
Marx and Engels wrote about other examples of guerrilla warfare during the American Civil War, by Tyroleans and Prussians against Napoleon, by Poland and the Caucasus against Imperial Russia, Pegu (Burma) against the British Empire. It is from this conflict that the English language borrowed the word. The Peninsular War (nicknamed the Spanish Ulcer), however, is regarded by some historians, including Karl Marx, as one of the first national wars, is also significant for the emergence of large-scale guerrilla warfare. This type of warfare was also used throughout the American Revolution. In North America there is a long history of guerrilla warfare starting with King Phillips War, followed by the four French and Indian Wars, Father Rale's War and Father Le Loutre's War. Some authors argue that his example directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare can be traced back to Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War (6th century BCE). Historyīoer guerrillas during the Second Boer War in South Africa. Those texts characterized the tactic of guerrilla warfare as, according to Che Guevara's text, being "used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression".
Guerrilla warfare definition 1950s manual#
This recent growth was inspired in part by theoretical works on guerrilla warfare, starting with the Manual de Guerra de Guerrillas by Matías Ramón Mella written in the 19th century and, more recently, Mao Zedong's On Guerrilla Warfare, Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare and Lenin's text of the same name, all written after the successful revolutions carried by them in China, Cuba and Russia respectively. While the tactics of modern guerrilla warfare originate in the 20th century, irregular warfare, using elements later characteristic of modern guerrilla warfare, has existed throughout the battles of many ancient civilizations but in a smaller scale. Mao Zedong summarized basic guerrilla tactics at the beginning of the Chinese " Second Revolutionary Civil War" as: "The enemy advances, we retreat the enemy camps, we harass the enemy tires, we attack the enemy retreats, we pursue." This type of war can be practiced anywhere there are places for combatants to cover themselves and where such advantage cannot be made use of by a larger and more conventional force.Ĭommunist leaders like Mao Zedong and North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh both implemented guerrilla warfare giving it a theoretical frame which served as a model for similar strategies elsewhere, such as the Cuban " foco" theory and the anti- Soviet Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. However, this is not a primary feature of a guerrilla war. It is often misunderstood that guerrilla warfare must involve disguising as civilians to cause enemy troops to fail in telling friend from foe. All of that is to weaken the enemy's strength, to cause the enemy eventually to be unable to prosecute the war any longer, and to force the enemy to withdraw. Not limiting their targets to personnel, enemy resources are also preferred targets. Tactically, the guerrilla army would avoid any confrontation with large units of enemy troops, but seek and eliminate small groups of soldiers to minimize losses and exhaust the opposing force. The guerrilla focuses on organizing in small units, depending on the support of the local population, as well as taking advantage of terrain more accommodating of small units. The strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a larger, more unwieldy one. The Spanish resistance to the French invasion, June 1808
