The Battle of Binakayan–Dalahican (Tagalog: Labanan sa Binakayan–Dalahikan; Spanish: Batalla de Binakayan-Dalahican) was a simultaneous battle during the Philippine Revolution that was fought on November 9–11, 1896 that led to a decisive Filipino victory. The twin battle took place at the shores of Binakayan, in the town of Cavite Viejo (also called Cavite el Viejo, now Kawit); Dalahican and Dagatan in Noveleta; and, to minimal extent, in Imus and Bacoor towns in Cavite, Philippines that lasted for two days before the Spanish army retreated demoralized and in disarray. The result of the battle was the first significant Filipino victory in the country's history.
Background
By the time the revolution began in August 1896, Cavite was one of the first provinces in the Philippines to declare independence from Spain. Earlier in the war, the Filipino revolutionaries under the Supremo Andres Bonifacio, the leader and the instigator of the revolution, attempted to invest then take Manila by force, but was stymied by severe lack of decent weapons in their part as well as the reluctance of other revolutionary provincial armies, especially the ones from Cavite which also had difficulty in mounting such an attack then rather attacked local Spanish garrisons in the province, from taking part of the engagement. The Supremo Bonifacio had been repeatedly defeated in battle, losing his prestige as well as the morale of some men who were serving at his side, especially those who were from Bulacan and Morong provinces. In contrast, the revolutionaries in the province had been largely successful in battles from the start of the revolution against the Spaniards, though outnumbered. Spanish general Ernesto de Aguirre and had been defeated by the rebels more than two months earlier during the Battle of Imus in September 1896, including generals Emilio Aguinaldo of the Magdalo faction. The former successfully led a small uprising in Cavite el Viejo on August 31, 1896, where he defeated and killed the Spanish commander of the Guardia Civil, after Bonifacio's defeat at the Battle of San Juan del Monte. The leadership was then passed from his cousin, Baldomero, to him, where most of Magdalo members and revolutionaries regarded him as their leader.
In Cavite, the Sangguniang Bayan (provincial council) of the Katipunan have two popular councils presiding its members over their respective areas. One of this council is the Magdiwang Council, which was headed by Mariano Álvarez encompassing the municipalities of Alfonso, Bailen (now called General Emilio Aguinaldo), Indang, Magallanes, Maragondon, Naic, Rosario, San Francisco de Malabon (now General Trias), San Roque (now part of Cavite City), Tanza, and Ternate. The other council, Magdalo, is headed by Baldomero Aguinaldo and presides the towns of Amadeo, Bacoor, Carmona, Perez-Dasmariñas (now Dasmariñas), Cavite el Viejo, Mendez Núñez (now Mendez), and Silang. Magdalo's name originated from Aguinaldo's pseudonym for Katipunan which was rooted from Santa Magdalena (Saint Mary Magdalene), Cavite Viejos's patron saint. Magdalo held its capital in Imus, while Magdiwang was based in the town of Noveleta.
On October 31, 1896, Emilio Aguinaldo, now a general of the revolutionary army and still afresh from his victory at Imus, announced in a 773-word manifesto that the revolution aimed for the total independence of the whole Philippines. Later that same day, this had the effect of an attempt for a centralized government named "Republica Filipina". It stipulated that the Magdalo faction is to be its acknowledged revolutionary government, with Baldomero Aguinaldo named as the president and Emilio Aguinaldo named as the commander-in-chief, although the leadership of Bonifacio as the Supremo of the Katipunan currently existed. However, with Bonifacio defeated battle after battle and subsequently his influence dwindling, the Magdalo faction being victorious in every battle became increasingly seen by the Caviteños as the legitimate carrier and leader of the revolution. Due to this, huge throngs of Caviteños rallied to Imus and Kawit and joined the Magdalo on the hopes that their land will be rid from Spanish dominion, such that their numbers were far too many to be properly led by a single commander; they saw "Heneral Miong" as they called Emilio as their leader.
Prelude
General Álvarez and Colonel Inocencio Salud took charge of the construction of the bamboo fortifications in Dalahican known as “Battery Numbers 1,2 and 3” in September 1896. Dalahican was a strategic barrio guarding the entrance to the Cavite peninsula.
Alarmed by a previous siege led by General Aguinaldo in Imus in September 1896, Governor-General Ramón Blanco y Erenas ordered the 4th Battalion of Cazadores from Spain to aid him in quelling the rebellion in Cavite. On November 3, 1896, the battalion arrived carrying a squadron of 1,328 men and some 55 generals. Apart from that, Blanco ordered about 8,000 men who recently came from Cuba and Spain to join in suppressing the rebellion when he learned that insurgents already occupied most of Las Piñas and Parañaque towns in the outskirts of Manila, and they later cantoned in Bacoor to rendezvous with Blanco's army in Cavite as well as to fend off any possible reinforcements from the provinces of northern and central Luzon, specifically the provinces of Bulacan and Morong where the Supremo Bonifacio and his forces were still remaining.
Prior to the land attacks, Spanish naval raids were conducted on the shores of Cavite, where cannonballs were bombarded against the revolutionary fortifications in Bacoor, Noveleta, Binakayan and Cavite Viejo. The most fortified locations in Noveleta are the Dalahican and Dagatan shores defended by Magdiwang soldiers, while the adjacent fishing village of Binakayan in Kawit was fortified by Magdalo. Spanish naval operations were determined to crush the fortifications in these areas, mainly because the lake around Dalahican was so strategic as it connects to the interior of Cavite. Apart from defending Binakayan, the Magdalo soldiers also kept the lower part of Dagatan up to Cavite's border near Morong province (now Rizal province).
Cavite City, the capital of the province, is connected by a narrow isthmus in Dalahican to the mainland Cavite province. Blanco feared of the port city falling to the hands of the rebels who by this time already have controlled nearly all of the province save for the city and the town of Bacoor. Each day, the stockade advanced towards the isthmus and to the outskirts of Cavite City itself. To prevent further mishaps and the fall of whole Cavite to the Filipino rebels, Blanco launched twin attacks to the stockades in both Cavite el Viejo and Noveleta to drive the rebels back towards inland Cavite province and hopefully, for the Spanish, disintegrate their army thus ending the rebellion in the province.
By November 1, the military activity in the area by the Spanish had increased in intensity, with warships patrolling the seas in the area and artillery from the naval armory of Cavite City occasionally shelling the shores of Kawit and Noveleta. This greatly concerned the Magdiwang general Santiago Alvarez in Dalahican, who personally rode on a horse and went to the house of the Aguinaldo family in Kawit to discuss military matters and plans with the Magdalo general Emilio Aguinaldo. When word of the Spanish army rallying outside Manila and additional reinforcements from Cuba and Spain proper disembarking in Manila via a few Manileño katipuneros who fled south to Cavite after Bonifacio's defeat arrived in the revolutionary headquarters in Kawit, it soon became clear that a Spanish assault towards Cavite is underway and hence a defensive strategy was needed. To suit for such needs, Emilio Aguinaldo vouched for his cousin Baldomero to have general Edilberto Evangelista construct trenches and fougasses stretching from Noveleta to Kawit all the way to the boundary with Bacoor.
Disposition of forces
The Filipino Katipunan revolutionaries numbered about 100,000 men including 35,000 regulars and hastily conscripted local militia armed with short swords as well as rifles and muskets including ammunition acquired and looted from the captured municipal offices of the Guardia Civil across Cavite, and more or less 65,000 peasants and laborers armed on the spot and volunteers both civilian and medical desperately gathered from all Katipunan-controlled parts of Cavite. The regulars and militia were posted in the trenches while the peasant levies were positioned behind them, with the trench system being a mile and a half long stockade and dense trench networks stretching between Noveleta along Dalahican and to the Morong-Cavite provincial border in the north, cutting of and preventing overland reinforcements from Manila towards Cavite City. A "conservative" estimate by a contemporary Spanish priest based in Manila during the same era counted roughly 105,000 men under arms were present in the field.
On November 8, Blanco commissioned Colonel José Marina to command the attack on the Binakayan front in Cavite Viejo. The column assigned to Marina included nearly 20,000 men, among them more than 9,000 Spaniards: 1,600 marine infantry, two companies from the 73rd Native Regiment, a company of artillery, 60 military engineers from the 6th Company of Engineers, two naval warships, and four gunboats. The 73rd Native Regiment included Filipino native auxiliaries, but more than 10,000 native mercenaries, loyalists and volunteers were also assigned to the attack on Binakayan. Forts in Cavite City opened fire on approaching revolutionaries, as the warships Castilla, Reina Cristina, and the gunboats Bulusan, Leyte, Villalobos and Cebu destroyed stockades in Noveleta and Cavite el Viejo.
Battle
The first attack on November 8 coincided with Cavite City's week-long fiesta celebrating its patron saint, Our Lady of Solitude of Porta Vaga. Despite the wails of revolution, pilgrims of the Virgin flocked the city, with revolutionists cooperating and attending all of the festivities and celebrations. The sound of cannonballs hitting the shores of Cavite was only taken by local townsfolk as the enemy's contribution to the fiesta. By nightfall, Spanish firings intensified, but the rebels took no action, to honor the Virgin of Solitude.
Meanwhile, Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the council defending Binakayan, was at the boundary of Laguna and Batangas with a few aides and militiamen, thinking that the enemy would approach there. However, when he heard news that Spanish forces were building up in Binakayan by the morning of November 8, he and his men hurried back to defend the stockades and arrived at evening of the same day at Cavite el Viejo. From there, he hurried to the village of Binakayan to supervise its defense while Alvarez, already stationed in Noveleta, was to defend the village of Dalahican.
Attack in Binakayan
At 6 a.m. on November 9, 1896, after a series of artillery bombardments, Spanish soldiers launched a siege towards rebel fortifications in Binakayan and Dalahikan. The columns were twofold: the first one, commanded by Col. José Marina headed to Binakayan, while the second one by General Diego de los Ríos approached entrenchments at Dalahican.
As the Spanish forces assaulted the Filipino battlements, Aguinaldo was surprised to see that they could not penetrate the excellent trench system designed by General Edilberto Evangelista. Although, during the Spanish advance, Candido Tirona, one of the Filipino generals present in the battle, was stabbed in the neck and killed by a Spaniard while observing the battle from a coconut tree not far from the shore. The revolutionaries then conducted a series of massive counterattacks with their bolos and machetes to curb the Spanish advance heading towards Binakayan and Cavite el Viejo, but each wave only produced massive losses at their side. The revolutionaries later halted their attacks, but their acts slowed the enemy's advance long enough for more of their men from their rear to later join the fray.