THE U.S. ARMY AND THE MORO WARS (part 4/4) - Kris versus krag -

LIGHTNING FROM THE CLOUDS:
THE U.S. ARMY AND THE MORO WARS

By Dirk deRoos

MAP AND UNIFORM DRAWINGS

BY GREG ROSE



"KRIS VERSUS KRAG"
These two formidable adversaries, the young and expanded American "colonial" army and the ticklishly proud Moros were bound to clash with dramatic results.

On May 20, 1899 Capt. Pratt in command of two battalions of the 23rd Infantry received the peaceful surrender of the Spanish garrison at Sulu. By this act the United States succeeded to theoretical control of the Sulu Archipelago, the heart of the Moro's domain. But the real power there had never the Spaniards. It was instead the dozens of local Moro "datus" and their titular ruler, the Sultan of Sulu. Through religious and feudal influence and the 10,000 armed followers he could summon-up the Sultan was a figure to be reckoned with. He was uneasy about these new foreigners, but only wanted a fight upon his own terms. So the Sultan was cautious. At his first meeting with Capt. Pratt he asked the Captain some questions:

Why do you come here? For land, you have plenty at home. For money, your are rich and I am poor. Why are you here?

The Captain's answers may have been a bit vague. Negotiations dragged on until August of 1899 when General John C. Bates and the Sultan finally agreed upon a "treaty." Under this agreement, American troops garrisoned a few coastal towns and villages and patrolled the interiors in a limited manner, usually on make-shift river gunboats. The Spaniards had also used gunboats, having a number of specially constructed vessels that patrolled Lake Lanao on Mindanao. But these had been sunk by their crews in frustration at the time of the Spanish surrender.

The American vessels were much more improvisational. A typical "gunboat" consisted of a retired Spanish cargo boat, perhaps an old side-wheel steamer, no more than 100 feet long, with a 30 or 40 foot beam, and of very shallow draft. The American would strengthen the deck with heavy timbers and add a turret or two of steel plates and two thicknesses of steel plate for upper deck armor. Three-inch naval guns or 1.65-inch Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns filled the turrets, with some secondary batteries of tripod-mounted Gattling or Colt machine guns bristling from the sides of this river-borne "dreadnought."

Perhaps encouraged by the gunboats cruising through the heart of his realm the Sultan admonished his vassals to remain at peace, at least as the Moros understood that concept. Criminals accused of crimes not committed by Moro against Moro were to be surrendered to American justice. The Sultan for his part was to remain on his good behavior. The Americans for their part were to leave the Sultan, his vassals, and their traditions alone. It worked for three years.

U.S. forces were certainly in the middle of several Moro versus Moro struggles, and American soldiers and Moro warriors occasionally skirmished on some remote jungle path or river. To the Moros that was only natural. There were also some bloody incidents portending what was to come (one of which is described in SAVAGE AND SOLDIER, Vol. XII, No. 4, Oct-Dec, 198). But, in general, U.S. troops in the few existing coastal towns of the Moro islands lived a quiet, if cautious, garrison life.

However, by mid-1902 all pretense of peace had ended. Anyone who knew the Moros could not have expected otherwise. Slavery was a significant institution in Moro culture, and slaves the primary source of wealth. Any power claiming to prohibit slaver struck at the root of the Moro warrior and his raiding society.

Suddenly the Moros returned with a vengeance to the old predatory days of ambush, piracy and raiding. American patrols were routinely attacked and "juramentado" incidents increased. An so, another "perfidy" had to be punished. Preparations were made for punitive expeditions to put-down the Moros.

The first major American expedition against the Moros occurred on Mindanao in 1902. Colonel Frank D. Baldwin commanded a 1,500 man punitive force comprised of the 27th Infantry Regiment with an attached battery of maintain artillery. Some accounts indicate that a small cavalry contingent also accompanied the force (which would have been typical of such expeditions). Baldwin's goal was the destruction of several "cottas" in the Lake Lanao region, which was a hot-bed of Moro recalcitrance under the fierce leadership of the Sultan of Bayang and the Datu of Bindayan. These were two particularly rough customers in a very difficult part of the country.

The 22-mile long Lake Lanao lies about 16 miles from the north coast of Mindanao. In 1902 its shores were dotted with Moro villages containing some 100,000 inhabitants. The area was a tangle of vegetation and swamps with no passable roads or tracks. Even the Spaniards who had claimed the area for several centuries had only undertaken its pacification in 1891, and then only with gunboats and a force of 4,000 regulars. The area "pacified" then consisted essentially of whatever was within range of the Spanish artillery at any given time.

In order to reach Lake Lanao Baldwin's force had to literally hack and saw its way through the underbrush, building its own trail for 25 miles until it reached the realms of the Sultan of Bayang and the Datu of Bindayan and gazed upon their especially medieval looking fortifications.

These two "cottas" were surrounded by a line of defensive trenches and garrisoned by a force that included several hundred men armed with rifles. The walls of the "cottas" themselves were ten feet high, and several feet thick, and were cover4d by a thick thorny growth so sharp that it was impossible to scale the walls without ladders. Baldwin's force had no ladders.

In the embrasures around the forts the Moros had installed several brass cannon which they knew how to use, and served with surprising efficiency.

After what proved to be an ineffectual bombardment by the American 3-inch pack howitzers against the several foot thick walls of the "cottas", Baldwin launched his infantry into the attack. The 27th met a barrage of rifle and cannon fire, but despite severe casualties fought its way across the trenches and up to the foot of the walls. There without ladders they were powerless to go any further. Buglers sounded the retreat and to the derision and obscene taunts of the Moros the force pulled back. Baldwin had to content himself with surrounding the "cottas" and waiting until scaling ladders could be constructed during the night to renew the attack the next day. That night was not a pleasant one. As Colonel Baldwin stated in his report on the action:

We had met with very serious losses having had one officer and nine enlisted men killed and three officers and thirty-seven enlisted men wounded, a few of whom could be brought to the rear in daylight as the moment they showed themselves the bearers would be shot down. When night came it was intensely dark and it was found impracticable to move them until the following morning in daylightÉMedical officers were on the field attending to the wounded as best they could. Added to the misery of the situation both for wounded and men on the line, a heavy rain set in which lasted all night long. The suffering of these wounded men, having to lie on the battlefield as they did, could not be alleviated and would have been made more aggravated had an effort been made to move them to the rear during the darkness, as the country to be traversed was filled with pitfalls, sharpened stakes, and ditches covered with grass.

2ter Teil folgt...