ABSTRACT
The word 'guerrilla' itself, meaning literally 'little war', derives from the activities of Spanish irregulars or partidas against occupying French forces between 1808 and 1814, but the first documented reference to guerrilla warfare appears to have been in the Anastas, a Hittite parchment dating from the fifteenth century BC. The actual minutiae of guerrilla tactics portrayed in the writings of Mao Tse-tung in the 1930s are not recognisably different from those described by the ancient Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu in his The Art of War, but with additions between the second and eleventh centuries AD. The destruction of a British force under Major-General Edward Braddock on the Monongahela in May 1755 by Indian allies of the French has frequently been regarded as an example of the failure of regulars to adapt to local conditions. Partisan units operated successfully on both sides during the American War of Independence, especially in the southern states.
