Asymmetrical warfare, 1906 looks at the long war against the Muslim Moros of the Philippines:
They had never been Filipinos: their identity pre-existed King Philip of Spain; their national consciousness had always been as Muslims. After the first Mohammedan missionary arrived in Sulu in 1380 parts of the island of Mindanao had constituted themselves into the Sultanate of Sulu. A succession of Europeans: the Portuguese, French, British, and Spaniards had attempted to incorporate it into their respective colonial schemes but the Muslim Malays, led by Imams who controlled ruthless kris killers, resisted implacably. When beaten on the battlefield they simply surrendered out of convenience, signed a peace treaty and disregarded it once the enemy force had left.When the US acquired Mindanao after the beating Spain in the Spanish-American war, Americans came face to face with what came to be known as asymmetrical warfare. Here were attacks on civilians, beheadings, raids on schools. All the stuff of modern headlines. And in the pre-explosive era the ultimate weapon of Imams was the suicide bomber of the day: the juramentado.
To make his point, Wretchard cites a few colorful passages from Victor Hurley’s Jungle Patrol:
Then all firing ceased as the men went at it in a furious bayonet to barong duel that was a fight to the finish. At the nearest cavalry tent a white soldier rolled out under the wall, rifle in hand. Before he could stand up a Moro was upon him. Another soldier crawled out and the Moro leaped to him. My Corporal Batiokan ran up to crush the Moro’s skull with a rifle butt. Blood was squirting from two great gashes in the cavalrymen’s back. Soldiers came running to carry away the wounded man. Their uniforms were red with blood. … One of the men was past medical aid. He had been chopped to ribbons, with arms and legs severed and lying apart from his body. …Seven of the eight juramentados who had made the attack had succeeded in getting through the wire in the face of the fire. One lay dead outside the wire and seven were stretched out in the enclosure when morning came and we made inspection. The hospital was lined with terribly wounded men, slashed with barongs, and we were forced to kill many of the slashed horses who had been in the path of the charging Moros. The juramentados who had plunged through the wire in a desperate dive had left skin and clothes on the wire. They were horribly torn from head to foot by the long barbs. They were riddled with bullets, and many had heads bashed in and bayonet stabs. They lay there, with glittering eyeballs and bared black teeth. Their heads were shaven and their eyebrows were a thin line of hair.