A Strike Against the Spanish

By Beth Green

A warrior largely ignored in the West, Lapu-Lapu was a chieftain in the 1500s who is celebrated in the Philippines today. His claim to fame?

Image from Rare Books Division, Princeton.edu

He killed Ferdinand Magellan.

Most children in the West learn about Magellan, the Portuguese sailor exploring for Spain who set out to find the westward route to the Spice Islands around the tip of South America. But I’m betting not so many of our readers remember the warrior who commanded Magellan’s downfall.

Here in the Philippines, especially in Cebu City where I now live, Lapu Lapu is a national hero. I’ve been reading quite a bit about him—though I’m guessing there’s more I haven’t learned yet!—and I’d like to share here something about this daring man who fought a foreign invasion.

At the time of Magellan’s death, Lapu-Lapu (his name varies a bit in the annals of history, but this is the currently used version), was a datu, or ruler, of Mactan Island. Mactan is a small island, which in present day is ringed with imported sands and fancy resorts. It’s connected to Cebu City, the oldest city in the Philippines, by two bridges and a lot of economic ties.

Speaking of economics, Magellan arrived in the Philippines looking for spices, directions to spices, and more spices. Oh, and converts to Christianity. Those were good too. He didn’t have much luck with the spices here, but the ruler of Sugbu (now Cebu City) and his queen decided they’d throw in with the newly presented deities and get baptized. Now named Carlos and Juana, they set the stage for Catholicism to enter the Philippines, and even now, more than 500 years later, it is the most popular religion in the country.

Carlos and Juana’s neighbor Lapu-Lapu wasn’t in such a big hurry to change his old god for anybody new. (Some web-pages I’ve visited suggested Lapu-Lapu was Muslim, other sources disagree.)

Either because of the question of converting to a foreign faith was abhorrent to him,  because he didn’t like these weird-looking sailors in their strange ships, or possibly because he had a feud going with Humabon-now-named-Carlos, Lapu-Lapu refused to bow down to the might of the foreign ships, sovereign, or god.

Lapu-Lapu Memorial Statue. Image by whl.travel/Flickr

One source quoted on Wikipedia suggests that Magellan may have made a faux pas when approaching Lapu-Lapu as well. Magellan may have approached the islands with the idea that the ruling classes were structured like those in Europe. That thinking would have led Magellan to believe that Carlos was more powerful than Lapu-Lapu because the latter controlled a lesser population on a neighboring island. However, to get to Cebu City harbor, ships would have had to pass through a narrow channel between Cebu Island and Mactan Island. Therefore, Lapu-Lapu probably was more powerful than Carlos because of his strategic location even though he had a smaller population under his command, or so the theory goes.

Anyway, whether Lapu-Lapu disliked Magellan because he felt the European was disrespectful, or he just had a bad feeling about the newcomers, when Magellan told him that he’d attack Mactan Island if Lapu-Lapu didn’t swear fealty to Spain, Lapu Lapu called his bluff.

Magellan was accompanied on his round-the-world cruise by an Italian adventurer, AntonioPigafetta. Pigafetta kept a faithful diary of events that occurred along the way (and unknowingly discovered the international dateline when he got back to Europe and realized he was a day off in his diary), and it’s from his account that we get most of our details today. Lapu-Lapu’s locals asked for one more day’s leniency before the battle so that they could gather more troops and make it a fairer fight. In fact, though, they had plenty of fighters, but they wanted a little more time to dig some traps before the Spaniards disembarked.

Mactan and Cebu today. A fluvial parade. Image by Storm Crypt

Magellan and his men were at a clear disadvantage from the beginning. First, the men on shore were fighting for their homes and freedom. And, once Magellan ordered his men to set fire to huts in the village, I can imagine any locals who were initially ambivalent about fighting the foreigners decided that Lapu-Lapu was right to attack. Second, the Spanish were wearing heavy armor in a humid climate. However, because of the reefs and shallows around Mactan Island (I’ve been scuba diving there several times) Magellan couldn’t bring his ships Victoria or Trinidad close enough to shore for either the ship’s guns to come into play or to get the Spanish fighters off easily. Even using smaller vessels to get nearer, the foreign troops had to exert themselves wading through water over their knees to get to the beach—while Lapu-Lapu’s townspeople rained poisoned arrows and bamboo spears on them from relative comfort. The Spaniards weren’t wearing armor on their legs, and—you’d have seen this coming if it were a movie--Magellan caught a poisoned arrow in his leg. 

Realizing he was done for, Magellan ordered the rest of his men (Pigafetta among them) to retreat, and they watched in horror as Lapu-Lapu and his freedom fighters hacked Magellan to bits with long knives.

Today, Lapu-Lapu is remembered in the name of a town on Mactan Island, which still guards the waters of the Cebu City harbor. His statue stands in the square, and legends have cropped up around his story.

But, perhaps the greatest token of his fame as a warrior is his depiction on the PhilippineNational Police badge, representing “the symbol and embodiment of all the genuine attributes of leadership, courage, nationalism, self-reliance and a people-based and people powered community defense.”

Suvorov's Science of Victory

By Lina Zeldovich

Александр Васильевич Суворов

Said to be one of the few commanders in history who never lost a battle, Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov (Александр Васильевич Суворов) had waged wars on nearly every nation that shared borders with the Russian empire. From Turks to Prussians and from Swedes to French, Suvorov had a spectacular and surprisingly long military career for someone who spent his life on the frontline.

No one in his family expected little Sasha Suvorov to become a soldier. A sickly child who spent much of his time in bed, Alexander was deemed unfit for a military career by his father.  Vasiliy Suvorov, a senator and a general-in-chief, knew the army reality all too well, and didn’t think his frail offspring could withstand the hardship. But, captivated by the battle strategies and tactics, Sasha devoted his time to studying the works of renowned historians and military figures – from Plutarch to Cornelius Nepos to Julius Caesar. Determined to join the army despite his ailments and his father, he put himself through vigorous exercise to improve his health and his strength.  

When Sasha was 12, he met General Hannibal, a Russian military commander most known for being a great-grandfather of Alexander Pushkin, the famous poet. Taken by the young lad, who, in addition to his fascination with martial arts also spoke French, German, Italian, and Polish, Hannibal convinced Suvorov senior to let his unwavering offspring pursue his passion.

And true passion it was. Alexander Suvorov spent more than 50 years of his life on the battlefield. He made a colonel by 33, a general-major before turning 40, and a field marshal a few years later. He led the Russian troops through many a battles in their war with the Ottoman Empire, took part in the famous siege of Ochakov, and won a great victory in a clash at the river Rymnik, for which Catherine the Great bestowed on him the title of Count Rymniksky. In terms of awards and insignia, Suvorov earned pounds of medals and a slew of regalia–from Military Order of Empress Maria Theresa to Alexander Nevsky, and a couple of pages worth of titles: Count of Rymnik, Prince of Sardinia and even Count of the Holy Roman Empire. His last title, which he earned at the age of 70, was generalissimo, the highest military rank possible.

In between marches and sieges, Suvorov penned The Science of Victory, a manual on how to do it right, in style and with flare, which has been used as the holy bible of combat stratagem by a few generations of militants. He coined a few famous sayings venerably recited by Russians to this day, literally and figuratively: "What’s tough in training is easy in a battle" and "Perish yourself but rescue your comrade!"  

Alas, at the end of his career, Suvorov fell out of favor with the royals: Catherine the Great’s son Paul I took offence at the warrior’s sharp tongue. After a few years of forced retirement, Suvorov was called to lead the troops against Napoleon but despite his burning wish never met him in a battle. He is, however, famous for crossing the Alps in winter, a maneuver historically achieved only by Hannibal. Alas, the move was not to wage a spectacular attack on the French but to save the greatly outnumbered Russian troops. Still, that was the maneuver that netted Suvorov his title of the fourth generalissimo of Russia, only days before his death. He never rested on his hard-earned laurels–Tsar Paul, true to his dislike of the old soldier, skipped the ceremony. (Vasily Surikov later painted the legendary Suvorov’s Troops Crossing the Alps, now in the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow.)

Warrior’s luck wasn’t as favorable to Suvorov's son, Arkadiy, who followed his father’s footsteps into the military stardom. Fighting the Turks where the undefeated patriarch did twenty years earlier, he drowned in the very river Rymnik that had brought his father so much fame.