Introduction: Exploring the jungle of terminology

Abstract

When twentieth-century authors wrote about ‘partisan warfare’, they usually meant an insurgency or asymmetric military operations conducted against a superior force by small bands of ideologically driven irregular fighters. By contrast, originally (i.e. before the French Revolution) ‘partisan’ in French, English, and German referred only to the leader of a detachment of special forces (party, partie, Parthey, détachement) which the major European powers used to conduct special operations alongside their regular forces. Such special operations were the classic definition of ‘small war’ (petite guerre) in the late seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries. The Spanish word ‘la guerrilla’, meaning nothing other than ‘small war’, only acquired an association with rebellion with the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon. Even after this, however, armies throughout the world have continued to employ special forces. In the late nineteenth century, their operations have still been referred to as prosecuting ‘la guerrilla’ or ‘small war’, which existed side by side with, and was often mixed with, ‘people's war’ or popular uprisings against hated regimes.

Keywords::

• small war
• party/parties
• partisan/partisans
• rebellion
• rebels
• bands
• bandits
• insurgency
• counter-insurgency
• special operations
• special forces

Acknowledgements

To conclude this brief introduction, it behoves me to thank the National Army Museum in London, which has made it possible for us to bring together several of the contributors to this special issue and to push them to produce their papers in English. Thanks are due especially Dr Alastair Massie, who organised the conference and was heavily involved in its intellectual development. Thanks are also due to Professor Hervé Drévillon of the University of Paris I Sorbonne and the École Militaire, with whom I organised an earlier conference on the topic in Paris in 2012. We are extremely grateful to the editors of Small Wars and Insurgencies who encouraged us to produce this special issue and gave us invaluable help through peer reviews. Last but not least, I would like to thank Spyridon Plakoudas for his editorial assistance with this special issue.

Notes

^1. For early examples, see Hahlweg, Guerilla: Krieg ohne Fronten; Ellis, Short History of Guerrilla Warfare.

^2. Anon. (a Prussian officer), Abhandlung über den kleinen Krieg, 279.

^3. Grandmaison, La Petite Guerre, 6–8.

^4. We know this in part from the account of his grandson: Stuart, Traité sur l'Art de la Guerre.

^5. Grandmaison, La Petite Guerre, 7f., 395.

^6. Ibid., 14.

^7. Ibid., 14f.

^8. Ibid., 187.

^9. Ibid., 149, 300–50 passim.

^10. Ibid., 131.

^11. Rink, Vom Partheygänger zum Partisanen, 124.

^12. Ville, De la Charge des Gouverneurs des Places; De la Croix, Traité de la petite guerre.

^13. Picaud-Monnerat, Sandrine. ‘La “guerre de partis”’, 202–34.

^14. Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal Lexicon, Vol. 26, cols. 1049–50.

^15. Jeney, Le Partisan, 1f.

^16. Rink. Vom Partheygänger zum Partisanen; Picaud-Monnerat, La Petite Guerre au XVIIIe Siècle.

^17. Valentini, Abhandlung über denkleinen Krieg, 1.

^18. For the history of such units as part of the Empire-building of the early nineteenth century, see Frémeaux, De quoi fut fait l'empire.

^19. Hargreaves, ‘The Advent, Evolution and Value of British Specialist Formations in the Desert War, 1940–43’.

^20. Duffy, The '45, 80–108.

^21. Forrest, Soldiers of the French Revolution.

^22. On Guibert, see Heuser, ‘Guibert (1744–1790)’. For excerpts from Guibert's writings, see Heuser, The Strategy Makers.

^23. Archduke Charles, ‘Das Kriegswesen in Folge der französischen Revolutionskriege’, 209.

^24. Goethe took part in the campaign against France, and although he was not personally present at Valmy, he later claimed to have said at the time: ‘From here and today a new era [Epoche] of world history begins, and you can say you have been there.’ See Goethe, Kampagne in Frankreich, entry for 19–20 September 1792.

^25. See Alan Forrest's contribution in this issue.

^26. Esdaile, Fighting Napoleon, 29, 44.

^27. Ibid., 43f.

^28. Ofarrill, Instruccion que deben seguir los oficiales y tropas.

^29. Carvajal, Reglamento para las Partidas de Guerrilla.

^30. Esdaile, Fighting Napoleon, 38.

^31. See Anon., Instruccion de guerrilla and Fernández de Córdova, Tactica de guerrilla.

^32. Esdaile. Fighting Napoleon, 44–50, 53–7.

^33. Ibid., 93.

^34. Heuser, ‘Small Wars in the Age of Clausewitz’.

^35. Schmitt, Theory of the Partisan.

^36. Note that powers fighting against insurgencies tend to dismiss them as illegitimate by categorising them as terrorists and criminals. While there tends to be an overlap especially with the latter, not least because insurgents generally find it difficult to obtain arms in states holding monopoly of force, this is obviously also a way of delegitimising the insurgents and dismissing their grievances.

^37. Arfaioli, The Black Bands of Giovanni.

^38. Note the standing of the SAS in Britain after the Iranian Embassy siege in London in 1980.