The Battle of Bayan 1902 p3

The Battle of Bayan (May 2, 1902)

General Kobbe had been replaced by Brigadier General George W. Davis. At Kobbe’s recommendation, Davis entrusted Captain John J. Pershing, Kobbe’s former Adjutant General, to attempt to bring the Maranaos of Lake Lanao American sovereignty, as General Bates had done in the rest of Moroland peacefully through diplomacy and negotiation. Pershing, who had become conversant in the Maranao language and studied their customs, made exceptional progress with the most powerful datus at the north end of the lake towards that end. Davis became convinced that, with sufficient patience, diplomacy could achieve American objectives.

However, Davis had to contend with a newly-arrived, headstrong and stubborn second in command, Colonel Frank Baldwin, commanding officer of the 27th Infantry Regiment and three troops of the 15th Cavalry. Baldwin was no ordinary Colonel but an Army legend, one of the very few two-time recipients of the Medal of Honor (in the Civil War and against the Cheyenne). Baldwin thought Davis’ and Pershing’s initiative a waste of time. His instinct was not to parley but to show the Maranaos who was boss at the first opportunity, and that was soon presented. On March 9 a soldier strayed off post into the jungle and was found dead with his rifle missing. Three weeks later a second soldier was killed and one wounded taking a second rifle. The assailants were alleged to be Maranaos from the lake. Ignoring standing orders and without informing his superior General Davis, Baldwin embarked on a major punitive expedition to the southern end of Lake Lanao; although against whom and for what end was unclear. Hearing of the operation second-hand, General Davis cabled Baldwin, ordering an immediate halt to avoid hostilities. Baldwin ignored the order and assaulted and captured two small fortifications on his route of march. Davis cabled his superior, Department Commander Major General Adna Chaffee in Manila, asking for help.

In the meantime the expedition had run into more than a few difficulties. The old, narrow Gnassi trail, which led to the lake, climbed steeply up to almost 5,000 feet before descending 2,000 feet to the plain. Jungle overgrowth which almost obliterated the trail had to be laboriously hacked out by hand and its stream crossings were flooded and the bridges missing. Heat prostration and injuries plagued the soldiers struggling to reopen the trail, most of whom had only recently arrived from the U.S. and were not yet acclimated to tropical conditions, and a daily toll of spent men had to be sent back to Malabang for medical treatment and rest. A group of Maranaos ambushed an advance party of seventeen cavalrymen, killing one trooper and capturing a number of horses. The column came under steadily increasing and unpredictable sniper fire. By the time Baldwin’s expedition reached the top of the trail, it had been whittled down to fewer than 600 riflemen, all on foot, as the trail proved too much for the large cavalry horses. The supply line was seriously overextended, unreliable, and vulnerable. Nearly half the force ended up either defending the trail or carrying supplies up from the coast.

Meanwhile an alarmed General Chaffee sped down from Manila by steamer. In the last few months, a Congressional committee had opened investigations into charges of war atrocities committed by American troops in the two last major campaigns of the Philippine-American War, Batangas Province and on the island of Samar. The President and the administration had been greatly embarrassed and Roosevelt, vowing privately to declare an end to the troublesome and controversial conflict, ordered Chaffee at all costs not to pick any new fights.

Davis and Chaffee sped to Baldwin’s encampment and ordered a halt. All datus and sultans at the south end of the lake were invited to a conference in an attempt to cool down the confrontation. Meanwhile Captain Pershing, travelled to the north end of the lake for a meeting with its datus and sultans. In a tense atmosphere, with personal insults and challenges flung in his face, Pershing’s calm, reasoned presentation and the courage he demonstrated by coming alone and unarmed (save for an interpreter) convinced the most powerful datu in the region to counsel the others to restrain their followers from rushing to Bayan and to adopt a wait and see attitude. But despite the parleys, a hard core of several hundred Maranao warriors, coalesced around the Sultan of Bayan, and spat out their defiance. Reluctantly, Davis and Chaffee concluded that in order to avoid a major loss of face they had no choice but to slip the leash on Baldwin.

On May 2, 1902, seven companies of the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry advanced toward the settlement of Bayan on the south edge of Lake Lanao, accompanied by the 25th Battery Light Artillery with four small mountain guns. They were confronted by two large cottas, or forts, one called Binadayan and the other Pandapatan. Binadayan, lightly defended, was quickly taken with the loss of only one man, but the assault on Pandapatan, across a small valley and about 700 feet (215 meters) distant from Binadayan, was met by stiff resistance. The light mountain guns proved of little effect against its thick, mud walls. Surrounded by a ten-foot deep moat and vertical earthen walls ten-twelve feet high, the American assault force of a little over 200 men became entangled in a maze of bamboo lattices and sharpened stakes, “forming an almost impenetrable barrier to an assaulting party.”

At very close quarters, with the light beginning to fail and ammunition running out, the overwhelming firepower advantage of the Americans suddenly ceased to be a factor, and the men were forced to fix bayonets. But a bayonet-tipped rifle was poor defense against the deadly double-edged Moro short sword known as a kris or the equally lethal kampilan and barong. Certainly an ancient Greek warrior would have had little chance against a modern-day infantryman—until he ran out of bullets. Then the advantage would be dramatically reversed, and this is exactly what happened.

As the short tropical dusk ended and turned pitch black, the lead company lost its two officers and half its men in the space of a few minutes of hand-to-hand fighting. They were providentially saved by a sudden rain, an obscuring heavy deluge accompanied by a thick pea-soup fog. The men crawled away from the battlefield through the deep mud, dragging their wounded behind. It was not until dawn that they reached the safety of their lines after having suffered through a tense, fear-filled night with frequent squalls of cold rain and no food or cover, harassed by prowling Moros. Baldwin acted paralyzed, leaving all four companies to make their way back on their own. Fortunately a few brave artillerymen crawled out into the no-man’s land to locate and drag back the wounded. It was only due to their courage that so many survived.

But early the next morning, to new American assault party gathering on the parapets of Binadayan, a miracle seemed to happen. The heavy rain subsided, the fog lifted, and instead of the defiant red flags of the Sultan of Bayan, white flags of surrender flew over Pandapatan. A brief parley was held, and eighty-three Moros filed out of the cotta, lay down their arms, surrendered, and were marched across the valley to Binadayan. However, in the early hours of the next morning, at a concerted signal, the imprisoned Moros overpowered the guards, seized their guns, and all eighty-three took off running across the open ground. By chance, a change of guard had just formed, with rifles loaded, and fired on the fleeing prisoners running down the hill. Half were killed, eight wounded and recaptured, while the rest escaped.

From the post-mortem of the battle, it was estimated only about 600 Moros had opposed the Americans, with no more than 100 single-shot rifles and a few dozen ancient small-bore cannons. The number killed was estimated at between 300–400, higher than the actual body count of 200 as many had been observed being carried away or crawling into the high grass to die. The assault party against Pandapatan had totaled about 300 infantrymen, all armed with bolt action, five-shot .30-.40 Krags, a seemingly lop-sided advantage in firepower. Their casualties were seven killed and forty-four wounded. Four of those wounded died within several days, bringing the KIA count to eleven. Most of the wounds were caused by blades and quite severe (a large number of lost limbs), enough for most to be invalided for life.

Using eighteenth-century bladed weapons and tactics against a twentieth-century army, the Maranaos had inflicted serious damage. They had surrendered only because their leaders were killed and they had run out of ammunition. Despite abundant resources, Baldwin had outrun his supply lines and the ability of his reserve to respond, allowed his rations to run down to two days, failed to take along assault gear, such as ladders and scaling equipment, and left half his men stranded in no-man’s land without ammunition for an entire night.

The Muslim Imams quickly spread a story among the Maranao that, following the death of the Sultan of Pandapatan, the principal war leader, four angels appeared amidst a blinding flash of lightning and bore his body up to heaven on a chair, then inflicted a punishing rain and fog on the hapless Americans which forced them to withdraw from the cotta walls and spend a night in misery. The next morning a bright rainbow appeared, so the story went, signifying that the people of Bayan, by aggressively defending their part of Dar ul Islam (the realm of Islam), had greatly pleased God. Herein lay the rub, the conundrum that would dog the Americans for the next several years. The Maranaos understood from the beginning that they were no match for American firepower and when expected reinforcements did not arrive they did not expect to win. But “so what?” From their perspective the final measure of victory or defeat was not winning or losing. The more adverse and overwhelming the odds against one, the greater and more divine the personal glory. Life is fleeting and transitory, what mattered most was demonstrating to Allah how well you could die? In the first of many hostilities to come, the Americans and Moros were using different scorecards.