6 JULY

1898 - In what will prove to be a most stupid military decision,  Dictator Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy of the fledgling Philippine Republic  assures imperialist United States Gen. Thomas M. Anderson that he has  already ordered his "people not to interfere" with the North American  forces who has been entering the Southeast Asian archipelago  during the Spanish-American War; Aguinaldo, who has led Filipinos to defeat the Spanish forces at almost every encounter and win control over almost the entire northern provinces and the bay coast from colonial Spanish forces during the so-called second phase of the Revolution, had forged an alliance with the Americans after earlier being deceptively assured by United States Commodore  George Dewey and other military diplomatic Bald Eagle officials including Anderson himself, that the US is an ally who will respect Philippine independence; in a few months, the  sinister and eventually successful  invasion plan of the Bald Eagle nation against the Philippines will be revealed, initially through the infamous Mock Battle of Manila that will falsely show to the world that it is the Americans instead of the Filipinos that have defeated the Spaniards in the islands, and then when the imperialist US generals instigate the bloody and protracted  Philippine-American War (1899-1914) seven months later; Apolinario Mabini y Maranan, Aguinaldo's adviser and future Prime Minister, will later express his belief in his memoirs that Aguinaldo, who in 1897 violently wrested the revolutionary leadership from Katipunan Supreme President Andres Bonifacio y de Castro,  "accepted [the verbal promises] because he [feared] that other influential Filipinos should (rob him of glory and) reach an understanding with the Americans in the name of the people."




Image credit: University of Texas