‘Savage warfare’: C.E. Callwell, the roots of counter-insurgency, and the nineteenth century context

Abstract

In his classic book Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (1896), the military theorist Charles E. Callwell divided small wars into three broad classes: wars of conquest were fought to expand empires; pacification campaigns were internal, and often followed campaigns of conquest; campaigns to wipe out an insult, avenge a wrong, or overthrow a dangerous enemy, often developed into wars of conquest. While all three categories involved major political considerations, Callwell's text is often criticised for its lack of discussion of politics. However, Callwell recognised that, if the ultimate objective of a campaign was successfully to assimilate a people into the British Empire, then ‘military intimidation’ was ill adapted to that end. This article will argue that a strategy of ‘butcher and bolt’ was indeed considered by many commentators, including Callwell, to be the best way to win ‘hearts and minds’. This stemmed from a belief in the all-importance of ‘moral effect’, a recurring theme in small wars literature. However, to view the British approach to colonial small wars as pure and simple brutality, in a ‘dark age’ before a more enlightened period of ‘minimum force’, is an oversimplification.

Keywords:

• British imperialism
• Callwell
• counter-insurgency
• small wars
• military theory
• Victorian army

Notes

 1. Farwell, Queen Victoria's Little Wars, 1.

 2. Callwell, Small Wars, 23. All references will be to the 1996 reprint of the third edition, originally published in London by Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) in 1906, unless otherwise stated.

 3. Calwell, Small Wars, 21–2.

 4. Beckett, ‘Another British Way in Warfare’, 89, 101; Alderson, ‘Britain’, 32.

 5. Bulloch, ‘The Development of Doctrine for Countering Insurgency’, CS 1 – 1.

 6. Anglim, ‘Callwell versus Graziani’, 592.

 7. Field Service Regulations , 191–212.

 8. Callwell, Small Wars, 90.

 9. See for example Bennett, ‘Minimum Force in British Counterinsurgency’.

10. See Wesseling, ‘Colonial Wars’, 4–5.

11. N.G. Lyttelton, ‘Preface to the Third Edition, 1906’, in Callwell, Small Wars, 2.

12. Callwell, Small Wars, 1.

13. Calwell, Small Wars, 125–49. The best book on the war is still Pakenham, The Boer War.

14. Callwell, Small Wars, 24.

15. Callwell, ‘Notes on the Tactics of our Small Wars’, 531–52; Calwell, Small Wars, ‘Notes on the Strategy of our Small Wars’, 403–20.

16. Calwell, Small Wars, ‘Military Prize Essay’, 357–412.

17. Calwell, Small Wars, Tirah, vi.

18. On Tirah, see Johnson, The Afghan Way of War, 149–73.

19. Field Service Regulations, 192.

20. Callwell, ‘Lessons to be Learnt from Small Wars since 1870’, 8.

21. Callwell, Small Wars, 128–9. On Bugeaud, see Sullivan, Bugeaud.

22. Callwell, Small Wars, 395.

23. Calwell, Small Wars, 148.

24. Callwell, Tirah, 34.

25. Callwell, Small Wars, 104. For the Pashtun perspective, see Johnson, The Afghan Way of War, 149–73. An important study of the distorting effect that Victorian racial attitudes could have on the study of small wars is Belich, The New Zealand Wars.

26. Callwell, Small Wars, 2nd ed., 125; Callwell, Tirah, 35–6.

27. Callwell, Small Wars, 125.

28. Calwell, Small Wars, 37–8, 90–3, 104.

29. Calwell, Small Wars, 34.

30. Porch, ‘Introduction’, xii.

31. His only reference to Clausewitz in Small Wars relates to Clausewitz's views on night attacks: Callwell, Small Wars, 485.

32. His only reference to Clausewitz in Small Wars relates to Clausewitz's views on night attacks: Callwell, Small Wars, 25–8.

33. Callwell, Tirah, v, 141.

34. Callwell, Small Wars, 29–32.

35. Calwell, Small Wars, 38–9.

36. Calwell, Small Wars, 26–7.

37. Calwell, Small Wars, 40–2.

38. Calwell, Small Wars, 40; Wolseley, The Soldier's Pocket Book, 398.

39. Callwell, Small Wars, 308–9.

40. Calwell, Small Wars, 72.

41. Calwell, Small Wars, 26–7, 36–7.

42. Callwell, ‘Notes on the Strategy of our Small Wars’, 415.

43. Callwell, Small Wars, 108–14.

44. Calwell, Small Wars, 128–9; Sullivan, Bugeaud, 122–33.

45. Callwell, Small Wars, 71.

46. Brackenbury, The Ashanti War, I, 366–7.

47. Callwell, Small Wars, 75–7, 84, 100, 107, 195–6.

48. Calwell, Small Wars, 43–70.

49. Calwell, Small Wars, 498.

50. Calwell, Small Wars, 125–9.

51. Callwell, Small Wars, 1st ed., 111.

52. Calwell, Small Wars, 1st ed., Small Wars, 125–49.

53. Wesseling, ‘Colonial Wars’, 4–5.

54. See, for example, Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 17–18.

55. Porch, ‘Introduction’, xv.

56. Beckett, ‘Another British Way in Warfare’ and Porch, ‘Introduction’, address some of these issues.

57. Callwell, ‘Military Prize Essay’, 370.

58. Callwell, Small Wars, 145.

59. Calwell, Small Wars, 41. See also Correspondence of Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir George Cathcart for Cathcart's views on pacification, especially his report, 7–32.

60. Callwell, Small Wars, 40–2, 146–9. On minimum force, see Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 17–25.

61. Roberts, Forty-One Years in India, 573.

62. Callwell, Small Wars, 76–7.

63. Calwell, Small Wars, 144.

64. Porch, ‘Bugeaud, Galliéni, Lyautey’, 394.

65. Mackenzie, ‘Some British Reactions to German Colonial Methods’, 166.

66. See, for example, Callwell, Experiences of a Dug-Out 1914–1918, 310–27.

67. Callwell, Small Wars, 40.

68. On the Morant Bay Rebellion and its aftermath, see Heuman , The Killing Time.

69. ‘Little Wars on the Indian Frontier’, 935–6.

70. Callwell, Tirah, 139–41.

71. See Spies, Methods. Wessels, ‘Boer Guerrilla and British Counter-Guerrilla Operations’ provides a good summary of the British measures.

72. Callwell, Small Wars, 95–6.

73. Callwell, Stray Recollections, II, 149–50.

74. Porch, ‘Introduction’, xvi–xviii.

75. Report of the Committee Appointed by the Government of India to Investigate the Disturbances in the Punjab , 112.

76. Lloyd, Amritsar, 156–60, 182–3.