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.