ABSTRACT
Guerrilla wars have been fought throughout history by small peoples against invading or occupying armies, by regular soldiers operating in the enemy's rear, by peasants rising against big landowners, by bandits both "social" and asocial. They were infrequent in the eighteenth century, when strict rules for the conduct of warfare were generally observed. Guerrilla methods were used in the southern theater in the American War of Independence and in the Napoleonic age by partisans in countries occupied by the French (Spain, southern Italy, Tyrol, Russia). With the emergence of mass armies in the nineteenth century, guerrilla warfare again declined but it lingered on in the wake of major wars (the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, the Boer War) and in the campaigns of national liberation movements (Italy, Poland, Ireland, Macedonia). Furthermore, guerrilla tactics played an important role in nineteenth-century colonial wars of which the campaigns of the French against Abd el-Kader and the Russians against Shamyl were the most noteworthy. In all these instances the guerrillas failed to achieve their aims except when acting in cooperation with regular armies. The imperial powers, as yet unfettered by moral scruples about the inadmissibility of imposing their rule on lesser breeds, were not deflected from their policies by pinpricks: the Russians did not withdraw from Poland, the Caucasus or Central Asia, the French did not give up North Africa, the British did not surrender India, and if the Italians attained their independence, it was not as the result of a protracted guerrilla campaign. There was not one case of outright guerrilla victory, but in some 383instances guerrilla campaigns indirectly contributed to eventual political success. Thus, the military outcome of the Cuban insurrection in the late nineteenth century was inconclusive, but by fighting a protracted war the rebels helped to trigger off U.S. intervention which led to the expulsion of the Spanish. The tough struggle of the Boers after their regular armies had collapsed hastened the British decision to grant South Africa a large measure of independence. In Latin America guerrilla war continued to be the prevailing form of military conflict in the absence of strong regular armies.
