Battle of Manila (1898) - Aftermath

Aftermath

For all practical purposes, the fall of Manila brought about the end of the Spanish-American War in the Philippines. Merritt and Dewey finally received word of the peace protocol on August 16. Captain Henry Glass of the armored cruiser USS Charleston had accepted the surrender of Guam on June 20, 1898, while en route to Manila, and Captain E.D. Taussig of the gunboat USS Bennington claimed Wake Island for the U.S. on January 17, 1899.

The war with Spain came to an end, but shortly afterwards another war broke out. Tensions between the Filipino forces under Aguinaldo and the American Expeditionary forces was high. The Filipinos felt betrayed by the Americans. They had looked on the Americans as liberators against Spanish occupation, but later came to believe that the US simply wanted to make the Philippines a colony of its own. In an incident on February 4, 1899, a U.S. Army private fired on a Filipino guerilla and Filipino forces returned fire. Thus began a second battle for the city. Aguinaldo sent a ranking member of his staff to Ellwell Otis, the U.S. military commander, with the message that the firing had been against his orders. Otis replied, "The fighting, having begun, must go on to the grim end."