Men of means were drafted into the ranks and then excused from service on the payment of cash.

The soldiery, quartered on the towns, committed endless abuses.  Conditions were bad enough before the outbreak of hostilities, as I have shown in the chapters dealing with Insurgent rule.  They grew rapidly worse thereafter, and human life became cheap indeed.

“The documents of this period show that the insurgent troops driven from the front of Manila fell upon the people of the neighbouring towns and burnt, robbed, and murdered.  Either their officers lost all control over them, or else they directed these outrages.  It was not for some days that control was regained.” [397]

Endless orders were issued by Aguinaldo and other high Insurgent officers, prohibiting rape, brigandage and robbery, and there was grave need of them.  Unfortunately they could not be enforced.  Indeed it was often impossible to distinguish between Insurgent soldiers, who removed their uniforms or had none, and brigands pure and simple. [398]

Many men were soldiers at one time and brigands at another.  Unquestionably soldiers and brigands sometimes cooeperated.  Garrisons were withdrawn from towns which did not promptly and fully comply with the demands of Insurgent commanders, [399] and armed bandits appeared and plundered them.

There were some Insurgent leaders, like Cailles, who suppressed brigandage with a heavy hand, [400] but many of them were indifferent, even if not in alliance with the evil doers.

The Visayas

Feeling between Tagalog soldiers and Visayan people grew constantly more bitter, and before many months had passed they fell to killing each other.  The highest officers of the “Regional Revolutionary Government of the Visayas” protested vigorously to Aguinaldo, [401] but without result.  The situation was entirely beyond his control.

On April 20, 1899, General Delgado issued an order which tells a significant story of conditions, and of his own weakness in dealing with them. [402]

In Luzon General Trias of Cavite accused the soldiers and citizens of his province of committing “robberies, assaults, kidnappings and crimes which are committed only by barbarous and savage tribes.” [403]

That very serious conditions promptly became general is conclusively shown by the record of Aguinaldo’s government for February 24, 1899, when it decided—­

“that the president of the council shall study such measures as will put an end to the continual discord and friction between the civil and military authorities of every province, in order that fatal consequences may be avoided.”

With such conditions prevailing among the Filipinos themselves, it was to be expected that the laws of civilized warfare would be violated and that American soldiers taken prisoners would sometimes be treated with barbarity.  Flags of truce were deliberately violated. [404] American soldiers were trapped, poisoned [405] and murdered in other ways. [406]