Replies

You are mistaken. The military intervention to which he refers is not the battle against the Spanish in the Philipines during the Spanish-American war, but rather the intervention to put down the rebellion of the Filipinos against American rule. The Filipinos wanted independence after the defeat of the Spanish in the Spanish-American war, but we sent troops to put down their rebellion. The battle against the rebels lasted a number of years, and cost a great many lives. This occured under TR's administration, after the Spanish-American war was over.

As an interesting side note, the army had a very poor experience with the 38 colt cartridge (the official side arm cartridge at that time) during this war against the Filipino rebels (it proved to have little stopping power) and this trouble led to the development of a more powerful replacement: the 45acp, adopted in 1911.

I am well aware that he was referring to the Filipino War of Independence. This started on February 4, 1899 and was essentially over by spring/summer of 1901. TR became President in September, 1901.

TR enthusiastically supported the war against the Filipinos, but it is ludicrous to assign him responsibility for it, especially for gettin us into it.

During almost the entire war, he was a colonel in the Army of governor of NY. Hardly the person who can launch military interventions.

I was under the impression that this little Phillipine anti-US semi-revolution was undertaken by Muslim extremists for the most part. I could be wrong, though. It's been a while since I've looked at that chunck of history.