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SMALL WARS

Chapter VIII.
To avoid desultory warfare the enemy must be brought to battle, and in such manner as to make his defeat decisive.

Prolonged campaigns to be avoided.

In the last two chapters have been pointed out the importance of a vigorous and masterful conduct of operations in these campaigns, and how their nature tends to render trial by battle preferable to out-manoeuvring the enemy, in the theatre of war. In this chapter the object will be to show how essential it is to prevent the struggle from degenerating into desultory warfare, to regular troops the most tedious and harassing form which hostilities can assume.

Reasons for this.

Troops suffer from disease.

In campaigns of this class a main object to be aimed at is to shorten their duration. They take place as a rule in territories and in climates which do not suit the trained soldier. Even where this is not the case, as for instance in some of the campaigns in South Africa, in Morocco, or in North America, the very fact of being on active service necessarily entails hardships on the troops, which in time causes wastage and leads to loss. The. enemy fighting in his own country suffers far less; and even if he suffers as much or suffers more, this does not justify the exposure of the troops to the risks of disease longer than is absolutely necessary. The experiences of small wars of the past all go to prove that the losses in men which the regular army sustains are due far more to sickness than to fire and sword--accurate statistics have in many cases been compiled, and they place this beyond question. There are exceptions, of course, to this as to every other rule in war--as for instance

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in the case of the Zulu campaign where the disaster at Isandlwhana brought the wastage due to battle up to a figure rather higher than that arising from disease--but in most operations of which details upon this point exist, and especially where the struggle has been prolonged as in Afghanistan, in the Russian expeditions against the Tekkes and in the case of Burma, it is sickness and not the loss involved by actual conflict which saps the strength of the regular army. The hostilities, moreover, often take place in unhealthy, and even deadly, climates, in torrid, fever-stricken theatres of war such as Dahomey and Benin, as Tonkin and Achin; when this is so the troops are decimated by ill-health even when the war is of short duration. In the French operations against the Hovas, in 1895, they lost 3,400 out of a force of 15,000; of these losses only a very few occurred in the battlefield.

Supply difficulties render protracted operations undesirable.

Another reason why protracted operations are to be avoided has been already dealt with incidentally in a former chapter. This is the difficulty of supply. The provision of food for man and beast being so very serious a consideration in this class of warfare, it is obvious that, as a rule, every day's delay means a waste of power. Just as the supply question tends to cut down the force detailed for the campaign, so it also tends to cut down the time that is available. In the case of the Nile Expedition, sketched from the point of view of supply on pp. 68-70, it was essential that the task allotted to the River Column should be completed within a given period. In all campaigns in unproductive districts, time must be a very important matter.

Enemy gains time to organize his forces.

And there is yet another reason for hastening the issue of such campaigns. As already pointed out in Chapter VI, the enemy is generally far more energetic in organizing his strength once the operations have commenced, than he is when they are merely impending. If allowed time the hostile forces are apt to become much more formidable than

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they would have been had the war been prosecuted with greater rapidity at the outset.

 

This is illustrated by the French operations against Madagascar in 1883-86. The proceedings were, as far as hostilities on land were concerned, carried out in a very half-hearted manner and they drifted on over many months. The Malagasies were at the outset unprepared and without organisation; but during the war the condition of their forces steadily improved under the guidance of Europeans, and they were far more formidable at its conclusion than at its commencement The French obtained satisfactory terms of peace as a consequence of their blockade of the island; but the campaign on land was little better than a failure.

Desultory operations tend to prolong a campaign.

Protracted campaigns are then to be avoided as far as possible, and the question how to accelerate their progress is one which the commander and staff must ever keep in view. To ascertain the surest method of shortening their duration it is best to consider what are the causes of these delays which are so mischievous. These causes are often preventable causes. Dilatory proceedings may arise from bad organization or they may follow from insufficient preparation, questions with which we are not concerned here. They may arise from lack of zeal among subordinates, or they may be due to want of energy in high places. But one of the commonest causes of operations being unduly prolonged, is to be found in their having been allowed to drift into a desultory form of warfare, and this is a question of strategy and tactics.

Guerilla warfare very unfavourable to regular troops.

It may be accepted as a general rule that guerilla warfare is the most unfavourable shape which a campaign can take for the regular troops. At surprises and ambushes, at petty skirmishes, at attacks on detached parties and at cutting off stragglers, the enemy is usually an adept. Intimate acquaintance with the terrain, natural agility, cunning, and the warlike instinct which is natural in races where security of life and property does not exist, all combine to make antagonists of this kind most formidable if the hostilities are confined to operations of a guerilla character. In most small wars the enemy inclines to this mode of carrying on the

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campaign, and shirks more regular engagements, and it becomes necessary when this is the case to force him into decisive action. During the French campaigns against Abd el Kader it was found almost impossible to get the wan-emir to fight. The Spanish armies were confronted by the same problem, as were the American forces in the Philippines. British troops have experienced the same difficulty in recent times in Burma, in the South African wars, and in the Tirah campaign. It is a feature of most insurrectionary wars on a small scale, as for instance in Montenegro in 1875-77. The great Circassian leader, Schamyl, kept the Russians at bay for years with guerilla tactics; it was when he formed his followers into armies and weighed them down with guns that his cause declined. The Poles in 1853 committed the fatal error of assembling in formed bodies; had they confined themselves to desultory warfare, their overthrow would have proved a far more difficult task for the Russian armies. Still circumstances often are such that the enemy cannot be tempted into battle, and adheres entirely to the guerilla form of making war, and in Chapter XI this contingency is especially dealt with.

Indecisive conduct of campaign tends to desultory warfare.

Invertebrate, undecided leadership of the regular troops induces desultory operations, and guerilla warfare is merely the most aggravated form of desultory operations. Marches with no particular object in view or marches with no object apparent to the enemy, advances followed by retirements, attacks on hostile positions and the abandonment of the ground after it has been won--it is operations such as these which raise the spirits of the hostile forces and which may lead to a prolonged, costly and ineffective campaign, disastrous to the health of the troops and damaging to the prestige of the civilized power which has put them in the field. Every undertaking should have a definite and distinct purpose, and once entered upon should be carried out to the end unless some insuperable objection unexpectedly arises. The

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enemy must be forced to understand that business is meant, that the regular army intends to accomplish whatever enterprise it engages in. Half measures are fatal.

Examples.

(1) The Russian failures in the Caucasus were mainly due to the objectless character of their campaigns. They would assemble a great force and march through the forest and over the hills to capture some stronghold, which they often would find abandoned. Then they would march solemnly back again, harassed all the way by the warlike Circassians, Georgians, and Chechens, and would settle down into cantonments till the spirit moved them to undertake some similar spasmodic enterprise.

 

(2) During the campaign in Morocco in 1859, the Spanish forces allowed themselves on several occasions to be drawn by the Moors into purposeless engagements. Although they generally gained a certain measure of success in these during the actual fighting, they were obliged at its termination to relinquish what ground they had won; and the Moors interpreted this into a victory for themselves. Unpremeditated actions of this kind are to be deprecated; they lead to loss for no advantage. On the occasions on which the Spanish troops deliberately and with a definite object in view attacked the forces of the Sultan, they were almost always rewarded with signal success.

 

(3) The small Russian columns sent against the Tekke Turkomans in 1876-77, afford illustration of the evil of desultory, indecisive operations, although the Asiatic wars carried out by the military forces of the Tsar against inferior races have generally been conducted in a very different spirit. Detachments too weak to effect any good purpose were sent out with no very clear object in view, pottered about and after a time were driven back, the result being merely to damage Russian prestige and to confirm the Turkomans in their hostile attitude.

 

(4) The campaign against the Mahdists about Suakin in 1885 was opened by the action of Hashin, consisting of the capture of some hills a few miles north-west of the town. One of these hills, the furthest off and by far the largest and most important, was stormed in fine style; but the bush about its base was thick, and at this point the action was indecisive. When after a short time the large hill was abandoned the enemy at once reoccupied it; and as the British force, after leaving a garrison in zeribas constructed some distance to the rear, thereupon retired back to Suakin, the Dervishes were justified in concluding that, if not victorious, they at least had not been beaten. Two days later the British force commenced an advance south-westwards, and the insignificant moral effect which the slight success at Hashin had exerted over the enemy, was shown by the determined onslaught made upon it at Tofrek.

 

(5) In the Dutch campaigns in Achin their troops were on more than one occasion sent to capture a fortified village which, when captured, was promptly abandoned. A minor episode in 1874, may be narrated as an

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instance of the objectless fighting which was rather a feature of the operations. a patrol of one non-commissioned officer and six men with a native drummer went out further than was intended, and was attacked and driven back, the drummer being mortally wounded and being left behind. Several small detachments moved out to the place from different points, till some 200 men were engaged, and in the end the enemy drew oil. But the Dutch lost an officer and 3 men killed and 11 men wounded, having gained nothing whatever, for the patrol was merely reconnoitring in advance of the Dutch lines and the enemy was not in force and was making no attack or even demonstration.

Skirmishes should be avoided.

As a general rule it appears to be desirable to avoid skirmishes unless the enemy compels the regular troops to engage in them. Skirmishes mean desultory war. "Ne faites jamais de petite paquets à la guerre," was a saying of Skobelef's. The tendency of skirmishes is merely to temporarily frighten the enemy, not to inflict lasting injury. Petty annoyance is the favourite weapon of the guerilla, and regular troops are sorely tempted to retaliate in the same coin, to haggle as it were with the hostile gatherings instead of enduring worry and molestation for a season, biding their time till they can strike home. For instance, using artillery to drive off insignificant bands will seldom be desirable, they merely disappear to come again; it is far better to tempt them into some rash action, to let them gather strength and courage and then fall upon them and give them a lesson which they will not forget. And it must be remembered that the smaller the scale of a conflict the less does the tactical superiority of the regular troops tell, for it gives the enemy a better chance of utilising to the full his skill in ambushes and in profiting by accidents of ground; the larger the detachment the less liable is it, generally speaking, to be overwhelmed by a sudden rush.

Sometimes desirable to conceal strength so as to encourage enemy to fight.

To lay down as an arbitrary rule that it is better to conceal than to parade the strength of the regular army would be improper, for the moral effect upon the adversary of a show of force is often great. But at times it will be advisable to impress the hostile forces with the belief that they are

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confronted by a less formidable opponent than is in fact the case, otherwise it may be impossible to get them to fight. Whether concealment of strength is, or is not, expedient depends entirely on the nature of the enemy and of the war. Brave and determined warriors like the Black Flags of Tonkin, the Zulus or the Achinese, fanatics like the Mahdists or the Afghan ghazis, rebels who have no alternative but to fight like the defenders of Delhi, will accept battle in any case. In the later French campaigns in Algeria on the other hand, in the Russian operations against Schamyl, in wars against the Kaffirs, the Maoris and the Burmese, the great difficulty has generally been to bring on a decisive struggle--most unfortunately for the regular forces.

General engagements the object to be aimed at.

For general engagements are the object to be aimed at. Some losses may be suffered at the moment, but loss is saved in the end. There can be no doubt that pitched battles take the fight out of adversaries such as have to be dealt with in these wars. The severer the conflict, the more the superiority of the regular troops is brought home to the enemy. It sometimes happens that, even when the enemy gains the upper hand, the havoc caused by arms of precision convinces him that the cause is hopeless. Isandlwhana, so terribly disastrous to the British troops, opened the eyes of the Zulus to the nature of the antagonists they had to deal with and shook their confidence in their own invincibility. The heavy losses suffered by the followers of the Mullah in the fight at Gumburu in Somaliland, where Colonel Plunkett's force was annihilated, counteracted the effects of their victory.

Examples.

In 1864, in the early days of the Russian operations against Khokand, a detached sotnia of cavalry with a gun was surrounded by an immensely superior force of Khokandians at Ikan. For two days the Russians defended themselves against overwhelming odds; they inflicted great loss upon the enemy, and finally managed to escape. The moral effect inspired by the fight made by this detachment was very great; although it was almost the only conflict of the year it appears to have so gravely impressed the Khokandians as to have materially assisted the Russians next year in their successful attack upon Tashkend, mentioned on p. 81.

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The British victory at Ahmed Khel over a formidable force of Afghans who, attacking with great determination suffered very heavy losses, had an excellent effect over the tribes round Ghazni. When Sir P. Roberts's force some months later traversed the same district on the march from Kabul to Kandahar, no opposition was offered.

 

In the second attack upon Dargai in the Tirah campaign the British troops suffered serious losses and only gained the day with great difficulty. But their victory seems to have enormously impressed the tribesmen, and, indeed, to have had the somewhat unfortunate result of impelling them to adopt guerilla tactics during the future operations.

 

Examples of this might be multiplied. The enemy seldom fights so well again after having had a taste of the arms and methods of a regular farce, and this is a powerful argument for bringing matters to a fighting issue. The records of small wars prove beyond the possibility of doubt that the campaigns marked by a few general actions are those which are the most decisive and the most satisfactory. The Zulu war, in spite of its unfortunate commencement, is a case in point. The military power of the Matabili was broken by their attacks upon the laagers at Imbembesi and Shangani during the first campaign in that country. The Indian Mutiny was remarkable for the readiness displayed by the enemy in accepting battle; had it been otherwise its final suppression would have been far more arduous.

 

The Russians in Central Asia have been very fortunate in finding their opponents, as a rule, inclined for decisive conflicts. At Yedshar in 1866, a very large army from Bokhara marching in Tashkend in the hope of recovering that city, was confronted by a far inferior Russian force. A severely contested action ensued in which the latter was completely victorious. Two years later a decisive engagement was fought under the walls of Samarcand. These two battles decided the fate of Turkestan, the capture of Tashkend having given the Russians a firm footing in the country to start with. Minor engagements have been conspicuous by their absence in Central Asia. Almost every episode in the campaigns which brought the Cossacks to Bokhara and the sources of the Sir

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Daria was an important operation or war, and to this may be attributed the extraordinary success which the Russians have achieved.

Campaign a where circumstances oblige the enemy to adopt a decisive course of action are the most satisfactory.

The conditions of the struggle may of course compel the enemy to commit himself to decided action, and it is a most fortunate circumstance when this is so. In the Abyssinian campaign, for instance, in 1868, King Theodore had no choice except to trust to the natural strength of his position at Magdala with its defences and its guns, and to stand his; ground when the British troops arrived. The first phase of the French invasion of Algeria--the overthrow of the power of the Dey and seizure of his capital--gave the regular forces little trouble, for there was a distinct objective and one which the enemy was bound to cover; as soon as General Bourmont effected his landing, the forces of the Dey were concentrated so as to bar the French line of advance to Algiers and they were of course utterly defeated. The seizure of Delhi by the mutineers in 1857 was not without a certain advantage to the British troops, for it led to this point becoming the focus of the rebel movement, it raised the city into being a strategical centre of supreme importance, it bound the enemy firmly to that centre, and it enabled our forces by the capture of that centre, to strike a blow at the insurrectionary movement which utterly shattered the hostile chances of achieving ultimate success. In the Ashanti and Dahomey wars the British and French columns in each case aimed at the Royal capitals; Kings Koffee and Benanzin were forced to bar the way as best they could and to thus expose their armies to the risk of general actions in which the regular troops could bring their superiority in armament, in discipline, and in leadership decisively to bear. During the prolonged hostilities on the Red Sea Littoral near Suakin, Osman Digna's forces were always based upon the fertile district of Tokar; a natural disinclination to engage in military enterprises long deterred the Cairo authorities from occupying the locality; but when at last in 1891, a

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force was sent to seize and hold it, the sagacious Dervish chief recognized how far-reaching would be the consequences, and he made a resolute attempt to stop the Egyptian advance from Trinkitat; this led to the decisive engagement at the ruins of Tokar which finally broke up the Mahdist power in that theatre of protracted and desultory operations.

Owing to difficulty of getting enemy to accept battle, it is expedient to ensure a decisive victory when he does so.

Battles, then, are the objects to be sought for by the regular troops, and since the enemy as a general rule shirks engagement in the open field, the strongest grounds exist for tempting him to fight, for drawing him on by skilful dispositions, and for inducing him to enter eagerly upon the conflict if he shows symptoms of inclination for a battle. Where it is so difficult to bring matters to a tactical issue, it is clear that when efforts in this direction prove successful the fight should be decisive. The question of luring such adversaries on to action will be dealt with in a later tactical chapter, as will also that of flank attacks and turning movements aiming at the hostile line of retreat--forms of operation rendered very necessary by the importance of beating the enemy thoroughly when he is brought to action. Battles being so desirable and so difficult to bring about, it stands to reason that when a conflict does occur the opportunity should be taken full advantage of. It must be fully realised that mere defeat of the adversary is not enough, the opposing forces should be beaten so thoroughly that they will not offer further opposition. They must if possible be in a military sense destroyed. Decisive victory is to be sought for and not merely success.

 

In the Egyptian campaign of 1882, already referred to on p. 92, the recognition to its full extent of this important principle was a distinctive feature. Some days before the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, the Egyptian army came out in force from its entrenchments and attacked the British troops at Kassassin, where they were then rapidly concentrating. The enemy was repulsed with little difficulty, and was followed up to within a short distance of Tel-el-Kebir. The Egyptian works might possibly hare been carried by assault then and there without serious resistance being encountered. But the British forces available on the spot at the time were not sufficient to

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achieve absolutely decisive victory, the cavalry were not ready to follow up a success at once, and in any case attack by day on the hostile fortifications must have entailed heavy loss. The troops were therefore recalled, the attack was delayed till everything was prepared, and the brilliant result which followed on this temporary postponement of decisive action justified it conclusively.

Battles sometimes to be avoided if losses cannot be risked.

The experience gained in small wars of the past seems then to point unmistakably to the need of so conducting operations as to bring about general actions, and if possible decisive actions, and the reasons for this are readily deducible from the peculiar characteristics of such warfare. But, as pointed out in the last chapter, cases may arise--if a beleaguered garrison has to be relieved for instance--when it may be wiser to avoid a battle, if that be possible without too great a show of weakness. And when a small force has some important task to fulfil, the carrying out of which will tax its strength, it may be undesirable to incur heavy loss in conflicts not absolutely necessary. When Sir H. Havelock first advanced from Cawnpore for the relief of the Residency at Lucknow he lost so heavily in three engagements--unavoidable engagements in which the enemy was signally defeated--that he was compelled to return to Cawnpore and await reinforcements, because with his diminished force he could not have accomplished what he had undertaken. It is the same when a convoy has to be protected; an irreducible minimum of force will be necessary as escort and if this minimum becomes diminished through losses suffered by the way in battle, the escort is no longer equal to its task and the convoy may be placed in great peril. The inconvenience which will sometimes follow from a fight even if the regular force is victorious, is well illustrated by what occurred in the Bayuda desert in 1885; the heavy losses suffered by the column at Abu Klea and about Gubat, although the hostile attacks were beaten off with great slaughter, so seriously reduced its fighting strength that, till reinforced from Korti, it was barely strong enough to guard the great transport columns under its protection.

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