Guerrilla Warfare Read online

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  The Twentieth Century (I): Between Two World Wars

  The fortunes of guerrilla warfare had reached a low ebb in the early years of the twentieth century; they did not improve in the period spanning and embracing the two world wars. Victory in these wars went to the stronger battalions, the decision determined in massive battles between vast armies. In World War I guerrilla tactics were hardly applied at all, in the second they played a certain limited role in some countries in the struggle against the foreign occupier. The first third of the century witnessed civil wars and warlordism spreading whenever central state power broke down, as in Mexico and later in China. But these small wars were quite often big wars manques, in that the military chiefs operated as though handling regular armies, imitating with varying success their strategy and tactics. There were national uprisings in Africa and Asia, such as Abd el-Krim's struggle and the Palestine insurrection in 1936-1939, but less frequent and intense than in the nineteenth century.

  Guerrilla wars were always patriotic; sometimes they gravitated to the right, sometimes to the left, sometimes toward Fascism and sometimes toward Communism, on occasion betraying traces of both. But guerrilla politics were usually inchoate, unless, as in China, for instance, a political party had sponsored the struggle in the first place. In the Bussian Civil War true guerrillaism was to be found neither in the Bed Army nor among its White opponents but in the bands of independent freebooters in Siberia and the Ukraine. The international climate was as yet inclement for a general guerrilla upsurge; the European powers, though weakened as a result of World War I, were still strong enough to hold on to their colonial empires. Seen in retrospect, the emergence of guerrilla bases in northern China in the 1930s foreshadowed the guerrilla upsurge after 1945. But not much was known at the time about events in these secluded areas, and the Chinese situation in any case appeared unique, as indeed it was. The country had been in a state of semianarchy for a long time, small wars had been going on incessantly and the Communists were just one of the forces in this imbroglio. Again, the Irish case — "urban guerrilla" — was sui generis and seemed to offer few lessons to other countries. Guerrilla movements, almost by definition, could succeed only if the internal or external enemy was weak, or in the larger framework of a prolonged war. But the state was still predominant; even in Mexico, after many years of anarchy the guerrillas were suppressed. Political theory and military doctrine, "bourgeois" and Leninist alike, accorded to guerrilla warfare only a subordinate role. No new theories of guerrilla warfare emerged during this period; in fact, the neglect of the subject was almost total. Military thinkers were almost exclusively concerned with the Vernichtungsschlacht (Can nae), Blitzkrieg, with tank warfare and the impact of air power. The new weapons which had first been used in World War I seemed to tip the balance even farther against guerrilla warfare, leaving little, if any, scope for it in the future. Armored cars had been used by the British raiders against the Turks and the Germans in East Africa, though as yet not widely, and without much effect because of the unsuitability of the terrain.1 Aircraft were also used for the first time in support of Lawrence's raiders, the Serbian insurgents, and against Lettow-Vorbeck for reconnaissance, dropping agents behind enemy lines, and for providing urgently needed supplies. All this was still, however, on a small scale and the evidence about the effects was contradictory. Lettow-Vorbeck wrote that the British planes never really bothered him, and once his forces had entered the jungles of Mozambique, the reconnaissance flights served absolutely no practical purpose.2 He himself had no air support; the Germans had tried to supply their forces in East Africa by air but failed. A Zeppelin with badly needed supplies was once dispatched from Bulgaria in November 1917, but was called back after reaching Khartoum. Nonetheless, there was little doubt that with the improvement in aircraft technology and the perfection of tanks and other armored vehicles, these new weapons would play a very important part in future conflicts — and it looked as if the guerrillas would have no answer against these threats. Airplanes were extensively employed in the North West Frontier fighting. "It is impossible to overestimate the value of aircraft in tactical cooperation with other arms. Their presence alone greatly raised the morale of our troops."3 Information gained through aerial photography was of great value, even though there were as yet few trained observers. It could surely be only a question of time before the guerrillas lost their last secrets — their hideouts would become known, their movements be detected and the element of surprise, the main source of their success, would evaporate. In 1918, in short, the prospects of guerrilla warfare loomed less than brilliant.

  World War I

  Apart from some minor actions of short duration, such as the activities of small bands of Serbian irregulars, guerrilla operations during World War I were restricted to two theaters of war, the Arabian peninsula and East Africa, where Lettow-Vorbeck with a minuscule force managed to contain for over four years a total force "considerably larger than Lord Roberts' whole army in the South African war."4 The operations in Arabia were in Lawrence's own words a sideshow within a sideshow. Nevertheless, in later years his raids were to attract infinitely more attention than the war in East Africa. The Oxford don, Arab headgear and all, was a flamboyant personality in the great tradition of British adventurers and explorers in the Orient. He quarreled with orthodox military authority and underwent incredible hardships; his complicated and tortured mentality fascinated the intellectuals and his books were received with enthusiasm by the avant-garde critics of the 1920s. Hailed as a genius by some, derided as a charlatan by others, this elusive figure was to intrigue, more perhaps than any other hero of the Great War, both his own generation and the ones to follow, still providing until today inspiration for biographers, moviemakers and amateur psychoanalysts. Appearing to shun publicity, he attracted it beyond a single other contemporary — among his friends were the leading writers of the period, unorthodox strategists, such as Liddell Hart who compared him to Napoleon, and leading American practitioners of the new art of public relations. Even those who bitterly and sometimes unfairly attacked him, Richard Aldington for one, added to the Lawrence myth.

  Lawrence's courage and qualities of leadership are beyond all doubt, but his originality and the importance of his exploits have certainly been magnified; seldom in the history of modern war has so much been written about so little. It was neither the first nor the last time in the history of guerrilla warfare that the measure of attention paid to a particular campaign depended less on its military importance than on the accident that a gifted writer wrote about it. But for Euclido da Cunha, Canudos would rank at most as a footnote in Brazilian history; but for Balzac (Les Chouans) and Tolstoy (Hadji Murat), the Vendée and Shamil's wars would be less well remembered. Ernst von Salomon's books helped to popularize the German Freikorps, and For Whom the Bell Tolls made many readers believe that guerrilla warfare was a major element in the Spanish Civil War, whereas in reality there was little of it. As a partisan commander, Lettow-Vorbeck stood head and shoulders above Lawrence, but his personality was neither particularly interesting nor attractive. A Pomeranian Junker by birth and a diehard reactionary, he was a typical product of the German officer caste; and not one of the brightest at that. Aged forty-four when war broke out, he had not advanced beyond the rank of lieutenant-colonel. His transfer to East Africa was professionally a dead end; there was no plan to defend the German colonies in the event of war. He was, to put it mildly, an indifferent writer; his books, published after the war, are mere variations on the same theme.5 In short, it is hard to envisage a greater contrast than that between the brilliant, unorthodox British amateur soldier and the dull, conventional, unimaginative and unattractive German professional. But Lettow succeeded brilliantly in adverse conditions against a vastly superior force; Lawrence's few raids over a much shorter period against small enemy units were not in the same class. Military experts have acknowledged this — the official British history of World War I devoted two volu
mes to Lettow's operations in East Africa; one would look in vain for the name "Lawrence" in the memoirs of German and Turkish commanders in the Near East.6 It is not certain that they were even aware of his existence. There has been in recent years a modest Lettow-Vorbeck revival, but as far as the general public is concerned, Lawrence figures as one of the central figures in guerrilla warfare while Lettow has passed into oblivion.7

  Lawrence's guerrilla operations, which began in late 1916, were part of a general blueprint for an Arab rising against the Turks. The insurrection had in fact started even earlier, in June 1916, but the attempts to seize Medina and other places occupied by the Turks were abortive. Despite a numerical superiority of more than three to one, the Bedouins, untrained and ill equipped, could not defend a line or a point, let alone launch a massive attack against regular troops. Lawrence shrewdly realized that he should concentrate his attacks against the Hedjaz railway in such a fashion that the Turks could just about keep it working with the maximum of loss and discomfort, compelling them to strengthen their posts beyond the defensive minimum of twenty men.8 To this end he established a small, highly mobile and highly equipped striking force. This approach worked well. Wejh was taken by the Arabs in January 1917, they were successful at Abu al Lissa! and Auda, and in July 1917 they entered Aqaba after the Turkish garrison of three hundred had surrendered.9 In these encounters the Bedouins were usually stronger in numbers; a party of ten thousand was dispatched to Wejh, halfway between Medina and Aqaba, which was defended by only about two hundred Turks. Subsequently it appeared that an assault by five hundred Arabs (landed by British ships) was sufficient to seize the place. Military actions after the capture of Aqaba were no longer along unorthodox lines; the Arab forces continued to march on Damascus, but this was coordinated with the general advance of the Allied armies.

  Lawrence found coping with his desert warriors anything but easy; the Arabs had no artillery and they were frightened by the sound of the Turkish guns. "They thought weapons destructive in proportion to their noise."10 Discipline was nonexistent, and when the time came for looting, "they lost their wits, were as ready to assault friend as foe." Lawrence's superiors called them cutthroats; he commented with pride that "they would cut throats only to my order," a somewhat rash boast in the light of his own recounting that at Mudawwara he had to defend himself three times against his own men who pretended not to know him, that at Al Shalm, in the general looting, the Bedouins attacked their allies, the Egyptians. Lawrence's chief aide during the campaign was one Abdulla al Nahabi — Abdulla the Robber.11 Eventually the Turks had to evacuate the Arabian peninsula, but since the British army operating from Egypt had meanwhile occupied Sinai and had reached Khan Yunis in February 1917 and Gaza in March, they would have been withdrawn anyway as their presence there no longer served any useful purpose and they were in danger of being cut off. Thus, Lawrence's guerrilla doctrine about winning campaigns without giving battle — to be amplified later — was not really tested.

  When Lettow-Vorbeck took over the command of the Schutztruppe in East Africa in January 1914, the outlook was bleak. There were altogether approximately six thousand Germans living among eight million Africans. The German colonial record, though not worse on the whole than that of other European powers, was certainly no better; in the suppression of the big Maji Maji revolt in 1905-1906 tens of thousands of Africans had been killed. Lettow's force consisted of two hundred and sixty German officers and NCOs and two thousand native soldiers (askaris). Unlike in the fatherland, there was no enthusiasm among the local Germans when the war broke out; they had believed that a European war would not affect Africa.12 Lettow's position was impossible; he could not expect any help or supplies from outside. He had to fight not only the British and the Belgians, but had to carry on a running battle with Schnee, the civilian governor who was nominally commander in chief. Lettow ignored his orders and Schnee threatened to have him court-martialed after the war. Lettow may have hoped that the war in Europe would be over within a few months and that, with a little luck, he could hold out that long, inflicting maximum damage on the enemy. He had some previous guerrilla experience, gained in the Hottentot war in German Southwest Africa; the black people in this war were led by Jakob Morenga, a Herero, an exceedingly able commander, who had learned the art of commando warfare from studying de Wet.13

  There were four phases in the East African war; in November 1914 a first British attempt to land Indian troops at Tonga ended in disaster. Throughout 1915 there was stalemate which the Germans used to attack the seven-hundred-kilometer-long, vitally important Uganda railway. The next phase opened in March 1916 when the British, having built up their forces with South African assistance, penetrated deep into German East Africa. By the end of 1916 two-thirds of the German territory had been occupied by the Allied forces led by General Smuts. But the Germans had not been eliminated, and when Lettow's unit crossed in 1917, first into Mozambique and subsequently into Northern Rhodesia, the British were unable to pursue him in strength for almost a year; the logistic difficulties seemed insurmountable. Lettow surrendered at Abercorn in Northern Rhodesia after he had been informed of the armistice in Europe. His force consisted at that time of 156 Europeans, 1,168 askaris and some 3,000 native carriers. Altogether, three thousand Europeans and eleven thousand askaris had at one time or another served in its ranks, the basic unit being the company of which there had been sixty. But the Germans had suffered losses during their retreats and, when Lettow crossed into Portuguese Africa, he decided to leave part of his force behind. Like all generals, he was prone to exaggerate the numbers he faced; he asserted that on one occasion twelve thousand armored cars had been brought into action against him.14 And another thing that should be borne in mind is that the enemy troops he was countering were not exactly the flower of the British Empire. "It was too piteous to see the state of the men," Meinertzhagen wrote after the battle of Tonga.

  Many were jibbering idiots, muttering prayers to their heathen gods, hiding behind bushes and palm trees with their rifles lying useless beside them. I would never have believed that yown-up men of any race could have been reduced to such shamelessness. I do not blame the men, still less their officers. I blame the Indian government for enlisting such scum.15

  Lest Meinertzhagen be accused of racism, it may be useful to quote his comment on the quality of British leadership:

  I think the worst and most expensive error of the campaign was the employment of generals who were not first class; their quality was lamentable. I have no hesitation in saying that if we had had a general of the calibre of General von Lettow-Vorbeck, and if the Germans had had an Aitken, Wapshare, Stewart or Malleson — or even Smuts — the East African campaign would have been over by the end of 1914 and hundreds of valuable lives and millions of pounds would have been saved.16

  While Lettow succeeded in containing in East Africa a force so numerically superior to his own, one can but stress again its, on the whole, inferior fiber; the great majority of soldiers (South Africans, Indians, Africans) and superannuated generals would not have been employed in Europe anyway. The British war office was giving this campaign low priority. During 1915 it opposed any major attack against the Germans. All this does not, however, detract from Lettow's achievements. The difficulties he encountered at every level were formidable. Cut off from outside supplies, everything needed by his troops had to be locally produced in the most primitive conditions; shoes, shirts, quinine (of which great quantities were a requisite) and even some ersatz gasoline. The Germans revealed great ingenuity in this respect, and it was perhaps no idle boast when Lettow wrote after the war that "we could have continued for years."17 The local askaris fighting with the Germans were more promising human material than the Indians — a fact gradually realized by the British that was to induce them to expand their own King's African Rifles quite considerably — but Lettow still had to train his recruits and mold them into an efficient and disciplined little partisan army. Only soldiers of stout
caliber would be able to survive four years of long marches through deserts and bush, lack of food and water, wild beasts, disease, and of course enemy attacks.

  The East African experience tends to disprove much that has been written about the preconditions for guerrilla warfare. Lettow-Vorbeck was no fanatic, just a tough regular soldier who thought his duty was to fight as long as he possibly could. He was in no way a charismatic leader, able to generate enthusiasm among his subordinates. True, he had acquired a smattering of local tongues and studied the native customs, but his attitude toward his men was old-fashioned, paternalistic, if not downright authoritarian. He could not promise them anything, nor influence them other than through the example of his own behavior. The askaris had no particular reason to love the Germans or to support them in the war. Furthermore, by 1916 at the very latest it must have appeared doubtful whether Germany could be the victor. The askaris did not get their pay for more than four years, and there was hardly any booty. Lettow could neither cajole nor threaten them; they were free to desert at any time. Yet against all odds, he inculcated in them a pride in their uniform and their units, discipline and a fighting spirit, so that they fought exceedingly well for a cause which was not their own.

  Lettow developed his guerrilla tactics only by trial and error. His first skirmishes with the British, while successful, were too costly for the Germans in men and supplies and it was this that decided him to subdivide his little legion into smaller units, sometimes of no more than ten men, who were sent on special missions. He had a few guns, dismantled from a ship which had been destroyed by the British; they were carried through bush and jungle — whether to any great effect is not certain. The machine gun was the most important weapon in the bush; Lettow's great problem all along was lack of ammunition. His soldiers had standing orders to regard the acquisition of ammunition from the enemy as their foremost function; they had to have more bullets at the end of a battle than at the start.18 When they surrendered their weapons in November 1918, it appeared that their rifles, almost without exception, were of either British or Portuguese origin.