he calmly enjoyed a lengthy lunch, then a nice nap). He also took note of a gap that had opened between the German First and Second Armies. The former, Kluck’s command, had not circled west of Paris. Intent on destroying French forces before him, it had swayed from Schlieffen’s original plan. Paris was on its right flank. To its left, but not close by, was Bulow’s Second Army.

All along a two-hundred-mile front, the battle raged. Defending the French capital, to Kluck’s right, was the French Sixth Army. Among its soldiers were the garrison of Paris. Their commander, General Joseph Gallieni, had requisitioned six hundred Renault taxicabs to transport these troops, five men at a time, to the army. He soon would become known as “the savior of Paris.” His vehicles, the taxies, would pass into legend.

Farther to the east, very much in the fight, Joffre had placed the newly created Ninth Army. Its commander, Ferdinand Foch, had performed well in the defense of Nancy, a major city in northeastern France. In 1918, Foch would play a key role in the Allies’ final victory. He was a capable commander with an aggressive approach to warfare. In the Battle of the Marne, he drafted a signal that, like the Parisian taxis, would become legendary: “My center is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I attack.”

The kaiser’s troops fought hard. But they had marched a long way since crossing into Belgium. They were tired and no longer at full strength, having suffered numerous casualties. More important, by early September, they were short of supplies. Logistics—that critical component of both ancient and modern warfare—were to be their undoing. The German army simply could not keep its divisions fighting in France adequately supplied. German units were short of practically everything, particularly food. So the kaiser’s generals were forced to concede defeat. On September 9, the fortieth day, Bulow ordered his Second Army to withdraw. This meant the other German armies had to do the same. The Battle of the Marne was over.