When a whole nation renders
armed resistance, the question then is no longer, "Of what value is this
to the people," but " what is its potential value, what are the conditions
that it requires, and how is it to be utilized."
By its very nature, such
scattered resistance will not lend itself to major actions, closely compressed
in time and space. Its effect is like that of the process of evaporation:
it depends on how much surface is exposed. The greater the surface and
the area of contact between it and the enemy forces, the thinner the latter
have to be spread, the greater the effect of a general uprising. Like smoldering
embers, it consumes the basic foundations of the enemy forces. Since it
needs time to be effective, a state of tension will develop while the two
elements interact. This tension will either gradually relax, if the insurgency
is suppressed in some places and slowly burns itself out in others, or
else it will build up to a crisis: a general conflagration closes in on
the enemy, driving him out of the country before he is faced with total
destruction. For an uprising by itself to produce such a crisis presupposes
an occupied area of a large size or a disproportion between the invading
army and the size of the country that would never occur in practice. To
be realistic, one must therefore think of a general insurrection within
the framework of a war conducted by the regular army, and coordinated in
one all-encompassing plan.
The following are the
only conditions under which a general uprising can be effective:
1. The war must be fought
in the interior of the country.
2. It must not be decided
by a single stroke.
3. The theater of operations
must be fairly large.
4. The national character
must be suited to that type of war.
5. The country must be
rough and inaccessible, because of mountains, or forests, marshes, or the
local methods of cultivation.
The relative density of
the population does not play a decisive part; rarely are there not enough
people for the purpose. Nor does it make much difference whether the population
is rich or poor- at least it should not be a major consideration, although
one must remember that poor men, used to hard, strenuous work and privation,
are generally more vigorous and more warlike.
One peculiarity of the
countryside that greatly enhances the effectiveness of an insurrection
is the scattered distribution of houses and farms, the roads poorer if
more numerous; the billeting of troops will prove infinitely more difficult,
and, above all, the most characteristic feature of insurgency in general
will be constantly repeated in miniature: the element of resistance will
exist everywhere and nowhere. Where the population is concentrated in villages,
the most restless communities can be garrisoned, or even looted and burned
down as punishment; Militia and bands of armed civilians cannot and should
not be employed against the main enemy force.
They are not supposed
to pulverize the core but to nibble at the shell and around the edges.
They are meant to operate in areas just outside the theater of war-where
the invader will not appear in strength- in order to deny these areas altogether.
Thunder clouds of this type should build up all and the invader the farther
he advances. The people who have not yet conquered by the enemy will be
the most eager to arm against him; they set an example that will gradually
be followed by their neighbors.
The flames will spread like
a brush fire, until they reach the area on which the enemy is based, threatening
his lines of communication and his very existence. One need not hold an
exaggerated faith in the power of a general uprising, nor consider it as
an inexhaustible, unconquerable force, which an army cannot hope to stop
any more than man can command the wind or the in short, one need not base
one's judgment on patriotic broadsides in order to admit that peasants
in arms will not let themselves be swept along like a platoon of soldiers.
The latter will cling together like a herd of cattle and generally follow
their noses; peasants, on the other hand, will scatter and vanish in all
directions, without requiring a special plan. This explains the highly
dangerous character that a march through mountains, or, forests, or other
types of difficult country can assume for a small detachment: at any moment
the march may turn into a fight. An area may have long since been cleared
of enemy troops, but a band of peasants that was long since driven off
by the head of a column may at any moment reappear at its tail.
When it comes to making
roads unusable and blocking narrow passes, the means available to outposts
or military raiding parties and those of an insurgent peasantry have about
as much in common as the movements of an automaton have with those of a
man. The enemy's only answer to militia actions is the sending out of frequent
escorts as protection for his convoys, and as guards on all his stopping
places, bridges, defiles, and the rest. The early efforts of the militia
may be fairly weak, and so will these first detachments, because of the
dangers of dispersal. But the flames of insurrection will be fanned by
these small detachments, which will on occasion be overpowered by sheer
numbers; courage and the appetite for fighting will rise, and so will the
tension, until it reaches the climax that decides the outcome. A general
uprising, as we see it, should be nebulous and elusive; its resistance
should never materialize as a concrete body.
Carl Von Clausewitz;
Prussian
Military Philosopher |
