Lessons learnt? Cultural transfer and revolutionary wars, 1775–1831

Abstract

Did participants in small wars in the period 1775–1831 learn from previous or contemporary examples? While this is difficult to prove for participants who left no written records, there is considerable evidence in existing publications by practitioners that they did indeed draw out lessons from recent insurgencies, either from their own experience or from events elsewhere which they studied from afar, especially the Spanish Guerrilla, which had already become legendary. Most authors showed an interest in how to stage insurgencies rather than in how to quell them. Even then, transfer did not come in a package of tactics-cum-values, but in each case in different configurations.

Keywords::

• American War of Independence
• Spanish Guerrilla
• 1812 Campaign
• Polish Uprising of 1830–1831
• people's war
• irregular warfare
• special forces
• special operations
• partisan warfare
• asymmetric warfare

Notes

^1. Clausewitz, On War (VIII.2), 580.

^2. Quoted in Martin Rink's contribution to this special issue.

^3. Berenhorst, Betrachtungen.

^4. See my Introduction to this issue.

^5. Guibert, Journal, 1: 39.

^6. Paret, ‘Revolutionary War and European Military Thought’; Paret, ‘Colonial Experience’.

^7. Selig and Skaggs, ‘Introductory Essay’.

^8. In the sense of leader of a parti, unit of special forces.

^9. Starkey, European and Native American Warfare; Schmidt, ‘Der Guerrillero’, 169.

^10. Quoted in Weighley, American Way of War, 36.

^11. Emmerich, Partisan's War. For the former standard works, see Grandmaison, La Petite Guerre; Jeney, Le Partisan.

^12. Strieder, Grundlagen, quoted in Siebert, Hanauer Biographien, 435; Heitzer, Insurrectionen, 140–5.

^13. Ewald, Den kleinen Krieg; Gedanken (Anon.); Dienst der leichten Truppe; Belehrungen über den Krieg; Folge der Belehrungen über den Krieg.

^14. Ewald, Den kleinen Krieg; Dienst der leichten Truppe.

^15. Ewald (Anon.), Gedanken, 78.

^16. Ewald, Den kleinen Krieg, preface, 5.

^17. Klipstein, Theorie des Dienstes; Valentini, Abhandlung.

^18. Thiele, Gneisenau; see also Martin Rink's contribution to this issue.

^19. Falkenstein, Thaddäus Kosciusko.

^20. Anon., Czy Polacy, cited by Halicz, Partisan Warfare, 37.

^21. Novak, History and Geopolitics, 119.

^22. Joes, ‘Insurgency and Genocide’, 29.

^23. Bonnet, Guerres insurrectionnelles, 132.

^24. Ibid., 132f.

^25. Ibid., 133s.

^26. Callwell, Small Wars, 71–107.

^27. L[ilienstern], Handbuch für den Offizier, 2: 58; Clausewitz, On War, 188, 281.

^28. Archduke Charles, ‘Geist des Kriegswesens überhaupt’, c.1823–1826, in Waldtstätten, Erzherzog Karl, S.110f.

^29. Quoted in Bois, Bugeaud, 83f.

^30. On the reality behind this myth, see Charles Esdaile's contribution in this issue.

^31. See Martin Rink's contribution in this issue.

^32. Jomini, L'Art de la Guerre, 1: 72, 77s.

^33. Guibert, ‘Essay général de tactique’, in Guibert, Stratégiques, 137f.

^34. Clausewitz, On War, 592.

^35. In ‘Bekenntnisdenkschrift’ (1812), see Rothfels, Clausewitz, 85–8.

^36. In Clausewitz, Schriften – Aufsätze – Studien – Briefe, 1: 321, ‘General Wassington’ [sic].

^37. See Kaempff, ‘Lost through Non-Translation’.

^38. Clausewitz, On War, VI.26.

^39. Bois, Bugeaud, 76f.

^40. Quoted in Ibid.

^41. Iberian town that rose up against the Romans. When the Romans defeated the town, a part of the population preferred to commit suicide rather than surrendering. Numantia became a rallying myth for the Spanish Guerrilla, as this letter of Bugeaud demonstrates.

^42. Quoted by Bois, Bugeaud, 80.

^43. Bugeaud, De la stratégie, reprinted in Bugeaud, Par l'épée, see 110–18.

^44. Bugeaud, La Guerre des Rues, 109.

^45. Callwell, Small Wars, 146.

^46. Le Mière de Corvey, Des Partisans, iiif.

^47. Ibid., vii–ix.

^48. Ibid., xiv s.

^49. Ibid., xvi.

^50. Ibid., 108–11.

^51. Ibid., 144–6.

^52. Ibid., 150–98 passim.

^53. Ibid., 153–6; 199–205.

^54. Ibid., 219–30.

^55. See Priesdorff, Soldatisches Führertum, 6, 575.

^56. Brandt, Ueber Spanien, 57–75; Jones, War in Spain.

^57. Brandt, Handbuch für den ersten Unterricht.

^58. Ibid., 321–363.

^59. Priesdorff, Soldatisches Führertum; Killy and Vierhaus, Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie, 2: col. 423.

^60. Halicz, Partisan Warfare; Beckett, Modern Insurgencies, 15.

^61. Stolzman, Partyzantka.

^62. Halicz, Partisan Warfare, 48.

^63. Quoted in ibid., 82.

^64. Ibid.

^65. Bolek, Who's Who in Polish America, 431.

^66. Chrzanowski, O wojnie partyzanckiej.

^67. Hoefer, Nouvelle Biographie générale, 10, 117; Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon, 2: 112.

^68. Général C***, Kleines Kriegshandbuch.

^69. Chrzanowski, Ueber den Partheigaenger-Krieg.

^70. Ibid., 23–7, 32s.

^71. Ibid., 5f., 27.

^72. Ibid., 10–12.

^73. Nieszokoć, O systemie wojny.

^74. In French in the original: ‘the big battalions are always right’.

^75. Nieszokoć, O systemie wojny, quoted in Halicz, Partisan Warfare, 73.

^76. Quoted by Halicz, Partisan Warfare, 73f.

^77. Quoted ibid., 47; French in the original: ‘things are not decided at the back but at the front’.

^78. Quoted ibid., 22.

^79. Esdaile, Fighting Napoleon.

^80. Quoted Halicz, Partisan Warfare, 23.

^81. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism; Israel, Revolution of the Mind.

^82. Rüstow, Lehre vom Kleinen Kriege. The Swiss case is of course particularly interesting as Switzerland has a long tradition of homeland defence reaching back to the Middle Ages, and even in the twentieth century prepared for a ‘people's war’ against any invader. See Mantovani, ‘Der “Volksaufstand”’.

^83. Carl von Clausewitz: Schriften - Aufsätze - Studien – Briefe, Vol. 1.

^84. Brandt, Der Kleine Krieg, 2.

^85. Ibid.

^86. With the exception, perhaps, of Auguste Blanqui's writings on urban guerrilla.