The objective in small wars.
Selection of objective in the first place governed by the cause of the campaign. |
The selection of the objective in a small war will usually be governed in the first place by the circumstances which have led up to the campaign. Military operations are always undertaken with some end in view, and are shaped for its achievement. If the conquest of the hostile territory be aimed at, the objective takes a different form from that which it would assume were the expedition dispatched with merely punitive intent. A commander bent on extorting terms from some savage potentate will frame his plans on different lines from the leader sent to crush the military power of a menacing tribe. But in all cases there are in warfare of this nature certain points which will, apart from the cause of the campaign, influence the choice of the objective, and which depend mainly on the class of enemy to be dealt with. |
Cases where the hostile country has a definite form of government. |
The enemy is often represented by a people with comparatively speaking settled institutions, with a central form of government, and with military forces regulated and commanded by a central authority. Monarchical institutions are to be found in many semi-civilized and savage lands, amounting often to forms of despotism which are particularly well calculated to ensure a judicious management of available military forces when at war. The savage Zulu warriors fought in organized armies controlled by the supreme authority of the king. Runjeet Singh was a respected ruler who could dispose, of organized forces completely at his command; the Amir of Bokhara stood on a similar footing during the campaigns which ended in the annexation of his |
khanate to the Russian Empire. The Ashantis and Dahomeyans were nationalities which although uncivilized were completely dominated by their sovereigns. In cases such as these the objective will generally be clear and well defined. There are armies the overthrow of which will generally bring the head of the hostile state to reason. There are centres of government the capture of which will paralyse the forces of resistance of the country. To a certain extent the destruction of the military forces of the enemy under such conditions almost necessarily involves the fall of the capital, because the military forces gather for the protection of the capital and the fall of the capital follows upon their defeat almost as a matter of course. The conditions approximate to those of regular warfare in the very important particular that from the outset of the campaign a determinate scheme of operations can be contemplated and can be put in force. | |
The question of the importance of the capital as an objective. |
In great campaigns of modern history it has come to be considered as the usual objective that the capital of the hostile nation should be threatened, and that it should if possible be actually captured. In a civilized country the metropolis is not only the seat of government and of the legislature, but it is also generally the centre of communications and the main emporium of the nation's commerce. Its occupation by an enemy means a complete dislocation of the executive system, it brings about a collapse of trade, and, if the occupation be long continued, it causes financial ruin. But the capitals of countries which become the theatres of small war are rarely of the same importance. In such territories there is little commercial organization, the chief town generally derives its sole importance from being the residence of the sovereign and his council, and its capture by a hostile army is in itself damaging rather to the prestige of the government than injurious to the people at large. |
In the last Afghan war Kabul was occupied early in the campaign, after the overthrow of the troops of Yakoub Khan. But its capture by no |
means brought about the downfall of the Afghans as a fighting power, on the contrary it proved to be merely the opening engagement of the campaign. The country was in a state of suppressed anarchy, the tribes [undecipherable word] acknowledge the Amir to be their King, and when Kabul fell and the government such as it was, ceased to exist, the people generally card little; but they bitterly resented the insult to their nation and to their faith which the presence of British troops in the heart of the country offered. | |
But, although the relations of Kabul to the Afghan rare maybe taken as typical, there arc often exceptions, and have often occurred in these wars where the capital of the country has proved the core of its resistance. In the case of a petty chieftain the capital means his stronghold. Sekukuai's and Morosi's mountains are examples of this, and their capture put an immediate end to the campaign in each case. "When the object of the war is to extort certain conditions or to exact reparation from some half-civilised or .savage potentate, the capture of his capital will generally have the desired effect. It was so in the Chinese war of 1860, when all efforts at negotiation failed till the allied forces were at the gates of Pekin. | |
When the capital is a place of real importance in the country its capture generally disposes of regular opposition. |
When the capital is really the focus and centre of a, State, however barbarous, any approach to organized resistance under the direct control of the head of the. State, will almost always cease when the capital falls; but it does not by any means follow that the conflict is at an end. 'The capture, of Algiers in 1830 closed the campaign as one against armies including troops of all arms; it proved, however, to be only the prelude to years of desultory warfare. It was the same in Dahomey, where the fighting power of Benauzin's forces was utterly broken in trying to bar the advance of the invaders to Abomey, but there were troublesome hostilities with guerillas subsequently. On the other hand, the fighting after the occupation of Ulundi in the Zulu war and of Buluwayo in the Matabili campaign, was only of a desultory description. The amount of resistance offered to the regular troops after they have overthrown the more or less organized forces of the |
enemy and seized the chief town varies in different cases. But the French experiences in Algeria, and the British experiences in Afghanistan, show that these irregular, protracted, indefinite operations offer often far greater difficulties to the regular armies than the attainment of the original military objective. | |
The great advantage of having a clear and well-defined objective. |
The advantage of having a well denned objective even for a time can, however, scarcely be over-rated, and the Central Asian campaigns of Russia illustrate this vividly. Turkestan was territory inhabited largely by nomads, but its rolling plains and steppes were studded with historic cities many of which had been for ages the marts of oriental commerce. The invaders went to work with marked deliberation. They compassed the downfall of the khanates by gradually absorbing these cities, capturing them in many cases by very brilliant feats of arms. The conquests were not achieved by any display of mighty force, the actual Russian armies in these operations were rarely large, but the objectives were always clear and determinate; the capture of one city was generally held sufficient for a year, but it thereupon became a Russian city. The troops had always an unmistakable goal in front of them, they went deliberately to work to attain that goal, and when it was attained they rested on their laurels till ready for another coup. Such is the military history of the conquest of Central Asia. It is a record of war in which desultory operations were throughout conspicuous by their absence. Such conditions are, however, very seldom found hi small wars; important towns and centres of trade, moreover, are not the sole conditions offering distinct objectives. |
Sometimes the circumstances of the case will cause the enemy to muster in full strength, and will permit of a decisive victory being gained which concludes the war, and it is most fortunate when the operations take this form. The enormous importance of moral effect in these campaigns will be dealt with in a later chapter, suffice it to say here |
that it is a factor which enters into all their phases; a defeat inflicted upon a large force of irregular warriors terrifies not only those engaged, but also all their kind. It is the difficulty of bringing the foe to action which, as a rule, forms the most unpleasant characteristic of these wars; but when such opponents can be thoroughly beaten in the open field at the commencement of hostilities, their powers of further serious resistance often cease. And so. when by force of circumstances the enemy is compelled to accept battle to defend some point of great importance to him or to safeguard some venerated shrine, thus offering a well-defined objective, the regular troops greatly benefit. Many examples of this might be quoted. Denghil Tepe, for instance, became the stronghold in which practically the whole military power of the Tekke Turkomans concentrated itself in 1879 and 1880, although the Turkomans are, in the main, a nomad race; the Russians failed in their first campaign through mismanagement, but the objective never was in doubt, and in their second venture the formidable nomad race, which might have taken years to subdue, was crushed for good and all when the fortress fell. The experience of the French in Annam in 1861 is another case in point. They had formed a small settlement at Saigon, and this the Annamese, profiting by the inability of the French to detach troops thither during the China war, blockaded in great force, forming a regular entrenched camp close by. Thus it came about that when the French were at last able to land a large force at Saigon, they found a formidable hostile army before them in a highly defensible position, which was just what they wanted. By bold and skilful dispositions they signally defeated the Annamese drawn up to meet them, and the effect of the blow was so great that they were able to overrun the country afterwards almost unhindered. | |
Tirah, a peculiar case. |
The Tirah campaign of 1897 affords a singular example of the advantages of a definite objective. It was the just boast of the Afridis and Orukzais that the remarkable upland |
valleys which constitute their summer home, and which were practically unknown to the British, had defied the efforts of all invaders. The duty of Sir W. Lockhart's army, therefore, was to overrun these valleys, and to prove to the formidable tribesmen that whatever might have been their experience in the past, they had now to do with a foe capable of bursting through the great mountain barriers in which they put their trust, and of violating the integrity of territory which they believe to be incapable of access by organized troops. The army performed its task of penetrating into Tirah, and of leaving its mark in the usual manner by the demolition of buildings and destruction of crops. Nor did its subsequent retirement, harassed by the mountaineers in defiles where they could act to the very best advantage, appreciably detract from the success of the operation as a whole. For the enemy had learnt that an Anglo-Indian army could force its way into these fastnesses, could seize their crops, destroy their defences, burn their villages, and could, after making its presence felt in every ravine and nook, get out again; and that settled the matter. The conditions here were peculiar, but they illustrate well the broad principle that in warfare of this nature it is half the battle to have a distinct task to perform. | |
Objective when the purpose of hostilities is the overthrow of a dangerous military power. |
Sometimes when the war is undertaken, as in the case of Zululand, to overthrow a dangerous military power, the objective is the army of the enemy wherever it may be. The very fact of this being a formidable force will generally cause it to accept battle readily to confront an invader. The objective becomes primarily some point in hostile territory which the hostile army will certainly endeavour to protect--the capital or some stronghold involving the military prestige of the enemy, and an advance on this leads to a pitched battle, which is what the regular troops want. Thus in the Spanish campaign of 1859 against the Moors the town of Tetuan was made the goal of the invaders, and in endeavouring to bar the road the forces of the. Sultan suffered several severe defeats. On |
the Red Sea littoral, in the days when Mahdism was a power in those parts, the very fact of any Anglo-Egyptian advance always ensured great gatherings of dervishes eager for the fray. In the Matabili war the advance of the small British force on Buluwayu forced the impis of Lohongula to assemble and to fight. | |
Objective when there is no capital and no army. |
But when there is no king to conquer, no capital to seize, no organized army to overthrow, and when there are no celebrated strongholds to capture, and no great centres of population to occupy, the objective is not so easy to select. It is then that the regular troops arc forced to resort to cattle lifting and village burning and that the war assumes an aspect which may shock the humanitarian. "In planning a war against an uncivilized nation who has, perhaps, no capital," says Lord Wolseley, "your first object should be the. capture of whatever they prize most, and the destruction or deprivation of which will probably bring the war most rapidly to a conclusion." This goes to the root of the whole matter. If the enemy cannot be touched in his patriotism or his honour, he can be touched through his pocket. |
Raids on live stock. |
Fighting the Kirghiz and other nomads of the steppes the Russians have always trusted largely to carrying off the camels and flocks of the enemy as a means of bringing their antagonists to reason. In Algeria the French, adopting the methods of Abd-el-Kader and his followers, made sudden raids or "razzias"--dealt with later in the chapters on guerilla warfare and raids--carrying off the five stock and property of their wandering opponents. In the Kaffir wars, especially in 1S52, this mode ot procedure has been very common, adapted with success, and it is the usual plan of action in the small punitive expeditions in East and West Africa. The United States troops used to retaliate upon the Red Indians in similar fashion. |
Destruction of crops, etc. |
The destruction of the crops and stores of grain of the enemy is another way of carrying on hostilities. This method |
of warfare is more exasperating to the adversary than carrying off live stock; for while they appreciate the principle that the victor is entitled to the spoils, wanton damage tends to embitter their feeling of enmity. The same applies to the destruction of villages so often resorted to in punitive expeditions, but it hardly does so to the same extent, since the dwellings of these races can be reconstructed easily while their food supplies, if destroyed, cannot be replaced. It is so often the case that the power which undertakes a small war desires to acquire the friendship of the people which its armies are chastising, that the system of what is called "military execution" is ill adapted to the end in view. The most satisfactory way of bringing such foes to reason is by the rifle and sword, for they understand this mode of warfare and respect it. Sometimes, however, the circumstances do not admit of it, and then their villages must be demolished and their crops and granaries destroyed; still it is unfortunate when this is the case. | |
Suppression of rebellions. |
When, however, the campaign takes the form of queuing an insurrection, the object is not only to prove to the opposing force unmistakably which is the stronger, but also to inflict punishment on those who have taken up arms. In this case it is often necessary to injure property. "A war," wrote Sir G. Cathcart from Kaffirland in 1852, "may be terminated by the surrender or capitulation of the hostile sovereign or chief, who answers for his people; but in the suppression of a rebellion the refractory subjects of the ruling power must all be chastised and subdued." Still there is a limit to the amount of licence in destruction which is expedient. Hoche, whose conduct of the campaign against the Chouans and insurgents from La Vendee will ever remain a model of operations of this kind, achieved success as much by his happy combination of clemency with firmness, as by his masterly dispositions in the theatre of war. Expeditions to put down revolt are not put in motion merely to bring about a temporary cessation of |
hostility. Their purpose is to ensure a lasting peace. Therefore, in choosing the objective, the overawing and not the exasperation of the enemy is the end to keep in view. | |
Special objectives. |
In some small wars the conditions have imposed certain objectives on the regular forces of necessity. K«ir instance, the Nile Expedition was undertaken for the relief of Khartum, and it was only when the beleaguered city fell that any doubt with regard to its objective arose. The Chitral campaign was analogous. Such cases are, however, peculiar. |
Conclusion. |
The subject of the selection of the objective dues tint lend itself to exhaustive treatment, and is certainly not one with regard to which rides of conduct could with advantage lie drawn up. Each case must be decided on its merits. The main points of difference between small wars and regular campaigns in this respect are that, in the former, the beating of the hostile armies is not necessarily the main object even if such armies exist, that moral effect is often far more important than material success, and that the operations are sometimes limited to committing havoc, which the laws of regular warfare do not sanction. The conditions of a campaign undertaken against a savage race swayed by a despotic, sovereign differ so fundamentally from hostilities against, gatherings of independent clans, that principles which govern the operations from the very outset in the one case arc wholly inapplicable to the other. The crushing of an insurrectionary movement or the settlement of a conquered country, are undertakings so distinct from enterprises entered upon to overawe a semi-civilized state, that what may present itself as the obvious objective under the former set of circumstances may be non-existent in the latter. It is this extraordinary diversity of conditions which makes the consideration of small wars so complex and so difficult to discuss as one general object. |
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