Talk:Philippine–American War

Casualties?

I think the Filipino casualties section of the infobox should be changed. The estimate of one million civilian casualties isn't supported by most sources and those high estimates are said to have resulted from misreading of sources. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:C0F1:70A0:FCF4:F79E (talk) 00:14, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

McKinley vs. Taft as civilian commander

As of the time I have been writing this there have been multiple attempts to list William McKinley as a U.S. commander in this war. I feel that this is not the appropriate commander since the scale/stakes of this war are not high enough to have the president as top commander. The Philippines were an unrecognized state and seen as a rebellion by the U.S. at the time. The page for the Indian Mutiny, for example, does not list Queen Victoria as a top British commander. I feel as if Taft is the more appropriate civilian commander for this conflict as he was governor-general of the Philippines. Also as I have stated earlier, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson were also presidents during this war, so if McKinley should be put in the commanders section then so should the other three. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:A90B:4B5:2B91:7008 (talk) 19:38, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for discussing this here on the talk page instead of making unsupported changes to the article to that effect. I see several problems with the above:

• First and foremost, there is "I think". I'm not the best person to explain this, but editorial opinion has little weight in WP -- see the WP:Neutral Point of View policy. Also see the WP:Verifiability policy. For more info, ask about those at the WP:Teahouse. Basic policy is that article assertions need to be supportable, and usually should be supported by citing one or more reliable sources. Generally, common knowledge assertions such as "the sky is blue" don't need a supporting cite; that might apply in this case, it being common knowledge that the US president is commander in chief of US armed forces. There might be exceptional cases counter to common knowledge (sometimes, the sky is red), and such exceptions generally do need a supporting cite. It often happens that sources differ -- see WP:DUE (part of the NPOV policy) about that.
• The command structure on both sides of this war changed over its course. The infobox lists Otis as number two on the US side. It could name commanders not listed (e.g., Dewey and Merritt), but Otis is probably listed in the infobox because he was commander during most of the war's duration and/or because he was the hands-on commander during the most of the major fighting. The same arguments serve for listing McKinley instead of Roosevelt.
• Neither Taft nor Wilson were US president during this war. The war ended in 1902, Taft became president in 1909 and Wilson in 1913

I'll note here that I sent you a link to this missive from McKlnley to Elihu Root. his Secretary of War, appointing Taft to head the Second Philippine Commission and instructing that the commission be empowered to devote their attention to the establishment of civil government and, initially subject to approval, to civil legislative matters. As an anonymous editor, you may not have seen this link. I suggest that you create a WP account. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:46, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I do understand that the president is always commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but if we look at the List of wars involving the United States, you will find that most of the wars that aren't A-list wars like the Civil War or WW2 do not list the president as top US commander. Similar US colonial wars such as the Sioux Wars, Apache Wars and Mexican Border War do not include the president in the commanders section even though he was commander-in-chief of the forces. Therefore, in a B-or-C-list war like this one, the stakes aren't high enough to list the president as commander.

Also, the infobox states that the war lasted until 1913 and the commanders section still lists commanders who were involved after 1902 (e.g. Sakay, Datu Ali, Wood, Bliss, Pershing). So this article is about the entire Philippine conflict and not just the war against the nationalists, as you have stated. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:1836:5D90:E52B:B4AE (talk) 15:52, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I see that I screwed up the indenting in my final paragraph above and that you based your indent on that. I've corrected that. I'm outdenting this in order to avoid cumulative indentng problems in back&forth discussion. This discussion ought to involve more participants than you and I; I hope that other editors will join in using similar indenting.

Where are your A-List, B-list categories for wars defined? Is that categorization recognized in WP? Is it otherwise supported by reliable sources?

I had not noticed that dating to 1913 in the infobox. I see that the mention of this latter period apparently stems from this addition on November 17, 2009 of mention of the Moro Rebellion. The editor who added that is currently blocked, but I have not looked into the reasons for that. Though the Moro Rebellion and the P-A War overlapped in time, there seems to be little connection between them. Mention of that in the infobox appears to have little direct relation to the subject of this article, the lead paragraph of which says that the war was fought between the First Philippine Republic (FPR) and the United States from February 4, 1899, until July 2, 1902, and the leaders of the Moro Rebellion appear to have no connection with the FPR. From a quick look at mthat article, the rebellion apparently began with unprovoked ambushes of US troops which prompted Maj. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee, then the military governor of the Philippines, to issue a declaration on April 13, 1902, demanding that the killers of American troops be handed over. I won't get into more detail here but I will note that the office of Military Governor had been was terminated on July 2, 1902, with Taft and Chaffee apparently being both named as Governor-General of the Philippines on July 4. That sounds messy; I have not looked into the details, but my understanding is that the US considered the P-A war to be over at that point.

(added) I see that MOS:INFOBOXUSE

All of that probably needs a hard look, with revisions to this article and the other articles I've mentioned in mind. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:24, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The primary phase of the Philippine-American War lasted until 1902 but a number of historians, particularly Daniel Immerwahr in his book How to Hide an Empire: The History of the Greater United States define the war as including the Moro phase. This is also acknowledged by this article in the Post-1902 conflicts section.

Also I forgot to mention this earlier but Merritt's tenure as military commander in the Philippines ended before hostilities began, and Dewey had a very small and inconsequential role in the war to be a notable commander. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:A09B:F05:E1A0:2C89 (talk) 23:53, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

No argument re Dewey and Merritt; I should not have mentioned them. Re the rest. I think this is mainly involves two consideration, NPOV and article scoping.

The POV consideration is whether or not the conflict described in the Moro Rebellion article was a part of the war that is the subject of this article -- some sources say yes, some say no, some are unclear, some don't mention that. Per DUE, articles should air all significant viewpoints that have been published by cited reliable sources; per other parts of NPOV, POVs held by WP editors should not be allowed to impact articles.

Re article scoping, WP:LEAD says that the first sentence of an article should introduce the article topic by telling the nonspecialist reader what the subject is. The first sentence of this article currently reads: "The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Philippine Insurrection, Filipino–American War, or Tagalog Insurgency, was fought between the First Philippine Republic and the United States from February 4, 1899, until July 2, 1902." Taking that as written, the Moro Rebellion would be, at most, a sidelight mainly notable because of a conflict that occurred in the final months of the war period as defined in the article's lead sentence.

I propose (1) that the infobox be brought into conformance to the lead sentence definition of the article subject, (2) that the point that some sources disagree with the lead sentence's definition of the P-A war be mentioned in the article lead, exampling some cited significant RSs and (3) that the article be reviewed and edited to expand that point in summary style in the Post-1902 conflicts article section (note: that section currently cites a couple of examples of sources opining that the P-A war included some of these conflicts -- these cites would likely be relevant to the article scoping clarifications in the lead section). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:33, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Aside from Immerwahr's consensus, Samuel Kong Tan, a Filipino historian, also seems to suggest that the war included the Moro phase.[1] This viewpoint is shared by historian Reynaldo Ileto as well, who appears to concur that the war went on past 1902. So I'm guessing that part in the introductory paragraph on the war ending in 1902 should be removed?

And back to the topic on who should be considered the "civilian" commander. I do not think that the president should be listed as a commander in the infobox because despite being commander-in-chief of the forces, the pages of most other colonial wars do not list the head of state as a commander. At this point I am still not certain if any civilian commander or administrator should be included. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:25AD:4F45:8152:BA65 (talk) 19:26, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

The Moro Rebellion conflicts began after the dissolution of the First Philippine Republic and very shortly before the dates given in the Official end of the war article section. The basis of the two conflicts don't have much in common and both that other article and this one are pretty long. I can't see them being merged into a single article covering both conflicts as one. I see that as an article scoping issue requiring appropriate mentions OF RSs with viewpoints both ways. Re McKinley, I don't have a firm view, but I'm unclear on how one distinguishes a "A-List" article from a "B-List" one. I'm very unclear about who Otis reported to and took direction from. I'm not clear on the chain of command structure a century and a quarter ago, but he would probably report to either the Secretary of War (Elihu Root) or the President. What few mentions of him I've seen have given me the impression that Root wasn't very involved in nuts & bolts issues (see here). The McKinley was apparently concerned enough with the mechanics of getting the war out of the way and getting on with dealing with the fact of the cession to limit Otis to military issue and Taft to administrative and legislative issues in preparation for moving on from military concerns (or that's how I read things). I can't see listing Otis as military commander and leaving it at that; who do you see as his commander? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:01, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Otis, along with MacArthur, were pretty much in charge of the Philippines prior to the instatement of Taft. The war was not McKinley's primary focus during his presidency (unlike Lincoln or FDR) and he largely left it up to the military commanders. In fact Otis and MacArthur refused to compromise with the Philippine nationalists and were bent on completely extinguishing the insurrection, early in the war the Filipinos tried to surrender but Otis refused. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:7102:BF91:D29B:6377 (talk) 00:55, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Re the question of who was inn charge of conforming actions of the military mission to national policy, I've pretty much gotten that impression as well, but I've seen nothing to support or refute it. Also, "tried to surrender" is a major overstatment there -- see here (that source is cited in the p-a war article. Other sources supporting this are cited elsewhere). Later but still early in the fighting, Jacob Schurman (directly representing McKinley) thought that he had reached a deal with Aguinaldo (through a representative) to end the fighting and work out governmental details later along agreed guidelines, but Antonio Luna (and Mabini, I think) pressured/forced (my characterization) Aguinaldo to renege on that (see the Schurman Commission article and pp. 8-9 here). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

I see you have mentioned Jacob Schurman engaging in diplomacy with the Philippine Republic, this has been argued before but should Schurman actually be listed as top U.S. civilian commander? Like you said Schurman was a direct representative of McKinley but it seems he was more involved in the nuts and bolts of the war than McKinley was, don't know if there's any evidence of direct negotiations between McKinley and the Philippine government. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:D410:E107:94DC:DFF5 (talk) 01:12, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I haven't dug around in this area for some time. Following on your question about whether Schurman ought perhaps be listed as civilian commander, I looked around a bit in my spare time and turned up this, which says that McKinley issued instructions on June 18, 1899 to the commission partially paraphrased there as, "Without interfering in any way with the existing military government of General Otis, the civilian members of the commission were to [...]". Later on, it says, "Toward the end of the month Manuel Arguelles, a Filipino colonel, came to Manila as an emissary from Aguinaldo. He asked the commission for a truce so that his superiors might consider the proclamation [(a proclamation written in the name of the commission by Schurman, cited there but not quoted)]; but only General Otis could grant an armistice and the civilian members refused to urge this move upon him since that might have been interpreted as interference." So, I would say no to that. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:07, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

(added) {1) I see that {{infobox military conflict}}the docs for {{infobox military conflict}} say that the commander paramatrers are optional and, , "For battles, this should include military commanders (and other officers as necessary). For wars, only prominent or notable leaders should be listed, with an upper limit of about seven per combatant column recommended." I haven't looked at many articles re conflicts in the Philippines in this era with this in mind, but I have the impression that, in general, they don't follow this. That may be something which should be brought up at WT:Tambayan Philippines, but that guidance does seem at odds with the idea of A/B/C-List wars described above. (2) I've added a {{discuss}} template to the article re this. In doing that, I see that the list of military commanders has been expanded to include all top-level commanders in the timeline of this war. I happen to have looked at the OEF-P article recently and I see that, though I would categorize that as a battle article rather than war, I see that iot includes a dated entries for national commanders; I think that the entries ought to be timeline-dated if multiple commanders over a timeline are listed. (3) I've had some more thoughts re McKinley in particular and re national leaders as top military commander in general, but (a) I'm not quite ready to air them and (b) this discussion is already too long. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I am still of the opinion that McKinley should not be included since despite being commander in chief this wasn't seen as a major war by the US at the time and more like a local insurrection and was not between two sovereign nations as the Philippine Republic was an unrecognized state. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:E5DF:2B72:F9FD:DBDD (talk) 16:25, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I understand that's your opinion, based on your A-List/B-List categorization of U.S. wars. I haven't seen that in WP policies or guidelines or in the usage instructions for {{infobox military conflict}}. Re War vs. Insurrection in descriptive terminology, the RP government and the US government differed on that until, a few decades ago, the US State Department started calling the portion before July 4, 1902 a War. I saw plenty of support for the fact of that change being made at the time, but I haven't quickly been able to locate a citeable supporting source; I'm sure that there must be something out there. Regardless, I agree with you that after July 4, 1902 such incidents should properly be called insurrections. As such, they would be off-topic for this article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:29, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

(added) The WP guideline section WP:INFOBOXUSE says, "Each infobox type should have documentation giving instruction on how each part/field may be used." {{infobox military conflict}} does have such documentation. That same MOS section says, "Like navigation templates, infoboxes should avoid flag icons. For more information about flag icons, see MOS:FLAG." Clearly, this article flouts that. Despite having proposed action above, I don't currently plan on any action regarding this myself. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:59, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Moro Rebellion, Republic of Zamboanga not part of Philippine American War

Going by WP:LEAD and the current content in that section and the article body here, the Moro Rebellion is part of the Aftermath. It does overlap the war period very slightly date-wise but, aside from that, that conflict was between the rebels and the post-war Insular Government of the Philippine Islands.

I'm not sure re the Republic of Zamboanga but I think that any relevance mentioned should be clarified and supported. What was the connection, if any, of Vincente Alvarez with the Philippine Republic?

I've moved Arthur MacArthur Jr. down in the infobox list of U.S. commanders to better reflect his role during the period of this war. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

The Philippine-American War is considered to be a wider conflict that encompasses Aguinaldo's rebellion, the post-war insurgency, and Moro Rebellion, according to a number of modern consenses by historians, namely Daniel Immerwahr, Clayton D. Laurie, and Filipino historian Samuel K. Tan. This is reflected on the Moro Rebellion page which states that the rebellion was part of the wider war. Unless you find a source that explicitly states that the post-1902 conflicts were not a part of the war, said conflicts should remain as listed in the infobox. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:44FB:538D:3F6D:2AA8 (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

OK. Here's one: Wood, Leonard. "The Moro Rebellion". The Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickson State University. Retrieved August 16, 2023. The Moro Rebellion (1901-1913) occurred after the conclusion of the Philippine-American War and involved sporadic confrontations between the Muslim Filipinos living in the southern part of the Philippines and the American soldiers there to oversee the transition from Spanish rule to U.S. oversight.

However, it is not the mission of Wikipedia to develop a POV position on issues and selectively cite sources in support of that POV position. One of the foundational policies in WP is the policy on Neutral Point of View; please read at least the first paragraph of the section of that policy headed Due and undue weight (shortcut: WP:DUE). Do reliable sources with differing viewpoints on this exist? Yes, they do. Does this difference in viewpoints have sufficient topical weight for elaboration in this article? Probably. Is the issue currently elaborated sufficiently? I think so -- you clearly disagree.

Perhaps a paragraph should be added to the article explicitly calling attention to the fact that this article covers the period of officially declared war between the United States following the cession by Spain and the nascent First Philippine Republic, that conflicts following the end of this declared conflict and after the dissolution of that proclaimed but unrecognized government should be included in the topic, and that these conflicts are covered in other Wikipedia articles. I don't thinnk such a paragraph is necessary, but differences between editors over such questions are resolved in Wikipedia according to consensus among interested editors. I'm calling here for other interested editors to weigh in on this. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:40, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

This source does not appear to have been written by a historian and is definitely not from a book or journal so I wouldn't say it has strong grounding. Furthermore I feel like my last post in this subject was worded a bit poorly; this page covers the wider conflict in the Philippines which includes the post-war insurgencies in detail, so the infobox should reflect that as it has done so since 2009 as you stated. 2600:4040:9E16:3200:9D8A:79BD:FFA3:189 (talk) 22:27, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't follow all of that. However, the MOS:LEADSENTENCE begins: "The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where.". The lead sentenxce of this article currently reads: "The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Philippine Insurrection, Filipino–American War, or Tagalog Insurgency, was fought between the First Philippine Republic and the United States from February 4, 1899, until July 2, 1902." Taking those quotes roughly at face value, the article shouldn't focus on events following 1902. I seem to be just [a troll] here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:19, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Text of the Aguinaldo August 3, 1900 decree

In this edit, I added a bit and linked this image of Aguinaldo's August 3, 1900 decree. The text in the image is handwritten in the English language. I would like to include a transcription of the text either on the image page or in this article (preferably the former), but I haven't been able to read it all. I could ask for help with this in several places but, of those, I'm guessing that this is probably the one most likely to produce results. Most of the text is pretty readable, but there are a few places where neither myself nor my wife could make it out. We had saved a rough partial transcription, but that seems to have been lost. Help here would be appreciated. 17:59, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Filipino governmental situation following Aguinaldo's capture

Both the de-facto and de-jure situations re the continuance of the Philippine Republic government following Aguinaldo's capture need clarification here and in other articles. I have added some content at a point where such info needs mention in this edit about that, but this content probably contradicts other related material here and in other articles. This needs further editorial work with WP:DUE, WP:V in mind, probably starting with the insertion of Contradictory inline and {{Contradicts other}} templates at appropriate points in this and other articles. I wish I had the time and the available sources to dig further into this now, but I don't. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:50, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Note that my attempted citation of "Binay seeks help from historians for overlooking Malvar as 2nd RP president". taga-ilog-news. October 24, 2011., which I found cited regarding this in anothr article, was rejected by an edit filter. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:50, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

added info

I see in Villegas, Bernard (n.d.). "Revisiting the Philippine-American War". an assertion saying, "Based on the succession decrees that Aguinaldo himself issued, General Malvar would take the presidency of the republic", supported there by quotes apparently taken from Abaya, D.; Karganilla, B.L.M.; Villegas, E.M. (1998). Miguel Malvar and the Philippine Revolution: A Biography. Miguel Malvar (MM) Productions..

From the U.S. perspective on the ending date of the war, I see "The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902". Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. n.d. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed a general amnesty and declared the conflict over on July 4, 1902, although minor uprisings and insurrections against American rule periodically occurred in the years that followed.
Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)