Transfers of colonial (dis)order: guerrilla warfare and the British military thought after the Great War

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the gaps and ties betweenthe doctrine and theory, in contrast with the practice, of countering subversive movements in the British Empire during the Interbellum. Contradictions between security services led to the articulation and promotion of different models of counterinsurgency. The research contains an analysis of the guerrilla warfare concept’ evolution within the military thought, through the second Boer war, Irish warof Independence and the second Arab rising in Palestine, reflecting different thoughts on interrelated problems of the ‘revolutionary movements’ and ‘sub-war’ after the Great War. Particular attentionis paid to military and political incentives and constrains of the counterinsurgency doctrine, reflecting the bureaucratic logic that stood behind the implementation of the guerrilla warfare concept at the levels of doctrine and theory in the context of the systemic crisis of empire and the growth of external pressure over the questions of the imperial defense and self-determination. Conflicting coexistence of internal security models tested within the British Empire during the Interbellum is observed in the conclusion,as well as perspectives of transfers of colonial (dis)order in front of the ‘sub-war’, as it was understood among the military circles through the prism of the guerrilla warfare concept.

KEYWORDS:

• Guerrilla warfare
• small wars
• sub-war
• imperial policing
• air control
• military theory
• military doctrine
• military thought

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Waldie, Relations between the Army and the Royal Air Force; Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control; Thomas, Empires of Intelligence; and Walters, Inter-War, Inter-Service Friction on the North-West Frontier of India.

2. Arendt, On Violence, 54.

3. Daddow, “British Military Doctrine in the 1980s and 1990s,” 103–113; and idem, “Facing the Future: History in the Writing of British Military Doctrine,” 157–164.

4. Thomas, op. cit.

5. Maguire, “Partisan and Guerrilla Warfare,” 249–277.

6. Callwell, Small Wars; Whittingham, ‘“Savage warfare’: C.E. Callwell, the roots of counter-insurgency, and the nineteenth century context,” 591–607.

7. Heuser, “Small Wars in the Age of Clausewitz: The Watershed Between Partisan War and People’s War,” 866.

8. Callwell, op. cit., 128–129, 147.

9. Whittingham, ‘“Savage warfare’: C.E. Callwell, the roots of counter-insurgency, and the nineteenth century context,” 591–607.

10. Morrison, ‘“The extraordinary successes which the Russians have achieved’ – the Conquest of Central Asia in Callwell’s Small Wars,” 913–936.

11. Callwell, “Military Prize Essay. Subject: ‘Lessons to be Learnt from the Campaigns in which British Forces have been Employed since the Year 1865’”, 357–412. For more details: Whittingham, op. cit., 591–607.

12. Moreman, ‘“Small Wars’ and ‘Imperial Policing’: The British army and the theory and practice of colonial warfare in the British empire, 1919–1939,” 109.

13. Ibid. P. 107–110. This approach was shared even by the presumed author of the first army manual on enforcement of colonial order: Gwynn, ‘Army Training, 1931’, 722–730. See also: Hudson, “The Tasks of the Army,” 773–778; Wavell, “The Training of the Army for War,” 254–273; Smith, “The Tasks of the Army,” 47–54; Cunningham, “The Training of the Army, 1934,” 723–732.

14. Jeffrey, Field Marshal Henry Wilson; idem., The British Army and the Crisis of Empire; and idem., ‘The road to Asia and the Grafton Hotel, Dublin: Ireland and the “British world”’, 243–256.

15. Historical Record of Rebellion in Ireland. 1920–1921 // TNA. WO 141/93; Record of the Rebellion in Ireland. 1922–1923 // TNA. WO 141/94; Hart, British Intelligence in Ireland; Sheehan, Fighting for Dublin; idem., Hearts & Mines; Kautt, Ground Truths, 16.

16. Hart, op. cit.

17. Kautt, op. cit., 128, 187.

18. Sheehan, British Voices, 93. For the original draft see: Percival A.E. Guerilla Warfare in Ireland, 1919–1920 // Imperial War Museum. Percival Papers. AEP 4/1.

19. Whittingham, op. cit., 591–607.

20. Specifically, the second viewpoint was expressed by the future Field-Marshal and Commander of the Imperial General Staff of the British army, during the ‘Irish War’ Brigadier Major of the 17th Infantry Brigade H.Q. quartered in the county of Cork, Bernard Law Montgomery (in the letter written to Lt.-General A.C. Percival. York 14/10/23): Sheehan, British Voices, 151–152.

21. ‘Record of the Rebellion in Ireland’, as well as the pamphlets prepared by the Irish Command to make a quick introduction of newly arriving officers to the specifics of the ‘Irish War’, may serve a good example: Sinn Fein and the Irish Volunteers. G.H.Q. Ireland. May, 1919 [August, 1920] // TNA. WO 32/4308; 17th Infantry Brigade. Summary of Important Instructions. Cork, 30 June 1921 // IWM. General Sir Peter Strickland Papers. P.363; Notes on the Organization & Methods of Sinn Fein in the Six Divisional Area. 6th Division G.H.Q. [1920–1921] // IWM. General Sir Peter Strickland Papers; The Irish republical Army (from captured documents only). G.H.Q. Ireland. June 1921 // IWM. General Sir Peter Strickland Papers.

22. Meeting held at 10 Downing street, on Wednesday, 29 December 1920 // Kautt, op. cit., 235–235; Macready, “Annals of an Active Life,” 556, 561–262; Interview with General Strickland. Martial Law in Ireland and the Break-Up of the Irish Republican Army. Statement on official ‘Reprisals’. From Our Special Correspondent, Cork, Tuesday, January 25 1921 // The Evening Standard. 25.01.1921. P. 5.

23. See note 4 above.

24. Kautt, op. cit., 58, 62.

25. Moreman, op. cit., 109; and Beckett, “The study of counter‐insurgency: A British perspective,” 49.

26. Jeffrey, “The British Army and Internal Security 1919–1939,” 377–397.

27. Hevia, The Imperial Security State; and Thomas, op. cit.

28. Moreman, The Army in India.

29. Watts, “The Irish Rebellions of 1798 and of To-Day: A Comparison,” 457–462; Lowe, “Some reflections of a junior commander upon the campaign in Ireland, 1920 and 1921,” 51–54; and Dening, “Modern Problems of Guerrilla Warfare,” 347–354.

30. Simson, British Rule and Rebellion.

31. Ibid., 152.

32. Thomas, op. cit., 254–255.

33. Gwynn, Imperial Policing, 367–393.

34. Simson, op. cit., 19, 328.

35. Ibid.

36. Notes on Imperial Policing. War Office, 1934.

37. On the theoretical level, the basic principles proposed in the work of General Gwynn were supported by other officers: Dening, op. cit., 347–354; Fuller, “The Disorders in Burma,” 530–533; and Burrows, “The Control of Communal Disturbances in Walled Cities,” 565–573.

38. The problem of “‘anti-intellectualism’ in the Army was pointed out by military officers: Burrows, ‘Junior Officers’ Schools,” 239–242; Sandilands, “The Case for the Senior Officers’ School,” 235–238; Ironside, “The Modern Staff Officer,” 435–447; Witts, “General Education at the Royal Military College,” 538–541. At the same time, even though the theory of counterinsurgency was in its significance richer than the official doctrine, it developed at a moderate pace: in both cases it took more than a decade to make a next step (‘Notes on the Military Aid of the Civil Power’ – 1923 and 1934; ‘Record of the Rebellion in Ireland’ and the works of Gwynn and Simson – 1923, 1934 и 1937 respectively).

39. Hughes, Britain’s Pacification of Palestine.

40. Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine. 1938 // TNA. WO 191/70. P. 169.

41. Townshend, “The Irish Republican Army and the development of guerrilla warfare, 1916–1921,” 318–345; and Kautt, Ambushes and Armour.

42. Kautt, Ground Truths, 128.

43. For more details on the problem of the ‘thin red line’ in the keeping of colonial control after the Great War: Jeffrey, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire.

44. Omissi, op. cit.

45. Waldie, op. cit., 223.

46. Borton, “The Use of Aircraft in Small Wars,” 310–319; Mackay, “The Influence in the Future of Aircraft upon Problems of Imperial Defence (Prize Essay),” 308–310; and Peck, “Aircraft in Small Wars,” 535–550.

47. MacClellan, “Air Co-Operation in Hill Fighting,” 318–326; Hampton, “Co-Operation of Land and Air Forces in Kurdistan, 1923. A Reply to ‘ir Co-operation in Hill Fighting’. R.U.S.I. Journal, May, 1927”, 821–828.

48. Air Control. Staff Papers. 1929–1938 (Use of Air Force for Imperial Policing). Official Papers of MRAF TNA. AIR 75/27; Fink, “Regional Control and the Co-Ordination of Air and Land Forces,” 18–26; and Portal, “Air Force Co-Operation in Policing the Empire,” 343–358.

49. Haldane, “The Arab Rising in Mesopotamia, 1920,” 63–81; and idem., The Insurrection in Mesopotamia.

50. Haldane, “The Arab Rising in Mesopotamia, 1920,” 79–81 [see, first, comments of General Sir Edmund Barrow during discussion].

51. Lieb, “Suppressing insurgencies in comparison: the Germans in the Ukraine, 1918, and the British in Mesopotamia, 1920,” 639.

52. Waldie, Relations between the Army and the Royal Air Force, 57–73.

53. Jones, “The British army, and counter‐guerrilla warfare in transition, 1944–1952,” 265–307; Percox, “British Counter-insurgency (COIN) Policy in Kenya, 1954–56: Extension of Internal Security (IS) Policy or Prelude to Decolonisation?,” 46–101; Reis, “The Myth of British Minimum Force in Counterinsurgency Campaigns during Decolonisation (1945–1970),” 245–279; and Malkin, “From small wars to counterinsurgency: C.W. Gwynn, ‘Imperial Policing’ and transformation of doctrine,” 660–678.

54. For more details: Walton, Empire of Secrets; Ulunian, Turkestan Bridgehead. Considering the famous report on reorganization of the system of internal security in the British colonies prepared by Major-General Sir Gerald Templer, Head of Malay military and civil administrations during the state of emergency (1948–1960), one must admit that such shifting of focus was fostered by the military officers: Report on Colonial Security by General Sir Gerald Templer (April 1955) TNA. CAB 21/2925. Earlier, Gen. Gwynn wrote about the significance of intelligence for the ensuring of colonial control: Gwynn, Imperial Policing. These ideas were reproduced in various theaters of anticolonial activity, including references to the ‘Notes on Imperial Policing’ (1934), until the same were restructured by General Templer in new conditions. For example: Internal Security Publications. HQ East Africa Command. Nairobi. October 26 1951 TNA. WO 276/138.

55. Walton, op. cit., 48–66 [Russian edition].

56. Thomas, op. cit., 107–144.

57. Gannon, Irish Imperial Service.

58. Mockaitis, “Low-Intensity Conflict: the British Experience,” 9.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation [22-18-00011].

Notes on contributors

Stanislav Malkin

Stanislav Malkin is a Doctor of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of the Chair of World History, Law and Methods of Education, Historical Faculty, Samara State University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Samara, Russian Federation