ABSTRACT
Russian experience confirmed this truism regarding the relationship between partisan units and regular forces. During the fall and winter of 1812 in Russia, Russian partisans commanded by such Patriotic War heroes as General Denis Davidoff, Colonel Kudashev, and Captains Naryshkin, Figner and Seslavin, conducted raids against units in the French rear area. These raids greatly assisted Russian Imperial Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov expel Napoleon's armies from Russia. Partisan forces nearly captured Napoleon himself on the banks of the Berezina River. In his subsequent Essay on Partisan Warfare, Davidoff analysed guerrilla tactics in Russia and concluded that partisan forces successfully operated primarily in support of regular forces and not as a force that fought on its own.2 Davidoff formulated a wide range of missions that partisan warfare could actually resolve, including such active tasks as attacking the enemy where he least expected it, burning magazines, hospitals and other establishments in the enemy rear, and destroying units moving to rejoin their parent army. He also highlighted a wide array of more passive missions, such as alerting forces about the approach of enemy reinforcements, locating enemy supply depots and regrouping areas, and employing obstacles to slow the enemy’s retreat.3
