While the government of Aguinaldo was called a republic, it was in fact a Tagálog military oligarchy in which the great mass of the people had no share. Their duty was only to give soldiers for the army and labourers for the fields, and to obey without question the orders they received from the military heads of their provinces. There is no cause for vain regrets. We did not destroy a republic in the Philippines. There never was anything there to destroy which even remotely resembled a republic. CHAPTER IX The Conduct of the War It is not my intention to attempt to write a history of the war which began on February 4, 1899, nor to discuss any one of its several campaigns. I propose to limit myself to a statement of the conditions under which it was conducted, and a description of the two periods into which it may be divided. From the outset the Insurgent soldiers were treated with marked severity by their leaders. On June 17, 1898, Aguinaldo issued an order to the military chiefs of certain towns in Cavite providing that a soldier wasting ammunition should be punished with twelve lashes for a first offence, twenty-four for a second, and court-martialled and "severely punished" for a third. [395] On November 16, 1900, General Lacuna ordered that any officer allowing his soldiers to load their rifles when not before the enemy should be liable to capital punishment, [396] which in practice was frequently inflicted on soldiers for very minor offences. 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 coöperated. 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