ABSTRACT
In World War I guerrilla tactics were hardly applied at all, in the second they played a certain limited role in some countries in the struggle against the foreign occupier. The first third of the century witnessed civil wars and warlordism spreading whenever central state power broke down, as in Mexico and later in China. Guerrilla operations during World War I were restricted to two theaters of war, the Arabian peninsula and East Africa, where Lettow-Vorbeck with a minuscule force managed to contain for over four years a total force “considerably larger than Lord Roberts’ whole army in the South African war.” Following the breakdown of the old order in Central and Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Russian, German and Austrian armies, irregular units began to emerge, to become for several years a factor of some military importance.
