Siege of Baler

Siege[edit]

On 26 June 1898, it was noticed that the town residents were leaving.^[9] The city was surrounded the next day. Then on the night of 30 June, 800 Filipino troops under Teodorico Novicio Luna attacked, and the garrison fell back to the church.^[9] The town priest, Candido Gómez Carreño, also quartered himself in the church.^[10] The first few days of the siege saw several attempts by the Filipinos to get the Spanish to surrender by leaving letters, while they surrounded the church with trenches.^[11] On 8 July, the revolutionary commander, Cirilo Gómez Ortiz, offered a suspension of hostilities until nightfall, which was accepted.^[12] On 18 July, Calixto Villacorta took command of the Filipinos.^[13] He also sent a warning letter, which was rebuffed.^[10]


The Spanish had to endure confinement in a small, hot, humid space. As the siege progressed, their food supply began to diminish through usage and spoilage. Enemy rifle fire did cause casualties but diseases such as beriberi, dysentery, and fevers did more damage.^[14] The first Spaniard to die was Gómez Carreño.^[15] In September, Lieutenant Alonso was killed; in November, Captain Las Morenas succumbed to beriberi and command fell to Lieutenant Saturnino Martín Cerezo.^[16] More than once the Spanish made forays to burn nearby houses to deprive the Filipinos of much needed cover.^[17] The Filipinos attempted to smoke them out by setting fires beside the church wall but were repulsed and had their timber captured. At the start of the siege, the Spanish had provisions of flour, rice, beans, chickpeas, bacon, canned Australian beef, sardines, wine, sugar, and coffee – but no salt.^[18] Supplementing their food supplies, the Spanish foraged for pumpkins, pumpkin leaves, oranges, plantain shoots, various herbs, and planted a garden of peppers, tomatoes and pumpkins.^[19]


By mid-November, having failed to dislodge the Spanish defenders, Villacorta, under a flag of truce, left newspapers on the church steps that told of Spain's planned departure from the Philippines and that the Spanish–American War was over. Martín Cerezo considered this a ruse de guerre. Villacorta brought in Spanish civilians and ultimately a military officer left behind to wrap up Spain's affairs on the island, to no avail.^[10] By 22 November, a total of 145 days had elapsed since the siege began, during which 14 Spanish defenders died of disease.^[16] Of the 40 remaining men, only 23 were combat effective, with the rest being sick. The Filipinos also had suffered casualties, mostly from rifle fire the Spanish were able to inflict on them from their protected firing positions. Gómez Ortiz was one of these.^[10] The new year brought more Spanish emissaries to Baler, but again Martín Cerezo turned them away.^[20] At the end of February, the Spanish killed three water buffaloes, eating the meat before it spoiled, and using the leather for footwear.^[21]


The Treaty of Paris formally ending their war with Spain having been signed in December, and after a specific request from the Archbishop of Manila on March 23, the Americans intervened in April.^[22] Commander Charles Stillman Sperry, commanding the gunboat USS Yorktown, attempted to rescue the Spanish troops.^[23] By this time, Filipino rebels had declared independence and had been fighting the United States for two months.^[24] Five Americans on a reconnaissance mission were killed. Lieutenant James Clarkson Gilmore and nine others were captured, and held prisoner by the Filipinos until rescued in December.^[25][26] When their food ran out on 24 April, the Spanish resorted to eating stray dogs, cats, reptiles, snails and crows.^[27]


On 8 May, Filipino artillery shelling hit an improvised cell that held three Spaniards who had attempted to desert earlier in the siege. One of them, Alcaide Bayona, ran out and joined the Filipinos. This was a blow to the Spanish as the deserter had important intelligence to share about their dire straits, and helped fire the cannon on the church to good effect.^[28] On 28 May 1899, there was yet another attempt to get Martín Cerezo to surrender. Again, another Spanish officer, Lieutenant Colonel Cristóbal Aguilar y Castañeda, appeared under a flag of truce and was turned away.^[29] He had brought recent Spanish newspapers, which Cerezo initially dismissed as bogus, until Martín Cerezo read an article concerning a close friend's posting, plans of which only he knew, convincing him the newspapers were genuine and that indeed Spain had lost the war.^[30] On 2 June, Martín Cerezo surrendered to the Filipinos.^[31]