GUERRILLA

You must  have noticed I’m truly interested in history and among historical events, wars and conflicts have always fascinated me. Today  I would like to tell you about  a form of warfare used by small armies to destroy big ones:  Guerrilla.

Guerrilla is a kind of warfare consisting in small skirmishes between a big army and a small, mobile and often non-professional army which harass his opponent using his  knowledge of the territory  to make the other unable to fight. It is also called “hit and run” warfare.

“Hit and run” tactics were used by mankind since the begin of history.

In Iliad, it’s written that Trojans used it to attack the Greek and then they  immediately retreated behind Troy’s walls.

In 53 b.C., in the battle of Charrae, ten thousand Partian archer raiders defeated sixty thousand Roman infantry men only storming around them and hitting legionaries with their bows without being hit themselves.

King Alfred the Great used guerrilla to make Vikings weak and finally beat them in the battle of Ethan Dun.

Guerrilla  was then theorized by military figures like Prussian general Carl Von Clausewitz (1780-1831) and Argentinian doctor and communist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara,  known as “Che Guevara”,  who became the symbol of fights for rights and freedom all around the world.

They said that Guerrilla needs some conditions to happen and be applied: the support of a foreigner power, the knowledge of the territory and, last but not least, a reason to involve the population to participate. If   only one of these factors is not there, Guerrilla will be easily defeated.

This form of Guerrilla was developed in nineteenth century, during Napoleon’s period.

A further evolution came in WW1, where these actions of bother were marginalized by regular armies’ commanders.

When the Soviets began their revolution against the Tzar in Russia, Guerrilla became an ideological war; as Marx had thought decades before, by this form of warfare, the proletariat could finally defeat the middle classes  and start their own government.

In WW2 Guerrilla became a way to submit people  but also to stand against Nazi-Germany.   Groups of guerrilla fighters  helped the Allies to free Europe in Balkan peninsula, France, Dutch and Italy.

Soon after the war finished, Guerrilla was applied by colonized countries to become free and independent; famous examples are China (under the leadership of Mao Tse-Tung), Cambodia and Malaysia, but the most important is Cuba. A rebellion lead by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara overthrew the ruling dictatorship and instituted a Socialist government.

Nowadays, Guerrilla is one of the most  common ways  of fighting and, probably, it will evolve in more efficient and practical forms in the future.

In conclusion, Guerrilla is not only a kind of warfare, but a way for the weaker  opponents  to make their own ideology prevail on the strength of a large army, often invading territories.

 

Francesco G., 4sc