Dark lessons Book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: VERDE I. CHART n Ma ISLAND OF LUZON SCALE OF MILES OF THE UNIVERSITY from any fortified port, so will the Philippines fall. Lingayan Gulf on the north coast of Luzon, or Polillo Bight on the east coast, will form the Guanta- namo Bays of the Japanese. The conquest of the Philippines is no complex military problem, but is, on the other hand, so simple and direct that a few words will make it apparent. The American forces defending these islands do not exceed fourteen thousand, plus five thousand native troops, all of whom are based on Manila. Japan, by landing simultaneously one column of twenty thousand men at Dagupan (Chart II) and another column of the same size at Polillo Bight, would, strategically, render the American position untenable. These points of debarkation are almost equidistant from Manila, and are connected with it by military roads, while a railroad also connects Dagupan with the capital. The impossibility of defending Manila with the force now stationed on the islands is seen (Fig. 2, Chart II) in the strategic advantages inherent in Japan's convergent attack. These two columns, more than double the strength of the American force, converge on Manila at right angles. Advancing at equal speed, they remain at all times equidistant from the American position. Should the American force advance to meet either column, the unattacked column, being as close to Manila as the American force, could throw itself in between (Fig. 3). The Americans, separated from their base byan army equal to their own in strength, and facing a second army also as large, would be in a position wherein their capitulation could alone prevent their complete destruction. If the American forces, on the other hand, should remain behind their lines at Manila, they would, in...