Guerilla warfare in general. |
It has been pointed out in earlier chapters that guerilla warfare is a form of operations above all things to be avoided. J The whole spirit of the art of conducting small wars is to strive for the attainment of decisive methods, the very essence of partisan warfare from the point of the enemy being to avoid definite engagements. The inconveniences and dangers to regular troops when the adversary adopts this attitude, are fully recognised by competent commanders. But no amount of energy and strategic skill will at times draw the enemy into risking engagements, or induce him to depart from the form of warfare in which most irregular warriors excel and in which regular troops are almost invariably seen at their worst. |
It is only proposed in this chapter to treat of the strategical aspect of carrying on guerilla warfare--or rather of the means by which adversaries depending on this system of conducting hostilities can best be dealt with. In those which discuss mountain and bush warfare, outposts, surprises, ambushes and raids, the methods by which the hostile procedure can be best met as a question of minor tactics, are touched upon in more detail. | |
The aptitude which such opponents as regular armies have so often in these campaigns to cope with, display in harassing the troops who have penetrated into their fastnesses, is known to all. They revel in stratagems and artifice. They prowl about waiting for their opportunity to pounce down upon small parties moving without due precaution. The straggler and camp follower are their natural prey. They hover on the flanks of the column, fearing to strike but ready |
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to cut off detachments which may go astray. It is not only, so to speak, the rank and file who are masters of this branch of the military art, leaders are produced who excel in controlling the scattered bodies engaged in it, and who give to it direction and vitality. A glance back over the small wars of an hundred years reveals few chiefs of imperishable renown in the ranks of the foes who have opposed the forces of civilization, few personalities figuring large in history. But a few great names are handed down to us, and these are not the names of men who led great hosts to battle, they arc the names of commanders of guerillas and banditti. No one to-day remembers who led the Khalsa armies at Sobraon, or the Beluchis in Scinde, but Abd el Kader and the Circassian Schamyl figure among the great soldiers of the age. Charette and Andreas Hofer still live in history, not as patriots only but also as masters of one form of the art of war. Tantia Topi owes his reputation not to Kalpi and Cawnpore, but to the months when, with a dwindling following and bound to a declining cause, he kept the field while the British hunted him in vain. And De la Rey, De Wet and Botha never fully displayed their rare gifts of leadership till the Boer armies had been dissipated, and till the great struggle in South Africa had degenerated into a thoroughly irregular campaign. | |
Guerilla warfare is what the regular armies always have most to dread, and when this is directed by a leader with a genius for wax, an effective campaign becomes well-nigh impossible. The guerilla has ever been a thorn in the side of the organized force. It was so in the Peninsular war, where the Spanish partisans proved a formidable foe to the French invaders. Fra Diavolo and his brigand bands were almost a match for the veterans of Massena in Calabria. The Cossacks, masters of this method of conducting operations, contributed almost more towards bringing about the terrible disasters which befel the Grand Army on its retreat from Moscow, than did the rigours of a Russian winter or the combinations |
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of the able commanders of the pursuing armies. Before the last Russian intervention in the Balkans the Turks found the Montenegrins far more difficult to subdue than the organized Servian armies. It is because of this that the art of combating the guerilla method of conducting operations deserves especial attention when small wars are in question. Moreover, experience proves that even when there have been at the outset armies to beat in the field, the campaign will drift on in desultory fashion long after these have been overthrown, and that in small wars guerilla operations are almost invariably a feature of some phase of the struggle. | |
Influence of terrain. |
The terrain has much to say to effective conduct of partisan warfare on the part of the enemy. The Philippines and Brittany like Castille and Trans-Caucasia, present theatres of operations eminently suited to operations of this class. New Zealand, the kloofs and bushland of Kafiraria, Burma, and Achin, all fitted to a nicety the guerilla tactics of opponents designed by nature to pursue this form of war. Hilly and broken ground or districts clothed in jungle growth and thickets especially lend themselves to these very desultory operations. On the prairie, on the veld and on the steppes, on the contrary, guerilla methods can only be adopted by mounted men, whose mobility at least partially compensates for the lack of cover as they approach their foe. |
Promptitude and resolution essential to deal with guerillas. |
Surprise is the essence of such operations--surprise, with retreat ere the opponent can recover, as a sequel, and in consequence the combinations of the enemy are of necessity framed on a small scale. Surprises with large forces are difficult to carry out. The Boers, it is true, managed some of their most effective strokes with comparatively speaking strong commandos, but the withdrawal of any large force when once committed to action is always most risky. Guerilla warfare, in fact, means almost of necessity petty annoyance rather than operations of a dramatic kind. Such capricious methods of conducting operations are best met by a resolute plan of |
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campaign and by an organization favouring rapid and energetic counter-strokes. Surprise can, to a certain extent, be guarded against by measures taken for security. But the escape of the enemy can only be frustrated by having troops ready to follow up at once and to follow up effectively. | |
Abd el Kader. |
The French operations in Algeria during many years of war will ever serve to illustrate what is the right way and what is the wrong way of dealing with an antagonist who adopts the guerilla mode of war. Abd el Kader was a partisan leader of the foremost rank. He intuitively grasped the conditions of the case. He recognized at once that his followers could not hope to beat the trained soldiers of France in open battle. His personal ascendancy over the nomads of the south and over the 'wild Berber hill-men, enabled him to play the strategist from wherever his wandering abode might be, over a vast extent of country. For years his bold and sudden strokes bewildered the French leaders. He had full information of their slow, deliberate movements. He knew when a garrison was drained of troops and he straightway fell upon it. He cut communications and he swept away convoys. But by the time the French had assembled their forces for a counter-stroke, and had dragged their guns and impedimenta to the spot, the hostile body which had done the mischief had vanished into the desert, or had flown to some hill refuge whither the cumbrous column could not follow it. |
General Bugeaud's mode of crushing him. |
But when the right leader came upon the scene from France a great change came over the spirit of the struggle. General Bugeaud added to great natural gifts a ripe experience. He had served an apprenticeship in guerilla warfare years before in Spain. He knew the game, and his appearance on the scene as chief marked a transformation. "Vous aurez beaucoup à oublier," he said to his assembled lieutenants, and he altered the whole system of campaigning on the spot. He perceived that he had to deal not with a hostile |
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army but with a hostile population, that this population consisted, largely of clans and tribes of fixed abode, and that to bring them to reason he must reach them through their crops, their flocks, and their property. He established numbers of mobile detachments all over the country to watch centres of disturbance, and to strike at once on sign of trouble. These columns owed their strength to rapidity of movement rather than to numbers, they were kept equipped and supplied with a sufficiency of pack transport, artillery and baggage being reduced to a minimum. Their rôle was not merely to disperse the gatherings of the enemy, but also to chastise the rebels in their homes. The razzias or raids of the Arabs had been a terror to the French, but General Bugeaud instituted razzias by way of counter-stroke and turned Abd el Kader's own methods against the nomad leader. "Il se quand bat il veut, il cherche, il poursuit l'ennemi, l'inquiete, et se fait craindre," wrote Saint Arnaud. Abd el Kader had at last met his match, and the cause he had upheld so long with conspicuous ability and unfaltering courage, declined from the day his great opponent landed in Algiers, in 1841, invested with full powers. | |
Campaigns when want of mobility and decision on the part of the regular troops against guerillas has had bad effect. |
In campaigns where the hostile tactics have been limited to surprises on a small scale and to ambuscades, and which have drifted on in desultory fashion for long periods, the want of prompt energetic action on the part of the regular troops has generally been mainly responsible for their failure to bring the war to a speedy conclusion. In the protracted Maori war the British operations were carried out with marked deliberation. It is true that at times, when the enemy stuck to his pahs and accepted battle, the operations were attended with great success, but the system of mobile columns ready to act at a moment's notice was not put in force, and therefore the Maoris played a game of hide and seek, and considering their inferiority to the regular troops they kept it up for a vexatiously lone time. The |
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Russians during the long years of war in Trans-Caucasia against the fiery partisan leader Schamyl utterly lacked the system of decentralized vigour which Bugeaud employed so effectively under somewhat similar conditions in Algeria. The Kaffir war in 1851-52 was throughout of a guerilla character, the enemy not being formidable although greatly favoured by the topographical features of the country, but the British forces lacked mobility and the commissariat and transport services were not organized to meet the case. The slow progress made by the Germans in 1904-05 in suppressing the revolted tribes in South-West Africa appears to have been mainly due to the lethargic movements of forces constantly hampered by inadequate transport. The hill campaigns of India illustrate guerilla warfare excellently; the climate does not favour rapid energetic movements, the troops are always hampered by much baggage, and only certain of the native Indian troops are mountaineers and a match in activity for the hill-men; but the fact that the marauding hill tribes dwell in villages, the locality of which is often well known, compensates to a certain extent for all this because they can be punished by having their homes destroyed and their fields laid waste. | |
The broad principles of the strategy to be employed against guerillas. |
Vigorous leadership and the rapid movement of columns from place to place will not, however, suffice by itself to subdue determined adversaries who have resorted to the methods of partisan warfare. An elaborate strategical organization is necessary as well. The principle of constantly harassing the enemy and of giving the hostile detachments no rest, can only be put in force if the theatre of war is carefully prepared for it beforehand. Experience shows that, if possible, the whole area of operations should be sub-divided into sections, each of which has its own military force or aggregate of military detachments told off to it. This was the system adopted by Hoche when operating against the Chouans in Brittany, it was the system introduced by Bugeaud to a certain extent |
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when he took over the command in Algeria, it was the system under which the conquest of Upper Burmah was made good, and it was the system which, when developed to an extent hitherto unparalleled in war, eventually compelled the Boers to submit to the British forces under Lord Kitchener. | |
When the theatre of war has been sub-divided into sections, each section must have its defensive posts, its depôts of supply and its columns. There must be places whither raided flocks and herds can be brought. The sections must be further parcelled out into convenient and well-defined areas for the purpose of clearing the country of the supplies which may be useful to the enemy, to ensure that this process shall be carried out methodically and completely. How far such clearance is to be carried out depends of course on the circumstances of the case; but it is essential that it should be carried out systematically, whether it takes the form of devastating the country, or whether it be limited to the seizure of the supplies which may be necessary for the troops. | |
The war in Cuba. |
Before proceeding further and discussing details as regards the strength and composition of flying columns, it will not be out of place to refer to the case of a recent campaign which lasted for years, a campaign in which a huge army of regular soldiers strove vainly to suppress insurrection in a territory with a vast extent of coast line although the disciplined troops had sea power at their command, a campaign which was only terminated by the intervention of the military and naval forces of a great neighbouring state. As this was a case where the trained and disciplined soldiery signally failed to overcome the irregular warriors arrayed against them, it may be worth while to briefly examine the causes which led to this unusual result, and we cannot do better than to quote the opinion of Lieutenant Barnes, 4th Hussars, who was present for some time in the theatre of war while the struggle was at its height, |
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and who thus had especial opportunities for making observations and for forming judgment | |
"Although the Spanish Government for more than three years in Cuba maintained an army numerically far stronger than the insurgent forces, much better armed and organized, and superior in courage, they were utterly unable to subdue or even to check the revolt,which spread steadily westward until the whole island was disaffected. Some explanation of this remarkable fact may be found in the following considerations:--The Spanish troops were obstructed by the intense hostility of the inhabitants. They could get no good information of the rebel movements, while the rebels were never in doubt about theirs. An insurgent was distinguished from the peaceful cultivator only by his badge which could be speedily removed, and by his rifle which was easily hidden. Hence the Government forces, whether in garrison or operating in the country, were closely surrounded by an impalpable circle of fierce enemies who murdered stragglers, intercepted messages, burned stores, and maintained a continual observation. | |
" The country was densely wooded, and in the eastern districts mountainous. There were no good roads. This absence of good communications had a most paralyzing effect on the military movements; the mobility of the intangible enemy was, however, unimpaired. Moving swiftly by the tracks in the forests, the rebels harassed all the Spanish columns and occasionally destroyed one. Finally, the climate was deadly. Small-pox, malaria, and yellow fever filled the hospitals and drained the fighting units. | |
"All these are obstacles to success rather than causes of failure--these latter must be looked for in the tactics and conduct of the Spanish forces. There was a complete absence of any general plan. Columns moved about haphazard in the woods, fighting the enemy where they found them and returning with their wounded to the towns when they were weary of wandering. Their method of warfare was essentially defensive. They held great numbers of towns and villages with strong garrisons. They defended or tried to defend, long lines of communications with a multitude of small blockhouses. They tried to treat the rebels as though they were merely agrarian rioters, and to subdue the revolt by quartering troops all over the country. The movement was on a scale far exceeding the scope of such remedies; it was a war, and this the.Spanish Government would never recognize. Over all the petty incidents of guerilla skirmishing, the frequent executions and the stem reprisals threw a darker shade. | |
" There appeared to be only one way of stamping out the revolt. It was a case for the subaltern with his half company operating independently and fighting the enemy wherever found, sometimes getting destroyed, but usually hurting much more than he was hurt. This might have been combined with a liberal use of mounted infantry or of cavalry acting as such, all working on some general system and operating in one district after another. It would then have become a very bloody and ferocious straggle. |
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but the rebels having fewer men would probably have had enough of it first But the Spanish troops are not adapted for this sort of disseminated work most of the regimental officers having risen from the ranks and therefore lacking the self-reliance and initiative which ore indispensable qualifications." | |
It must be remembered that the Cuban, insurgents came of an intelligent race. They were well armed and most determined. To coerce such a people into submission is no easy task, as was found in 1901-02 in South Africa. But it is clear from the above account that the broad principles which must guide the conduct of regular forces engaged .in operating against guerillas were not put in force. Mobile columns acting resolutely on the offensive were not employed. No attempt was made to parcel the revolted area out into districts and to stamp out rebellion in one district after another. The campaign against the Cuban Rebels teaches us what to avoid rather than what to do. | |
Tho sub-division of the theatre of war into sections. |
The sub-division of the theatre of war into sections, each with its commander, its chains of posts, audits mobile columns may be said to be the first step towards dealing with guerilla warfare effectively. It must be remembered that operations of this class generally cover a wide area and that considerable doubt often exists as to the position of the enemy's centres of activity. Clearing the country of supplies and, in some cases, rendering it impossible for an enemy to exist in the country at all owing to no food or shelter being left, may become part of the programme. If this is to be done methodically it can be most effectually carried out by areas, each with its responsible commander. If one area is disposed of easily while another gives serious trouble, troops can if necessary be transferred from one to the other and a rearrangement of boundaries may take place. It is the only plan by which a form of operations, which will always be harassing to regular troops and which may take an inordinate time to conclude unless method be brought into play, is likely to be carried out efficiently and economically. The |
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failure to work on these lines has been commented upon above in the case of the Spanish efforts to subdue the Cubans. In Burma and during the later stages of the South African war of 1899-1902, this system formed the basis of the plan of campaign. | |
The extent of the various sections depends on the nature of the country, the amount of cultivation, the thickness of the population, the strength of the enemy, and so forth. No rule can possibly be laid down on such a subject. But in open territory like the veld, and when the enemy consists of mounted men, the areas will naturally be larger than in close intersected country such as hill and bush warfare takes place in. The area of the sections is, of course, also largely governed by the numbers of the troops available for their subjection. | |
Fortified posts and depôts. |
Each section must have a certain number of posts told off to it. By dint of well constructed defence works, such posts can be rendered absolutely secure, without their proving a serious drain on the fighting force which may be available--the essence of operations against guerillas is to be found in utilising the troops available as far as possible for mobile columns, and that being so the garrisons of fortified posts should be reduced to a minimum consistent with safety. In these posts supplies are collected; and if there are many of them, columns and detachments can move in all directions with little transport, always sure of finding the food which they require to keep them in the field. These supply depôts are replenished from time to time by convoys; and, as these convoys, unless they are under strong escort, always offer the enemy opportunities of attack under comparatively speaking favourable circumstances, a multiplication of fortified posts where convoys can find shelter facilitates the replenishment of supplies and reduces the proportion of the troops required for convoy duty. In the South African war the difficulties of convoying supplies, added to the necessity of securing the railways, gave rise to |
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those remarkable lines of blockhouses, which eventually served the purpose of ring defences enclosing many of the areas where Boer resistance was most strenuous and where Boer activity most marked. The larger fortified posts, where considerable stores of supplies are collected, serve as main bases for the flying columns, and at these not only food and forage, but also ammunition and equipment are often stored. It is to these larger posts that captured live stock is generally brought for safety. | |
The nature of the fortification varies according to the circumstances of the campaign. In the Kaffir war of 1851-52 large forts existed which were perfectly secure from the attacks of an enemy most disinclined to leave his kloofs and mountain fastnesses except for a raid; Sir 6. Cathcart indeed took considerable exception to the elaborate works constructed. On the other hand in Algeria, where a determined enemy was in the field who could at times come down upon a garrison in considerable force, large forts were necessary for security. In the operations in Rhodesia in 1896 the "base" of a column often consisted merely of some wagons in laager, with a few men and perhaps a Maxim, acting as garrison. The character of the defences depends in fact on the nature of the theatre of war, or the extent to which the posts are isolated, and on the strength of hostile resistance. | |
Flying columns. |
As flying columns necessarily play so important a part in operations of this class, their strength and organization deserve special attention. The system which General Bugeaud introduced in Algeria was not new--General Hoche had worked on similar lines against the Chouans in Brittany with brilliant success. The principle of flying columns has since been used with much effect in the Western States against the Red Indians. It has also been put in force in Afghanistan, in Burma, in Rhodesia, and more recently in the prolonged struggle against the Boers. |
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Their strength and composition. |
The troops forming such columns must be thoroughly equipped for the tasks they have to perform, and they should be able to travel light. Mobility is the first essential. The guerilla trusts to sudden strokes, and it is of the utmost importance that the marauding party should not have time to disperse and that it should be attacked before it can withdraw and dissolve. Hoche urged the leaders of mobile columns to accustom their men to fatigue and hardships and to keep them in condition. The detachments of United States troops operating against the Red Indians depended for success mainly on mobility, and in the later stages of the South African war mobility was the main essential looked for in columns. |
The question of the strength to be given to columns depends upon the circumstances of the case. In Burma they seldom numbered more than 300 men, with one or two guns. In Algeria, where the enemy was brave, resolute, and capable of suddenly gathering in formidable strength, small bodies would have been unsuitable; General Bugeaud recommended three or four battalions with cavalry and two guns as a proper strength. Practically, however, the columns should be as small as possible consistent with safety. Their composition, of course, depends upon the conditions of the campaign and upon the terrain--on open ground a large part of the force generally consists of mounted men, in thick bush infantry alone can be used. In Abd el Kader's days portable artillery scarcely existed, and it was wheeled guns to which General Bugeaud so much objected. Guns on mules are by no means out of place in a flying column of dismounted troops, and may prove very useful; machine guns are generally very well adapted for this sort of work. Where it is proposed to raid live stock, some mounted troops are indispensable to bring the booty in. | |
Columns of mounted troops in certain theaters of war. |
In the campaigns against the roving Indians on the prairies, the United States leaders always depended largely upon mounted troops; great distances had to be covered and |
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the cavalry became highly efficient at this sort of work. Some of the marches were astonishing, and they often finished up with a skillfully executed surprise of the hostile marauders; infantry were sometimes carried in Wagons, but the most brilliant exploits in these campaigns were carried out by mounted troops alone. In Kaffirland, and in South Africa generally, only mounted troops can hope to get on terms with the enemy if he does not mean fighting. Similarly on the steppes the mobile columns are formed of mounted Cossacks and irregulars. The Kirghiz freebooter Kutebar, in the days when Russia was preparing for the incorporation of Khokand, defied all efforts to effect his capture and his subjection for a decade; as long as he was at large his meteoric appearances and his impudent hardihood made him at once a peril to Russian progress and a scourge to the clans which had welcomed the arrival of the Cossack--only the most lightly equipped of mounted troops can hope to cope with such a foe. As observed above, mounted troops are essential to bring in captured cattle, and, when the enemy's livestock forms an objective, cavalry columns are the most effective means of sweeping the booty in from over a wide area. In the desultory warfare in Central Asia against the nomads, whose sole wealth consists in flocks and herds, the Russians employed raids of mounted men with conspicuous success. In the Kaffir campaign of 1877 small mobile columns of mounted police scoured the country raiding the cattle of the enemy, and they greatly assisted thereby in crushing the rebellion. | |
Suppression of the rebellion in Southern Rhodesia. |
The suppression of the rebellion in Southern Rhodesia in 1896 affords an admirable illustration of the right method of dealing with guerilla warriors of a certain type. The Matabili, conquered and deprived of leadership and cohesion, were not in themselves a formidable fighting race, and they eschewed all fighting in the open except on one or two occasions during the prolonged operations. The Mashonas were still less warlike. But the territory affected was of vast extent, the |
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available British forces were small, and certain large tracts of country were singularly well adapted for the display of guerilla tactics by nimble savages such as the insurgents were. The troops employed to stamp out the revolt were for the most part mounted, but they were assisted by dismounted friendlies. They were broken up by General Carrington into mobile columns, varying in strength according to the task set before them, but often consisting of only a mere handful of men. Although the food supply of these in their rapid movements over great distances sometimes proved a difficulty, the fine climate and open air life rendered all ranks capable of enduring great fatigues and of covering an immense amount of ground within the 24 hours. Some portable guns and Maxims were available and accompanied the more important columns, rendering useful service. | |
The principle enforced, and rigidly carried out, was that each column had some definite task to perform, and must push through with it in spite of distance and of natural obstacles. The scattered impis of the Matabili were hunted down relentlessly and compelled to fight or to submit. On one or two occasions--as in the Matoppo Hills--the enemy gathered in considerable numbers, and, profiting by the nature of the terrain, accepted battle after a fashion. But such favourable opportunities for giving the rebels a lesson did not generally present themselves, and the campaign was essentially one of surprises and ambuscades on one side, and of vigour and determination on the other. In 1897, during the final operations against the Mashonas, it was found that the only way of compelling their submission was to hunt them into their cave strongholds, destroy their kraals, and finally capture them in their caves--a by no means easy task; the method adopted is given in some detail in Chapter XII. The operations were not of a dramatic kind, but they were singularly effective. It was the system of Bugeaud and of Hoche adapted to the special conditions of veld and koppie |
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warfare, and the campaign serves as a model of what such campaign should be. | |
The columns in the South African War. |
The evolution of the mobile columns which played such a paramount part in the later stages of the South African War, throws a flood of light upon the subject of dealing with determined opponents fighting in guerilla fashion. In many respects the conditions of the struggle were extraordinarily favourable to the Boers for prosecuting partisan warfare, although they were not favourable in all respects. Their commandos enjoyed extraordinary mobility. The vast extent of the country created almost insuperable difficulties as regards supply for the British troops. The Boers fought with a grit and determination worthy of the highest admiration, and they were gifted with never-failing cunning and with rare foresight. But, on the other hand, the veld presents for the most part a singularly open country, and it is in broken and wooded territory that the guerilla enjoys the greatest liberty of action. The British moreover had an enormous preponderance of force, and their resources in all respects were practically unlimited. |
When it became apparent that the collapse of the Boer armies, the capture of all the most important points in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, and the appropriation of the railway communications throughout the country, did not mean that the war was over, but that it was going to definitely assume a guerilla character, an elaborate system of flying columns was set on foot. But in the early days these columns were for the most part only flying columns in the sense that they were self-contained as regards supplies. They consisted largely of infantry. Their transport was made up of ponderous ox-wagons travelling slowly. No self-respecting column was without its heavy gun. Their movements were lethargic, their spheres of operations were cramped owing to the comparatively limited distances which they covered day by day, rarely did they inflict serious loss upon the enemy, and |
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considering the mobility of the enemy it is not to be wondered at that the roll of prisoners taken by them was small. But in spite of this, these slow-moving columns did most excellent work. They cleared the country of livestock and of supplies with a thoroughness which the more mobile forces of a later date could not have attempted. The torpid columns of the early months of 1901 paved the way for those sudden strokes and rapid movements, which culminated in the drives of the last few months of the war. | |
Gradually it came to be recognised that to deal with the roving commandos effectively and to put an end to resistance, columns must attain a maximum of mobility. This could only be achieved by eliminating dismounted men and forming the columns practically entirely of mounted troops. But this imposed great difficulties owing to the bulk and weight of the forage which had to be carried. The number of supply depôts had to be increased, and, as these had to be scattered all over the theatre of war and their replenishment demanded expenditure of force, lines of blockhouses were instituted to facilitate the movements of convoys--lines of blockhouses which served a very useful purpose later on in the time of the drives. Thanks to this system the now genuinely mobile columns began to do brilliant work, to make important captures of prisoners, and to give a display of the art of war in dealing with a guerilla enemy operating in an extended theatre such as has not been seen before in any country. They covered great distances. They marched often at night. Their efforts were constantly directed towards surprising the scattered Boer detachments and giving them no rest. When by these means contact, was gained with hostile commandos, they struck at once and struck hard. There was nothing new in the principle underlying their operations, the novelty lay only in the methods by which the principle was put in practice. | |
Danger of very small columns. |
Although the columns organized to put down guerilla warfare should be as small as possible they must not be |
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too small. If there be any fear of the enemy combining his forces to attack columns in detail, or of acting on interior lines as it is called, there must be troops enough to deal with whatever hostile forces can be assembled. In the early days of La Vendée, separation proved fatal to the Republican forces. The peasants gathered from time to time in great force and overwhelmed the detachments of regulars--the system of small columns introduced later by General Hoche was adapted to. different conditions, to a more purely guerilla warfare than when the insurrection was at its height. In Mexico small columns of French and of Imperial troops suffered very severely when the troubles first broke out against Maximilian's rule, because the enemy was able to bring considerable forces against them. In Upper Burma, where very small columns were adopted during the prolonged period of pacification, no serious disaster occurred. Considering the great number of columns operating in a vast extent of almost unexplored country for many months, this is very noteworthy; but on one or two occasions it would have been advantageous had they been stronger. Sir F. Roberts's instructions were that "the troops should make their presence felt everywhere," and in view of the enormous area to be overrun, the columns had to be reduced to a minimum strength. During the operations against the Angoni Zulus in the Mpseni country in 1898, an insignificant force of 400 local troops with two guns, by dint of rapid marches and resolute initiative, completely broke up a numerous and warlike tribe, seizing their cattle when they fled, and attacking them whenever they made any attempt to stand. The smaller the column the more mobile it will generally be; the more mobile it is the more suddenly it can deliver its strokes; and the essence of combating guerilla warfare is to hit unexpectedly and hard. The enemy's game likewise is to hit unexpectedly, but generally not very hard. |
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Need for independence. |
It is very important that flying columns should be made as independent as is possible within their own sphere of operations. Sir F. Roberts's instructions in the case of Upper Burma were that the "utmost latitude of movement" should be given to their commanders. This principle appears also in General Heche's system, and to a less extent in that of General Bugeaud. In summing up the lessons of La Vendée General v. Boguslawski writes:--" The leaders of the columns must be officers who, in certain cases, understand how to depart from the plan of operations on their own responsibility, if the general situation appears to have altered." In the later stages of the South African war column commanders were always allowed great independence, except when some combined operation was being carried out by several columns. |
Difficulty of controlling movements of separated columns. |
In dealing with guerilla warfare like that in Rhodesia, one of the greatest difficulties to be contended with is that it is impracticable to issue definite orders to a force operating at a considerable distance from head-quarters. The inconvenience caused by this on the Nile early in 1885 was alluded to on p. 123, although there the operations were not directed against guerillas. During the campaign in Uganda in 1897-98, which covered an immense extent of country, messages had to be sent by native runners; it sometimes took as much as six days to communicate with a subordinate, and twelve days to get a reply. The same difficulty occurred in Sierra Leone in 1898. |
Under such circumstances a great deal of latitude must be left to subordinates, whose judgment should remain as far as possible unfettered. It is one of the awkward problems which an officer with the general control of operations over a large territory finds himself confronted with. On more than one occasion in Rhodesia contemplated junctions of separate columns did not come off, but their leaders knew that what they had to do was to strike at any hostile gatherings with which they obtained touch, and they constantly acted on |
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their own responsibility in consequence. In no class of warfare is the need of self-reliant subordinate officers so urgent as in operations of this nature, and the lack of such may spoil the best matured combinations of the chief. It has been seen that the Spanish failure in dealing with the Cuban insurgents has been attributed partially to the want of an abundant supply of such leaders, a want which will generally make itself felt in any army in which the bulk of commissions are gained from the ranks. | |
The South African "drives." |
The "drives" instituted in the closing days of the South African war may be called the last word in strategy directed against guerilla antagonists. In principle the drives combined the system of sub-dividing the theatre of war into sections, of utilizing highly mobile troops, of acting with the utmost energy, and of getting the full benefit out of fortified posts. The plan was practically perfect in theory, and the lines of blockhouses were there ready to form the barrier against which the commandos were to be forced. But its execution was extremely difficult. There was always risk of a gap being left somewhere, or of the enemy breaking through lines which were necessarily stretched almost to the breaking point. The "drives" achieved great results however, and they present perhaps the most remarkable feature of that long drawn out campaign against the Boer guerillas. The method is obviously one which could only be used after prolonged operations and after ample preparation, and it would rarely happen that such heroic remedies would be necessary in operations against the class of enemy ordinarily met with in small wars. |
Need of a good intelligence department in guerilla warfare, and of secrecy. |
In no class of warfare is a well organized and well served intelligence department more essential than in that against guerillas. Hoche instituted an elaborate system of espionage in Brittany, paying particular attention to this very important subject. Guerillas trust to secret and to sudden strokes, and if the secret is discovered their plan miscarries. On the other hand, all movements intended against them must be |
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concealed or they will be scared away. Guerilla warfare means that the regular troops are spread about a hostile country where all their movements can be watched by the enemy and where their camps are full of spies. Experience proves that partisan leaders can seldom be trusted, and that in all dealings with them great circumspection is essential. Hoche discouraged parleying with the rebels by subordinate officers, distrusting their chiefs. "Parle comme si tu avais confiance en tout le monde" ["Speak as if you had confidence in everyone"] was the motto of General Bugeaud "et agis comme si tu ne pouvais t'en rapporter a personne." Such conditions call for a very efficient and watchful secret service for a trustworthy corps of spies and for a wide awake police, with a capable intelligence department controlling the whole. | |
A well organized corps of scouts drawn from the more intelligent members of the community who may side with the regular forces, is an invaluable adjunct to the intelligence department. Dealing with the partisan operations of South African races or, in territories like Cuba and Mexico, of rebels, settlers in sympathy with the disciplined forces can generally be found, whose knowledge of the country and the people well qualify them for such work. Moving about secretly by night scouts of this class can detect and locate the hostile gatherings, can discover where the enemy has concealed his flocks, and can lead the columns to the spot where it is proposed to strike. In bush warfare, to be dealt with later on, scouts are generally natives who cannot be trusted far out of sight; but Europeans who have long lived an open air life in a theatre of guerilla warfare, who are accustomed to track footprints and who are adepts at the hunter's craft, will move miles ahead of the fighting force and can sometimes fix the quarry at several marches distance. | |
Lack of an efficient intelligence service was one of the many causes of the Spanish failure in Cuba. In the Peninsula the French commanders never got over the difficulty of establishing some organized method of obtaining information as |
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to the movements and intentions of the Spanish guerillas. Until Bugeaud came upon the scene the French in Algeria paid insufficient attention to this all-important matter, and the Russians operating against Schamyl and the tribesmen of the Trans-Caucasian hills were generally completely at fault as regards intelligence. In the later days of the South African war the paramount importance of a well equipped intelligence department was fully recognized, and its work exercised a great influence on the course of the operations. The Germans operating in South-West Africa have sorely felt the want of an adequate intelligence service--it is only in armies accustomed to the varying conditions of irregular warfare that the importance of this subject is fully appreciated. | |
Carrying off cattle and destroying property. |
The adoption of guerilla methods by the enemy almost necessarily forces the regular troops to resort to punitive measures directed against the possessions of their antagonists. It must be remembered that one way to get the enemy to fight is to make raids on his property--only the most cowardly of savages and irregulars will allow their cattle to be carried off or their homes to be destroyed without making some show of resistance. Antagonists who will not even under such circumstances strike a blow, can only be dealt with by depriving them of their belongings or burning their dwellings. When operations are being carried out against guerillas scattered over great tracts of country, it has generally been found very useful to send raiding parties consisting of mounted men great distances, to carry off the enemy's flocks and herds or to destroy encampments and villages. As already mentioned the Russians have put this method of warfare in force in Central Asia, and the French made large use of it in some of their Algerian campaign. In Chapter XVI raids will be considered from the tactical point of view, here it is only necessary to draw attention to them as one means of bringing guerillas to book. The raiding plan is of course somewhat different from the methodical |
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clearing of the whole country such as was carried out in South Africa in 1901-02. | |
Objection to the principle of raids. |
The objection to raids pure and simple is really one of principle. To filch the property of irregulars when they are absent is not the true spirit of waging war against such opponents; the proper way to deal with them is to kill them or to wound them, or at least to hunt them from their homes and then to destroy or carry off their belongings. But it must be remembered that the French in Algeria and the Russians on the steppes have had to deal with nomads who thought fit to adopt guerilla tactics, and who never fought if they could help it; British troops have had practically no experience of such conditions. |
Raids designed to destroy hostile depôts of food or ammunition of course stand on a different footing altogether, their value in any class of warfare can hardly be overrated; but guerillas, savages, or semi-civilized adversaries rarely have such depôts, therefore the question of operations against them hardly arises in small wars. The system of raiding the enemy's cattle was employed to a certain extent by the British forces in Kaffirland in 1877, and in the suppression of the Rhodesian rebellion; but it was not found that these enterprises had much effect upon the Mashonas in 1897, who held out till tackled in their caves. In those campaigns great difficulty was experienced in getting the enemy to fight, as the French found in Algeria and the Russians in some of their steppe campaigns, but the South African native races are not nomads, and it is always nomads who especially prize their flocks and herds. Of course if the force is actually short of food, raids may become absolutely necessary; and should a body of troops for any reason have been compelled to adopt a defensive attitude for a time, a bold raid will tend to re-establish its prestige, and will encourage all ranks at a time when they may be depressed owing to their unsatisfactory position. But regular troops who can find no better |
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means of stamping out the resistance of determined guerillas than by cattle lifting raids will probably take a long tune to perform their task. | |
Pacification of revolted districts. Hoche in la Vendée. |
When the operations take the form of pacifying a disturbed district, as was the case in La Vendée and as is, indeed, usual during at least some period of a guerilla war, much judgment is needed. The enemy must be chastised up to a certain point but should not be driven to desperation. General Hoche's system is thus described by Thiers. |
"Hoche devised in ingenious mode of reducing the country without laving it waste, by depriving it of its arms and taking part of its produce for the supply of the Republican army. In the first place he persisted in the establishment of entrenched camps * * * . He then formed a circular line which was supported by the Sevres and Loire and tended to envelope progressively the whole country. This line was composed of very strong posts connected by patrols, so as to leave no free space by which an enemy who was at all numerous could pass. These posts were directed to occupy every hamlet and village and to disarm them. To accomplish this they were to seize the cattle which usually grazed together and the corn stowed away in the barns; they were also to secure the principal inhabitants; they were not to restore the cattle and the corn, nor to release the persons taken as hostages, till the peasants should have voluntarily delivered up their arms." | |
This was a case of restoring order in a great tract of civilized country where the insurrection was prompted largely by religious feeling. It was a case of civil war, and the brilliant Trench soldier-administrator substituted this system for the devastation which had been tried by his predecessors and which had failed. | |
Upper Burma. |
Similarly in Burma great care was taken not to exasperate the people of tin newly acquired province, and to punish only the dacoits and marauders who invested the country and were reducing it to anarchy. The country was divided into groups of posts, each group having troops enough to garrison all the posts, while a flying column was always ready to take the field. The operations were especially directed against the dacoits, villages which harboured them were destroyed, cattle were carried off and crops impounded; |
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but great care bad to be exercised not to punish villages which were merely victims of dacoity. Fines were sometimes inflicted to make the villagers give up their arms if it was thought they were in league with the marauders. But in these operations the population was friendly to the regular troops and the operations were not directed against the people as a whole. | |
Severity sometimes necessary. |
In the Indian Mutiny, a campaign for the suppression of a rebellion where the most drastic measures were justified by the events at its outset, guerilla warfare was not a feature, except in the Central Provinces and in some few localities after the rebel armies had been overthrown. The nature of the campaign was indeed such that the insurgents were so roughly handled in action that the country was practically pacified on the battle-field. But in South Africa in 1851-52, in 1877, and again in 1896, rigorous treatment was meted out to the enemy in crushing out disaffection, and with good results; the Kaffir villages and Matabili kraals were burnt, their crops destroyed, their cattle carried off. The French in Algeria, regardless of the maxim, "Les repriásailles sont toujours inutiles," dealt very severely with the smouldering disaffection of the conquered territory for years after Abd el Kader's power was gone, and their procedure succeeded. Uncivilized races attribute leniency to timidity. A system adapted to La Vendée is out of place among fanatics and savages, who must be thoroughly brought to book and cowed or they will rise again. |
Conclusion. |
The subject of how best to deal with an enemy who deliberately adopts guerilla tactics, and who persists in resistance in spite of such damage as regular troops can inflict in destroying villages, carrying off five stock and trampling down crops and bo on, presents a very awkward problem. Elusive guerilla bands are difficult to surprise and it is only by surprise that loss can, as a rule, be inflicted on them. Hill warfare and bush warfare, to be |
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dealt with in later chapters, are essentially contests against guerillas operating in exceptionally awkward country who can always escape if they wish to. Wholesale destruction of the property of the enemy may sometimes do more harm than good, and it is, in any case, by no means easy to carry out. In the preceding paragraphs the subject has only been dealt with in very general terms as the conditions vary in different cases; a plan which may be highly effective in the one may fail altogether in the other, but the principle of dividing up the theatre of war into sections, each treated to a certain extent by itself, will generally be found to be applicable, and a happy combination of mobile columns and of defensive posts in the various sections should then bring about success within a reasonable time. |
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