Wikipedia @ 25: Wesley Merritt

To celebrate the site’s 25th birthday this year, Wikipedia is encouraging/challenging people to read one Wikipedia article a day for 25 consecutive days. I felt that I could do one better than that: not only reading an article but – where I found one that was particularly interesting – to write a blog post or record a podcast episode for each of those days, sharing what I learned. For each entry, I’ll hit “random article” a few times until something catches my interest, start reading, and then start writing! Everything I’ve written below came from Wikipedia… so you should check other sources before you use it to do your homework. Happy birthday, Wikipedia!

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Today’s random article: Governor-General of the Philippines
Today’s topic: Wesley Merritt

The Philippines spent a lot of modern history under colonial rule:

• First, from 1565, by the Spanish out of their Viceroyalty of New Spain (Mexico).
• Then by the British for a few years who captured it after Spain sided with France in the Seven Years War.
• Then back to Spain at the signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris, where, when Britain was arguing which captured territories it should be allowed to keep, everybody forgot about it and so it fell into the default bucket of “back to its previous controller”: it seems that Spain hadn’t even noticed that Manilla had been captured!
• Then, after the Mexican War of Independence… still under Spain, but now directly under the Spanish crown and managed from Madrid.
• And finally, courtesy of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, under the United States (with the exception of the period during which it was occupied by Japan).
• The Philippines finally gained independence in 1946.

As you might expect if you know anything about colonialism, there are absolutely horrible stories that could be told about any of those periods of history. So when I landed on the page Governor-General of the Philippines, I decided that it might be cheerier to pick out a person from it.

And so I picked what I believe to be the person whose term as Governor-General of the Philippines was shortest: in post for just 16 days in August 1898: Wesley Merritt.

Wesley was a cavalryman in the American Civil War during which, in 1863, he managed to leapfrog three ranks by getting promoted from Captain right up to Brigadier General. After the Civil War he was posted to the Texan frontier where he commanded a cavalry regiment in the American Indian Wars. His success in… umm… “freeing up land” for American settlers (it turns out this post can’t escape from the ugliness of imperialism)… lead him to a new role in using his troops to police the civilians rushing to “claim” land formerly occupied by native Americans.

But it’s right at the end of the 19th century that his story intersects with today’s random article.

As the 19th century wore on, the world-spanning Spanish Empire came under serious threat. The Napoleonic Wars had cut Spain off from its colonies, and one by one they lost control of Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, and others (often with thanks to quiet support from Britain). But Spain had managed to keep hold of Cuba and the Philippines, despite growing unrest and uprisings, which were often brutally suppressed.

Cuba in particular was a major trade partner to the United States, and so the US tried to insert itself as a negotiator in the war between the Cuban independence movement and the Spanish crown.

At the time, the US was working to establish itself as a modern naval power, building new steel warships to compete with European powers and Brazil, and making plans for what would eventually become the Panama Canal, and so this was a perfect opportunity to show off their armoured cruiser the USS Maine.

The Maine got sent to Havana as a show of force and to protect American interests in Cuba, where, a couple of weeks later, she… blew up.

Probably what happened was that the bituminous coal stored in her bunkers was leaking methane out, which spontaneously ignited, starting a fire that ignited the ship’s powder store. But some, including Theodore Roosevelt (who was then assistant navy secretary and on his way to becoming vice-president) and much of the popular press, claimed that the ship must have been struck by a Spanish mine or torpedo.

The next month, after Congress had had a chance to discuss the matter (do you remember when the US Congress used to have to be involved in the US declaring war on another country?), the US declared war on Spain and began actively attacking her fleets and colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The US fleet steamed into Manilla Bay for what might be the most one-sided naval battle ever. The Spanish fleet at Manilla would have been severely outmatched even were it not for the fact that the second-lead ship was unpowered, the shore batteries’ range was insufficient to be involved, and the mines had been placed suboptimally. Only a single American sailor lost his life in the battle, and it was apparently as a result of a heart attack.

Okay, we’re at last up to Wesley Merritt‘s bit. Merritt was placed in command of the ground forces that were tasked with capturing Manilla. They sailed out of San Francisco, landed in the Philippines, and prepared to attack the city.

Merritt and Admiral Dewey made a point not to coordinate with Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy, the leader of the Filipino resistance against the Spanish, who by this point had already taken control of most of the Philippines and besieged Manilla, cutting off its water supply and beginning negotiations with the local Spanish leaders. It seems that Americans feared that if the revolutionaries captured the city it would result in significant bloodshed as a result of violent looting and the murder of those who were seen to have collaborated with the Spanish, and so they came up with an alternative plan: the American expeditionary force would attack and capture the city first!

Working through the Belgian consul to Manilla Édouard André, Merritt negotiated with the Spanish Governor-General Fermín Jáudenes to arrange a “mock” battle. The ships in the bay would fire upon a fort that they knew was only used for storage and against defensive walls that they knew they were not capable of breaching, and Spanish troops would be ordered to retreat as Merritt’s soldiers advanced. Then, Merritt would demand that the Spanish surrender the city, and they would comply, turning it over to the American forces.

This would minimise casualties while allowing the Spanish Governor-General to avoid the shame of being seen to have lost the city to the revolutionaries (it being far more politically-acceptable to lose to the might of the American invaders). Meanwhile, Aguinaldo’s troops initially saw the battle as genuine, which led to some casualties as Filipino fighters advanced under fire; they joined the victims of other misunderstandings during the mock battle.

Needless to say, the Filipinos deeply resented being told to stay out of the capital city that, given time, they might well have taken for themselves by force, had their efforts not been leapfrogged by the USA. Ultimately this lead to a guerilla warfare campaign against the USA by Philippine nationalists, which in turn contributed to growing concern in US political circles that America was becoming exactly the kind of imperialist power that it had opposed, at least on paper, since its founding.

Anyway: on 13 August 1898 Wesley Merritt became the de facto Governor-General of the Philippines and the first American to hold that position. Two weeks later Major General Elwell Stephen Otis turned up and relieved him of the position, making Merritt the shortest ever Governor-General of the Philippines.

Merritt retired the next year and lived ten more years.

Anyway: that’s enough of today’s history lesson courtesy of a random Wikipedia page. I wonder what I’ll learn tomorrow! (If it’s as-interesting, I’ll let you know!)