The original petition was denied by the parish priest of Malolos, who argued that women should always stay at home and take care of the family.

In 1895, he earned the Grand Cross of Maria Christina for his command of troops in the Philippines[2] in which he fought an uprising of Tagalogs[6] and conducted an offensive against the Moros in Mindanao.

[3] After Arsenio Martínez Campos proved unable to defeat the Cuban Liberation Army, the government of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo sent Weyler to Cuba to replace him.

[3] Weyler responded by implementing the reconcentration policy, which was intended to separate the rebels from the civilian Cuban populace by confining the latter to concentration camps guarded by Spanish troops.

Spanish forces also destroyed crops and drove away livestock as part of a scorched earth strategy to make the Cuban countryside inhospitable to the insurgents.

[7] The reconcentration policy weakened the rebel position but resulted in the deaths of between 170,000 and 400,000 Cubans, causing widespread international outrage, particularly in the United States, where Weyler became known as "The Butcher".

Castillo's government supported Weyler's tactics wholeheartedly, but the Liberal Party vigorously denounced them for their toll on the Cuban people.

After Castillo was assassinated on 8 August 1897 and a new Liberal Party ministry led by Práxedes Mateo Sagasta took over, Weyler was recalled from Cuba and replaced by the more conciliatory Ramón Blanco, 1st Marquess of Peña Plata.

At the end of October 1909, he was appointed captain-general at Barcelona, where the disturbances connected with the execution of Francisco Ferrer were quelled by him without bloodshed.