Flames Over Baler

The Siege of Baler has been a very well-known episode in the Philippines, particularly in connection with the Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day and the 2008 remarkable movie on the siege. In the past, only a handful of local publications discussed it or briefly described what had happened in Baler between 1897 and 1899.

Using a deep knowledge of archival sources both in the Philippines and Spain, this reconstruction of the siege brings up the specific details of the complex process of estrangement between the besieged and the besiegers, and the extraordinary dedication and courage that both Filipinos and Spaniards demonstrated to achieve victory, providing a case study for knowledge of the military strategies used at the end of the nineteenth century and the role of image and perceptions in conflict resolution. Morever, the reconstruction leaves a clearer perception of the astonishing challenges confronted by the men and women who were immersed in the revolutionary process.