U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

COMPOUND WARFARE

That Fatal Knot

Thomas M. Huber

General Editor

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

Thomas M. Huber

General Editor

COMPOUND WARFARE

That Fatal Knot
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Compound warfare : that fatal knot / Thomas M. Huber, general editor.

p. cm.

1. Guerrilla warfare. 2. Warfare, Conventional. I. Huber, Thomas M.

U240 .C617 2002

355.02—dc21 2002013298

CGSC Press publications cover a variety of military history topics.

The views expressed in this CGSC Press publication are those of the

authors and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army or the

Department of Defense.

A full list of CSI/CGSC Press Publications, many of them available for

downloading, can be found at <http:www.cgsc.army.mil/csi>.
Acknowledgments

As editor of Compound Warfare, I would like to express my

gratitude to all of the individual contributors for their hard work and for

the insights they have been able to bring to us. They found the time,

amidst the din of their daily duties, to reflect on and write about military

history. I wish to thank COL (ret.) Jerry D. Morelock, director of the

Combat Studies Institute [CSI] when this study was undertaken, for

encouraging us to go forward and giving our anthology the

department’s blessing. Thanks are also due to COL Lawyn C.

Edwards, director of CSI when this study was completed, for

generously lending the department’s support to revision and

publication efforts. Finally, but not least, our gratitude is owed to MAJ

(ret.) Randall N. Briggs for yeoman service preparing the initial drafts

of all our maps.

T. M. H.

iii

Contents

Acknowledgments .............................................................................iii

Preface...............................................................................................vii

Compound Warfare: A Conceptual Framework ................................1

Thomas M. Huber

The Wars of Colonial North America, 1690-1763............................11

Michael D. Pearlman

Washington as Strategist: Compound Warfare in the American

Revolution, 1775-1783......................................................................53

Jerry D. Morelock

Napoleon in Spain and Naples: Fortified Compound Warfare .........91

Thomas M. Huber

Compound Warfare on the Great Plains: A Missed Opportunity ...113

Jerold E. Brown

The Anglo-Irish War of 1919-1921: “Britain’s Troubles—Ireland’s

Opportunities”.................................................................................135

John T. Broom

Compound Warfare in the Military Thought and Practice of Mao

Zedong and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Huai Hai

Campaign (November 1948-January 1949) ....................................169

Gary J. Bjorge

Compound Warfare in the Vietnam War ........................................221

Randall N. Briggs

Compound War Case Study: The Soviets in Afghanistan ..............285

Robert F. Baumann

Conclusion.......................................................................................307

Robert F. Baumann

About the Contributors....................................................................317

v

Preface

In the long history of warfare, a recurring theme is the combined use

of regular and irregular forces to pursue victory. The American

colonists relied upon regular Continental Army troops and local militia

in their war for independence. British troops commanded by

Wellington fought alongside Spanish peasant guerrillas against

Napoleon in Spain. The Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong

organized local militia units, regional forces, and a regular army for use

in their struggle to topple the Nationalist government. In these and

many other cases, the practice of employing regular and irregular forces

together was not only applied, but also instrumental in bringing victory

to the side that at the beginning of the conflict seemed clearly inferior to

its opponent.

In 1996, in an article entitled “Napoleon in Spain,” Dr. Thomas M.

Huber of the Combat Studies Institute (CSI) coined the term

“compound warfare” to describe this phenomenon of regular and

irregular forces fighting in concert, as he examined the reasons for

Napoleon’s failure to pacify the Iberian Peninsula. The article, written

to support CSI’s course in modern warfare at the U.S. Army Command

and General Staff College, received high praise from student officers,

from the CSI faculty, and from the Institute’s director at the time,

Colonel Jerry Morelock. Impressed by Dr. Huber’s analysis of the

synergistic effects achieved by Wellington’s British Army and Spanish

guerrillas as they worked together against Napoleon’s forces, Col.

Morelock suggested that other members of CSI examine examples of

this pattern of warfare in other times and places. This book is a

compilation of their studies.

While the basic concept of compound warfare is easily grasped, in

practice, the phenomenon can assume many forms. Dr. Huber’s initial

chapter provides a conceptual framework that can be used to facilitate

analysis of the problem. The most straightforward form of compound

warfare is that in which one side has a regular (conventional) force and

irregular (unconventional) forces fighting under unified direction. In

this situation, the full complementary effects of compound warfare can

be realized, as each type of force conducts operations that give full

expression to its own capabilities. A crucial aspect of the

complementary relationship between regular and irregular forces is the

way in which they increase the number and the variety of threats faced

by the enemy. Irregular force operations pressure an enemy to disperse

forces that otherwise would be concentrated against regular forces.

vii
Regular force movements pressure an enemy to concentrate forces that

he would like to disperse to counter irregular force attacks. Unless the

enemy has forces large enough and mobile enough to engage all

threatening actions by both types of forces simultaneously and

effectively, the side possessing regular and irregular forces should be

able to achieve local superiority in certain places at certain times. That

local superiority is critical because it establishes a foundation upon

which to build a larger, more capable force structure and fight even

harder.

The importance of achieving local superiority is addressed by Dr.

Huber in his development of the idea of “fortified” (strengthened)

compound warfare. This variation of compound warfare exists,

according to Dr. Huber’s definition, when a regular force is shielded

from destruction in some definitive way. This situation can be created

when a regular force has superior agility and mobility, has an advantage

in technology, is protected by terrain, or has constructed a strong

defensive position. It might also be created by diplomatic activity and

the establishment of an alliance with a major power that can exert

military pressure on the enemy. When an entity fighting compound

warfare reaches the point where it is “fortified” (possesses

indestructible local superiority in some area), there is room for

optimism about its prospects for future success.

While there can be significant differences between “fortified”

compound warfare and the simple form of compound warfare, what

they have in common is that a regular force and an irregular force

coordinate their operations. But what of a conflict where irregular

guerrillas fighting for a cause act independently from a regular

conventional army? Can the dynamics of compound warfare still be

present? That issue is addressed in the essays dealing with Ireland and

Afghanistan. In both cases, an equivalentfor a regular army existed and

that equivalent served to limit the military resources that were directed

against the guerrillas. It is also possible for there to be an equivalent for

the major-power ally that Huber makes a major feature of “fortified”

compound warfare. In the Chinese civil war, central Communist

direction over regular conventional and irregular guerrilla units made

this a case of simple compound warfare. But this war became a variant

of “fortified” compound war when the Imperial Japanese Army

invaded China and inadvertently aided the Communists by forcing the

Nationalist government to withdraw troops from campaigns designed

to exterminate Mao’s forces. Unintentionally, the Japanese army

performed a service for the Communists equivalent to what could be

viii
expected from a major-power ally. Clearly, while the concept of compound

warfare is simple, the dynamic relationships and effects of compound

warfare can take many different shapes and appear in many different

environments.

This collection contains studies of conflicts that occurred in three

different centuries and in many different social, political, economic,

and military environments. While the cases examined are dissimilar in

numerous ways, they are linked by the presence within them of some

variant of compound warfare. Dr. Michael Pearlman’s essay on

eighteenth-century Indian wars describes an environment in which a

wide variety of military operators were interacting. Pearlman

concludes that French and British adversaries both employed elements

of compound warfare. Dr. Jerry Morelock’s study evaluates

Washington’s achievement as a main force commander in a compound

warfare environment. Dr. Huber’s analysis of Napoleon’s long

campaign in Spain—the seminal article on compound

warfare—illuminates the ingenious methods of the phenomenon

practiced by Wellington. Dr. Jerold Brown’s treatment of Indian

warfare on the Great Plains explores lost opportunities of the U.S.

Army to employ compound warfare methods. Dr. John Broom’s article

on the Anglo-Irish conflict (1919) analyzes the multiple pressures the

Irish independence movement sought to apply to the British. Dr. Gary

Bjorge’s analysis of the Huai Hai campaign shows how Mao Zedong,

one of the modern masters of compound warfare, brought its tenets to

bear against Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese civil war. Randall Briggs’

view of the American experience in Vietnam sheds light on the

complex problems the United States faced in the compound warfare

environment there and how America tried to resolve those problems.

Dr. Robert Baumann’s essay on the Soviet war in Afghanistan surveys

Afghan tribesmen using compound warfare methods effectively

against the Soviet Union.

All of these case studies contain information on their respective

conflicts that may be new to readers. That may be reason enough to read

them. But what should prove to be most stimulating about this

collection is the common application and examination of the compound

warfare concept that all the studies share. Approaching these conflicts

from this abstract perspective will give readers a better sense of why

these conflicts developed as they did. One can hope as well that this

collection will also allow readers to understand better the powerful

dynamics that are present in that pattern of warfare in which regular and

irregular forces are used in concert. Even as this work first goes to print,

ix
a new variant of compound warfare has surfaced in the Afghan theater

of the global war on terrorism. There, technologically sophisticated

guerrillas (allied Special Operations Forces) are supporting a much

larger but relatively unsophisticated conventional force to achieve a

stunning victory over a common foe. Knowing how the dynamics of

compound warfare have affected the outcome of past conflicts will

better prepare us to meet both present crises and future challenges of a

similar nature.

Combat Studies Institute

August 2002

x
Compound Warfare:

A Conceptual Framework

Thomas M. Huber

Napoleon Bonaparte called his disastrous war in Spain “that fatal

knot.”1 Throughout history, talented commanders have been often

perplexed, and sometimes defeated, by the challenges posed by

guerrilla warfare, and especially guerrilla warfare used in concert with

a regular force. The long history of warfare is replete with instances

where regular forces and irregular forces have been used together. In

some cases, the outcomes of these conflicts have seemed to defy

analysis because weak forces have defeated strong ones and because

victory in battle has not led to victory in war. How did ragtag Spanish

guerrillas defeat the mighty legions of Napoleon? How were the Viet

Cong able to stand so long against the overwhelming strategic might of

the United States? Spain (1808 to 1814) and Vietnam (1965 to 1973)

are two of the best known examples of this kind of warfare, but students

of history know of many others. The “compound warfare” [CW]

conceptual framework is a new way of approaching these troublesome

cases where regular forces and irregular forces have been used

synergistically. The term “compound” is used because there are two

different force elements in play that complement, or compound, each

other’s effects.

Compound Warfare

What is compound warfare? Compound warfare is the simultaneous

use of a regular or main force and an irregular or guerrilla force against

an enemy. In other words, the CW operator increases his military

leverage by applying both conventional and unconventional force at

the same time.2 In this essay, the term “CW operator” usually means

the overall commander in a CW struggle who effectively directs it,

though the term may also be applied to other CW leaders.3 Compound

warfare most often occurs when all or part of a minor power’s territory

is occupied by an intervening major power. Usually one country will

not be disposed to, or succeed in, occupying another unless it has

superior force. However, once the greater power’s forces are

distributed over the lesser power’s territory, the lesser power is then in a

position to conduct compound warfare.

1
The great advantage of resorting to compound warfare is that it

pressures the enemy to both mass and disperse at the same time. If the

enemy masses, the CW operator’s irregular force may attack and

damage his lines of communication. If the enemy disperses to protect

his lines of communication (LOCs), the CW operator’s regular force

may destroy him in detail. By greatly increasing the security problems

faced by his enemy, the CW operator gains disproportionate leverage

over him. Facing a double challenge may in itself make the enemy

irresolute and keep him off balance. In other words, CW methods allow

the operator to impose more pressure on his enemy than that operator

could if he were using all his assets in one way.

In many respects, the operations of the regular force and of the

irregular force are complementary. The irregular force provides

important advantages to the regular force. It conveys superior

intelligence information while suppressing enemy intelligence. It

makes food and supplies available to the main force or expedites their

passage through its territory. It denies food and supplies to the enemy

and interdicts his passage. It may augment the personnel of the main

force itself if need be by adding to it combat power or labor power at key

moments. It may also attrit the personnel strength of the adversary. In

sum, the irregular force enhances the effort of the regular force by

offering information, goods, and troops, while denying them to the

enemy.

Similarly, the regular force can provide important advantages to

local irregular forces. Pressure from the main force can oblige the

enemy to withdraw and relocate troops from localities in which the

guerrillas are operating, thus giving the irregular forces greater freedom

of action. The main force may furnish specialized training, equipment,

and funds to the guerrillas. The main force can provide strategic

information, advising the guerrillas of when and where to act to

accommodate the overall effort. If the irregulars are suppressed and

forced into political passivity by enemy action, the friendly regular

force, passing through the locality, can depose the collaborators,

embolden the guerrillas, and revive their political and military activity.

This main force provides the guerrilla force with relief from the

enemy’s presence in the locale, with training and supplies, with

strategic information, and with local political leverage. All of these

complementary interactions between regular and irregular forces make

compound warfare an especially effective form of warfare, one in

which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

2
Historically, there have been many instances of compound war. The

most famous cases in the early modern period are perhaps those of

Washington’s lieutenants—Nathaniel Greene and others—in the

American War of Independence (1775 to 1883) and Wellington in

Spain (1808 to 1814). The best known examples in the twentieth

century are perhaps Mao Zedong in China’s revolutionary wars (1927

to 1949) and Ho Chi-Minh in Vietnam’s (1945 to 1975). Most serious

students of military history can cite numerous cases of compound

warfare and are aware that this is an especially effective form of war.

Most would also agree that it is important to understand how compound

warfare works and why it is so powerful.

Fortified Compound Warfare

Compound warfare is most often decisive when “fortified.” This

insight may be the most important and the most original element of CW

analysis. Compound warfare, although it offers a formidable challenge

to its adversaries, can usually be overcome by first destroying the CW

defender’s main force and then suppressing guerrilla activity region by

region. Fortified compound warfare [FCW], by contrast, is rarely

overcome. It has nearly always defeated its opponents because the

adversary’s necessary first step to victory, destroying the FCW

defender’s main force, is almost impossible. It is for this reason that,

historically, minor-power FCW operators have often defeated

strategically superior major-power adversaries.

“Fortification” means that the CW operator’s main force is shielded

from destruction in some definitive way. (The term “fortify” is used

here in its original abstract sense of “strengthen.” It can, but often does

not, refer to constructed defensive positions. Alliances, diplomacy,

technology, terrain, agility, and other factors can help achieve

“fortification.”) Why is fortification, the accomplished invulnerability

of the main force, so often decisive in a CW environment? The impact

of compound warfare’s complementarities is formidable. Add to

compound warfare the pattern of fortification, and it is almost

insurmountable. Any CW operator who can exempt his main force

from destruction usually can use it to protect, nourish, revive, or replace

collaborating local guerrilla forces almost indefinitely. Such a

favorable situation places a continuing, inescapable double pressure on

the major-power adversary. Historically, two conditions occurring

together seem usually to guarantee main-force invulnerability: safe

haven and a major-power ally. If the CW operator has a safe haven

where his regular force can shelter, and a major ally that is at least a peer

3
of his major-power adversary, then in theory the CW operator can keep

his regular force in being indefinitely. The main force can thus also

protect and nourish the CW operator’s guerrilla force in a similar

fashion.

Almost always the major-power adversary, faced with these

simultaneous pressures indefinitely, sees his campaign to be futile or

too costly and eventually abandons it. In other words, the adversary is

defeated. Fortified compound warfare in its original formulation thus

features four elements that sustain a minor power conducting an FCW

defense: 1) a regular or main force, 2) an irregular or guerrilla force, 3) a

safe haven for the regular force, and 4) a major-power ally. (The most

advantageous position in an FCW situation is that of the major-power

ally of the minor-power FCW operator. The major-power ally enjoys

extravagant leverage on his strategic rival at little cost to himself.)

Fortification makes the difference between compound warfare, which

is difficult to defeat, and fortified compound warfare, which is nearly

impossible to defeat. For planners, it is an important distinction.

We should note here that “safe haven” for purposes of this analysis

is, like “fortification,” used in an abstract sense. It may refer to an

actual place of shelter, such as Wellington’s safe camp behind the

famous Torres Vedras lines. But it may also refer to any factors that

allow the main force to withdraw to a place inaccessible to the enemy.

Safe haven may thus be determined by the physical realities of

defensive architecture or geography, but it may also be determined by

technological, diplomatic, political, or other factors. In Southeast Asia,

the Cambodian and North Vietnamese border zones represented a safe

haven for the North Vietnamese army that was established by

intangible diplomatic and political factors, not by geographical or

physical factors. Logically, of course, any factor or combination of

factors that assure the survival of the regular force indefinitely amounts

to fortification. For example, superior agility for the regular force,

combined with ample non-restrictive terrain and secure supply, would

normally be sufficient to preserve that force. However, in historical

cases, the combination of safe haven and major-power ally is the

circumstance that most readily seems to accomplish fortification.

The FCW conceptual framework may be the element of the present

study that is most original. Earlier writers, notably Mao Zedong, have

extolled the advantages of using regular and irregular forces together.

This cannot be said of the main tenets of FCW, which seem not to have

been systematically developed by earlier writers. FCW tenets include

the idea that indestructibility of the main force is the essence of

4
“quagmire” wars, such as Spain from 1808 to 1814 and Vietnam from

1965 to 1973. These conflicts have seemed to defy analysis in the past

because even victorious operations have appeared to yield no

resolution and because weak forces have appeared to defeat strong

ones. Quagmire wars are wars that continue to be prosecuted after it has

become obvious that the defending regular force is indestructible. The

FCW conceptual framework facilitates examination of main force

indestructibility and potential counter-strategies, something earlier

writers have not done.4 Because fortified compound warfare allows

operators to fight and win, in almost every historical case, with

conventional force ratios that would otherwise appear to be hopelessly

inferior, it is likely to be encountered often in the future. Military

planners thus need to understand the dynamics of this type of warfare

before the event.

The Variety of Compound War

Although the model of compound warfare offered here has been kept

simple in hopes that it will serve as a convenient framework for

analysis, readers should remember that enormous variety exists in the

historical cases of compound warfare. As in most other realms of

military thought, the theory is simple but the reality is complex. The

CW model assumes that one side in a CW conflict uses CW methods

and the other does not. In reality, both sides may use CW methods. In

most historical cases of compound warfare, one side uses CW methods

predominantly; the other side deliberately uses them to the extent it is

able. The model assumes two kinds of force, regular or conventional

force, and irregular or guerrilla force. Several types of mobile regional

militias may fall between these two poles and may contribute

importantly to the leverage of the CW operator. In other words, various

intermediate types of force are possible between the regular and

irregular models promulgated here for simplicity.

The CW conceptual framework also assumes that all the CW

operator’s regular forces and irregular forces are coordinated. In the

more complex reality, deliberate coordination may extend to all, some,

one, or none of the military elements in play. If two powers or entities

are operating independently against the same enemy and only one

understands CW dynamics, he may shape his own operations so as to

put CW pressure on the enemy even with no cooperation whatever from

the other power or entity. This would be compound warfare done

unilaterally; “coordination” is done by only one side. In other words,

the advantages of the complementarity are achieved, but by the

5
deliberate action of only one participant. CW effects may even be

achieved when two powers operate independently against the same

enemy, with neither power grasping or intending to use CW dynamics.

When each does what it does best, these separate powers may still end

up putting CW pressures on that enemy, thus achieving compound

warfare inadvertently.

One might think of this in terms of levels of coordination in

compound warfare. The highest level of coordination is where one

operator has both complete conceptual grasp of CW dynamics and

complete command authority over all elements of the CW conflict,

Mao Zedong being an example. At middle levels (unilateral compound

war), at least one operator has conceptual understanding and effectively

coordinates one or more of the elements. Wellington in Spain from

1808 to 1814 is an example of this. Wellington understood CW

dynamics, but many of the Spanish guerrilla chiefs probably did not.

Wellington partially overcame this problem by giving operational

direction to some of the irregular units. At the lowest levels of

coordination (inadvertent compound war), each military element may

or may not have intellectual control and has operational control only of

itself. An example may be the Indian tribes who attacked across the

Texas frontier in the 1860s while Union and Confederate conventional

forces contended elsewhere. Neither the Indians nor their inadvertent

Union allies had any sense of waging compound warfare. Each

belligerent fought its own war in its own way, without any

coordination. Nevertheless, Texan defenders found themselves

confronted with the classic CW dilemma.

The CW conceptual framework assumes that a conflict either is a

compound war or is not. In reality, one finds degrees of compound

warfare. There is compound warfare proper where all the elements of

compound warfare are in place, and what one might call “quasi”

compound warfare, where one or more elements of compound warfare

are absent. For example, a conventionally organized regular force may

be lacking, but functional equivalents of this apparently absent element

may be in place, so that CW dynamics are still obtained. Some

conventional conflicts, such as World War II, occasionally show largeor small-scale CW activities and CW effects—“concurrent” compound

warfare. Hitler fought a conventional war in Europe, for example, but

as part of that war had to counter CW methods as practiced by partisans

in Russia, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. Rather than attempt to account

for every possible circumstance, the CW conceptual framework has

been presented here in its most basic form so that it may serve to

6
facilitate analysis. The historical reality is, of course, extremely

complex. The simple CW model, it is hoped, will give analysts a place

to start in coping with these complexities.

Why Study Compound Warfare?

Why pursue a broader understanding of compound warfare? Why

does the CW concept merit study? The compound warfare idea is

especially useful as an intellectual framework for the analysis of

quagmire wars, such as Napoleon in Spain or the U.S. in Vietnam,

which yield outcomes that appear counterintuitive when simple force

ratios are consulted. Moreover, a number of historical cases besides

quagmire wars have shown the influence of CW dynamics, even though

those dynamics were not always deducible from reports of discrete

military operations. It is thus helpful for historians to have the CW

conceptual framework at hand as a means of analyzing all these cases.

There are more pressing reasons than historiographical convenience

for trying to master CW concepts, however. Planners of military

operations in potential CW environments can better anticipate real

consequences of military operations if they are alert to the usual

dynamics and possibilities of compound warfare. It is especially

important to be aware that compound warfare is usually decisive when

fortified. It is far less costly to understand CW dynamics going in than

to learn them in a harder school: failed operations. By grappling with a

variety of theoretical issues here, readers will not only enhance their

understanding of historical events but also develop insights that may

lead to improved decision-making in the future.

7

Notes

1. Napoleon Bonaparte, Memorial de Sainte-Helene, Vol 1 (Paris: 1961 [1823]),

609-10; quoted in John L. Tone, The Fatal Knot: The Guerrilla War in Navarre

and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North

Carolina Press, 1994), 3.

2. For purely stylistic reasons the following three sets of terms are used

interchangeably in this discussion to refer to the massed force and the dispersed

force respectively: main force and guerrilla force, conventional force and

unconventional force, and regular force and irregular force. Note that the “main

force” used in this sense may not represent the “main effort,” since in some

cases the guerrillas may represent the main effort. Moreover, these terms refer

to habitual tactical employment not organization, since a conventionally

organized force may at times employ guerrilla tactics and vice versa.

3. “CW operator” refers here to several types of military commander or other

authority (guerrilla leader, party official) controlling military forces in support

of a CW struggle: a) anyone operating so as to contribute to a CW effort even if

not aware of CW dynamics, b) anyone operating who is aware of and uses CW

dynamics, and c) anyone who is operating and aware, but who also effectively

controls all or most of the CW assets deployed, whether massed or dispersed.

Thus the CW operator may be a guerrilla commander or a main force

commander or both. He may be indigenous or expeditionary. There may be

several or numerous CW operators fighting against the same adversary in a

given environment. Usually by “CW operator,” however, we mean the last of

the above three types, namely the overall commander in a CW struggle who

effectively directs it.

4. This analysis implies that if one wishes to win a quagmire war against a minor

power conducting an FCW defense, then one must proceed by first attempting

to defortify the adversary. In other words, one must attack his safe havens, his

alliances, or whatever else provides him with effective fortification.

Theoretically such efforts, if successful, may still allow an intervening power to

prevail in a quagmire war. If these projects cannot be achieved, then the double

pressures of fortified compound warfare will continue to bear.

9

The Wars of Colonial North America,

1690-1763

Michael D. Pearlman

Introduction

A recently published enquiry into the origins of war, approximately

5,000 years before the birth of Christ, differentiated the nature of armed

conflict in two situations, those waged between like-minded

agricultural settlements from those waged against the settlements by

nomads grazing or hunting animals and gathering wild crops. Warfare

of the first sort, pursued for land and sovereignty, tended to fall under a

series of rituals and rules. Adult males monopolized combat

exclusively conducted on an open battlefield. Stealth was considered

cowardice and slaughter was averted, that is once one contestant

surrendered autonomy by joining the victor’s domain. These contours

of conflict, for a series of reasons, went into abeyance when a nomadic

tribe attacked a settled community. The contestants had nothing but

contempt for each other’s culture; it was a “clash of civilizations,” to

use a contemporary phrase. Emotions notwithstanding, practicality

played a part. The nomadic bands on the attack lacked the means of

transport to withdraw expeditiously the loot for which they fought. To

discourage pursuit, they had to overrun their victim’s community to

prevent recovery and sow fear precluding plans for revenge. This

would tend to dissolve the limits placed on warfare as well as modify

the forms and style of war. Whatever manly contests nomads used to

measure strength in their own ranks, they could not beat settlements of

superior technology except by concealment, terror, and surprise.1

This general state of affairs, occurring long before the advent of

extensive written records, must be pieced together through gravesites,

artifacts, and other discoveries of archeology. The details of the story

will never be known, but its main contours (as previously described)

are not much different from events in the early period of modern

European military history. From the 1500s, nation states were in the

process of purging from their armies mercenary bands of irregular units

conducting unconventional operations. This course of change was

largely completed by the 1750s, the decisive decade in the century of

struggle between Britain and France for rule in North America. The

physical and political requirements of this particular theater (described

11
in the coming paragraphs) necessitated reintroducing force structures

and tactics then fading from conflicts between nations on the Continent,

except for special Hungarian auxiliaries originally used along and on

the outskirts of Christendom in raiding party warfare against the

Turkish Empire. In the New World, where irregulars were far more

important, both sides sought allies among Native Americans, who held

the balance of military power. Still, notwithstanding the skills Indians

had in scouting and ambush, European-bred officers deemed them

unreliable, much like earlier European mercenaries. Hence, Britain and

France sought to incorporate Indian tactical capabilities by assigning

unconventional missions, first to their colonists and then to special light

infantry units in their regular armed forces. This practice was inspired

by the belief that these particular units, manned by White Christians,

could adopt Indian tactics without sharing undesirable Indian cultural

liabilities. By 1759, the ground forces of the colonial rivals tended to

mirror each other, a fact that doomed Canada to defeat. Once France

lost its qualitative advantage through its unconventional operations, the

6,000 French military men serving in North America would be

overwhelmed by 44,000 English soldiers and sailors.2

Indian Wars and Colonial Conflicts

The Iroquois “hold the balance on the continent of North America. If

the Five Nations should at any time in conjunction with the Eastern

Indians... revolt from the English to the French, they would in a short

time drive us out of this continent.”

—Colonial New York government officials, 17013

The longest military conflict in American history, the so-called

Indians Wars, were actually a series of conflicts beginning with the

Roanoke tribe’s attack on Jamestown in 1622 and ending with the U. S.

7th Cavalry’s fight with the Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in

1890. Common images of this conflict, largely shaped by movies and

mythology, portray it as white men (or Euro-Americans) versus Native

Americans, a struggle that reached its dramatic climax on the Great

Plains with George Armstrong Custer in 1876. (With the sole exception

of Gettysburg, more books have been written about the Little Bighorn

than any other battle in American history.) In point of fact, after 1813,

with the death of Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames, Indian wars

were rather unimportant, except to those few people directly involved.

By then, erstwhile English, French, or Spanish allies stopped providing

12
sanctuaries and supplies to the Indians. Thus, from that time, the

Indians became a temporary obstacle, only slowing, not preventing,

U.S. expansion. Earlier, during the colonial era, before the U.S. existed,

Indians were a solid barrier to expansion, with the power to determine

whether France or Britain would rule North America. Indians and

13

City

Fort

Major Indian Tribe

Military Campaign

HURON

LEGEND

MONTAGNAI

Quebec

EASTERN

ABENAKI

HURON

Montreal

Ottawa R.

WESTERN

ABENAKI

Lake

Champlain Ft.

William

Henry

Rogers 1760

Connecticut R.

Ft. Edwards

MOHEGAN

RIVER

INDIANS Schenectady

Albany

Springfield

NEW ENGLAND

ALGONQUIN

New

Haven

Hudson R.

MOHAWK DELAWARE

(MUNSEE,

LENAPE,

RIVER

INDIANS)

SUSQEHANNOCK

CAYUGA

ONONDAGA

ONEIDA

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

Lake

Ontario

Lake

Erie SENECA

New York

Murray 1760

Wolfe

1779

Halltan

d

6 177

Genesee R.

Ft. Duquese

Allegheny R.

Susquehanna R.

St. Lawrence R.

Brad 7 dock 1 55

F

7

orbes 1 55

N

Amherst 1776

Map 1
Indian wars were never so important to the fate of this continent as they

were from 1690 to 1763.

Indian wars rarely, if ever, simply pitted Euro-Americans against

Native Americans. Whether it was the Crow and Rhee with Custer in

his war with the Sioux or the Mohawks and British colonists against the

Huron and the French, these conflicts have always been a variant of

compound warfare—friendly tribes conducting irregular operations

allied with Euro-Americans against a common enemy, be it hostile

tribes, enemy colonies, or a hostile alliance conducting compound

warfare on its own.

Vis-à-vis other wars in this casebook, particularly Napoleon in Spain

and the American Revolution, what stands out in the colonial wars of

North America is the relative ineffectiveness of compound operations,

probably because both sides eventually developed the same force

structure using European professionals, Euro-American militia, and

Native American tribes. Before the mid-1750s, the French had a clear

advantage in the irregular warfare practiced by their Canadian settlers

and native allies. Britain, after being beaten in woodland wars,

followed suit by organizing Indian scouts, American rangers, and its

own light infantry to supplement what would be its decisive strengths:

the larger battalions of the English army and the power projection assets

of the Royal Navy.

Military Policy and Force Structure, European and

American Ways of War

You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Do you want to be a

highwayman, sulking in a ditch! Come out into the open and behave

properly, like a Brandenburger and a real soldier!

—Frederick the Great to a Prussian jaeger preparing an ambush, 17614

Accustomed as I am to think like a European . . . my soul has several

times shuddered at spectacles my eyes have witnessed.

—Captain Louis Antoine de Bougainville, 17575

When Britain began its series of wars with France in 1690, it had no

public debt. By 1753, the government owed its creditors 84 million

pounds sterling. One has trouble getting precise figures for France; it

never quite knew how much it owed. Suffice it to say that on the eve of

the decisive conflict (called the Seven Years’ War in Europe; the

14
French-Indian War in British America), London and Paris were

haunted with fears of national bankruptcy. Both treasuries wanted

peace, if only for deficit reduction—“our principal object” according to

the Duke of Newcastle, the First Lord of the Treasury and head minister

of the British government. 6

North America proved a substantial problem for these plans of

mutual accommodation. Indistinctly drawn on the maps of the time, the

Ohio River Valley, upper New York, and Nova Scotia were sparsely

populated and claimed by both sides, as well as by their respective tribal

allies. The French based their title on exploration, the English on

effective occupation. As the British stated it: “A few loose fellowes

rambling amongst Indians to keep themselves from starving [does not]

give the French a right to the Country.” To protect disputed territory

without precipitating a major conflict, both sides planned to roll back

what they called “encroachments” by their rival. Then, according to

Newcastle, diplomats could “come to a reasonable Agreement upon the

Whole” issue of who owns what. Moreover, they could do it “as cheap

and as inoffensive as we can.” 7

As part and parcel of this policy, the British and the French tried to

minimize an expensive commitment of European professional soldiers

and maximize the contribution of their respective colonies to their own

defense. “The Business in America,” said Newcastle, “must be done by

Americans.” Unfortunately, Euro-American irregulars and Native

Americans were far less worried about the condition of the French or

English treasury. They also practiced war in a manner fundamentally

different from that of Europeans—being far less willing to conduct a

protracted campaign but far more likely to plunder in any particular

battle. 8

Since the early 1600s, European nations had been in the process of

replacing hired mercenaries with a standing army. The latter was

uniformed, drilled, and heavily armed with muskets, bayonets, and

grenades. It primarily deployed in close order, to maximize the

efficiency of this weaponry best used in synchronized firing by linear

groups at short range. The former, on the other hand, were lightly

armed, free-wheeling individualists who skirmished in open

formations and primarily joined military campaigns for the chance to

pillage. Increasingly, their particular talents and specialty, that of

long-distance raids behind enemy lines, was deemed suspect for direct

and indirect reasons. Many officers felt that looting was

counterproductive when it came to raising local resources. “It is true,”

said one 1744 publication, that it “may at first bring in a profusion of all

15
necessaries to the army [but] that will soon be wasted and consumed

and then the army (which perhaps ought to have continued in that

situation [i.e., location]) must be forced to quit it or starve. Whereas,

had the people been protected and properly encouraged they might

have constantly brought in provisions.” Logistics aside, officers also

thought pillage dangerous from the standpoint of combat command and

control. “Nothing so effectually destroys their discipline and takes off

those qualities which constitute the Soldier as does his own plunder.”

When that occurs, said one leading critic of mercenary units, soldiers

become “more dangerous to the very state that maintains them, than

even its declared enemies.” 9

However, at the same time as British and French armies were

laboriously culling these military vagabonds and bandits from their

ranks in Europe, they recruited in America what they considered their

functional equivalents, Indian auxiliaries. The analogy to mercenaries

might not be completely fair. The presents (or payments) Native

Americans expected from their allies were also symbols of respect. The

rhetoric, protocol, and status proffered at a gift-giving ceremony were

often as rewarding as the gift. Thus, officials of England and France

entitled tribes “nations,” their envoys “ambassadors,” their chiefs

“kings,” and agreements with them “treaties.” Europeans may have

done this with tongue in cheek since they were loath to grant Indians the

operational autonomy true allies inherently have. However, the Indians

failed to accept this subordinate relationship, neither the Hurons,

Algonquins, Ottawa, and Abenaki who favored French Canada, nor the

Stockbridge, Mohegans, and Mohawks who sided with Britain. The

Indian tribes considered themselves independent entities, as Europeans

presumably acknowledged in their treaties of alliance. Not being

subordinate subjects, they fought for their own interests, as did England

and Prussia or France, Austria, and Russia: the different coalition

partners in the European theater of the Seven Years War. Royal armies,

doing the king’s business, battled to acquire territory, the spoils of war

for the nation state. Indians often fought for the opportunity to “loot”

property, to use a pejorative term elites gave to the immediate

post-battle behavior of their own needy soldiers and European

mercenaries, not to mention the political objectives of many Native

American tribes. 10

Politically, in point of fact, most Indians were never quite “allies” or

“subordinates” because they lived beyond “command and control,” at

least as white men understood those terms. Europeans were raised in

patriarchal families, served in hierarchal armies, and were subjects in

16
nations governed by hereditary aristocrats—none of these institutions

dependent on popular consent. As for the Indians, their families were

often matriarchies, wherein fathers served as mediators. Their

governments, in turn, “never execute[d] their Resolutions by

Compulsion or Force upon any of their People,” so wrote the

contemporary chronicler of the tribes of Upper New York. Primarily

hunter-gatherers of food, they lived near subsistence, the fate of all

people who do not domesticate crops or animals on farm or pastureland.

Hence Indians were simply too poor to afford a division of labor; that is,

they lacked a permanent group of men who specialized in governing

others in war or in peace, as opposed to gathering protein (the common

lot of common people around the world). “The great and fundamental

principles of their policies are that every man is naturally freed and

independent [and] no one or more [person or people] on earth has any

right to deprive him of his freedom.” Such was the informed opinion of

Robert Rogers, commander of Anglo-American rangers, whose

insights about what Indians would and would not do accounts for his

tactical success, either with them as allies or against them as enemy. 11

The absence in the Indian system of an authoritative government that

created unity of political effort prevented them from ever becoming

what French and English colonists thought they would be: the factor

determining the fate of North America. The Indians could have decided

which European nation would win a particular war, or they could have

tried to maintain a stalemate and balance of power, as some sagacious

Indians proposed. (“We are born Freemen, and have no dependence,”

one Iroquois told an English settler. “If your Allies are your Slaves or

Children, [Europeans] may e’en treat ‘em as such.”) However, Indians

could not establish a national policy because they were not a nation and

had no national institutions. Even the so-called Iroquois nation was

nothing but the recognition of a nonaggression pact enabling five

disparate tribes—the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and

Mohawks—to pursue their separate policies without suffering an attack

by a neighboring tribe on its immediate flank. The Senecas, situated

near the Canadian fort at Niagara, tended to be pro-France, the

European power in the best position to threaten its physical security or

provide economic supplies. Mohawks, living near Albany and Fort

Edward, favored the English, whose trade goods they used to dominate

rival tribes in the Ohio River Valley. Never fighting as a body, the

Iroquois, let alone Indians per se, never exercised their collective

power.12

17
Whether favorable to the English or the French, Indian warriors

fought by different rules than those applied in European warfare from

1670 to 1793. In that age of limited war on the Continent, those who

won rarely slaughtered those who lost, except in regard to “treasonous”

rebels or heathens on their geographic periphery—Irish Catholics,

Acadians, Highland Scots, or Turks. At least in conflicts between

fellow nation-states, officers might carefully preserve prisoners for

trade and ransom, sometimes according to an exchange rate formally

concluded before the onset of the war—so much for colonels, so much

for captains, so much for common soldiers, etc. By the mid-seventeenth

century, Spain, Holland, and France even agreed to a per diem charge

they would pay each other for provisioning the men they captured

before they were exchanged.13

Indian warriors, on the other hand, lived by a code that their chiefs

could not control and Europeans could not comprehend: “No

moderation [is known] at all in these barbarians, either [their conduct is

marked by] unheard of cruelties or the best treatment that they can think

of.” Some prisoners were adopted into tribes in hopes of offsetting the

substantial decline in their population due to exposure to European

communicative disease. (Mohawk population, for example, declined

75 percent in the seventeenth century.) Other prisoners were devoured

on the spot, as recorded by one French officer haunted by the “frightful

spectacles that have befouled my eyes.” According to one account,

Indians were drawn “by the smell of fresh human flesh and the chance

to teach their young men how one carves up a human being destined for

the pot.” There was probably a logic to this annihilate or assimilate

policy. One way or the other, the enemy was to be eliminated, as one

Onadaga explained: “We are not like you CHRISTIANS for when you

have taken Prisoners of one another you send them home. By such

means you can not rout one another.”14

Combined military operations (often to acquire prisoners) suffered

from similar cultural incompatibilities, particularly the Indian

inclination to blur the white man’s line between warfare and peacetime

pursuits. European armies would drill recruits for two to five years,

making them cogs in a military machine because their

machinery—especially their weaponry ̄was so flawed and

rudimentary. (The only way to make flintlock muskets effective was to

lay down well-controlled waves of volley fire.) By contrast, Indians

underwent no military training at all. Consistent with their general

disinclination for specialization and a division of labor, they simply

extended their behavior patterns for hunting and athletics into the

18
military arena. This helps explain why Indians rarely made distinctions

between combatants and civilians, to the consternation of Europeans

who dressed their own soldiers in unique uniforms and housed them in

barracks. It also explains why, without formal schooling, Native

Americans were adept warriors, at least as long as war meant scouting,

raids, or ambush. Said the Royal Governor of New York in 1700:

They lye sculking in the woods behind bushes and flat on their bellies.

If those they shoot at drop, they run and scalp them; but if they

perceive they have missed their shot, they run away without being so

much as seen (for the most part) by those they shoot at, and ‘tis as

much purpose to pursue ‘em in the thick woods, as to pursue birds that

are on the wing . . . They laugh at the English and French for exposing

their bodies in fight and call ‘em fools.15

Indian tactics, training, and traditions being what they were, Native

American allies were far less useful when a sustained campaign or siege

had to be conducted. To a people living near subsistence and already

suffering substantial population decline, raiding party warfare could be

genocidal. Anything more intensive probably seemed impractical to

them. However, to Europeans, raiding parties were pin-prick

operations, hardly decisive in affairs of nation states. That unlimited

warfare might be waged with limited means and brief engagements was

a fact not fathomed by most white men who condemned “the cowardice

of these Barbarians. . . . You have nothing to do, but to advance, & they

will fly, they never stand an open fire, or an attack.”16

The colonial powers, obsessed with their own problems, were not

sympathetic to the plight or military practices of Native Americans.

They thought themselves “slaves to Indians” out to “wage war on the

poultry, sheep, and wine barrels.” The last issue, that of drinking liquor,

was a particularly serious problem for Indians, far worse than it was for

European armies, where it was serious indeed. Inebriation induced

dreams and visions that might be considered omens of disaster more

reliable to Native Americans than reconnaissance reports were to their

French or English allies. Whether due to premonitions or to casualties,

“the hurried flight of these Indians,” one officer complained, “shows a

lack of discipline of which they have no idea in Europe.”17

Like many generalizations, this chronic complaint of both

contestants, Britain and France, that Indians were military anarchists

was both true and false. Native field craft and battle drill was excellent.

The ability to conduct a devastating ambush from thoroughly disguised

positions is hardly possible for a force in chaos, something often true of

19
the white enemy they trapped. Expert testimony on this subject came

from an English colonel, James Smith, after five years in captivity of a

hostile tribe: “I have often hear the British officers call the Indians the

undisciplined savages, which is a capital mistake.... They are under

good command and punctual; they can act in concert, and when their

officers lay a plan... they will chearfully [sic] unite in putting all their

directions into immediate execution.”18

Nonetheless, small unit tactics under the control of a tribe was not the

only military activity of consequence in North America. Political and

operational dependability were also important, especially from the

perspective of European grand strategy. White men could not rely on

Indians to conduct a long war or a protracted campaign, nor count on

them not to fall out of a fighting formation in order to scalp and loot

prisoners of war after an engagement. Ironically, Europeans promoted

the behavior about which they complained. The establishment of their

trading posts in North America created desires and dependencies for

European goods: tools, weapons, utensils, liquor and cloth. This

changed the objectives of Indian warfare, once a pastime largely

conducted for intangible rewards like honor and prestige. It had

become a commercial activity, at least in part. Europeans henceforth

attracted Indian volunteers, allies, and auxiliaries by promising

opportunities for them to plunder. Britain, a rich nation, could also pay

5 pounds sterling for a French scalp; France could only afford 3 pounds

(or its equivalent) for that of the English. When Indians abandoned

sustained campaigns, it was often to collect their pay, that is to consume

the booty or cash the bounty held out for their original enlistment.19

Europeans still might protect—or try to protect—prisoners of war

and their property. They generally thought pillage was barbaric and

would undermine what little control they had over their Indian allies

and auxiliaries. If so, then Europeans were not dependable; they did not

keep their promise, at least from the Indian perspective. It would,

however, be too superficial to cry simple hypocrisy. Many Europeans

were genuinely anguished by their complicity in looting and scalping,

among them Montcalm and Amherst, the French and English

commanding generals in the decisive years of the war. Nonetheless,

they had no prize to offer other than booty. Honor and prestige were still

motivating factors, despite the influx of consumer goods. Yet not being

a product of English commerce, they were rewards in sole possession of

the local tribe. James Smith noted in his narrative of captivity: “There is

no such thing as corporeal punishment used, in order to bring [other

Indians] under good discipline; degrading is the only chastisement” an

20
Indian needs to ensure correct behavior. The friction in

European-Indian combined operations was that each national

component could have its own definition of correct behavior for a

military campaign.20

As a summary comment, one could say of the Indians what was said

of the mercenaries then being purged from armies on the Continent:

they both were often tactically effective and efficient, especially in

brief engagements, rather than protracted wars. Their greatest

shortcoming came in action after, not during, a clash of arms. They both

were very difficult for an outside force to control, especially when the

outsider relied on property incentives that literally were there for taking

on a littered battlefield as spoils of war. 21

Falling between the stereotypical extremes of native individualism

and European corporate control were Canadian and American

militiamen. French officers complained about “Canadian manners and

style,” that is, behavior they considered only marginally more reliable

than that of the Indians, whom Canadians were supposed to discipline

but whom they indulged and often followed. English officers had

similar things to say about the American militiamen, despite the

Americans social separation from the baleful Indian lodges

(settlements the Canadians tended to frequent). The “Provincials” (the

English term for their own colonists) are “Naturally an Obstinate and

Ungovernable People, Utterly Unaquainted with the Nature of

Subordination.” Like Indians, they were notoriously unreliable

compared to English regulars who, enlisting for the duration of a war,

were said by Americans to be “little better than slaves to their Officers.”

Indians dropped out of long campaigns to consume their booty.

Provincials signed one-year contracts for a bonus and pay. When the

year was over, they left camp to invest or spend their savings. If held

back, they mutinied. No matter how aggravating to the British army,

this situation was a fact beyond control. Jeffery Amherst, commanding

general of British forces from late 1758 to 1763, reminded his

subordinates: “We do require their services, ill performed though they

be, and do must endure their indolence and insolence until this cursed

war is over. Then good riddance to them all.” 22

Some fifty miles inside the seacoast, mid-eighteenth century

America was a forested wilderness. “The hardships cannot be

imagined,” one Frenchman wrote in his journal; “it is impossible to

give [Europeans] a fair idea of it.” In this theater, physically resembling

the Burma jungle in World War II, Canadians and Americans provided

the bulk of the transport and logistics needed for operations above and

21
beyond small-unit raids. Still, an English colonel would make no more

than begrudging concession to those on whom he came to depend:

provincials are “sufficient to work our boats, drive our Waggons, to fell

Trees, and do the Works that in inhabited Countrys are performed by

Peasants.”23

Canadians and Americans were also necessary to screen and scout

for European formations. However, as the war moved into its decisive

stage, these functions fell increasingly to conventional soldiers, a far

more reliable lot. At first, they were performed by Indians, especially

on the British side, creating a military dependency openly

acknowledged in the Boston Evening Post:

However insignificant the Remains of the Indian Natives might

appear in Times of Peace and Security, every Man must now be

convinced that they are the most important Allies and the most

formidable enemies; and consequently no Pains or Expense should be

spared to regain or secure their Friendship or at least their Neutrality.24

Nonetheless, senior British military officials, looking for useful and

obedient subordinates, found Indians to be “a loose-made indolent sett

of People” without “Faith or honesty.” Still, needing scouts if they were

to operate in the forests, they turned to American frontiersmen, such as

Rogers’s Rangers, “stout able Men, for a brush [fight] much better than

[standard] Provincial Troops.” Historically, most militiamen from

settled communities had shunned Indian military methods lest they

themselves descend to a state of savagery, that of “Ravenous howling

Wolves.” True, during times of emergency, such as King Philip’s War

in the 1670s, New England officials recruited special volunteers

because the “despised & despicable Enemy” proved “able to rout and

destroy our valiant and good Souldiers.” Prototypical rangers (often

seamen, indentured servants, allied Indians, frontiersmen, and pirates)

turned the tide by beating the hostile tribes at their own game of

ambush. However, being something of an embarrassment to those who

paid their bounties for scalps and prisoners sold into captivity, they

quickly vanished into postwar obscurity. The tactics of these irregulars

having never entered standard militia doctrine, an anomaly like Captain

Robert Rogers was virtually irreplaceable. This meant that American

rangers could not provide a solid foundation for winning a long and

protracted war. At any moment a man like Rogers operating deep

behind enemy lines could become an instant casualty with few suitable

replacements available to sustain ranger operations over time.25

22
Unlike standard Provincial volunteers, rangers enlisted for the

duration of the war. Nonetheless, when Rogers fell ill or wounded, as

anyone might conducting operations deep in enemy territory, his men

were nearly as apt to leave their posts as the Indians they replaced. “If

Rogers had been with us, we could not have failed,” lamented Captain

James Abercromby, after some rank and file rangers staged a drunken

riot and were whipped for disobedience. “The rest of the Ranging

Officers have no Subordination among them & not the least command

of their men.” Presumably, this member of a prominent military family

changed his mind as he lay dying from wounds sustained at Bunker Hill

in 1775. There, he led English grenadiers against a position whose flank

was held by John Stark, once a junior officer in Roger’s Rangers. On his

death bed, (now) Colonel Abercromby would write Lord Loudoun,

military commander (North America) from 1755 to late 1757: “A few

such victories [as Bunker Hill] would Ruin the Army.”26

True, Rogers was far more democratic than most officers, although

he held his unit to a very high level of performance in contact with the

enemy. He felt that in military matters “every man’s reason and

judgment must be his guide.” He could lead his special unit because he

held its admiration and did not adopt standard procedures; that is, he

tended to tolerate his unit’s proclivity to steal provisions and sleep

when it should be preparing positions for a tactical defense.27

Rogers was unable or unwilling to reconcile the use of formal

discipline in his fighting, which was usually done from tactically

dispersed formations. Other subjects of the British Empire proposed

their own answers to this military problem of securing discipline in

irregular units. A young Virginia militia officer named George

Washington, however, implied in 1754 that there might not be a

solution to the problem. Washington had become upset after witnessing

Iroquois behavior during a small engagement on the Ohio River. In that

clash that triggered the global conflict known as the Seven Years’ War,

Washington saw some native allies, nominally under his command,

wash their hands in the brains of a French captain after knocking “the

poor unhappy wounded [man] on the head.” But two years later,

Washington still proposed reliance on “Indians [who] are [the] only

match for Indians. . . . Without these [auxilaries], we shall ever fight

upon unequal Terms” with France.28

Washington may have been relieved to dump irregular warfare

missions on such “savages.” He would spend this war and the next one

waged against Britain trying to get Anglo-Americans to fight in

disciplined, closed formations. English officers, on the other hand, had

23
instilled in their units the discipline that eluded Washington. Now, in

1756, they attempted to get some of their soldiers to fight in looser

order, “as really in Effect we have no Indians”—and will not gain their

true support until Britain begins winning the war on its own. John

Campbell, Fourth Earl of Loudoun, North American theater

commander-in-chief, proposed carefully selecting fifty-five English

army officers to learn woodcraft tactics while on temporary assignment

with Rogers’ Rangers. Whereas, others flinched at sending “gentleman

volunteers” to “this Riotous sort of people,” Loudoun explained his

innovation in terms of what is called today a force multiplier:

Whoever is Superior in irregulars has an infinite advantage over the

other side, and must greatly weaken, if not totally destroy them before

[their regular formations] can get to the Point where they can make

their Push. There is no carrying on the war Service here without

Rangers for it is by them, we can have Intelligence of what motion the

Enemy are making, and by them, that we can secure our Camps and

Marches from Surprise.29

The Duke of Cumberland, the senior commander of the entire British

army, replied affirmatively in favor of ranger skills, particularly if

divorced, as Loudoun proposed, from its perceived association with

American indiscipline: “Till Regular officers with men that they can

trust learn to beat the woods and to act as Irregulars, you never will gain

any certain intelligence of the enemy.” Lord Loudoun, then

implementing this concept, organized special units, to be designated

light infantry, largely to hold the left flank of a conventional regiment

drawn up in fighting line or marching column. It was not particularly

unusual to give small, elite units special, auxiliary missions; Grenadiers

held down the right wing. Loundon really pushed the military envelop

of acceptability when he organized a light infantry regiment, the (60th)

Royal Americans.30

The 60th Foot had an international flavor, from its origins in a

Parliamentary bill granting special commissions to foreign Protestants.

The fact that light infantry was not standard military fare may have

helped it overcome legislative objections to recruiting aliens to fight

Britain’s wars. Several battalion and company commanders in the

Royal Americans were Swiss mercenaries, such as Lieutenant

Colonels Henri Bouquet and Frederick Haldimand. They were only

eligible to hold English rank in North America, where their foreign

ancestry and common social roots were thought to be of advantage.

Such men might be specially qualified to enlist and command recruits

24
from non-English stock, particularly Swiss or German immigrants or

Old World Scots familiar with irregular warfare from life on the

Pennsylvania and Maryland frontier or their native Highlands.

Defeated by the British army at Culloden, Scots joined the English

ranks in the New World.31

With men like these augmenting Royal units, but now under proper

command and control, a man like Henri Bouquet was willing and able

to “employ regulars in the Woods.” Otherwise he, much like Loudoun

and Cumberland, felt that British soldiers “can not procure any

Intelligence, are open to Continual Surprises,” and might be completely

“destroyed” if caught even “one day’s March from a Fort.” George

Washington, a fellow veteran of the western Pennsylvania theater,

would hold that only Indians could perform these functions. Bouquet

wrote the Virginia militia commander in mid-1758, after Cherokee

auxiliaries had “stolen our goods” and deserted his latest campaign in

the Ohio River Valley: “It is a great humiliation for us to be obliged to

Suffer the repeated insolence of Such rascals; I think it would be easier

to make Indians of our White men [which he did in a tactical military

sense] than to coax that damned tanny race.”32

Other British light infantry regiments would fight less successfully

in the North American theater, largely because their English nationality

officers simply transferred into the regiment from standard units

without the proper training to act as irregulars. Thomas Gage, the

commander of the 80th Foot, kept “up Discipline Strictly,” perhaps too

strictly for effective irregular warfare. Many light infantry units had

still not learned their business by the 1770s, when English regulars

faced American rebels on broken terrain. At Lexington-Concord,

Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, they ran into an ambush or fruitlessly tried to

assault frontally a fortified position, reminiscent of Braddock in 1754

or Fort Ticonderoga in 1758, both described subsequently. 33

Light infantry—like everything else in love, life, and war—was

sometimes effective and sometimes a failure. The same attempt to

domesticate irregular military operations also occurred within the

French force structure. Even the fiercest critics of Canadian

indiscipline (some called the Canadians “worse than savages”) granted

that “in the woods, behind trees, no troops are comparable” to this

militia, of which there were some 15,000 men. To maximize their skills

and minimize their liabilities, the French incorporated over 2,000 of

these Canadians into regular battalions, the troupes de terre and the

troupes de la marine, in which case, French regulars commanded the

colonials—or colonials with specials talents for war commanded them.

25
Either way, the native-born were to be Europeanized, rather than the

European soldiers allowed to go native, a situation of serious concern to

senior officers: “Soldiers, corrupted by the example of Indians and

Canadians breathing an air permeated with independence, work

indolently . . . The country is dangerous for discipline. Pray God that it

alone suffers from it;” that is, that it does not infect France itself.34

By the time the French had formed their own light infantry

companies in 1760, the conflict for control of North America was in its

final and largely conventional phase. Consequently, such units

performed far fewer irregular missions, such as conducting small-unit

raids. For each side, light infantry paved the way, screened, attacked, or

protected the flanks of conventional regiments, and it gathered

provisions (particularly cattle) during the decisive battles at politically

decisive terrain, Quebec and Montreal, the capitol cities of French

Canada.35

Campaign Strategy and Narrative History

Everything is terrible in an American campaign... mutual destruction

[is] the object and all is at stake.

—Colonel Henri Bouquet, Royal Americans, 176436

Most British senior officers and officials in the colonies were titled

gentlemen for whom the war for North America was supposed to be a

gentlemanly conflict conducted “on a European footing,” what

historian Julian Corbett called “limited war,” when he coined the term

in 1907 in his book on the Seven Years’ War. Typically, government

ministers only planned to protect disputed territory. Military action was

equally fastidious, unless Americans, Canadians, or Indians (the

“savages” and “vermin” on both sides) got out of hand. “To carry on the

War in this Country with the same humanity and generosity it is [done]

in Europe,” French and English officers exchanged prisoners, wine,

cheese, beer, and partridge—“a necessary and good example to set in

this barbarous country, not only on account of humanity but because of

politeness.” Marquis de Montcalm, commander of French forces in

North America, was one of several knights-errant to the theater who

resolved to fight “like a gentleman.” When “Cruelty and Devastation”

nonetheless arose, George Townsend, a British brigade commander,

still vowed to “seek the reverse,” preserving civility in the changing

nature of this “disagreeable campaign.”37

26
Colonial Americans felt differently, especially those from New

York and New England, the provinces on the proverbial front line.

Their idea of reciprocity with their adversary was to dispatch scalping

parties, “a barbarous Method of conducting War [but of course]

introc’d by the French.” Canada, by controlling Fort Louisbourg on the

tip of Nova Scotia and the Montreal-Albany corridor, held the front and

back doors to New England and the northern border of New York. Its

75,000 white settlers in 1754 could scarcely match the 1,200,000

British subjects to the south if it were not for certain cultural factors

inherent to its economy, particularly built on fur trapping and the Indian

trade.38

Canada was at a quantitative disadvantage, moreover, because it

discouraged agricultural settlements and population growth that could

kill beavers or alienate Indians. It held a qualitative advantage because

a great many of its citizens practiced the fur trade, propagated the

Catholic religion (“universal” for all people), learned native languages,

and married Indian women—behavior shunned in British America,

largely populated by Protestant Puritan sects not keenly interested in

pagan converts nor in natives as prospective brides. Sir William

Johnson, the Crown’s agent to the Iroquois, was one of the few

Anglo-Americans to “do [Indians] much honour,” as had been done in

Canada. Perhaps because he was an Irish immigrant and not completely

at home in the colonial English cultural milieu, he entered into a

common-law marriage with a native, a great asset when hosting

ceremonial feasts that were far more than ceremony; that was where

Indians made civil and military plans. Johnson also joined Iroquois

government councils, helped convert Indians to his religious faith,

dressed in war paint for battle, and thereby became an intermediary

between native tribes and Anglo-American armies. “His knowledge of

our affairs,” said one chieftain, “made us think him one of us.”39

Johnson, rather notorious for his manners in America, would have fit

right into Canada, which commissioned an unusual body of officers by

eighteenth-century standards. Officers began in the ranks and won

promotion by aggressive action, not by birth, politics, or seniority, as

was the norm in Europe. They used Indian allies and methods against

Anglo-Americans, who spoke of French-Canadians as they often spoke

about Indians, partly in contempt for those who fought employing the

tactic of surprise and partly in awe of the best skirmishers in the world.

“Our men are nothing but a set of farmers and planters,” said one

English observer in 1757, whereas Canadians “are used to arms from

their infancy among the Indians and are reckoned equal, if not superior,

27
to veteran troops.... [Canadians] maintain themselves in the woods

without charges—march without baggage—and support themselves

without stores and magazines—[whereas] we are at immense charges

for those purposes.” 40

“New England Men, by all Accounts, [may have been] frighten’d out

of their Senses, at the name of a French Man,” at least according to Lord

Loudoun. On their part, the French lived in fear of their own Indian

allies and in contempt of the Canadians, who appeared to have gone

native. In the early eighteenth century, British forts planted on the

frontier began to undermine French influence with Native Americans.

The Indians certainly preferred French brandy to British rum.

However, these short-term factors could not offset the long-term

economic trend. England sold blankets, jewelry, tools, knives, steel,

gunpowder, and muskets to the fierce Mohawks at less than half the

price the French charged the Hurons, Algonquins, and other tribes from

whom they got pelts and furs, as well as enemy scalps. At the same time,

the Royal Navy blockaded Canada during the war, thereby preventing

the imports that maintained that country’s Indian trade. Hence, France

was obsessed with the notion that the British would eventually pay the

natives to throw us “entirely out of the continent of North America,” as

the Iroquois nearly did in the mid-1600s.41

Using its sole competitive advantage while it still had Indian allies,

Canadian forces raided families along the American frontier. As in all

wars, the means helped determine the methods and the methods the

objectives. The French and the English both used Indians, Canadians,

or American frontiersmen, to “do some good.” None of the native-born

were effective at siege craft or standard battles in open fields, both of

which put a premium on corporate discipline. Their natural talents were

as guerrilla raiders. Hence, to be truly useful in a war, these auxiliaries

had to do things “their own way,” a euphemism for torturing, scalping,

and terrifying other Christians or the Indians their European enemy

employed. (Naturally, no self-respecting Christian gentleman would

ever do such things himself.) Admittedly, neither the French nor the

British were particularly gallant, but both had an excuse to soothe their

sensibilities: “What would be a violation [of propriety] in Europe

cannot be regarded as such in America,” a barbarous place to begin

with. France, in particular, reasoned that the use of “savages” was the

only way to chastise its greedy rival who had “violated the most sacred

laws of civilized nations” by crossing any barrier to conquer any land it

could. “Humanity shudders at being obliged to make use of such

28
monsters [the Indians]. But without them, the match [against Britain]

would be too much against us.”42

The Canadian “plan of containment”—an admitted policy of

“consternation and terror”—was “calculated to disgust the people of

those Colonies and to make them desire the return of peace.” This, Paris

hoped, would divert English military resources from the European

theater to colonial protection. Quebec, for its part, calculated that it

would “distress” and obsess Anglo-America with mere survival. Then

its potential money and manpower would not be used to assault

Quebec, the heart of New France built right on the spinal column of the

Saint Lawrence River, all substantial settlements of the colony having

been constructed on its banks. Before 1756, the French plan failed to

panic London, which held its colonies could secure their own defense.

However, within British North America, these raiding parties seemed

part of a “detestable and wicked Conspiracy” by which Quebec and its

Jesuits would mobilize their “frenchified Indians” and one day “drive

[all] the English Settlements into the Sea.”43

For years, Canada’s strategy intimidated and confused Americans,

every settlement (let alone colony) being forced to defend itself.

However, raiding party warfare gradually caused the reaction it was

supposed to prevent, that is, open complaints that “the most we do is to

defend ourselves at Home; but they [the enemy] are for an offensive

War.” By the mid-eighteenth century, the royal governor of

Massachusetts was telling London of “undoubted intelligence that the

French design to make further encroachments on his Majesty’s

Territories,” the only viable counter being his own (the governor’s)

plan “to march an army in a few days to the gates of Montreal and pour

our troops into the very heart of their country.” Whether grasped before

the late 1750s or not, the political momentum gathering for taking the

conflict to the enemy would be a major factor for the adoption of the

irregular warfare component of compound war by the British. As

further discussion will show, these unconventional tactics and force

structure were effective on the offense but inappropriate when

conducting an inactive (static positional) defense.44

Because France had major military commitments in Europe and

lacked the naval lift to project a substantial force abroad, it could

protect Canada only if the conflict remained limited in scope and

spirit, as it was as late as 1755, when Britain dispatched General

Edward Braddock with 1,400 regulars to dismantle French forts under

construction in the disputed Ohio River Valley. The first of five British

commanders-in-chief in the next three years (the turnover being

29
testimony to frustration and failure), Braddock recruited 450 additional

Americans to build roads and to drive wagons. The English called these

men “bobtails,” “very indifferent men, this country affording no

better.” For deep reconnaissance, Braddock relied on Indians, whom he

found drunk with liquor, stuffed on his provisions, and the cause of

much disorder insofar as his soldiers fought over sexual favors from

Cherokee women accompanying their men. This was no small problem

for Braddock, who insisted that the regulars set “the most soldier-like

example” in hopes of making American recruits “as useful as possible.”

He dismissed all but eight handpicked Indian scouts and largely

ignored those whom he kept. Some of these, feeling slighted, went on

what might be called a work stoppage. Others joined forces with the

French. As Braddock proceeded towards the Ohio River, he could

convince only two scouts to go out on patrol.45

Confident of success, Braddock did not grasp the force-multiplier

effect irregulars could have on a conflict, rather typical of

contemporary English army officers, who recently had no trouble

crushing Scottish Highlanders but largely because the “Beggarly

banditry” made a fatal mistake. The Scots had rejected guerrilla tactics,

heretofore their strong suit, and adopted conventional formations at the

Battle of Culloden in 1746. Now, nine years later, Braddock told a

Pennsylvania contractor named Benjamin Franklin that “these [Red]

savages may be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia but

upon the King’s regulars and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible

they should make any impression”—famous last words.46

On 8 July, some 637 Indians, 146 Canadians, and 72 French regulars

(“attachés aux Savages”) met Braddock’s 2,000-man task force on

close terrain. (Then) Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gage, in command of

the advance party, failed to execute his mission of buying time for the

main body by holding off the initial enemy onslaught. Bradddock,

meanwhile impatient to thrash his unworthy opponents, led the main

column forward, where it crashed into his vanguard in hasty retreat.

Mired in confusion, the entire force was soon caught in a withering

crossfire. One English soldier was heard to mutter: “We would fight if

we could see anybody to fight.” Others did as they were trained and

fired at soldiers in closed formation, although this time the target

happened to be their fellow Britons. Within three hours, the

Anglo-American force had sustained 950 killed or wounded,

approximately four times the casualties Custer would suffer at the Little

Big Horn in 1876. While Canadians and Indians fell out to garner scalps

and gather booty, Braddock’s survivors fled back to Virginia. The

30
anti-British coalition had won using the tactics of compound war, as

this book defines the term. An irregular force (Canadians and Indians)

operating out of sanctuaries (north of the Great Lakes) had combined

with a conventional power (France) to inflict defeat on a numerically

larger enemy, the Anglo-American army. “Who would have thought

it?” Braddock muttered the day before he died of his wounds.47

The defeat of Braddock’s expedition increased substantial doubts

among friendly Indians about alliances with the British, even among

the Mohawks, the most friendly tribe to the British. Partly out of trust in

William Johnson, appointed to military command for his influence with

the Iroquois, the Mohawks still provided some 200 men to scout and

screen for an expedition north of Albany up the corridor towards

Montreal. In initial contacts with a much larger force of some 1,500

enemy in September 1755, they suffered twelve wounded and thirty

dead (including their most pro-English chief), after which they

abandoned the campaign, asking Johnson, “do you think that we should

leave our Women and Children to be swallowed up with Sorrow?”

Iroquois warriors would not rejoin the war effort until 1759, when

English soldiers and supplies, finally tipping the balance of power,

enabled the Confederation to reestablish economic and military

domination of pro-French Indians in the Ohio River Valley,

particularly the Delawares. In the meantime (1755), Johnson was in no

condition to proceed north of Lake George, having lost his Indian

auxiliaries, sustained 1,000 total casualties, and suffered a serious

wound in the thigh. He remained at the area of the battle, where he built

Fort William Henry, the site of a military turning point two years hence.

To replace his so-called wards in the scouting ranks, Johnson recruited

a New Hampshire militia unit that had just proved its ability to fight in

the forest by mauling enemy Indians when they broke ranks to loot the

dead. These Anglo-Americans would soon be known as Rogers’

Rangers.48

Unfortunately for French Canada, its success in 1755 (in crushing

Braddock and blocking Johnson) had enormous consequences at the

political, strategic, and tactical levels. In London, the old

Newcastle-led Cabinet, primarily concerned with fiscal balance,

reconfigured itself to become a coalition government led by William

Pitt, who was devoted to the conquest of French colonies in America

irrespective of cost. Nonetheless, the enhancement of the size of

Britain’s military commitment might not insure victory in North

America by itself. Braddock’s force was substantially larger than the

enemy it fought in Western Pennsylvania. He himself believed there

31
was no necessity to make major qualitative changes, on his deathbed

murmuring “we shall know better how to deal with them another time.”

George Washington, who had led the Virginia militia element, also felt

no need to change doctrine or force structure, other than enhance

standard discipline: “We have been most scandalously beaten by a

trifling body of men.” On the other side of the issue stood those who

thought qualitative change needed—but apparently impossible for

British personnel. They simply “were unfit to fight in the woods,” said

an Indian ally present at the Braddock massacre.49

Other options aside from doing nothing—because fundamental

change was unnecessary or impossible. An alternative was to train a

relatively small body of troops in special skills for unusual missions in

exceptional circumstances. Then one would not have to make a major

reconstruction in the doctrine, training, and force structure for the army

at large. Although it is never easy to field a special force, it was the

easiest way to solve a special military problem. Moreover, it kept the

bulk of one’s forces focused on fighting the conventional opponent, the

largest and presumably the most dangerous threat. America would

subsequently resort to this type of solution time and time again: raising

distinctive units to fight guerrillas in the Confederacy, the Indian

territories, the Philippines, South America, and Vietnam. (By official

directive of the Department of the Army, 13 October 1960, U.S. Special

Forces traces its lineage to Rogers’ Rangers.) Back in 1756, one North

American colonist wrote William Pitt, “It is an unpardonable neglect of

Duty to be surprised by the French when a few brisk men scattered for

two hundred yards on each Side will prevent it. Keep them from

surprising you and they are an Easy conquest.” (Italics mine.)50

London would enhance its total troop commitment, which now

included more specialty troops appropriate for New World terrain. As

much by improvisation as by strategic design, it had acquired an array

of forces for different responsibilities along the spectrum of

unconventional war. The Iroquois, highly irregular, were best at

independent operations. British infantry, being semi-conventional,

were best at guarding the flank of a main column. American rangers,

taking up the middle position on this combat continuum, were guerrilla

warfare specialists but still subjects of the Crown. Nonetheless, the

British army still lacked a necessary component: an emotional

commitment to victory. Then, on 10 August 1757, the so-called

“massacre” of a garrison holding 2,000 people (one-third of whom

were British regulars) moved the English towards adopting the total

war position of the New England colonies.51

32
American ranger patrolling being slack with Robert Rogers out of

action from a recent wound, a French-Canadian-Abenaki Indian force

surrounded Fort William Henry on Lake George in upper New York

(see Map 1). Gallic victory was now inevitable; battle served no

purpose but bloodshed. Hence European officers negotiated over a

full-course meal, complete with wine and beer. The French asked for

the outpost—situated on vital Montreal to Albany terrain and a base

from which Rogers had been raiding enemy strongholds to the north.

The British secured a withdrawal with full honor (all flags, small arms,

and baggage) to Fort Edward, fifteen miles to the southeast. All in all,

this was a highly civilized arrangement to those experienced in

European siege craft. The terms were reminiscent of those France gave

the Virginia militia it encircled in the Ohio River Valley in 1754.

Certainly, they compared favorably with what Montcalm had called the

“massacre” at Fort Oswego, where his Indian allies got drunk on

pillaged rum and killed some fifty Anglo-Americans he had pledged to

protect in 1756.52

Unfortunately, Montcalm’s promises and France’s limited war

policy were incompatible with its military force structure—in

particular its Canadians and Indians, who had been recruited by

promises of plunder. The so-called chiefs were “consulted” about the

settlement, but Indian individualism being what it was, the titular

leaders could not control the outraged rank and file when the latter

embodied the consensus opinion of the tribe. A thousand or so common

warriors had gone to Fort William Henry expecting a romp, such as the

one at Oswego. When their European allies now broke their word on

promised looting, these Indians took matters, clothes, and possessions

into their own hands. They also killed nearly 150 Anglo-Americans,

not counting those taken captive. Finally, the French stopped “this

abominable action” by buying back those still alive, including women

and children.53

The Fort Henry incident was a decisive turning point in the war.

Hereafter, Indians were far more reluctant to fight for France, whose

promises were now suspect. Consequently, Anglo-American

operations were far less likely to incur substantial raids on their bases.

At the same time, Anglo-Americans were far more likely to conduct

similar raids of their own. In 1759, James Wolfe pushed west toward

Quebec and Jeffrey Amherst north toward Montreal, a policy of

conquest sanctioned by the martyrs of Fort Henry. As exaggeration

replaced fact, the incident was depicted in histories as a wholesale

slaughter, during which the sadistic French “most perfidiously let loose

33
their Indian bloodhounds upon the people,” a story later depicted in

James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of

1757. The cry “Remember William Henry” became for

Anglo-American soldiers what the later catchwords concerning the

Alamo and Bataan became for their American descendants. As Wolfe

said, rather unfairly, to Amherst in 1758: “Montcalm has changed the

very nature of war, and has forced on us, in some measure, to a deterring

and dreadful vengeance.”54

Wolfe was a better warrior than analyst of events. Historically,

French Canada had been more indulgent towards Indian methods of

war than had been the British, exactly what one would expect from a

numerically inferior force likely to be crushed if it ever lost its ally.

Then Montcalm arrived to lead the defense effort in 1756. Thereafter,

France tried to have its cake and eat it, that is, recruit so-called

“savages” but ask them to fight by the honor code of eighteenth-century

European gentlemen. The French would have done better if they had

chosen either limited war or unrestricted Indian assistance. They

wound up with neither but were blamed for all things. One week after

the Fort Henry incident, the British military commander in chief wrote

that “in this country [the French] . . . have committed every Cruelty in

their power.” “Whatever Troops you bring into the Field, are to me

French,” he told the governor of Canada in response to an official

statement of regret. “Therefore if any Part of them break through the

Rules of War, [that act] will immediately lay me under the disagreeable

necessity to Treat the whole of your People in the same manner.”55

As the French ability to conduct irregular and compound warfare

substantially diminished, due to the Indian tribes deserting their side,

the British army increased its own capacity to conduct operations in

unconventional settings. General John Forbes had declared we must

“equip Numbers of our men like the Saveges” and “learn the Art of

Warr from Ennemy Indians,” a far cry from Edward Braddock. In 1758,

while building a new road into western Pennsylvania, he roughly

retraced Braddock’s march to Fort Duquesne, which he renamed Fort

Pitt. He then proceeded to expel France from the Ohio River Valley.

Braddock’s vanguard had been Thomas Gage, a tactical disaster.

Forbes used a battalion from the Royal American light infantry. Henri

Bouquet, far better than Gage at irregular war, was second to Forbes in

overall command. 56

The English not only formed the special infantry units to ward off

ambushes and secure supplies, but also had their senior commanders

now willing to take the war to noncombatants, a practice heretofore

34
largely effected by the enemy. As early as October 1756, Lord John

Campbell Loudoun had discussed a “strike of Terror into the Enemy”

by “break[ing] up all these Settlements” in Canada. However, he did

not have the stomach to put this into practice, stopped paying bounties

for enemy scalps, and finally was relieved by William Pitt in late 1757

for failure to win the war, specifically for the disaster at Fort William

Henry. Pitt’s new high command, particularly Amherst and Wolfe,

were made of stronger stuff and were selected like Canadian officers

were for their military achievements and ambition, irrespective of their

youth and common social class. Amherst was forty when he became

commander-in-chief in 1758. Amherst said later, he had “come to take

Canada and did not intend to take anything less.” Wolfe, on his part,

was thirty-two in 1759, when he took six New England ranger and

seven light infantry companies on his expedition up the St. Lawrence to

Quebec. He had promised Pitt “an offensive daring kind of war [that]

will awe the Indians and ruin the French.” Now, when “the Canadian

vermin” resisted by raiding British camps they were “sacked and

pillaged,” as Wolfe had warned, although he still held to civility by

outlawing “the inhuman practice of scalping, except when the enemy

are Indians, or Canads dressed like Indians,” to Wolfe “the most

contemptible canaille upon earth.” Wolfe used rangers and light forces

much the way mercenary units were once used on the Continent to force

enemy subjects to desert their military posts in order to care for their

families, now threatened with abuse and starvation. His destruction of

farms and villages and much of Quebec was “war of the worst Shape,”

according to George Townsend, a subordinate brigadier upset by these

innovations (or reincarnations) of the European way of war.57

Now that the war in America was being fought for permanent

conquest (not for diplomatic bargaining advantage), so it could not be

settled by raiding parties. Wolfe would have to capture the enemy

capital and destroy the enemy army, an objective that would require

him to use light infantry as an elite force with a special mission in a

conventional operation, rather than doing unconventional or irregular

war. In such a role, they led the assault up to the Plains of Abraham just

west of Quebec, where they silenced French mortars and cannon at

0400 on 13 September 1759. Although now surrounded, Montcalm’s

situation was not hopeless. In his fortress, he held a distinct advantage

in artillery—twenty-five cannon on his part to two light field guns held

by Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham. Moreover, other French units

nearby or in Montreal might still have mounted a relief expedition.

Nonetheless, Montcalm met Wolfe’s challenge to conduct the only

35
open-field battle in a conventional formation during the entire war. His

exact motivation must remain a mystery, for he would not live to leave a

record. One suspects that this Old World soldier, racked by his

complicity in New World “terror” and “savagery,” wanted to die like a

European officer and gentleman, if he might.58

The British army held the tactical advantage. Montcalm’s own

regulars were already so depleted that he had to put Canadian

militiamen into the French line, where they broke unit cohesion by

advancing too quickly or by lying down to reload. British light infantry

and American Rangers, used to better advantage, protected the flanks

of six English regular battalions, who sustained only sixty killed the

entire day, largely because the enemy lay down fire beyond the

effective range of their weapons. The British stood firm until the enemy

closed to forty meters, a textbook example of military discipline for

linear formations of a standing army. Then, at this ideal range, the

British delivered a devastating volley. The French immediately

suffered nearly 450 casualties; 1,000 more were soon inflicted by the

British follow-up bayonet charge. Five days later, the English occupied

Quebec, where 3,000 British soldiers would soon be afflicted by

starvation. Advocates of limited war, quick to condemn pillage, could

have warned Wolfe about this danger arising from his scorched-earth

policy.59

The battle outside the capital city of Canada was the most important

event of the war in North America, but other significant actions

followed. As long as the enemy held Montreal, the English position at

Quebec was in danger, hence the need for General Amherst to conquer

the second city of French Canada, which he did in 1760. That campaign

had three prongs: both up and down the St. Lawrence and north from

Lake Champlain. American militia provided logistics, although

Amherst had little faith in these ax men and drivers: if “left to

themselves they would eat fryed Pork and lay in their tents all day.” On

the other hand, Amherst was an active proponent of American rangers,

although suspected of anarchy by most other British officers. Perhaps

he was tolerant of these particular colonials—if they were under

Rogers’ firm hand—because he had few alternatives. British light

infantry regiments had reasonable reliability but were still learning the

intricacies of scouting and screening in heavily forested terrain. As for

the Native Americans recruited by Sir William Johnson, they were

“lazy rum drinking Scoundrels,” in Amherst’s eyes. Out of dire

necessity, as in the case of the American militia, he armed, paid, and

supplied the Iroquois, at the cost of 17,000 pounds sterling. He still

36
professed “how averse [he was] to purchasing the good behavior of

Indians.” Amherst sent the Iroquois agent of the Crown “everything he

has asked of me,” if only to prevent their obstruction, rather than gain

their assistance. He recorded in his journal, after meeting with Johnson,

that “if the Indians know [about my operation], the French will have it;

though ever so much an Indian Friend, it is their business to give

intelligence on both sides.”60

Despite the Braddock debacle of 1755, Amherst could talk like his

late, lamented predecessor. The latest British commander in chief still

held no “Apprehension” that English soldiers could not smite any and

all Indians “with a Powerful and Heavy Hand.” Notwithstanding these

boasts on behalf of military convention, Amherst adhered to

practicality by resorting to American rangers, not British regular

infantry. Indeed, Rogers and company probably enabled this officer to

retain his intolerance. Because sufficient white men had experience in

the fertile woodlands of New England and New York, the commanding

general would not face the necessity that later confronted the U.S.

Army in the depopulated deserts. In the southwest after the Civil War, it

simply had to use Native American scouts. Nobody else was available

or had the ability to find hostile Indians out in the frontier. In turn,

enlightened officers, such as George Crook, treated this essential

component of his force structure with commensurate respect—a far cry

from the disdain so pronounced in Jeffrey Amherst.61

In 1759, before the fall of Quebec, Amherst ordered Robert Rogers,

recently promoted to major, to strike the Indian village of St. Francis, a

community of converts to Catholicism from various tribes across the

northeast. This military operation served several functions aside from

rescuing two English officers taken prisoner under a flag of truce and

five New England female settlers held captive. The operation, taking

place 100 miles west of Quebec and 50 miles east of Montreal, would

divert French attention from the major British invasions launched from

the opposite directions: down Lake Ontario to Montreal and up the

Saint Lawrence to Quebec. The raid was also supposed to intimidate the

Indian allies France still had. Amherst told Rogers: “Take your revenge

in such a manner as you shall judge most effectual to disgrace the

enemy.” However, “don’t forget that tho’ those villains have dastardly

and promiscuously murdered women and children of all ages, it is my

orders that no women or children are killed or hurt.” This may have

been a pro forma order issued by the English to assuage their own

conscience. John Campbell (Loudoun), the theater commander who

raised the first rangers in 1756, did so on the premise that they “will be

37
able to deal with Indians in their own way.” Whether or not Amherst

knew what they would probably do in 1759, he drew a line too subtle for

an American like Rogers, whose initiation into warfare at age fourteen

was a flight with his family after French-led Indian atrocities drove

them from the New Hampshire frontier in 1746.62

The Indians who were now about to be raided were masters of

surprise, much like the rangers they fought. However, on defense, they

were easy to surprise, not so the rangers, when under Rogers’ direct

command. In areas of military operations, he took care to post nighttime

sentries and avoid camp fires, the advantage of his unit having irregular

skills but a semi-regular chain of command. So-called Indian chiefs, on

the other hand, lacked the institutional authority to assign warriors the

boring and tedious duty of security detail, especially because war was

thought to be an activity conducted in brief intervals, like any other

recreation. At St. Francis, 300-odd men were sleeping off their liquor

when utterly surprised by 141 rangers and Stockbridge Indian

auxiliaries at 0300 on 6 October 1759. A few may have managed to

escape, but most were killed in their sleep. Rogers, enraged at finding

600 scalps (“mostly English”) hanging on poles in the town, then

burned the entire settlement to the ground. Some twenty women and

children survived; most of them were cut loose to fend for themselves,

and three were relocated to British headquarters at Fort Edward. If

Rogers exceeded the spirit of Amherst’s orders, he was certainly not

notified. Amherst remained Rogers’ greatest military benefactor, a

supporter of no small note—that is, provided Amherst retained his

theater command by capturing Montreal.63

In July 1760, Rogers made his last significant contributions to that

effort by clearing some of the final obstacles for the final conquest of

French Canada. Fort William Henry was on the southern tip of the Lake

Champlain corridor that led straight to Albany and points south. Saint

Therese, a fortified village barely twenty-five miles southeast of

Montreal, was at the lake’s northern tail that led into the vital heartland

of Canada. Rogers, in this case, may have thought himself a gentleman,

at least compared to his opponents. This time he slaughtered no one in

their sleep, possibly because Saint Therese was a Canadian, not an

Indian, settlement, and he found no English scalps decorating the

village. Nonetheless, he destroyed or confiscated “every thing which

we thought could ever be of service to the enemy”: shelter, cattle,

wagons, boats, and farm and fishing equipment. One way to prevent

enemy irregulars from disrupting British supply lines was to preoccupy

them with concern for their immediate survival.64

38
Rogers, after returning to the British base at Crown Point, set out

with an advance guard of 600 rangers and seventy friendly Indians to

clear the last enemy rear guard elements from the Albany-Montreal

corridor. Amherst, unimpeded on this avenue of advance, was able to

mass 15,000 men outside Montreal on 6 September 1760. Prepared to

capitulate, the enemy asked to retain his arms, flags, and honor,

reminiscent of terms the British received at Fort William Henry in

1757. Amherst, with memories of what had subsequently happened,

insisted on due humiliation for “the infamous part taken by the troops of

France in exciting savages to perpetrate the most horrid and unheard of

barbarities in the whole course of the war.” On the 8th, the French

surrendered without the honors of war, thereby concluding what Robert

Rogers called the most “glorious” year in the history of the British

Empire. At the time, he could not foresee that many of his own

rangers—at Lexington-Concord, Bunker Hill, and Saratoga—would

soon use his tactics and compound warfare against the Crown in the

cause of American independence.65

Summary

In the wars for European control of eighteenth-century North

America, both the French and the British used elements of compound

warfare. Neither side was particularly effective in this, however,

because both had fundamental cultural and military conflicts with

their irregular allies whether Indians, Canadians, or Americans. A

contestant in a war need not execute perfectly, only better than his

opponent. Because Canadian militiamen were better woodland

warriors than most Americans, the French had the advantage over

English soldiers as late as 1757, a time when the latter stood “fully

convinced they were by no means a match for the rabble in the

woods.” Ultimately, however, France lost its North American empire

because the British overcame defeatism and used compound war

methods of their own. The British, like many another combatant,

discovered that the best way to overcome an effective form of warfare

is to adopt it oneself.66

The British did more than slavishly copy the French, however. They

domesticated irregular operations, otherwise having too many

overtones of anarchy for European-trained officers. They did this by

substituting rangers for Indian auxiliaries, and then more reliable light

infantry regulars for American rangers. When this happened, English

forces enjoyed march and base security on dangerous terrain ill-suited

for more conventional military units. (Said one officer on the fated

39
Braddock task force, “there has not been ground to form a battalion

since we left the settlements.”) Once it had gained its new potency in

irregular warfare, Britain then terrorized Canadians and Indians in the

same way the latter had once terrorized Anglo-Americans. By so doing,

they encouraged enemy desertions, to which Indians and Canadians

were prone once long-range penetrations by Anglo-American

irregulars erased their family sanctuaries. This enhanced the decisive

quantitative advantage of British-American forces in North America

once England committed 44,000 soldiers and sailors to the conquest of

Quebec and Montreal.67

Postscript: The Travail of Unconventional Warriors After

Fighting Their Compound Wars

The conquest of its major cities marked the end of French Canada. It

also marked the end of the glory years of Robert Rogers, colonial

America’s greatest contribution to the successful execution of

compound warfare. He would command the Queen’s American Ranger

[Tory] battalion in the American Revolution, a conflict during which

his new military opponents used the very compound war he practiced to

win independence from the Empire he loyally served. Jeffrey Amherst,

his institutional benefactor and protector, had retired to the English

countryside after 1763, failing to defeat Indians during the Pontiac

Uprising despite (or because of) his feelings that “their Total

Extirpation is scarce sufficient Attonement for the Bloody and

Inhuman deeds they have Committed.” Henry Bouquet, for his part,

had loyally suggested that the most effective method to “extirpate or

remove that Vermine” would be to “hunt them [down] with English

Dogs, Supported by Rangers, and some Light Horse.” The English

hardly had these assets in their standard military units. Amherst

floundered; Bouquet needed all his skills merely to survive an Indian

ambush inflicting over 100 casualties on the detachment that he led to

relieve Ft. Pitt. Amherst was not on station in 1779 to save Robert

Rogers from relief for shortcomings important to the British officer

corps, such as having commissioned in his Tory unit “men of mean

extraction,”—mechanics, petty constables, saloon keepers, and one or

two proprietors of “Bawdy Houses in the City of New York.” The

English military establishment lost the Revolutionary War but, led by

Thomas Gage, Amherst’s replacement as commander in chief,

dismissed Robert Rogers, known as “the famous Cap’t” back in 1756.

In 1795, the heroic ranger died in England a drunken debtor.68

40
Rangers, being American provincials, were an easy target.

Old-guard English colonels went on to attack light infantry. “Instead of

being considered as an accessory to the battalion, they have become the

principal feature of our army, and have almost put grenadiers out of

fashion. The showy exercise, the airy dress, the independent modes

they have adopted, have caught the minds of young officers, and made

them imagine that these ought to be general.” For military necessity, the

Duke of Wellington would have to resurrect light forces in the

Peninsula campaign, 1806-1813. One may assume that he treated his

partners in compound warfare better than did the eighteenth and

twentieth century command, if only because his combined force

included Spanish guerrillas. No one could expect them to act like

subjects of the British Crown. Robert Rogers, on the other hand, was a

subject, received an English commission from Amherst, and (always a

self-promoter) claimed credit for “the most material Circumstance of

every Campaign upon that [North American] Continent.” Hence his

reputation and methods were a threat to the position, doctrine, and

reputation of the conventional English officer corps that disposed of

him after the American Revolution.69

Much the same thing would happen to what would be the functional

reincarnation of Rogers and his rangers in World War II, that is, Orde

Wingate and his Chindits, the special name given to 10,000

Englishmen who sustained 50 percent casualties operating deep behind

Japanese lines in Burma. One junior officer in the command would say

of Wingate: “There was something awe-inspiring in his certainty and

his dogmatism which inspired the fullest confidence, so that one went

away saying, ‘with him in command we cannot fail’.” Those in

Britain’s military establishment, less mesmerized by Wingate’s

charisma, felt this oddly dressed figure in pith helmet and walking staff

was “a sort of a circus comedian” mixed with elements of Oliver

Cromwell and Lawrence of Arabia. “It was possible to laugh at him,”

wrote one officer who crossed his path, “but not when he was there,” a

reference to his intensity, his combative personality, and his

connections with Winston Churchill, who thought Wingate “a man of

genius, who might well have become a man of destiny,” if not for his

death in 1944 conducting operations in the field. His reputation would

be smeared in official histories and memoirs of the high command—or

so maintained his loyalists pointing to passages where Wingate is

described as “obsessed” by naive “dreams” that irregular operations

should be the main effort and as “a man who fanatically pursued his

own purposes without regard to any other consideration.” As for

41
post-war personnel and promotion, as opposed to reputation, Wingate’s

greatest disciple, Brigadier General Michael Calvert, survived the

conflict to suffer in his place. Decorated seven times for heroism under

fire, including personally leading a bayonet charge against Japanese

infantry, Calvert would end up much like Robert Rogers: drummed out

of the army on trumped up charges of turpitude, thereafter spending

most of his life as an alcoholic and a drifter.70

A pattern seems to emerge when a single army or empire conducts

compound warfare, as opposed to when it is done by a coalition of

sovereign political entities, each with clearly separate military forces.

Rogers and Calvert, after their military involvement, received rather

backhand treatment, as did T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) after World War

I, and mutual opponents, U.S. Special Forces and Viet Cong insurgents,

after the Vietnam War. Military establishments—be they British,

American, or North Vietnamese—may use compound warfare in an

emergency but seem to do so reluctantly and retain hostility for their

irregular components. One of the benefits of ending a war—whether

winning or losing it—is that the regulars can then purge the

unconventional elements from their ranks, men whom they never really

trusted. It did not save Rogers, Lawrence, the Green Berets, or the

Chindits that they were idols of the public. That fact only seemed to

make them more threatening to the reputations of their rivals.71

In defense of the more conventional components, one must

acknowledge that many irregulars did not preach the compound

warfare they practiced, perhaps because they may not have understood

exactly how they accomplished their feats. Compound warfare strategy

was effective because it combined regular and irregular operations,

either one being relatively unproductive by itself. However, by paying

little attention to the contributions of standard operations, men like

Rogers and Wingate gave themselves too much credit for ultimately

winning their wars. Egotism is hardly unusual in combat—or in any

other human endeavor for that matter. However, because irregulars

often survive through the forbearance of conventional components, a

bit more emphasis on the mutual necessity of compound operations

would have been advisable on their part.72

42
Notes

1. Robert L. O’Connell, Ride of the Second Horseman: The Birth and Death of

War(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), esp. 18, 36-37, 47-48, 75-79,

82-83, 110.

2. For general surveys on these issues, see Armstrong Starkey, European and

Native American Warfare, 1675-1815 (Norman: University of Oklahoma

Press, 1998), 46-56; Michael Howard, War in European History (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1976), 26-27, 37, 77-78; and John B. Wolf, The

Emergence of the Great Powers, 1685-1715 (New York: Harper & Row, 1951),

130, 170-72, 180, 203.

3. Indian commissions and governor of [colonial] New York, Ca. 1701, quoted in

William Christie MacLeod, The American Indian Frontier (New York: Alfred

A. Knopf, 1928), 556.

4. Christopher Duffy, The Military Life of Frederick the Great (New York:

Atheneum, 1986), 320.

5. Edward P. Hamilton, ed., Adventure in the Wilderness: The American Journals

of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, 1756-1760 (Norman: University of

Oklahoma Press, 1964), 175. Bougainville was aide-de-camp to the

commander of forces in North America, Marquis de Montcalm.

6. Reed Browning, Duke of Newcastle (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,

1975), 241-43.

7. Newcastle quoted in ibid, 182-83, 210.

8. Ibid., 193.

9. J. F. C. Fuller, British Light Infantry in the Eighteenth Century (London:

Hutchinson, 1925), 41-49; anonymous author, “A Short Course of Standing

Rules for the Government and Conduct of an Army” (London, 1744), quoted in

King Lawrence Parker, “Anglo-American Wilderness Campaigning

1754-1764: Logistical and Tactical Developments,” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia

University, 1970), 37; unidentified officer, quoted in John A. Lynn, “Soldiers

on the Rampage,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 3 (Winter

1991): 95. Raimondo Montecuccoli, eighteenth-century general and critic of

mercenaries, discussed in Gunther E. Rothenberg, “Maurice of Nassau,

Gustavus Aldophus, Raimondo Montecuccoli, and the ‘Military Revolution’ of

the Seventeenth Century,” in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy, from

43
Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

1986), 58-59.

10. Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Settling with the Indians: The Meeting of English

and Indian Cultures in America, 1580-1640 (Towa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield,

1980), 48-51; Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of

the Iroquois League in the Era of European Expansion (Chapel Hill: University

of North Carolina Press, 1992), 177, 216, 220, 231.

11. Cadwallader Colden (1727) and Rogers (1765), quoted in Edmund S. Morgan,

“The American Indian: Incorrigible Individualist,” in The Mirror of the Indian

(Associates of the John Carter Brown Library, 1958), 13, 18-19. For family

structure, see Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the

Fate of Empire in British North America (New York: Knopf, 2000), 15, 196,

748; for the economic base of a governing class, see Jared Diamond, Guns,

Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies(New York: Norton, 1998), 30,

55-56, 271-75.

12. Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse, 154-55, 212, 248; George S. Snyderman,

“Behind the Tree of Peace: A Sociological Analysis of Iroquois Warfare,”

Pennsylvania Archaeologist 18 (1948): 28-29, 49.

13. Geoffey Parker, “The Etiquette of Atrocity,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of

Military History 5 (Summer 1993): 18.

14. Bouganville, Adventure in the Wilderness, 144, 331-32; Richter, The Ordeal of

the Longhouse, 37, 59, 68-72.

15. Harry Holbert Turney-High, Primitive War: Its Practice and Concepts

(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1949), 31, 77; Diamond, Guns,

Germs, and Steel, 62, 195; Starkey, European and Native American Warfare,

22, 82, 100; governor quoted in Stanley C. Smoyer, “Indians as Allies in the

Intercolonial Wars,” New York History 17 (October 1936): 418.

16. Lawrence H. Keeley, War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 63-66, 91-93, 107, 175; Captain

William Amherst, 18 June 1758, quoted in Steven Brumwell, “A Service Truly

Critical: The British Army and Warfare with the North American Indians,

1755-1764,” War in History 5 (April 1998): 158.

17. Snyderman, “Behind the Tree of Peace,” 56, 64-65; Bougainville, Adventure in

the Wilderness, 116, 132-33, 288.

44
18. Starkey, European and Native American Warfare, 17, 22, 123-28, 146; James

Smith, An Account. . . [of] his Captivity with the Indians, in the Years 1755, ’56,

’57, ’58 & ’59 (1812) cited in John David Waghelstein, “Preparing for the

wrong war: The United States Army and low-intensity conflict, 1755-1890,”

(Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 1990), 30.

19. Francis Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe (New York: Collier Books, 1962 [Orig.

1884]), 72, 75-79. 298, 305, 358.

20. Quoted in Waghelstein, “Preparing for the wrong war,” 30.

21. Rothenberg, “Maurice, Aldophus, Montecuccoli, and the ‘Military

Revolution’,” in Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy, 33, 41, 45, notes that

many mercenary forces had tactical, but not political, discipline.

22. Bougainville, Adventure in the Wilderness, 42; Lieutenant Alexander Johnson

and Amherst, quoted in Douglas Edward Leach, Roots of Conflict: British

Armed Forces and Colonial Americans, 1677-1763 (Chapel Hill: University of

North Carolina Press, 1986), 130-32; Fred Anderson, A People’s Army:

Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War (New York:

Norton, 1984), 35-39, 187-95; quote, 189.

23. Bougainville, Adventure in the Wilderness, 94, 155, 174; Lieutenant Colonel

James Robertson (1760), quoted in Leach, Roots of Conflict, 132.

24. Boston Evening Post, 18 April 1757.

25. John Campbell (Loudoun), British army commander in chief in North America

(November 1756), in Stanley Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in North America,

1748-1765 (n.p.: Archon Books, 1969), 269; and Loudoun to Pitt, 3 May 1757,

in Correspondence of William Pitt when Secretary of State with Colonial

Governors and Military and Naval Commissioners in America, ed., Gertrude

Selwyn Kimball (New York: Kraus Reprint, 1969), 1: 55; John Ferling, “The

New England Soldier: A Study in Changing Perceptions,” American Quarterly

33 (January 1981): 30-39; Uria Oakes (1682), quoted in Gary Huxford,

“Origins of the American Military Tradition Reconsidered,” R.M.S.S. Journal 8

(October 1971): 121; Douglas Edward Leach, Flintlock and Tomahawk: New

England in King Philip’s War (New York: Norton, 1966), 46, 217, 228-34.

Benjamin Church, the leader of Massachusetts’s irregulars in King Philip’s

War, wrote a memoir of the conflict, but it was not published until forty years

after the event. The seaside puritan minister dominated interpretations of the

war in the intervening period, attributing success to the righteous hand of God,

not to tactical innovations by Church and company, see Richard Slotkin,

45
Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier,

1600-1860 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973), 156-80.

26. James Abercomby aide-de-camp and nephew to Major General James

Ambercromby, 29 November 1757, in John R. Cuneo, Robert Rogers of the

Rangers (New York: Richardson & Steirman, 1987), 61-62; Richard M.

Ketchum, Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill (Garden City, N.Y:

Doubleday, 1974), 144, 162, 206, 209.

27. The Journals of Major Robert Rogers (London: printed for the author, 1765),

70; Stanley Pargellis, Lord Loudoun In North America (New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 1933), 301-04.

28. Washington, indicating his shame at not being able to stop this incident, only

reported the scalping of the dead already killed in combat, see Anderson,

Crucible of War, 53-59; Washington (1754), quoted in James Thomas Flexner,

George Washington: The Forge of Experience (Boston: Little Brown, 1965),

89; the Indian who committed the atrocity claimed that the French had “killed,

boiled, and even eaten his father,” ibid., 88; Washington (7 April 1756), in John

C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (Washington, D.C.:

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931-41), 1: 305.

29. Pargellis, Loudoun in America, 305-6; Loudoun quoted in Pargellis, ed.,

Military Affairs in North America, 255; Brigadier General William Haviland,

16 December 1757, and Loudoun to Henry Fox, secretary of war, 3 October and

22 November 1756, quoted in John Edward Grenier, “The Other American

Way of War: Unlimited and Irregular Warfare in the Colonial Military

Tradition,” Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 1999, 206-7, 217.

30. Cumberland reprinted and issues discussed in Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in

North America, 227, 264, 269, 290-91; Lewis Butler, The Annals of the King’s

Royal Rifle Corps (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1913), 1: 25-32.

31. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army (London: Macmillan, 1899), 2:

289; Matthew G. Hatvany, “Overcoming Ethic and Social Barriers in Colonial

British America: The ‘Meritorious’ Career of Frederick Haldimand,” Historian

58 (Spring 1996): 593-97; Eric Richards, “Scotland and the Uses of the Atlantic

Empire,” in Bernard Bailyn and Philip Morgan, ed., Strangers Within the

Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (Chapel Hill: University of

North Carolina Press, 1991), 96-97.

32. Bouquet (July 1763), quoted in Starkey, European and Native American

Warfare, 11; Bouquet to Washington, 14 July 1758, quoted in Waghelstein,

“Preparing for the wrong war,” 38.

46
33. Gage and the 80th Foot described in Loudoun to Cumberland, 2 October 1757,

in Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in North America, 235, and Grenier, “The

Other American Way of War,” 224-25; Arthur B. Tourtellot, Lexington and

Concord: The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution (New York:

Norton, 1959), 90, 131-33, 197-98 and Ketchum, Decisive Day, 121, 159-64,

191-92.

34. Martin L. Nicolai, “A Different Kind of Courage: The French Military and the

Canadian Irregular Soldier During the Seven Years’ War,” Canadian

Historical Review 80 (January 1989): 53-75; Bougainville, Adventure in the

Wilderness, 51, 55, 332-33.

35. Eric Robson, “British Light Infantry in the Mid-Eighteenth Century: The Effect

of American Conditions,” Army Quarterly 63 (January 1952): 209-14.

36. Bouquet quoted in Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the

Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890 (New York: HarperCollins,

1994), 60.

37. Julian Corbett, England in the Seven Years’ War (London: Longmans, Green,

1907), 1: 28-29; English generals Loudoun and Abercromby (July and

November 1957), both quoted in Armstrong Starkey, “War and Culture, a Case

Study: The Enlightenment and the Conduct of the British Army in America,

1755-1781,” War and Society 8 (May 1990): 9; Bougainville, Adventure in the

Wilderness, 251-52; Marquis de Montcalm, ca. August 1757, in Lawrence

Henry Gipson, The British Empire Before the American Revolution (New York:

Knopf, 1936-70), 7: 83; Townsend, ca. August 1759, in Christopher Hibbert,

Wolfe at Quebec: The Man Who Won the French and Indian War (New York:

World Pub. Co., 1959), 119.

38. Royal Governor Robert Dinwiddie to British army commander in chief, 2 May

1757, in Gipson,British Empire Before the American Revolution, 7: 41, fn. 50.

39. Howard Peckham and Charles Gibson, eds., Attitudes of Colonial Powers

Toward the American Indian (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1969),

64-65, 87, 91; Milton W. Hamilton, Sir William Johnson: Colonial American,

1715-1763 (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1976), 24, 53-54, 64, 242.

Most trading post merchants and frontier government officials for the Indians

were Scots or Irish, not English or American, as was the Johnson selected

deputy crown commissioner for northern Indian affairs and George Croghan,

his fellow Irish immigrant, known as “the king of the Pennsylvania traders.”

The ethnic makeup of these men is somewhat reminiscent of another special

component of the Empire, the Royal Americans, 60th Regiment, whose officers

(much like Johnson) frequently took female Indian consorts, see, ibid., 126;

47
Kevin Phillips, The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of

Anglo-America (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 208, 210, 643, and Fortescue,

A History of the British Army, 3: 13.

40. W. J. Eccles, “The Military Establishment in New France,” in Eccles, Essays on

New France (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1987), 112-16; Ian K. Steele,

Warpaths: Invasions of North America (New York: Oxford University Press,

1994), 134-35, 197-98.

41. Loudoun to Cumberland, 29 August 1756, in Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in

North America, 232; Catherine M. Desbarats, “The Cost of Early Canada’s

Native Alliances: Reality and Scarcity’s Rhetoric,” William and Mary

Quarterly 52 (October 1995): 626; memorandum of France’s Council of

Regency (1716), quoted in Max Savelle, The Origins of American Diplomacy:

The International History of Angloamerica, 1492-1763 (New York:

Macmillan, 1967), 364.

42. Commanding general Jeffery Amherst and other British generals discussed and

quoted, 20 February 1759, in Daniel J. Beattie, “The Adaptation of the British

Army to Wilderness Warfare, 1755-1763,” in Maarten Ultee, ed., Adapting to

Conditions: War and Society in the Eighteenth Century (Tuscaloosa:

University of Alabama Press, 1986), 74, 76, 80-81, French strategy discussed

and Marquis de Montcalm, ca. June 1758, quoted in Gipson, British Empire

Before American Revolution, 7: 171, 221; Bougainville, Adventure in the

Wilderness, 331.

43. French officials in Quebec and Paris, quoted in Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe,

22, 267, 358, and in Patrice Louis-René Higonnet, “The Origins of the Seven

Years’ War,” Journal of Modern History 40 (March 1968): 75;

Anglo-American colonists quoted in Daniel Timothy Miller, “Fire from the

Hearth: Connecticut, Irregular Warfare and National Identity, 1754-1783,”

Ph.D. diss., University of Indiana, 1992, 55, 56, 111.

44. Massachusetts citizen (1750), quoted in Grenier, “The Other American Way of

War,” 99; Governor William Shirley (1754 and 1755), quoted in Higonnet,

“Origins 7 Years’ War,” 87, and in John A. Schutz, “Imperialism in

Massachusetts During the Governorship of William Shirley, 1741-1756,”

Huntington Library Quarterly 23 (Summer 1960): 231.

45. Lee McCardell, Ill-Starred General, Braddock of the Coldstream Guards

(Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958), 155, 61, 189-90, 216.

46. Effects of Culloden discussed and Lord John Ligonier quoted in Grenier, “The

Other American Way of War,” 175-80; Franklin quoted in McCardell,

48
Ill-Starred General, 175, 252. For definitions of compound warfare, see the

introductory and concluding essays in this casebook.

47. McCardell, Ill-Starred General, 247-253, quotes on 252, 260; Anderson,

Crucible of War, 102-103. One English military historian has no doubt that

Gage is the person most responsible for the debacle, see Robert L. Yaple,

“Braddock’s Defeat: The Theories and a Reconsideration,” Army Historical

Research 46 (Winter 1968):198.

48. Hamilton, Sir William Johnson, chapters 13 through 17; Iroquois messengers,

26 October 1755, in The Papers of Sir William Johnson (Albany: University of

the State of New York, 1922), 2: 127; Anderson, Crucible of War, 17-18,

99-100, 275-84, 331-38; Cuneo, Rogers of the Rangers, 11.

49. Corbett, England in the Seven Years’ War, 1: 180-83; quotes from Braddock

and Indian in McCardell, Ill-Starred General, 261, 264; Fitzpatrick, ed.,

Writings of Washington, 1:149-153.

50. Andrew J. Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations

Doctrine, 1860-1941 (Washington: Center of Military History, 1998), 38,

40-44, 74, 132-135, 248; William Corey to Pitt, ca. March 1756, printed in Peter

Paret, “Colonial Experience and European Military Reform at the End of the

Eighteenth Century,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Records 37 (1964):

47.

51. Ian K. Steele, Betrayals: Fort William Henry and the “Massacre,” (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1990), 80-121.

52. Ibid; Bougainville, Adventure in the Wilderness, 170, 333; for terms in the

early 1750s and influence of the Oswego incident on French dread and Indian

expectations, see Anderson, Crucible of War, 49, 64, 154, 187-88.

53. Steele, Betrayals, 127-33.

54. For Indian tribes deserting the French military effort, see Francis Jennings,

Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies and Tribes in the Seven Years’ War in

America (New York: Norton, 1988), 351, 397-98, 402-4; English magazine’s

description of the “massacre” quoted in Hamilton, Sir William Johnson, 229;

Wolfe quoted in Hibbert, Wolfe at Quebec, 27.

55. Lord Loudoun (17 August 1757), quoted in Starkey, European and Native

American Warfare, 102. Few parties to a conflict are as righteous as they claim.

At the Battle of Lake George in 1755, at virtually the same location as the Fort

Henry “massacre,” William Johnson protected the captured French commander

but allowed his Mohawk warriors to return home with some prisoners,

49
presumably to be tortured or adopted to replace the dead. His concession to

military necessity did not prevent London from granting him a knighthood later

that year, see Hamilton, Sir William Johnson, 172, 194.

56. Forbes quoted in Douglas Edward Leach, Arms for America: A Military History

of the British Colonies in North America, 1607-1763 (New York: Macmillan,

1973), 440.

57. Loudoun to Cumberland, 2 October 1756, in Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in

North America, 237; Wolfe and Brigadier General George Townsend, quoted

or described in Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, 524, 536, Anderson,Crucible of

War, 254, 789, and Peter E. Russell, “Redcoats in the Wilderness: British

Officers and Irregular Warfare in Europe and America, 1740 to 1760,” William

and Mary Quarterly 35 (October 1978): 650-51; Fuller, British Light Infantry,

49, 94.

58. Anderson, Crucible of War, 357-59; John Keegan, Fields of Battle: The Wars

for North America (New York: Knopf, 1996), 126-28.

59. Hibbert, Wolfe at Quebec, 73-74, 139-40, 153-54; Major Samuel C. Endicott

and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas L. Sickinger, “IPB During the Siege of

Quebec,” Military Review 72 (May 1992): 63-71.

60. J. Clarence Webster, ed., The Journal of Jeffrey Amherst, (Chicago, IL:

University of Chicago Press, 1931), 109, 111, 132, 154, 166-67, 210; Hamilton,

Sir William Johnson, 241-44; Amherst on Indians quoted in Cuneo, Rogers of

the Rangers, 95, and Anderson, Crucible of War, 470. Amherst told Rogers: I

have “a very despicable” opinion of rangers in general but “I have a very good

opinion of you, and shall readily employ you when the service will permit me,”

ibid., 157. The Royal Americans, now deployed in the Ohio River Valley, were

effective. In Amherst’s own area of operations, the Albany-Montreal corridor,

the 80th Foot light infantry regiment, under Thomas Gage, was militarily

ineffective. Its tactical errors contributing to the failure to capture Fort

Ticonderoga in July 1758 caused William Pitt to dismiss James Abercromby,

Amherst’s predecessor, as commander-in-chief. Like most English officers,

Abercromby had believed that the average regular could learn and dispatch “all

the functions of Rangers in a short time,” quoted in Grenier, “The Other

American Way of War,” 223. For more on the 80th Foot, see note 68.

61. Amherst, 24 June 1761, in William Johnson Papers, 3: 421; Birtle, U.S. Army

Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 69-70, 83-84.

50
62. Journals of Major Robert Rogers, 144-45. Loudon to Cumberland, 22 Nov.

1756, in Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in North America, 269; Cuneo, Rogers

of the Rangers, 7-8, 62.

63. Turney-High, Primitive War, 112, 117; Journals of Major Robert Rogers,

146-48; based on Loudoun’s Papers, Parker, “Anglo-American Wilderness

Campaigning,” 221-27, describes Rogers’ attention to warding off surprise.

64. Journals of Major Robert Rogers, 154, 184-85.

65. Amherst quoted in Butler, The Annals of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 1: 113;

Journals of Major Robert Rogers, 192-96. Adding insult to Tory injury,

Rogers’ friend and foremost subordinate officer, John Stark, would lead rebel

militia at Bunker Hill and Saratoga, its greatest tactical victories over British

regulars. Several former rangers, including Edmund Moore, the regimental

adjutant, were minutemen at Lexington, where the militia was led by Captain

John Parker, another veteran of Rogers’ Rangers, see Richard M. Ketchum,

Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War (New York: Henry

Holt, 1997), 286-91, 327; Ketchum, Decisive Day, 143-48, 206, and Tourtellot,

Lexington and Concord, 19, 22, 34, 47, 268.

66. Captain John Knox, ca. December 1757, quoted in Brummel, “Service Truly

Critical,” 153.

67. English officer quoted in McCardell, Ill-Starred General, 180.

68. Amherst (7 Aug. 1763) and Bouquet to Amherst, 13 July 1763: both quoted in

Elizabeth A. Fenn, “Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America:

Beyond Jeffrey Amherst,” Journal of American History 86 (March

2000):1574-1575; Anderson, Crucible of War, 547-553; Cuneo, Rogers of the

Rangers, 92-93, 182, 194, 267, 275-78; Rogers, described (1756) in Pargellis,

ed., Military Affairs in North America, 177. Rogers’ worst enemies were Sir

William Johnson, Indian Commissioner, and General Gage. The former had

once called Johnson “the most active Man in our Army“ when Johnson

recruited the original ranger company after his Iroquois recruits left the

battlefield at Lake George. After the war, when Rogers became the toast of

English society and seemed about to receive a baronet like that of Johnson

himself, his erstwhile admirer recalled how he “raised him [in 1755 from the

low]est Station on accot [account] of his Abilities as a [ranger] but [was

astonished] how people [now] could think him fit for any other” activity,

military or political. Gage, a rather miserable failure in the Braddock

expedition, later commanded the 80th Foot light infantry. In this capacity, he

had fought beside the rangers at Ticonderoga in 1758, where according to the

semi-official history of the British army, Rogers’ unit performed far better than

51
that of Gage. Bruised egos were certainly a factor. Rogers’ Rangers were more

immediate competition to Johnson’s Indians and Gage’s light infantry than they

were to heavier, more standard, arms. Nonetheless, neither man could have

purged Rogers if it were not for the long-standing criticism of him within the

British military establishment, dating back to at least the 175Os, when Rogers

already had a “good share of Nonsense. . . in his head” for thinking of promotion

to (a mere) colonel of provincials, let alone a knighthood, see Papers of

Johnson, 2: 189-90, 5: 788, 12: 877; Fortescue, A History of the British Army, 2:

325-26; Abercromby (2 January 1758), quoted in Grenier, “The Other

American Way of War,” 215.

69. Colonel Davie Dundas, Principles of Military Movements Chiefly Applied to

Infantry (1788) quoted in Parker, Anglo-American Wilderness Campaigning,

352; Rogers quoted in Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence, 187,

235.

70. Quotes about Wingate are from, in sequence, Lt. N. Durant (ca. April 1944) in

Shelford Bidwell, The Chindit War:Stilwell, Wingate and the Campaign in

Burma: 1944 (New York: Macmillan, 1979), 62-63 and from General John

Hackett, Winston Churchill, and Field Marshal William Slim, in John Bierman

and Colin Smith, Fire in the Night: Wingate of Burma, Ethiopia, and Zion (New

York: Random House, 1999), 109, 379, 381; Peter Meade, “Orde Wingate and

the Official Historians,” Journal of Contemporary History 14 (January 1979):

65-66; David Rooney, Mad Mike: A Life of Brigadier Michael Calvert

(London: Leo Cooper, 1997), 127, 148-70. Calvert was charged with

pedophilia, Rodgers with treason.

71. Since winning the Vietnam War with an invasion of fourteen conventional

army divisions in 1975, the North Vietnamese have been loath to give any credit

for victory to the Southern-based insurgency. “They behave,” said one former

Viet Cong, “as if they had conquered us, ” see Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A

History (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), 534. The U.S. Army began to treat

Special Forces much better in the 1980s than it did in the immediate postwar

1970s. Two factors were instrumental: (1) renewed insurgencies, this time in

Latin America and (2) the threat that pro-Special Forces elements in Congress

would create a distinct special operations agency outside the Department of

Defense. Nothing creates appreciation of any asset faster than fear that it will be

lost.

72. T. E. Lawrence was hardly typical of irregular warfare soldiers when, in a

moment of humility, he wrote that the Arab components he led against the

Turks were “just a sideshow in a sideshow,” World War I being determined by

large, conventional units on the Western Front.

52
Washington as Strategist:

Compound Warfare in the American

Revolution, 1775-1783

Jerry D. Morelock

The American Revolution A Victory for Compound Warfare

As the American Revolutionary War played out across the various

areas of operations and widely separated battlefields of North America

from 1775 to 1783, it was clearly characterized by military actions

“combining regular and irregular forces,” or as Dr. Tom Huber has

termed this phenomenon, compound warfare.

1 Both sides in the

conflict combined regular troops with irregular forces to prosecute a

war that not only featured conventional battle lines, where armies faced

each other in imitation of the tactics of Europe’s most successful

practitioner of that style of war—Frederick II the Great of Prussia —but

also, much more frequently, saw unconventional operations and often

brutal actions by militia, partisan rangers, and other irregular forces.

Indeed, the ultimate victory of the infant United States in achieving its

independence from Great Britain, the premier military power of the last

half of the eighteenth century, owed much to the actions of the

American militia. Operating locally as armed revolutionary

constabularies,2 they prevented the unrestricted use of vast areas of the

colonial countryside by the regular forces of the British Empire. The

militia kept the British from exerting control and influence over any

territory not physically occupied by their troops (or the much

less-numerous Tory militia). Yet as important to final victory as the

colonial militia were, they could not have won and held independence

by the force of their own arms alone, and the key to victory remained the

conventional military operations of the United States’ regular force, the

Continental Line. The American Revolution was, as Huber wrote, “the

simultaneous application of a main force and of a widely spread militia

force [that] produce[d] a powerful complementary effect that seemed

greater even than the sum of its substantial parts . . . to inflict strategic

defeat on what otherwise appeared to be an overwhelmingly superior

adversary.”3

One particularly illustrative example of the advantageous effect

produced by the combination of regular and irregular military

operations in producing a decisive victory (in this case because of its

impact on Great Britain’s political leadership) is the final pitched battle

53
of the Revolutionary War—the campaign, siege, and capture of

Cornwallis’ forces at Yorktown in 1781 (see Map 1). Although the final

siege and capture of this tobacco port on Virginia’s York River was as

conventional an operation as any of Frederick the Great’s in Europe, the

nearly total control of the Virginia and Carolina countryside exercised

by the local patriot militia was a major factor in the trapping of

Cornwallis and his army. Despite Cornwallis’ high hopes at the

beginning of his southern campaign that thousands of presumed

Loyalists would rally to the king’s colors and provide manpower and

sustenance to support his army, he found himself operating in a hostile

environment. The countryside beyond his immediate occupation was

in the firm grip of the patriot militia; his supplies were arriving at the

only secure enclaves he could consistently maintain by force of arms—

the ports.4 As long as the Royal Navy ruled supreme, this was not a fatal

handicap, nor was it a particularly debilitating hindrance to Cornwallis’

conventional operations against the forces arrayed opposite him.

Actually, British conventional forces consistently defeated (but,

significantly, could not destroy) the Continental troops and militia

serving under the command of Nathanael Greene, and Cornwallis

eventually chased Greene out of the Carolinas and through Virginia.

Once in Virginia, however, the British commander lost his ability to

control the countryside beyond his picket lines and was forced to seek

supply and support from the sea. When his all-important seaborne

lifeline was cut (albeit temporarily) by the French Navy in October

1781, Cornwallis became marooned in a hostile landscape at the mercy

of the multinational American-French conventional forces under

Washington and Rochambeau that had moved, unmolested, through a

friendly American countryside from New England to Virginia.5

Barring the timely reestablishment of secure sea lines of

communication, Cornwallis’ subsequent defeat by conventional siege

craft was inevitable.6

Each component of the military forces of the United States, the

regular units of the Continental Line and the irregular forces of the

militia, were thus necessary (although individually insufficient)

elements of the total force required to prosecute and win the compound

warfare of the American Revolutionary War. The issue addressed here,

therefore, is not so much whether the American Revolution was an

example of compound warfare but, rather, to analyze George

Washington’s role, as commander of United States forces, in devising

and prosecuting this type of warfare. More specifically, this essay will

consider the following questions: did Washington deliberately and

54
55

Map 1
systematically create his war-winning strategy of mobilizing the

synergistic effects of conventional and irregular operations as executed

by his Continental Line units and the ubiquitous militia? Or was the

successful battlefield outcome merely the serendipitous result of the

primarily uncoordinated but complementary actions of these very

different forces?

Washington—The Indispensable Man

George Washington was undeniably the central, preeminent military

figure in the American Revolutionary War. Despite contradictory

views among historians regarding his ability as a military strategist,7

his longevity in command, alone, was noteworthy; his uninterrupted

service from June 1775 until December 1783 as commander in chief

of the standing military force of the rebellious colonies, the

Continental Army, is sufficient to establish his claim as the conflict’s

principal, longstanding soldier. Furthermore, even the harshest critics

of Washington’s strategic leadership of the army admit that

“Washington was a great leader...a great military commander,”

although many more seem apt to ascribe his success as a commander

to what they perceive as his seemingly incredible luck. Fewer critics

point to his mental acuity or strategic judgment.8 This latter group,

including those who have generally praised Washington’s leadership

as commander in chief, has tended to emphasize the often fortuitous

circumstances presented to him by the incompetence of his enemies

and the generosity of his French ally. For example, Washington’s

best-known biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, praises the

Revolutionary commander’s personal leadership qualities as well as

his ability as a tactician, administrator, and disciplinarian.

Nevertheless, he devotes few pages of his seven-volume biography to

Washington’s success or failure as a strategist, concluding finally

that, “he usually was lucky and in nothing so fortunate, strategically,

as in his adversary’s lack of enterprise.”9 This theme was continued

even more recently when John Ferling, in an otherwise laudatory

assessment of Washington’s contribution to American victory, wrote,

“In short, luck, daring, and foreign assistance won the war.”10

The many works that have been written focus mainly on

Washington’s personal leadership11 and attempt to grasp the essence of

his remarkable character. But these works largely have failed to

interpret or assess his strategic performance within the context of the

times and the circumstances he faced. While they contribute to the

generally accepted view that Washington was the indispensable man of

56
the Revolution, they have not succeeded in providing a well-researched

body of knowledge to determine if Washington was the conflict’s

indispensable strategist. Nor have these books determined whether his

prosecution of the military portion of the American Revolution

included the reasoned application of a strategy of compound

warfare—specifically, a strategy deliberate as well as systematic. That

assessment ultimately requires an examination of important factors that

affected Washington as commander in chief and influenced his role as a

strategist. These influences were his relations with Congress, public

attitudes regarding the military, the nature of the Continental Army,

Washington’s leadership of that army, the capabilities of his fellow

generals, and his interactions with his generals.

Washington and Congress

Washington’s military strategy throughout the war, particularly his

ability to implement whatever strategy he decided to adopt, was

influenced by his relationship to the political leadership of the

Revolution—the Continental Congress. George Washington was

appointed by his colleagues in the Continental Congress to be

commander in chief of the new Continental Army primarily for

political reasons. He was, of course, widely recognized as one of the

most experienced of the colonial militia leaders, having participated in

numerous campaigns and several engagements as part of Virginia

militia regiments. Most notably, Washington had survived Braddock’s

disastrous defeat in 1755 during the Seven Years’ War by keeping his

head during that rout and by exhibiting exceptional leadership under

fire.12 The tall, muscular Virginian considered himself a well-qualified

military commander. Earlier in his career, he had thought he lacked

“nothing but [a] commission from His Majesty” to certify his

professional military competence.13 Thus, Congressional delegate

Washington rather shamelessly promoted his own case for command of

the army in 1775 by appearing in Congress wearing his full military

uniform. This self-advertisement undoubtedly helped plant his martial

image in the minds of his fellow delegates who were about to choose the

new Revolutionary Army’s commander in chief. Yet Washington’s

military qualifications were substantially more than posturing. Don

Higginbotham, among other historians of this era, points out that “by

any yardstick of [his] generation, Washington . . . made strenuous

efforts to become professional,” and from his earliest days in the

Virginia militia, he “thought and acted like a military professional...

study[ing] closely the procedures of a regular army.” Washington’s

57
Virginia regiment in the colonial wars stressed strict discipline and

formal training based on the latest European military literature, and the

regiment elicited rare praise from the usually condescending and

always highly critical senior British officers.14

Nevertheless, it is undeniable that New Englanders like John Adams

proposed Washington for the position of commander in chief because

Washington’s native Virginia was being courted by a Congress

desperate to maintain support for a rebellion confined, in mid-1775, to

the Northeast. What Adams wanted and got was a southerner to lead the

principally northern army. This politically astute move by the New

England faction did, indeed, broaden support for the widening

rebellion, regardless of the impressiveness of Washington’s military

qualifications.15

Upon his appointment as Continental Army commander in chief,

Washington began collaboration with Congress that would

significantly influence his ability to develop and implement military

strategy throughout the course of the war. Congressional control of the

means of waging war created a virtual partnership between the

commander in chief and the senior legislative body of the rebellious

colonies in their administration and direction of the army and its

operations. Congress appointed all of Washington’s senior subordinate

officers; retained responsibility for the administration, supply, and

manning of the army; and frequently directed Washington to conduct

specific military operations for overriding political reasons.

Washington’s continuous cooperation with Congress (“his constant

collaboration with civil authority”) meant that

[b]oth the Continental Congress and George Washington were

necessary. Washington’s steady stream of official letters to the

president of the Congress and his large flow of private explanations to

friendly and influential delegates made him an active participant in the

congressional debates on domestic affairs, and probably the most

respected [one]. . . [Congress] certainly checked his power, in the

sense that he could never suggest policy without preparing the ground

by a good deal of political cultivation; [and] only an idolater of

Washington could insist that things would have been uniformly better

[for the military conduct of the war] without the need for him to make

careful political calculations of what would be acceptable to the ruling

public of the new nation.16

The commander in chief, therefore, was never able to develop his

military strategy within a political vacuum. It remained the privilege

58
and responsibility of the Congress to appoint the senior subordinate

commanders who would carry out Washington’s plans; to determine

the actual size of the forces under his command by dealing directly

with the several states to recruit and provide soldiers for the

Continental Line; and, probably of greatest impact on the daily

operation of the army, to supply the Continental Army with rations,

arms, equipment, and pay. Frequently, in times of exceptionally grave

crisis—such as the British assault on New York City in 1776 and

British marches and countermarches to and from Philadelphia in 1777

and 1778—Congress pressured Washington to conduct full-scale,

conventional battles for what were essentially political reasons. These

battles included most of the large-scale, conventional engagements

Washington personally commanded: Long Island, Harlem Heights,

and White Plains around New York City in 1776 (see Map 2);

Brandywine and Germantown on Howe’s route to Philadelphia in

1777; and Monmouth, during Howe’s retreat from the capital in

1778.17

Each of these key political responsibilities of Congress had an

enormous influence on any military strategy that Washington might

devise and, along with the terrain and British enemy forces, set the

basic parameters of his strategy. Yet despite the frustrating

restrictions, Washington not only accepted his subordination to

civilian authority, he actively defended it against factions within the

army that sought, from time to time, to challenge that ultimate

authority. The most notable example of this was the so-called

“Newburgh Conspiracy” in March 1783 in an incident that occurred

while the Continental Army was quartered at Newburgh, New York

(just above West Point). In behavior bordering on mutiny, a faction of

officers pressured Congress to pass legislation guaranteeing the

“commutation” of their promised half-pay for life to a full salary for

several years. Washington’s dramatic, personal intervention is

credited with having stopped this early threat to civilian authority.18

There were, indeed, positive attributes to this Congress-commander

in chief arrangement. On the positive side of the equation, and not of

inconsequential value to the much-harried Washington, was

Congress’ responsibility for dealing directly with the often-fractious

states. This relieved the commander in chief of a burden he would

otherwise have had to shoulder alone. Despite the fact that this

arrangement complicated his military interaction with the

state-controlled militia, the insulating effect that this provided

Washington probably outweighed the negative aspects of the

59
60

Map 2
relationship. Additionally, it is doubtful that any one general, even a

commander in chief who generated as much respect as Washington,

could have gotten more out of the loose alliance of states than Congress

did; nor could Washington have single-handedly raised, equipped, and

supported the armed forces across the incredibly wide scope of the

North American theater of war. The Congressional system of standing

committees (later amalgamated into a Board of War) that oversaw the

administration of the army and the conduct of the war was far from

perfect and often inefficient, yet it accomplished a vital function that

Washington likely would have found beyond his capacity while he

executed the rebellion’s military operations.19

Perhaps Washington’s greatest achievement in regard to

civil-military relations during the Revolution was, as Smelser notes,

that largely through the commander in chief’s efforts, “the civilians of

Congress and the military, as personified by Washington, worked as

one.”20

Washington and the Army

Of hardly less importance to Washington’s ability to develop and

implement a military strategy was his relationship with the instrument

he was expected to wield in order to gain victory on the battlefield—the

Continental Army. Despite the early outpouring of revolutionary zeal

in 1775-1776, which provided the largest advantage in number of

troops (relative to British strength) that he would have during the entire

conflict, this military instrument of war proved, for the most part of the

Revolution, an exceptionally blunt one. Washington’s army—in

contrast to the traditionalist images created by the filiopietistic

historians of the nineteenth century, the image of sturdy yeoman

farmers (“minutemen”) dropping their plows and picking up their

muskets—was a much more complex organization whose very

composition tended to change over time.21 By the end of the war, most

scholars agree, “the Continental Army . . . was composed of young,

poor men” with few economic prospects at home, who tended to “enlist

under the influence of economic need and ambition.”22 One study of

the pension records of veterans of the Continental Army showed that

“basically they were young white males between the ages of 16 and 25

(but most were teenagers under 19), the sons of poor farmers and farm

laborers.” Whether they also enlisted out of a belief in revolutionary

ideals remains a matter of disagreement among historians since the

presence of poverty does not automatically mean the absence of

patriotism.23 Unarguably, the Continental soldiers had an incredible

61
“willingness to endure hardships almost continuously and still

persevere.”24

The independent spirit of these men, whether created by a genuine

desire to preserve their freedom or by more mundane personal motives

of economics and ambition, “made them [according to Paul David

Nelson] poor fighters... impatient of restraint and discipline...

although personally courageous.”25 Facing Washington throughout the

war was the problem of using the eighteenth-century tactics he

preferred while subduing the independent spirit of these men and

subordinating it to the military discipline so vital to the prosecution of

the war. The best the commander in chief could expect, and what he

achieved from time to time, was, according to Robert Middlekauf, an

army of “free men broken of some of the worst habits freedom

engendered.”26 Despite these leadership challenges, Washington,

nevertheless, used these young recruits to create andof the utmost

importancemaintain the army necessary to execute his military

strategy. A militia free to melt away into the landscape when

confronted by British regulars was incapable of serving as the standing

symbol of the Revolution, whose very presence as an army-in-being

was more important than its ability to win pitched battles. Only a

well-disciplined, conventionally trained force could serve that

all-important function and lend legitimacy to the patriot cause without

fear of a fatal interruption. The local militia, whose irregular actions

could be dismissed as organized banditry by Great Britain and, most

importantly, the international community from which the Continental

Congress sought recognition, was incapable of providing that

legitimacy. One of Washington’s greatest strengths as a soldier and

strategist was his realization of the fundamental need to acquire

legitimacy for his army, coupled with his unmatched ability to keep that

legitimate force together throughout eight years of terrible hardship.

But even the term used to describe Washington’s forcethe

Continental Army“is shrouded in ambiguities” and, according to

Charles Lesser, in Sinews of Independence,

[t]here were, in fact, three categories of soldiers who fought for the

colonial cause: the Continental soldier, the militiaman, and the state

soldier. The most regular of these was the Continental soldier, the man

who had enlisted for a lengthy term of service (or for the duration of

the war), who was paid by the Continental Congress, and who served

in a clearly defined Continental unit. If Washington’s desires had

come to fruition, his army would have consisted entirely of such men,

and the calling out of militia would have been limited to extraordinary

62
events. For most of the war, however, these Continental soldiers did

not materialize in sufficient numbers; the colonies were often unable

to meet their quotas of recruits. The result was that, at many times

during the war, Continental troops were inadequate for carrying on

what Washington regarded as a proper campaign. Driven by

necessity, the general frequently had to fill out his forces with the other

two categories of warriors, the militiamen and the state soldiers.27

Beset by constant problems with recruiting and training adequate

numbers of “regular” troops, the Continental Army seldom numbered

as many as 20,000 men (present and fit for duty). Often, Washington

had only a few thousand “Continentals” under his direct command with

which to conduct the military operations necessary to implement his

strategy. Especially after 1779, the numbers steadily shrank, when

early war recruits went home and many others, who were otherwise

supportive of the Revolutionary cause, found that service in the local

militia provided a much more attractive way of participating. After

1776, only six monthly Continental Army strength reports show the

troops under Washington’s direct command surpassing the 20,000

figure (September through December of 1778 and July and October

1779); on only eight other reports out of eighty-nine monthly returns

did the figures even reach the 19,000 mark (see Table 1). From

December 1780 until the army disbanded in July 1783, the highest

reported strength of troops with Washington was barely 10,000 and

frequently only 6,000 or less. His greatest numerical strength relative to

British troop strength was probably in 1775, before the British buildup,

when his numbers ranged from 15,000 to 18,400.28

Washington’s personal inclination, derived through his early

training and befitting his temperament, was to seek conventional-style

battles against his conventional-style opponent, and he actively sought

to train his Continentals in the regular military tactics of the age

throughout the war. His strategic focus remained his opponent’s

military center of gravity, hence his nearly obsessive fixation on

defeating the British in New York City, which was manifested most

dramatically in his initial extreme anger at the French for “tricking” him

into marching to the Chesapeake and Yorktown in 1781.29 However,

the realities presented to him by his army’s chronic problems of

insufficient numbers and inadequately trained troops frequently

prevented him from achieving his goal of fighting conventional battles.

One alternative was to fill out his Continental Army ranks with the

other categories of troops availablethe militia and state unitswho

63
64

Year Month Total

1775 JAN 

FEB 

MAR 

APR 

MAY 

JUN —

JUL 17,371

AUG 18,485

SEP 18,095

OCT 17,099*

NOV 15,495

DEC 15,105

1776 JAN 11,843*

FEB 17,441

MAR Missing

APR 10,021

MAY 8,411

JUN 10,369

AUG Missing

SEP 20,435

OCT 20,022

NOV 16,807

DEC 6,104*

1777 JAN Missing

FEB Missing

MAR Missing

APR Missing

MAY 7,363*

JUN Missing

JUL Missing

AUG Missing

SEP Missing

OCT 10,332*

NOV 19,415*

DEC 14,122

1778 JAN 8,095

FEB 7,556

MAR 7,316

APR 15,313

May 15,061

JUN 15,336

JUL 19,460

AUG 19,673

SEP 23,552

OCT 22,291

NOV 21,476

DEC 23,066

1779 JAN 19,224

FEB 17,148

MAR 16,100

APR 17,309

MAY 17,961

JUN 16,943

JUL 20,853

AUG 18,728

SEP 19,912

OCT 23,563

NOV 19,864

DEC 14,327

TABLE 1 – Total of Washington’s Army: Monthly Strength Reports
65

1780 JAN 12,356

FEB 13,049

MAR 12,159

APR 8,638

MAY 9,462

JUN 8,870

JUL 11,660

AUG 19,634

SEP 19,617

OCT 13,837

NOV 12,143

DEC 5,982

1781 JAN 3,088

FEB 2,272

MAR 2,955

APR 3,826

MAY 4,487

JUN 6,097

JUL 6,425

AUG Missing

SEP 4,955

OCT 4,731*

NOV Missing

DEC Missing

1782 JAN 6,494

FEB 6,228

MAR 6,437

APR 8,046

MAY 8,512

JUN 8,930

JUL 10,108

AUG 9,690

SEP 8,987

OCT 9,003

NOV 10,130

DEC 9,730

1783 JAN 9,502

FEB 9,107

MAR 9,470

APR 10,021

MAY 10,155

JUN 1,753

JUL 1,707

*Indicates that monthly total is available for Infantry only (i.e. excludes Artillery,

Engineer, and Cavalry troops)

Note 1: All reports indicate “Present Fit for Duty and On Duty” (i.e. excludes sick,

absent, and detached duty)

Note 2: Totals do not include Continental Army troops serving in major subordinate

commands (eg. excludes Continental Army troops serving with Greene in the Southern

Department in 1780-81)

Note: 3 Totals include militia when serving as part of the Continental Army

Source: Charles H. Lesser (ed.), The Sinews of Independence: Monthly Strength

Reports of the Continental Army, passim.

TABLE 1 – Total of Washington’s Army: Monthly Strength Reports (cont)
would operate as conventional troops. This alternative, however,

presented Washington with a challenge he never fully overcame.

A major criticism of Washington’s ability to effectively employ all

categories of troops available to the army was his habitual failure to

devise a military strategy that would most effectively utilize militia to

achieve positive results in conventional operations. As Higginbotham

notes, Washington and his senior subordinate commanders in the

Continental Army “labored strenuously and for the most part futilely to

secure a long-term professional army modeled in important respects

after contemporary European systems.”30 Despite the fact that militia

control of the American countryside continued throughout the war and

was a significant factor in Washington’s ability to maintain the

existence of his conventional army and restrict British occupation to a

few selected major seaports, he remained frustrated by what he saw as

the militia’s inability to help him engage British forces in a

conventional manner. In other words, Washington’s strategy, in effect,

presumed compound warfare by assuming that the patriot militia would

complement his conventional operations and, through irregular

actions, ensure control of the hinterland. What frustrated the

commander in chief, however, was his failure to effectively incorporate

the militia into what he also assumed would be the key to ultimate

victory—conventional military operations in support of the

Continental Line. As a staunch proponent of conventional tactics who

actively sought to defeat British forces using the standard linear tactics

of the day, Washington considered the ill-disciplined, unruly militia

units as worse than useless.

Conventional battles between regular forces in the eighteenth

century were generally characterized by parallel lines of troops (hence

the term lineartactics). These troops faced each other with muskets and

bayonets across a distance that was often only a few hundred (or even a

few dozen) yards. Constrained by the technology of the

era—epitomized by the use of inaccurate, smoothbore muskets—an

army seeking victory depended upon troops drilled to stand in massed

ranks and deliver volley after volley of massed fire into its opponent’s

lines until one side or the other could advance as an unbroken battle line

with fixed bayonets to finish off the enemy. Generally, it took about two

years of intensive training and constant drilling to produce a soldier

capable of executing the intricate maneuvers required for this

automaton-like fighting (to underscore this fact, Frederick II the Great,

King of Prussia, and the master of linear tactics, referred to his soldiers

as “walking muskets”). The difficulty, even impossibility, of

66
irregularly trained and indifferently drilled militia troops executing

these tactics is obvious.

“In [Washington’s] eyes,” wrote John Shy, “the militia was the

absolute worst: an undisciplined rabble, unwilling to obey or to fight,

but quite willing to eat all the rations and to walk away with the precious

muskets and other equipment issued to them . . . he detested them.”31

Washington was incapable, by temperament and training, of

completely capitalizing on the practical uses of an armed citizenry as

embodied in the militia because he “was unwilling to modify his

concept of a ‘good’ army in order to exploit the inherent strengths of

American society.”32 Several of Washington’s subordinates achieved

successes in conventional campaigns against British regulars through

the effective integration of militia units into their battle plans,

maximizing the units’ strengths and minimizing their many

weaknesses. Despite this, Washington was never able to see the militia

as anything more than useless appendages to his regular troops that he

was obliged to feed, clothe, and arm but who ran away at the first

opportunity.33 Through his refusal to adjust his conventional tactics to

accommodate the abilities of the militia, he continually failed to seize

the chance to add significant numbers to his always meager troop

strength and severely limited his strategic options.

Yet the control by militia of the countryside, as well as their

employment in conventional operations where possible, meant that

America clearly waged compound warfare against the British—despite

Washington’s martial preferences for conventional confrontations. The

myriad tasks performed by the militia included confounding enemy

forces through small-scale warfare, maintaining internal security

through patrolling against slave insurrections, fighting Indians,

repelling seaborne raiding parties, garrisoning forts, guarding

prisoners, collecting intelligence, transporting supplies, maintaining

enthusiasm for the patriot cause, and battling British foragers.34 This

armed revolutionary constabulary, therefore, provided an incalculable

advantage that promoted the success of the American cause in many

ways. Recent research suggests that it may even be possible to calculate

and quantify some of this vital, yet unseen, assistance:

Because militia (‘the damned scouting parties’) ruled the hinterlands

and forced ‘market men [to] sneak through at the risk of their lives,’

royal regiments controlled no territory producing goods or materials

which they could not [physically] occupy—no small problem since

they had nearly 30,000 soldiers. Consequently, the British had to be

supplied from across the Atlantic Ocean, an unprecedented logistics

67
effort not again attempted [on a similar scale] until late in World War

II. This meant that the English army could not move 15 miles beyond

navigable water [for any extended period]. It also meant that the

British navy, despite chronic problems of manpower, could not

transfer sailors from cargo packets and convoys which had to deliver

120,000 tons per annum [to support the army in America]: everything

from weapons to oats, flour, and pork, not to mention 500,000 gallons

of rum. By 1778, twelve capital ships (men of war) remained at

Spithead for lack of the 1,400 sailors [who were busy transporting

supplies to America].35

Washington’s strategy was significantly influenced by the military

poverty of the Continental Army.36 Washington was never able, after

1775-76, to consistently achieve a decisive advantage in troop strength

relative to his British foes. Meanwhile, he remained incapable of

devising a means to effectively utilize the large number of militia

potentially available to him in conventional operations. Thus,

Washington, in implementing his strategy, was forced by

circumstances and his own temperament to focus on minimizing the

many weaknesses of his forces rather than maximizing their few

strengths. Unable to comprehend or appreciate a military strategy that

did not depend on conventionally trained regular forces, Washington’s

strategic vision remained fixed firmly on the possibilities presented by

the use of the Continental Army.37 While the militia was fulfilling the

essential mission of denying the countryside to the British, Washington

was looking beyond the advantages inherent in compound warfare—to

“winning the war and making a new nation... upon the actions of the

Continental Army.”38 And while this may establish Washington’s

apparent presumption of compound warfare, it exposes the largely

subconscious nature of the commander in chief’s incorporation of

compound warfare into his overall strategy and throws into question the

alleged “systematic and deliberate” nature of Washington’s

employment of compound warfare39 in marshaling the forces available

to him to prosecute the Revolutionary War.

How this ought to factor into any assessment of Washington as a

strategist must also take into consideration another important and

essential factor affecting his execution of the military strategy of the

RevolutionWashington’s subordinate generals.

Washington and His Generals

The final major influence on Washington’s ability to devise and

execute an effective military strategy concerns the capabilities of his

68
fellow generals and his relations with them. In contrast to the

traditionalist view of “Washington and his lieutenants as a pantheon of

noble, unruffled, self-sacrificing heroes,” the twenty-eight general

officers appointed by Congress to help Washington lead the

Continental Army represented, for the most part, a decidedly

contentious, inexperienced group of amateurs.40 “The higher

command throughout the war,” wrote Freeman, “had been most uneven

in ability and in willingness to subordinate personal interest to the

common cause,” and the commander in chief “often had to ameliorate,

arbitrate or solve countless conflicts involving his lieutenants.”41 The

distraction that this continual struggle with bruised egos, imagined

slights, and affronted sensibilities had on Washington’s ability to

concentrate on more important issues, such as the development and

implementation of military strategy, is probably immeasurable but

could not have been slight.

“Of the generals appointed to the Continental Army in 1775,” notes

George Billias in Washington’s Generals, “only three could properly

be regarded as professional soldiersCharles Lee, Horatio Gates, and

Richard Montgomery. All had been officers in the British Army, had

seen service in the French War, and had remained with the regulars in

the postwar period.”42 Even these men had limited experience at

higher-level command positions, however. Lee reached the rank of

lieutenant colonel long after his previous service in America, Gates

attained the rank of major but spent most of his time in administrative

duties and never commanded a large body of troops, and Montgomery

was only a captain when he left active service. Nor was the advice of

these professionals available to Washington for long, since “of the

three, only Gates was still with the Continental Army at the close of the

conflict.”43 Despite the fact that as the war dragged on more European

professionals joined the American cause, Washington was unable to

take full advantage of their expert military knowledge because of the

jealousy of their American colleagues (and the widespread resentment

engendered by perceptions of interference when Congress exercised its

privilege to appoint them).44 But even useful subordinates like

Lafayette and von Steuben proved troublesome at times. Scheer notes

that on one occasion, Washington had to “dissuade the hot-headed

young Lafayette from challenging to a duel the Earl of Carlisle, chief of

the British Peace Commissioners, for supposedly insulting the French,”

and von Steuben’s rapid rise caused such an outpouring of jealousy

among Washington’s “American” generals that several threatened to

resign.45 With some notable exceptions, Billias concludes that,

69
“although certain foreign generals had much to offer in the way of

expert military knowledge, their contributions to final victory on the

whole were rather limited,” and such officers “frequently proved to be

more trouble than they were worth.”46

Yet Washington’s handling of his subordinate generals eventually

succeeded in bringing out the best in amateur soldiers such as Henry

Knox, Lafayette, Daniel Morgan, Anthony Wayne, and especially

Nathanael Greene, while he deftly secured the removal of those he

discovered could not be counted upon to consistently produce good

resultslike the overly belligerent John Sullivan and the brilliant but

irascible and erratic Charles Lee.47 Although most officers seemed to

genuinely despise Congress and felt that they were unfairly being made

to bear the brunt of the war, the question remains, as Richard Kohn asks,

“why they never moved, either in unison or singly against Congress or

[the] civilian government.” The answer seems to lie largely with the

esteem in which they held Washington. They were, Kohn concludes,

“united in their resentment of Congress and their devotion to

Washington, the army, and the Revolution.”48 No commander in chief

can effectively implement strategy in the absence of subordinates who

are capable of carrying out that strategy. In that regard, Rankin’s

assessment of Washington’s lieutenants and his interaction with them

seems particularly apt. He writes, “had General Washington not been

servedwell served, in factby each of these officers, the War of

Independence might have been fought to a very different

conclusion.”49

Significantly, Washington’s subordinates—Greene, Morgan,

Horatio Gates, and Charles Lee—proved on the battlefield that they

understood what we now refer to as the conduct of compound warfare at

the tactical and operational levels better than Washington did. This is

especially evident when reviewing their integration of militia into their

overall battle plans and the resultant combining of their conventional

and irregular operations. Two excellent examples of the use of militia in

the prosecution of compound warfare—beyond their function in that

genre as war fighters in the role of a revolutionary constabulary

controlling the local countryside—are found at Bennington in the

Saratoga campaign of 1777 and at the Cowpens in 1781.

“The Enthusiasm of the Moment”50 Regular and

Irregular Forces in Conventional Battle

Washington viewed the militia as worse than useless in a

conventional battle and was reluctant to employ them to increase his

70
troop strength—where they might have provided him with sufficient

troops to successfully and decisively engage his British enemy.

However, other Continental Army generals, like Brigadier General

Daniel Morgan of Virginia, “realized that militiamen behaved in battle

not as a reaction to years of discipline and drill but based on the

enthusiasm of the moment”51 Morgan saw this characteristic from a

positive viewpoint, and this realization permitted commanders like

Morgan to add another dimension to compound warfare by

incorporating irregular forces into their conventional battle plans to

supplement their meager regular troops. Such tactics influenced the

outcome of two important patriot victories. The first of these occurred

during the Saratoga campaign of 1777.

British General John Burgoyne’s campaign to cut the colonies in half

by moving down Lake Champlain to the Hudson River valley was

falling apart even before he dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich

Baum’s 1,200 Braunschweig-Hesse-Hanau troops in August 1777 on a

raid into nearby Vermont to gather badly needed horses, oxen, fodder,

and food (see Map 3).52 Representing, roughly, one-seventh of the

regular troops in Burgoyne’s column, the German mercenaries that

marched on Bennington blundered their way into a virtual hornet’s nest

of militiamen, stirred up by reports of atrocities committed by the

British force’s Native American allies as well as by the provocative

presence of Burgoyne’s invading army so near their homes.

Meant to be the major effort in a three-pronged attack culminating at

Albany, by the end of August 1777, Burgoyne’s column would be the

only British force left facing the American Continentals and militia.

Howe, whose army was to have moved up the Hudson River from New

York to support Burgoyne, had advanced instead on the American

capital at Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Barry St.

Leger, with a mixed force of British regulars, Tories, and Native

Americans found his advance eastward along the Mohawk valley

stalled by exaggerated reports of large numbers of militia opposing

him. At about the time Baum’s Germans neared Bennington, therefore,

Burgoyne’s troops had become the center of attention for the patriot

forces in the region.53

At the battle of Bennington on 16 August 1777, Baum’s force was

completely annihilated, and a relief column of several hundred

Braunschweiger grenadiers under Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich

Breymann was thoroughly routed. This proved a signal victory for

patriot militia fighting a largely conventional battle. Aroused and

indignant, the militia from the region answered the call to arms and

71
72

Map 3
swarmed around the advancing enemy forces. Tapping into “the

enthusiasm of the moment,” the American commander, Brigadier

General John Stark of New Hampshire, was able to assemble a force of

over 2,000 troops to confront the German invaders. Although the

Germans were aided by several hundred Tory (or Loyalist) militiamen,

Stark’s rebel militiamen far outnumbered the British sympathizers.

Storming and capturing redoubts hastily built and manned by the

German troops and Loyalist militia, Stark’s militiamen (bolstered by

about 150 Continentals under Colonel Seth Warner)perhaps

uncharacteristically for militiamenstood up to a disciplined, regular

force and annihilated it. Baum was mortally wounded and his command

killed or captured nearly to a man. When Breymann’s relief column

arrived too late to save Baum, it, too, was smashed and sent into

“headlong retreat” back to the momentary safety of Burgoyne’s

column.54 Stark and his militiamen had demonstrated, with chilling

effect, how “the enthusiasm of the moment” could be a combat

multiplier, even for irregular forces.

The patriot militia also came out ahead in the accompanying

fratricidal struggle in the farms and meadows surrounding the

conventional battlefield, as neighbors ambushed each other or

summarily shot captured rival militiamen in the wake of Stark’s

victory:

According to one of Stark’s men, the savage contest between

neighbors did not end with Breymann’s retreat: ten men were found

dead in a nearby meadow, victims of the loyalists; and a party sent to

drive cattle to the Hudson was returning home when they were fired on

by eighty Tories, who killed two and wounded one of the rebels...

Thomas Mellen [a participant in the battle] in a single mass grave...

found thirteen Tories, most of them shot in the head.55

The Saratoga campaign, and notably the militia victory over the

German columns at Bennington, epitomizes successful compound

warfare at the operational and tactical levels of warfare. Philip

Schuyler, initially the commander of American forces in northern New

York, skillfully played on the emotions of the area’s inhabitants by

raising the countryside against Burgoyne’s advancing columns.

Blocking the few primitive roads in that wilderness by felling trees and

creating obstacles, Schuyler’s militiamen also combed the countryside

and removed anything usable from the path of the British advance.

Stalled at Saratoga by such tactics, deserted through the failure of the

other two columns to reach him, and surrounded in a hostile

73
environment, Burgoyne’s column was perfectly vulnerable to the

savage attacks of a mixed patriot force of Continental regulars and

militia, by then under the command of Horatio Gates. Weakened by the

loss of one-seventh of his regular troops at Bennington, Burgoyne was

stymied at the battles of Freeman’s Farm and Bemis Heights. Then, in

the aftermath, “Burgoyne retreated to Saratoga, where militiamen and

Continentals hovered about his dying army like vultures. On 17

October [1777] he surrendered,”56 a victim of successful American

compound warfare and British incompetence.

After the British defeat at Saratoga, the major military activity of the

Revolution shifted to the southern theater of the war. Here, throughout

the campaign of 1780-81, but particularly at the battle of the Cowpens

in 1781, a combination of conventional and irregular forces was used to

engage British troops and, more important to the ultimate outcome, to

deny them the unrestricted use of the countryside. Therefore, during

this phase of the Revolution, compound warfarea potent mixture of

conventional and partisan operationswas the struggle’s principal

characteristic. Irregular forces and militia, circumstances dictated,

proved to be an especially important, ultimately essential, element of

the American military effort.

The irregular forces of the patriot militia became extremely

important to the American cause in the south after the disastrous

beginning to Cornwallis’ campaign of 1780-81. In the spring of 1780,

Cornwallis, with about 10,000 British troops (supported by Loyalist

conventional units and Tory militia), trapped General Benjamin

Lincoln and 5,000 Continental Army troops in Charleston, South

Carolina (see Map 4). In May, after a month-long siege, “Lincoln

surrendered his forceincluding the entire Continental establishment

of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.”57 This loss put

tremendous pressure on the local militia to provide adequate troops to

oppose Cornwallis while simultaneously protecting their homes

against Loyalist units and Tory militia. Encouraged by British

successes, southern Loyalists turned out to oppose the patriot militia,

and the ensuing irregular warfare was bitter and intense. “Reprisal and

retaliation followed as passions became enflamed,” notes one historian,

“and the conflict in the south resembled more a civil war than fighting

according to the rules of organized warfare.”58 However, the severity

of British retaliation and the brutality of their actions against the region

helped swell the ranks of patriot militia, and, as happened numerous

times during the Revolution, Americans fled to the rebel militia as

much for self-preservation and protection as out of ideology. Many

74
75

0 1 2 miles

SIEGE OF CHARLESTON

March May 1780 –

THE SOUTHERN AREA 1778-1781

Town or City

Engagement, Data indicated

Swampy or Marshy Ground

High Ground Above 1,000 feet

0 10 20 30 40 50 miles
Americans who, if left alone and not subjected to the merciless ravages

of British firebrands like Banastre Tarleton might have remained

neutral, rallied to the patriot cause out of anger, revenge, outrage, or

fear. Greene and subordinates such as Morgan used such “enthusiasm

of the moment” to channel support to the Revolution and to raise the

troops they needed to oppose Cornwallis’ campaign:

[Throughout 1780] the revolutionary spirit revived in the South.

British troops and Loyalists plundered and raped, and angered the

neutral Scotch-Irish by persecuting the Presbyterian Church. The

British decreed that anyone who failed to take an oath of allegiance

would be considered in rebellion. Men who had adopted a passive

stance had to choose collaboration or resistance, and many chose the

latter. The dying embers of revolution ignited in guerrilla warfare

under men like Thomas Sumter, Francis Marion, and Andrew

Pickens.59

Washington, meanwhile, convinced Congress to replace the inept

Gates with Nathanael Greene as the new commander in the South.60

Greene, in turn, “skillfully coordinated patriot maraudings with the

activities of his army” and engaged Cornwallis’ ostensibly superior

British force using a combination of regular and partisan actions.61

While usually evading contact with Cornwallis, Greene led British

troops on a deadly fox hunt through the Carolinas and into Virginia that

ultimately ended in Cornwallis’ force being trapped and captured at

Yorktown by Washington’s Continentals and the United States’ French

allies in October 1781.

During Greene’s tour de force in his partisan warfare

campaign of 1780-81, his subordinate, Daniel Morgan,

gained a stunning victory over the British in a

conventional fight that rested, in large measure, on

Morgan’s savvy employment of militia troops. On 17

January 1781, Morgan, with just over a thousand

Continentals and militiamen, lured Tarleton’s eleven

hundred British regulars onto favorable ground of hi900s

own choosing near Hannah’s Cowpens, “a typical

landmark in western South Carolina used for grazing

herds by local farmers and frontiersmen (see Map 5).”62

Instead of cursing and condemning his militiamen for

their tendency to “fire a volley and flee,” Morgan wisely

incorporated this fairly predictable behavior into his

tactical battle plan. He deployed the irregular troops in

such a manner that when they did, inevitably, fire their

volleys and withdraw, Tarleton’s regulars were drawn into

76
77

Map 5
an encompassing killing ground from which few escaped. Thus, 850 British troops were killed, wounded, or captured in what

turned out to be a double envelopment—this against a loss of perhaps 60 or 70 American casualties.63

Morgan’s tactical use of conventional and irregular troops at

Cowpens and Greene’s strategic employment of a similar mix of forces

throughout the broader theater of war clearly demonstrates the potential

value of prosecuting compound warfare “systematically and

deliberately.” Although Washington genuinely appreciated Greene’s

success with militia and congratulated him “on the glorious end

[Greene] put to hostilities in the Southern States,”64 the commander in

chief never attempted similar operations of his own on the same

scale.65

Conclusion: Washington as a Strategist of Compound

Warfare

Despite the severe restrictions placed upon him by the Congress, the

army, his subordinates, and his own ability and temperament,

Washington adopted a military strategy that proved appropriate to his

reduced means and limited options. Practical restrictions prevented

him from waging the conventional war he so earnestly sought, while his

own temperament and realization that the United States could not

support an indefinite, partisan conflict effectively denied him the

totally guerrilla war his meager resources allowed. The result was a

hybrid mixture of conventional and irregular operations that continued

throughout the eight years of hostilities. The practical effect of this

turned out to be, in fact, compound warfare, despite the lack of an

overall controlling hand by the commander in chief. Ultimately,

Washington and the military forces of the United States waged

compound warfare without deliberately or systematically planning its

execution—beyond taking common sense advantage of every military

means that presented itself to them as occasions arose.

The militia allowed Washington to control the countryside, thus

enabling him to obstruct British war aims while, at the same time,

maintaining a conventional army in being—the legitimizing force for

the new nation. Washington, nonetheless, consistently despised the

militia for their failure to act like trained regulars—something they

could never hope to become. Meanwhile, Washington continually

fretted over the inability of the militia to help him prosecute the

conventional warfare he desired. His military strategy presumed

compound warfare by his assumption that the militia would continue to

complement his conventional operations through their irregular actions

that ensured his control of the hinterland. Yet while these partisan

78
actions undeniably complemented the Continental Army’s

conventional operations, Washington neither directly planned nor

controlled them, nor did the compound warfare they surely represented

constitute a deliberate component of his military strategy. Unlike

Greene, he never demonstrated that he could effectively combine

regular and irregular forces in a systematic and deliberate manner at the

tactical and operational level. In short, although Washington

undoubtedly appreciated that the irregular actions of the militia were

essential to the overall success of the Revolution, he continued to fix his

strategic gaze beyond his presumption of compound warfare and

placed his faith in ultimate victory upon the actions of the Continental

Army.

Yet Washington, clearly the indispensable man of the Revolutionary

War, probably did the best he could given the limited means at his

disposal. Perhaps this military strategy by default was the only way the

United States could win its independence. Offensive-minded by

training and temperament, Washington, in his strategy, has been

criticized, nonetheless, for his “fixating on set-piece battles . . . [and his

being] drawn to the ideas of assaulting fortified, well-defended port

towns.”66 The negative examples these critics propose as

demonstrations of his fixation on portsprincipally New York after

Boston was evacuatedcould also be interpreted as demonstrating

Washington’s strategic insight that New York and its huge British

garrison represented the true military center of gravity in the war. His

fixation on capturing New York shows how Washington realized that,

barring a major British strategic error in some other part of the

American theater of war, offensive action against New York seemed

the key to winning the war. That meant to Washington the use of

conventional operations by disciplined, regular troops—not the

employment of ill-trained militia in partisan actions. The serendipitous

American victory at Yorktown made an assault on the main British

army in New York unnecessary only because it eventually destroyed

London’s will to continue the war. The British army remained in New

York for two years after Cornwallis surrendered a small portion of that

army at Yorktown. Criticizing Washington for maintaining his

strategic focus on the principal enemy force confronting him seems a

harsh and overly simplistic judgment considering the information

available to him at the time. And although Washington was clearly

offensive-minded in his approach to strategy, the circumstances

created by his military poverty caused him to most often react

defensively to British offensive initiatives.67 The ultimate outcome of

79
that strategyAmerican independenceproved the practicality of

such a common sense approach. Whether its success also proved that

Washington was the Revolution’s indispensable strategist remains a

subject for further investigation and debate.

80
Notes

1. Thomas M. Huber, “Napoleon in Spain and Naples: Fortified Compound

Warfare,” C610: The Evolution of Modern Warfare, Term I Syllabus/Book of

Readings (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army

Command and General Staff College, 1997), 155.

2. John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle

for American Independence (New York: Oxford Press, 1976); James Kirby

Martin, “The Continental Army and the American Victory,” in World Turned

Upside Down: The American Victory in the War of Independence, John Ferling,

ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 21. Martin described the militia as

“acting like a regional constabulary” to help enforce revolutionary zeal and

commitment to the cause.

3. Huber, “Fortified Compound Warfare,” 155.

4. Paul David Nelson, “British Conduct of the American Revolutionary War: A

Review of Interpretations,” Journal of American History 65, no. 3 (December

1978): 637. Nelson notes that “In the southern campaign, loyalists became

central to British political and strategic thinking and were to be liberated as well

as protected in their home territory. By that late stage of the war, however,

Loyalists had been left so many times by British military withdrawals to the

tender mercies of patriot neighbors that they became cynical about promises of

assistance and refused to turn out in support of regular armies. Hence, British

policy toward the king’s friends contributed to a British defeat by putting too

much reliance upon the loyalists’ political potential and too little on their

military potential, that is, until it was too late to emphasize the latter.”

5. To say that the Franco-American force moved “unmolested” from New

England to Virginia is an understatement. So secure had the various colonial

militia made the countryside for the patriot cause that Washington’s and

Rochambeau’s movement to Yorktown at times resembled a triumphal march,

including parades in cities like Philadelphia. Cornwallis’ army’s inability to

subsist in the patriot-controlled country in Virginia and in the Carolinas

dramatically demonstrates the profound advantage the chiefly irregular

operations of the militia provided to the total military effort of the patriot cause.

6. Burke Davis, The Campaign That Won America: The Story of Yorktown (New

York: Dial Press, 1970); Comte de Rochambeau, Memoirs of the Marshal

Count de Rochambeau Relative to the War of Independence of the United

States, M. W. E. Wright, trans. (New York: New York Times and Arno Press,

1971 [1838]); Don Cook, “The Yorktown Stratagem,” Military History

81
Quarterly 8 (Autumn 1995). About 7,000 French troops combined with

Washington’s 6,500 to overpower Cornwallis’ army in a joint, multinational

campaign profoundly influenced by French participation. The last major

conventional military operation of the Revolutionary War, the siege of

Yorktown, helped convince Great Britain’s political leadership to end the war

two years later.

7. Military strategist and strategist are used interchangeably and are interpreted to

mean one who is responsible for the planning, direction, and execution of

military operations to achieve the goals of national policy. The term strategy is

often incorrectly used interchangeably with the term tactics. These terms refer

to two different, albeit related, concepts involving the use of military forces.

While strategy generally pertains to how military forces are created, directed,

moved, deployed, and utilized at the highest levels in order to accomplish the

commander’s ultimate purpose of using these forces to support the goals of

national policy, tactics normally refers to how particular forces are formed and

maneuvered against the enemy once they arrive on the battlefield.

8. John Shy, “George Washington Reconsidered,” The John Biggs Cincinnati

Lectures in Military Leadership and Command, 1986, Harry S. Bausum, ed.

(Lexington, VA: The VMI Foundation, 1986), 51. Typically divergent views of

Washington as strategist include Shy (who doubts Washington had any

particularly good insight for either strategy or tactics) and Dave Richard

Palmer, whose The Way of the Fox: American Strategy in the War for America,

1775-1783 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 204, asserts, “One cannot

ignore... Washington the strategist. And that he possessed unusual strategic

grasp can hardly be doubted. Indeed, even before the word strategy was coined,

George Washington had become this nation’s first strategist and perhaps one of

its best.”

9. Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington, 7 vols. (New York: Charles

Scribner’s Sons, 1948-57), 5: 480-81.

10. John Ferling, “George Washington and the American Victory,” The World

Turned Upside Down: The American Victory in the War of Independence, Jon

Ferling, ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 70.

11. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The National Experience (New York:

Random House, 1965), 337-56; Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington: Man

and Monument (Boston: Little, Brown, 1958); Barry Schwartz, George

Washington: The Making of an American Symbol (New York: Free Press,

1987). Exacerbating the problem and clouding the issue of assessing

Washington’s strategic ability has been the flaw of viewing the Revolution

82
through the distorted lens of American exceptionalism and the often

filiopietistic images of this nation’s first president such a view engenders. In

other words, critical studies of “Washington as Strategist” frequently fall victim

to the worship of “Washington as Monument.” In a chapter titled, “The

Mythologizing of George Washington,” Daniel Boorstin’s The Americans

describes “the desperate need Americans felt for a dignified and worshipful

national hero” in the early years of the republic that resulted “in elevating

Washington to sainthood.” Boorstin points out that America had no “Romulus

and Remus, Aeneas, Charlemagne, Boadicea, St. Joan” or other legendary

figures to draw upon from its relatively short past. Creating the “cultic character

of the Washington legend,” chroniclers like “the notorious [Parson] Mason

Locke Weems” mixed religion and salesmanship to provide early citizens of the

American republic with a hero as monumental and noble as were the republican

ideals upon which the new nation had been founded. What America got,

Boorstin concludes, is a national hero who was “calculatedly concocted to

satisfy the demand” of a new, unique nation searching for symbols in the

absence of an appropriately mythological past. Even the ultimate symbol of

Washington, the monument that bears his name on the Mall in the capital,

“appropriately enough,” celebrates the hero “in a geometric obelisk of abstract

perfection,” not in the form of a real, possibly flawed, human being.

12. Stanley M. Pargellis, “Braddock’s Defeat,” American Historical Review 41

(1936); James Thomas Flexner, Washington: The Indispensable Man (Boston:

Little, Brown, 1969); and Freeman, George Washington.

13. Don Higginbotham, “The Early American Way of War: Reconnaissance and

Appraisal,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 44 (April 1987): 236.

14. Ibid., 236, 256.

15. Jonathan G. Rossie, “Politics and the American Victory,” in Ferling’s World

Turned Upside Down, 136; and Rossie’s The Politics of Command in the

American Revolution (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1975). Shy’s

observation (“Washington Reconsidered,” 41) that Washington was “cleverly

nominated in June 1775 by John Adams as the most available Southerner to lead

what was then still only a New England army” seems a nearly unanimous

assessment.

16. Marshall Smelser, The Winning of Independence (Chicago, IL: Quadrangle

Books, 1972), 375; E. Wayne Carp, To Starve the Army at Pleasure:

Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775-1783

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984); and Charles Royster, A

83
Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character,

1775-1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979).

17. Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military

History of the United States of America (New York: Free Press, 1994 [1984]),

65-83. “For political and psychological reasons,” wrote the authors,

“Washington had to defend the capital.” These reasons also applied to the most

important city in America at the time, New York.

18. Richard Kohn, “The Inside Story of the Newburgh Conspiracy: America and

the Coup d’Etat,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser. (1970); and Paul David

Nelson, “Horatio Gates at Newburgh, 1783: A Misunderstood Role,” William

and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser. (1972).

19. Rossie, Politics of Command; and Smelser, Winning of Independence.

20. Smelser, Winning of Independence, 375.

21. James K. Martin and Mark Lender, A Respectable Army: The Military Origins

of the Republic, 1763-1788 (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1982);

Martin’s essay, “The Continental Army and the American Victory,” in World

Turned Upside Down; Paul David Nelson’s essay, “The American Soldier and

American Victory,” also in World Turned Upside Down; John R. Sellers, “The

Common Soldier in the American Revolution,” in Military History of the

Revolution; Jack C. Lane, “Ideology and the American Military Experience: A

Reexamination of Early American Attitudes Toward the Military,” in Soldiers

and Civilians: The U.S. Army and the American People (Washington, D.C.:

National Archives, 1987); Richard Kohn, “The Social History of the American

Soldier: A Review and Prospectus for Research,” American Historical Review

86 (June 1981); and Royster’s Revolutionary People at War.

22. Nelson, “American Soldier,” 40. He also states that the Revolutionary soldier

was not exclusively white, estimating that 5,000 African-Americans served

during the war.

23. Sellers, “Common Soldier,” 153-55; Royster, Revolutionary People at War,

268, 373-78, while not challenging the poverty of recruits pointed out that,

“none of the studies establish any correlation between a person’s poverty and

his adherence to or lack of revolutionary ideals,” and Sellers reminds readers

that there were, in fact, much more attractive economic opportunities available

than military service.

24. Nelson, “American Soldier,” 40.

25. Ibid.

84
26. Robert Middlekauf, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution,

1763-1789 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 335-36.

27. Charles H. Lesser, ed., Sinews of Independence: Monthly Strength Reports of

the Continental Army (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1976), is

Lesser’s meticulously researched accounting of the official returns of

Continental Army strength, provided by Washington on a regular basis to

Congress. It tracks the ebb and flow of troops into and out of military service

during the Revolution.

28. Ibid., 3-255. These figures do not include the few thousand Continental troops

serving under his subordinates in, more or less, independent operations, such as

Gates’ troops at Saratoga in 1777 or Greene’s in the southern campaign of

1780-81.

29. Davis, Campaign That Won America; Rochambeau, Memoirs; and Cook,

“Yorktown Stratagem.”

30. Don Higginbotham, “The American Militia: A Traditional Institution with

Revolutionary Responsibilities,” in Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary

War: Selected Essays, Don Higginbotham, ed. (Westport, CT: Greenwood

Press, 1978), 84; John K. Mahon, History of the Militia and the National Guard

(New York: Macmillan, 1983), 35-45. Other historians noting this and writing

about it include Martin, “Continental Army”; Nelson, “Citizen Soldiers or

Regulars”; Royster, Revolutionary People at War; and Shy, A People

Numerous and Armed.

31. Shy, “Washington Reconsidered,” 48-49.

32. Ibid.

33. These successes included Gates at Saratoga (1777), Daniel Morgan at Cowpens

(1781), and several of Greene’s engagements during his southern campaign

(1780-81).

34. Maslowski and Millett, For the Common Defense, 58. “One thing the militia

usually could not do,” the authors admit, “was stand alone against large

numbers of enemy regulars. But in most battles militiamen did fight alongside

Continental troops.”

35. Michael D. Pearlman, “The American Revolutionary War: A Complex ‘Little

Conflict’ on the Edge of ‘the Civilized World,’” C610: The Evolution of

Modern Warfare, Term I Syllabus/Book of Readings (Fort Leavenworth, KS:

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Combat Studies Institute,

1997), 98.

85
36. Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States

Military Strategy and Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1973), 3. “Washington’s

[generalship],” wrote Weigley, “was a generalship shaped by military poverty.”

37. For a dissenting opinion of Washington’s view of militia, see Mark V. Kwasny,

Washington’s Partisan War, 1775-1783 (Kent, OH: Kent State University

Press, 1996), 338. Kwasny supports his position that Washington fully

appreciated the value of militia by offering this quote from a letter Washington

wrote to state governors at the end of the war: “The militia of this country must

be considered as the Palladium of our security, and the first effectual resort in

case of hostility.” Yet this is taken out of context and is, therefore, misleading.

Washington was writing of the absolute necessity for Congress to create a

“Peace Establishment” (i.e., regular forces), but he correctly realized that the

independent-minded states would insist on relying upon their state-controlled

militia to a great degree. The point Washington was trying to make was that the

militia of the several states should be made as much like regular forces as

possible. The actual quote continues, “It is essential therefore, that the same

system should pervade the whole; that the formation and discipline of the

militia of the Continent should be absolutely uniform, and that the same species

of Arms, Accoutrements, and Military Apparatus, should be introduced in

every part of the United States; No one, who has not learned it from experience,

can conceive the difficulty, expence [sic], and confusion which result from a

contrary system, or the vague Arrangements which have hitherto prevailed.” In

fact, as the complete quote clearly shows, Washington was, in effect,

condemning the militia, not complimenting it, and the full quote correctly

presents Washington’s opinion of the militia as, essentially, the opposite of

what Kwasny was trying to portray. George Washington, “Circular to State

Governments, June 8, 1783,” George Washington: Writings (New York: The

Library of America, 1997), 524.

38. Martin, “Continental Army,” 20.

39. Huber, “Fortified Compound Warfare,” 155. Huber’s definition of compound

warfare is that it consists of “the systematic and deliberate combining of regular

and irregular forces.”

40. George F. Scheer, “Washington and His Lieutenants: Some Problems in

Command,” Military History of the American Revolution: The Proceedings of

the 6th Military History Symposium, United States Air Force Academy, Stanley

J. Underdahl, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1976), 139.

41. Freeman, George Washington, v: 478; and Scheer, “Some Problems in

Command,” 139.

86
42. Billias, Washington’s Generals, ix.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid., 148, quotes John Adams writing to wife Abigail in exasperation at being

“wearied to death with the wrangles between military officers, high and low.

They quarrell like cats and dogs. They worry one another like mastiffs

scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.”

45. Ibid.

46. Billias, Washington’s Generals, ix-x.

47. Freeman, Washington, v: 479. “Nathanael Greene, Lafayette, and Henry

Knox,” wrote Freeman, “had been all that a commander could ask... Anthony

Wayne probably had been rated next to these three, particularly as a combat

officer, but he had an element of rashness.”

48. Kohn, “American Generals,” 117-18.

49. Hugh F. Rankin, “Washington’s Lieutenants and the American Victory,” in

Ferling’s World Turned Upside Down, 90.

50. John Moncure, The Cowpens Staff Ride and Battlefield Tour (Fort

Leavenworth, KS: U. S. Army Command and General Staff College Press,

1996), 47.

51. Ibid.

52. Richard M. Ketchum, “Bennington,” Military History Quarterly 10, no. 1

(Autumn 1997): 98.

53. Vincent J. Esposito, ed., The West Point Atlas of American Wars, Volume I,

1689-1900 (New York: Praeger, 1959), map 6-6a.

54. Ketchum, “Bennington,” 100. “On the surface,” Ketchum notes, “Baum’s

corps appeared to have an edge in experience and training, yet although Stark’s

men were militia, a good many were veterans of some rough combat duty in the

French wars, around Boston in ’75, and at Trenton and Princeton. On the other

hand, both forces also included a number of men who had probably never before

heard a shot fired in anger, and some of their officers who were in the same

boat.”

55. Ketchum, “Bennington.”

56. Maslowski and Millett, For the Common Defense, 71.

87
57. Moncure, Cowpens Staff Ride, 20. “This,” Moncure assesses, “may have been

the greatest blow to the American cause in the war.”

58. Ibid., 19. Moncure quotes one diary, “it was now almost Fire & Faggot between

Whig & Tory, who were contending for ascendancy[.] continued so till the 15th

or 20th of May [1781].”

59. Maslowski and Millett, For the Common Defense, 75. Greene noted, upon

taking command of the Continental Army in the South, that the bonds of society

had disintegrated as rebels and Tories committed “dreadful, wanton Mischiefs,

Murders, and Violences of every kind, unheard of before.”

60. Ferling, “George Washington,” 67. Throughout the war, Washington

championed a group of younger officers who had two things in common—a

commitment to American victory above personal concerns and total loyalty to

Washington as commander in chief. This group included Lafayette, Henry

Knox, Alexander Hamilton, and Nathanael Greene. Of this group, probably

only Nathanael Greene was capable of rising in stature as a military commander

and strategist to rival Washington. However, Greene had antagonized Congress

when he threatened to resign over the commissioning of French officers early in

the war, and he therefore lacked the necessary political base to challenge the

commander in chief, even if he had wanted to. Such an eventuality seems

unlikely, however, since, as Ferling , 66, reports, “Greene was inclined to be

respectful, almost obsequious, to those in authority... [and] . . . his behavior

towards Washington was nothing if not approbatory.” Washington’s staunch

support of Greene when battlefield calamities in the southern campaign of

1780-81 threatened to discredit him in Congress shows that he recognized

Greene’s loyalty and rewarded it with unconditional support. The officers

Washington supported may have been “his men,” but they all produced positive

results on the battlefield, thereby justifying Washington’s confidence and

support.

61. Maslowski and Millett, For the Common Defense, 75.

62. Moncure, Cowpens Staff Ride, 45.

63. Esposito, West Point Atlas, Map 8c. Morgan’s final, devastating maneuver at

Cowpens, a double envelopment often compared to Hannibal’s classic victory

at Cannae, was lethal but probably serendipitous. Nevertheless, the Virginian’s

tactical dispositions were cleverly made to take maximum advantage of the

terrain and the capabilities of his troops and made the double envelopment

possible.

88
64. Washington, Writings, 484, Letter to Nathanael Greene, 6 February 1783,

Washington, D.C., continues, “If historiographers should be hardy enough to

fill the pages of History with the advantages that have been gained with unequal

numbers (on the part of America) in the course of this contest, and attempt to

relate the distressing circumstances under which they have been obtained, it is

more than probable that Posterity will bestow on their labors the epithet and

marks of fiction; for it will not be believed that such a force as Great Britain has

employed for eight years in this Country could be baffled in their plan of

Subjugating it by numbers infinitely less, composed of Men oftentimes half

starved; always in Rags, without pay, and experiencing, at times, every species

of distress which human nature is capable of undergoing.”

65. Kwasny, Washington’s Partisan War, rightly points out the significant role of

militia in New York and New Jersey, where they “performed vital duties and

participated in all levels of the fighting” over the duration of the war. Indeed,

their control of the countryside around the principal British garrison at New

York City was essential to the prosecution of compound warfare in this region

by preventing the enemy from mounting, after 1778, any significant offensive

against Washington’s Continental Army in the middle states. However, as

Kwasny also notes, “militiamen remained under the authority of their state

governments and served with the army only on a temporary basis.” This,

combined with his well-documented disdain for their fighting qualities,

effectively limited Washington’s ability to incorporate them into the

conventional operations against the British center of gravity that he assumed

would be the culminating battle of the Revolution. Unlike his subordinate,

Greene, he remained unable to integrate militia into his conventional military

strategy beyond their obvious value as local revolutionary constabulary.

66. Shy, “Washington Reconsidered,” 45-47.

67. For opposing opinions on whether Washington’s military strategy was

fundamentally offensive or defensive in nature, see Palmer’s Way of the Fox,

Shy’s A People Numerous and Armed, and “Washington Reconsidered.”

89

Napoleon in Spain and Naples:

Fortified Compound Warfare

Thomas M. Huber

Napoleon said of Spain, “That unfortunate war destroyed me . . . All .

. . my disasters are bound up in that fatal knot.”1 The “fatal knot” that

surprised Napoleon in Spain was a particularly powerful form of

compound warfare. Modern compound warfare is the systematic,

deliberate combining of regular and irregular forces. In the “fortified”

form of modern compound warfare that Napoleon faced in Spain, the

compound operator shields his main force from destruction by means

of a safe haven and a major power alliance. Once the main force

becomes indestructible, it can in turn protect the local militias, making

them indestructible. Once these elements of “fortified” compound

warfare are in place, it is nearly impossible for a conventional operator

to succeed because he must perpetually endure the exhausting,

simultaneous confrontation with both conventional and

unconventional forces.

Guerrilla warfare is as old as human society. Guerrilla warfare used

deliberately in support of the main battle had already become

commonplace by 1750, when 20 percent of the French army was

already organized as light infantry for “small war” missions. At the end

of the eighteenth century, however, guerrilla warfare would be used in a

new and decisively powerful way. The simultaneous application of a

main force and of a widely spread militia force would produce a

powerful complementary effect that seemed greater even than the sum

of its substantial parts and so inflict strategic defeat on what otherwise

appeared to be an overwhelmingly superior adversary. As Clausewitz

put it in his discussion of contemporary warfare, “The stubborn

resistance of the Spaniards.... showed what can be accomplished by

arming a people . . .”2 Conventional force and unconventional force

used prudently together provide a mutual accommodation that an

adversary employing a conventional force alone can hardly hope to

match. A strong operator can defeat this pattern, however, by the simple

expedient of annihilating the minor compound operator’s main force

first, then proceeding to annihilate each respective region’s militia

force. Conversely, for a minor compound operator to prevail against a

larger more developed adversary, the minor operator’s main force must

be perpetually shielded.

91
Let us consider these dynamics as they emerged in Napoleon’s

adventure in Spain from 1808 to 1814. This experience has given us the

modern word “guerrilla,” as well as a new dimension of military

practice. The numbers are telling. France had 320,000 troops in Spain at

the height of its presence in 1810 and a low of 200,000 troops in 1813.3

During their six-year campaign, French forces lost 240,000 men. Of

these, 45,000 were killed in action against conventional forces, 50,000

died of illness and accident, and 145,000 were killed in action against

guerrilla forces.4 French losses in Iberia approached 1 percent of the

entire French population. Indeed, Napoleon lost more French troops in

Spain than in Russia. These were large numbers that France could not

afford, numbers that might have turned the strategic tide at Leipzig or at

Waterloo.

Meanwhile, Wellington’s army in Spain at its height had only about

40,000 troops, with some 25,000 Portuguese forces attached.5 In other

words, the French enjoyed a conventional force advantage of four to

one or better through most of their six-year campaign. Analysts

calculate membership in Spanish guerrilla bands to have been about

50,000. Even if these are added to Wellington’s conventional force, the

French still enjoyed a favorable force ratio of almost 2.2 to 1.6 In spite

of their numerical force advantage, however, the French were defeated

badly. Obviously, the Anglo-Iberian allies were somehow getting more

out of their numbers than the French were. Let us explore some of the

other features of the Spanish campaign to determine what those

advantageous allied methods were.

Both the physical and social environments in Spain seemed

favorable to guerrilla action. The terrain was in many areas

mountainous, barren, or both. The road net was sparse. This made it

easier for guerrillas to conceal themselves and harder for a regular force

to live off the land or to move supplies if not living off the land. Besides

this, the local agricultural communities in the Iberian countryside were

largely self-sufficient economically and so were always in supply. For

us in the early twenty-first century, the physical and social

environments in Iberia may suggest some approximate analogies to the

conditions of the recent Soviet-Russian campaign in Afghanistan

(1979-88).7

The initial uprisings in May 1808 against the French were

spontaneous actions by the population, not guerrilla actions. Guerrilla

bands began emerging only later in 1808, evidently because of the

power vacuum that developed when the French dissolved the authority

of the Spanish crown but failed to establish effective authority of their

92
own. Leadership of the guerrilla bands varied, some chiefs being

former soldiers or peasants but others being educated persons with

local influence. There was variety also in the numbers of guerrillas each

chief led, the largest bands mustering several thousand. The bands were

organized in different ways, and there was some variety in their tactics,

though in general their treatment of collaborators and prisoners was by

modern standards harsh. Although local bands were not centrally

linked either by organizational structure or by philosophy, almost all of

them shared an enthusiastic devotion to Catholicism and an

enthusiastic rejection of the revolutionary French—two ideas that were

closely related in their minds. Still, the complete absence of structure

unifying the guerrillas made it a challenge to coordinate them on a large

scale, the more so since local bands sometimes viewed each other as

enemies and commonly feuded among themselves.8

The political environment offered other features that may interest us.

Spanish liberals in the towns tended to accept French rule because they

associated it with liberal reform. Peasants in the countryside rejected

French rule for the same reason and, indeed, had traditionally harbored

an antagonism toward the predominant influence of the liberal towns,

which seemed to exact large taxes from the countryside without giving

much back. There were two social classes in Spain: urban liberals and

rural traditionalists. The traditions of the latter may not have changed

much since medieval times.9 French power allied itself with Spanish

urban liberals, and British power allied itself with Spanish rural

traditionalists.

For the British, especially, this must have been almost entirely an

alliance of political convenience. The thing to note here, however, is

that a conflict between indigenous social classes became linked to an

international conflict between great powers. Each power allied itself

with an indigenous social class. A local class struggle thus became

enmeshed with a global rivalry between great powers. This experience

was especially perplexing for the French, who tried to reorganize

Spanish society according to their own cherished liberal ideals and

were astonished to discover that this only made the indigenous

population—at least the major part that dwelled in the

countryside—more resistant.

The struggle between the French regulars and the Spanish rural

guerrillas was characterized by dueling propaganda activities. French

officers publicly declared and personally believed that the French

presence in Spain represented superior enlightened views and superior

enlightened rule. They saw the Spanish peasant guerrillas as

93
superstitious and therefore backward persons who could only be

controlled by force and who therefore deserved to be. Meanwhile, the

French public was told that Spain as a whole welcomed French rule and

that only a few misguided bandits opposed the occupation.10 On the

Spanish peasant side, philosophical leadership was exercised by the

local clergy. Local priests encouraged the peasants to believe that

besides being alien, the French troops threatened the peasants’

religion—beliefs and practices that were at the very core of their way of

life. The priests portrayed the French as unholy and unwholesome and

as therefore deserving any unhappy fate that might befall them. In other

words, the priests stirred up fanatical religious beliefs and brought

those to bear in the struggle against the French. Priests in some cases led

the guerrilla bands.11 In fact, this was a propaganda duel between two

utterly unlike philosophical systems: revolutionary rationality and

religious fanaticism. Neither side enjoyed any success whatever in

persuading the other to accept its views. This wide philosophical gap

may have contributed to the widespread practice in Spain of harsh

reprisals, what French public opinion at the time and most observers

today would perceive as atrocities. The Spanish peasantry probably had

harsher traditions of public violence than the French army, which

prided itself on being an enlightened institution in an enlightened

postrevolutionary society. At home, the French government had

recently discarded cruel and unusual punishments as part of the

revolutionary settlement. However, once in theater and widely exposed

to atrocities, French troops, unfortunately, came to reciprocate them.

French commanders may have believed that, in the circumstances, it

was the only way to influence the conduct of their adversary.12

Having briefly explored the physical, social, and political

environments, let us consider the Spanish guerrillas’ tactics. The

Spanish guerrillas had a reputation for attacking only when they had

local superiority; otherwise they dispersed and vanished. As St. Cyr put

it, the guerrillas “attacked anywhere that . . . conditions favored them,

fled . . . whenever they were not the strongest, and disappeared.” Such a

system, according to St. Cyr, “must . . . destroy the most numerous. . . of

armies, obliged as they were to fritter their strength away in mobile

columns and convoy escorts.”13 It was the guerrilla custom to attack

supply convoys, foraging parties, and armed columns that patrolled the

countryside to collect taxes.l4The guerrilla bands functioned as a police

force in that they inflicted harsh reprisals whenever they could on

collaborators in their own locales. This reduced the population

somewhat but also greatly reduced all forms of collaboration.

94
Guerrillas also made a point of capturing French couriers.15 In a word,

the guerrillas, relying on mobility and local superiority, denied the

French supplies, funds, services, and intelligence in their districts.

The effect of these guerrilla tactics on the French force was

pronounced. Everything the French tried to do became expensive in

manpower. Their friction ratio in all things was dramatically increased.

This is why the French lost eighty men a day for six and a half years just

to maintain their garrisons and communications. Total French

casualties, 240,000, eventually were about equal to the size of the force

France originally sent to Spain. French troops came to regard

assignment to Spain as a one-way trip. Constant exposure to harsh

reprisals and death was in itself dismaying to the French forces. General

Mathieu Dumas wrote that, “I used to travel over that assassin’s

countryside as warily as if it were a volcano.”16

Besides persistent casualties, French troops suffered from

diminished pay, hunger, and disease. Napoleon declined to recognize

that the struggle in the Spanish countryside was a police and policy

struggle and not just a military and operational struggle. He therefore

required that his major forces in Spain support themselves in theater.

This meant French armies had to take what they needed, funds and

foodstuffs, from the countryside in the form of taxes and requisitions.

This policy, operationally sound but politically catastrophic, served to

increase the antagonism of the rural population, making the French

forces’ task even harder. Moreover, given the resolute resistance to this

by guerrillas, French troops gathering in taxes and grains suffered

frequent losses of their comrades yet still could not collect funds and

foods sufficient to their needs. They could not collect the grain in the

countryside, and even if they collected it in one place, they could not

move it to another. French troops were therefore underpaid and

undernourished. Being undernourished, they also had a high rate of

illness, 20 percent higher than in their central European operations. By

the end of the campaign, French commanders experienced a high rate of

desertion. The French force, exposed to the guerrilla environment, was

attrited, poor, hungry, sick, and AWOL. By the end of the campaign,

many French troops were reluctant to engage. By that point, the tactical

theory of the sadder and wiser veterans amounted to staying inside their

isolated forts and hoping for better days.17

French commanders attempted to overcome guerrilla resistance with

the only asset available to them, more force. Moving a convoy safely

across Spain required a cavalry escort of 200 men in 1808. By 1813,

French commanders used 1,000. Because couriers were intercepted,

95
French commanders sent three couriers hoping one would get through.

This, though, greatly increased the likelihood that the guerrillas and the

British would get at least one copy of each message. The French

responded with codes, to which the British answer was code

breaking.18

Guerrilla tactical methods and their consequent stress on the French

force had an operational effect on the conventional-force battle. The

effect was that the French could never concentrate much force for the

main battle because so much force was required for absolutely essential

rear area support functions, starting with the movement of food,

armament, and funds. Because of the small war for survival going on

everywhere, the French had little force left to fight in the main battle. In

other words, the French did not have the enormous force that would

have been needed to fight the ubiquitous small war and the great war

simultaneously.

The dilemma posed by these two dimensions of the conflict

constantly perplexed the French strategic commanders. If they

withdrew forces from in front of Wellington to consolidate local

control, Wellington would advance. If they withdrew forces from local

garrisons to face Wellington, local guerrillas could move into the

vacuum and reestablish local control.

The challenges posed to French commanders by the guerrilla threat

are, of course, well known. However, what made the Iberian campaign

unique for the day and what made it a major new departure in the history

of modern warfare were not the methods used by the guerrillas, which

though formidable had a very long history, but the methods used by

Wellington. Wellington, with a force of under 40,000, defeated forces

of over 200,000, which means that he was not only doing something

right but also doing many things right. The story is often told of his

efficient prosecution of the main force war on the Lisbon—Cuidad

Rodrigo—Burgos—Bayonne axis (see map). Lisbon was the British

supply point, and Bayonne was the French supply point. British or

French forces surged back and forth on this axis from 1808 to 1814,

much as Montgomery and Rommel later would in North Africa,

according to who was rich in resources at the moment.

Effective command in the main battle was just the beginning of

Wellington’s achievement, however. Wellington understood and used

the guerrilla movement effectively. Most of the guerrilla chiefs’

military awareness did not go beyond the boundaries of their local

districts. Wellington, however, had intellectual control over the whole

Spanish theater and indeed theaters beyond. He therefore was keen to

96
97

Map 1
coordinate the Spanish guerrilla operations with main force operations.

He went out of his way to maintain good relations with the Spanish

resistance government at Cadiz and with a number of guerrilla chiefs,

even though this was not easy and even when he had little in common,

philosophically or culturally, with these groups. Wellington had no

structural authority over guerrilla chiefs, and except for opposition to

the French, little common philosophy. He nonetheless found that he

could successfully coordinate guerrilla actions simply by giving

guerrilla chiefs operational advice and then rewarding those who

carried out this advice with funds, arms, and supplies. Wellington

established partial operational control over a number of guerrilla bands

through this simple system, which, unlike the coercive systems the

French employed, inspired gratitude, not resentment. When

Wellington planned major offensives in 1809, 1811, 1812, and 1813, he

stirred up simultaneous guerrilla activity in many parts of Spain to fix

the French forces in place. Wellington also required his guerrilla chiefs

to regularly bring him intelligence. This led at times to astonishing

intelligence windfalls.19

Wellington discovered what other commanders have discovered

since, that regular and irregular forces are by their nature

complementary. Irregular forces can provide their regular confreres

with intelligence and expedite their supply and, at the same time,

constrain the intelligence and supply of the enemy in the main battle.

Regular forces can protect the irregular ones by drawing away or

repelling enemy forces and providing irregular forces with materiel,

specialized training, and the information they need for coordinated

action. Since regular and irregular forces draw largely on different

resource bases, they can both operate near their maximum potential at

the same time. Regular and irregular forces are by their nature

complementary, and there are many rewards for the commander who

understands this.

Wellington’s policies for mobilizing the guerrillas are of the greatest

importance for the evolution of modern warfare because they show that

Wellington was a self-conscious practitioner of modern compound

warfare. He added an entire dimension to war. He understood perfectly

the double pressure the French forces were subjected to and therefore

did everything he could to increase that pressure and exploit it. This

makes Wellington one of the first major commanders to grasp and

exploit the potentialities of modern compound warfare, that is, using

regular and irregular force complementarily and together. Wellington

98
succeeded in part because he had quickly mastered the still new art of

compound war.

Moreover, Wellington exploited other advantageous methods at his

disposal to practice “fortified” compound warfare. These methods

included, notably, establishing a safe haven for his army and cultivating

the advantages of alliance between the technologically advanced major

power he represented and the insurgent indigenous power. Adding the

elements of safe haven and major power alliance to his compound

warfare system in effect made this a very powerful “fortified”

compound warfare system, the significance of which will become clear

momentarily. Wellington even went beyond fortified compound

warfare to do several other resourceful things: he maximized his

opportunities in the areas of joint and multinational warfare. Insofar as

he could, Wellington coordinated his operations with main force

Spanish operations directed by the Spanish Supreme Junta at Cadiz. In

other words, he practiced multinational warfare. Also noteworthy is

Wellington’s reliance on joint warfare and on the technical and tactical

advantages this made possible. He worked closely with and made full

use of the Royal Navy. From the start, Wellington established a safe

haven for his small army at Lisbon that was protected by a triple

defensive line across the narrow Lisbon peninsula at Torres Vedras.

Wellington’s lines behind this secure Lisbon base were all seaborne

and so absolutely secure from interdiction by the French army. In other

words, Wellington used the technical superiority of a sister service to

provide security for his lines that was effortless and absolute. Because

of this arrangement, it was almost impossible for the French to destroy

Wellington’s small army. In the worst case, the British troops had only

to withdraw to their secure base at Torres Vedras and depart by sea.

This meant that no matter what else the French did in Spain, they would

always have to face a British force in being.

Besides using the Royal Navy to provide absolute security for his

lines, Wellington used the navy for offensive actions against objectives

on land. Wellington used a small but mobile naval force to constantly

threaten the whole eastern and southern coasts of Spain. He used his

regular naval forces to replicate the kinds of operations that were

otherwise carried out by Spanish guerrillas and with the same

consequence of pinning French forces in place. In other words, this was

a regular force using irregular tactics. A small strike force of five

frigates, two sloops, and two marine battalions carried out quick coastal

sieges, seizing a coastal town for a few days, then withdrawing to the

sea. Because the British had exclusive control of the sea, a

99
technological leverage, they could conduct this raiding strategy—using

regular forces and guerrilla methods at will—thus holding large

numbers of French forces in place and out of the main battle.20

Wellington was the strategic master in the Spanish theater. With

40,000 troops he defeated 200,000. He was able to prevail in this effort

because he was militarily resourceful enough to employ modern

compound warfare, that is, guerrilla warfare in concert with

conventional warfare. But he also used every other leverage at his

disposal, and many of these leverages were only available to a populous

and highly structured major power. He used not only all the leverage

that the traditional agrarian fighters gave him but also all the leverages

that the world’s most technologically advanced nation gave him. He

cheerfully used these leverages together. Besides that, Wellington was

wise enough to maintain an alliance with the Spanish Supreme Junta at

Cadiz, who also at times had a conventional force in the field. The

upshot of all this was that Napoleon, who sent a quarter of a million men

to face Wellington’s 40,000, was still outnumbered. In Spain, the

French lost and Wellington won, and he won because he was master of a

particularly powerful kind of modern compound warfare, what might

be called “fortified” compound warfare (whose effects, of course,

Wellington amplified further by skillful application of joint and

multinational warfare). Wellington was able to apply conventional and

unconventional pressures simultaneously and persistently because his

main force was effectively secured, or fortified, by safe haven and a

major power alliance.

The crucial importance of “fortifying” the main force can be better

grasped if we consider what had happened a few years before in Naples,

where in the years 1806 to 1811, the French had conducted what had

appeared to be a similar campaign and decisively won. In 1806,

Napoleon deposed the rulers of the kingdom of Naples in favor of his

brother Joseph. In March 1806, Joseph’s armies defeated the reigning

Bourbons’ conventional army at Campo Tenese. The British navy,

which controlled southern Italian waters, landed a ground force that

defeated the French at Maida in July 1806 but was evacuated in August

and did not return. Thereafter, the British navy protected the Bourbon

court in exile in Sicily but otherwise remained apart from the struggle

for Southern Italy. Withdrawal of the British ground forces in August

did not mean an end to the French campaign, however, because

Joseph’s successor, Murat, also faced widespread local guerrilla

uprisings in the Southern Italian territories south of Naples. As in Spain

later, the more liberal populations of the cities tended to accept French

100
reforms and French rule. As in Spain, the more traditionalist agrarian

communities of the villages rejected French rule. Priests encouraged

the peasants to believe that the French threatened their religion and their

way of life. Local guerrilla leaders, whom the French regarded as

bandits, rose up against the French and practiced harsh reprisals against

them, which French troops, as in Spain, eventually reciprocated.

The outcome of the guerrilla uprisings in Southern Italy was quite

unlike that in Spain, however. Major French forces in Southern Italy,

with no conventional adversary to face, advanced around the southern

Italian peninsula reducing port cities that might accommodate

still-threatened British landings. When this was done, French forces

tracked down the guerrilla bands one by one and executed the leaders.

French commanders implemented this by establishing firm control

over each of the villages in the guerrillas’ vicinity, rigorously

preventing the guerrillas’ receipt of food from the villages and thus

forcing the guerrillas to come out of hiding and engage. As in Spain,

food tended to be the weapon of decision. The last resisting bandit

leader was killed in combat in 1811, leaving Southern Italy securely in

French hands. In the end, the French obtained everything they wanted

in the kingdom of Naples, albeit at the cost of 20,000 casualties and a

five-year campaign.

The similarities of the guerrilla campaigns in Spain and in Southern

Italy are remarkable. In both cases, conventional French forces faced a

general uprising of guerrilla bands. In both cases, there was a struggle

of ideas between revolutionary rationality, represented by the French,

and the religious conviction adhered to by the villagers. In both cases,

the French resorted to the resolute application of force. The results of

the respective Spanish and Southern Italian campaigns were

diametrically opposite, however. It was theoretically possible for

conventional forces to defeat a general guerrilla uprising in what

Jomini called a “war of opinion.” In Southern Italy, French forces

actually did so.21 In fact, French forces conducted a number of

campaigns against guerrilla insurgencies in the years of the Revolution

and Napoleon—in the Vendee, in the Tyrol, and in Tuscany, as well as

in Southern Italy and in Spain.22 French forces prevailed in all of these

contests except the last which they disastrously lost. Those with a

serious interest in the evolution of modern warfare must ask why. What

dynamics dictated the categorically different outcomes in what

appeared to be similar cases?

Our two cases, Southern Italy and Spain, represented two

significantly different forms of modern compound war: “ordinary” and

101
“fortified.” Ordinary compound war deliberately mobilizes regular and

irregular forces in a complementary way. Fortified compound war does

this but also strengthens the main force and makes it invulnerable by

adding the advantages of safe haven and a major power ally. Usually the

leverages of compound war can be sustained in a protracted conflict

only if the compound operator “fortifies” his main force because, as a

practical matter, only fortified methods allow a minor compound

operator to maintain a regular force reliably in the field against a

resolute major-power operator. Since the regular force will perpetually

secure or revive the regional irregular forces, survival of the regular

force also means the survival of the irregular forces. Fortification

actually guarantees the survival of both kinds of force. Unceasing

existence of both kinds of force compels the adversary to conduct

exhausting, simultaneous warfare indefinitely against both kinds of

force. This is why fortified operations usually win. The adversary faces

major casualties from both conventional and unconventional forces on

a perpetual basis with no hope of resolution. The adversary may be

overcome directly by exposure to both kinds of force. Even if not, when

he eventually realizes his problem is unsolvable, he is likely to

withdraw from the campaign without having gained his objectives,

without “winning.” The fortified operator, thus, may win either directly

or by default.

It should be immediately apparent that several factors significantly

differentiated the “fortified” Iberian case from the Neapolitan case. In

Spain, but not in Southern Italy, the resistance to the French enjoyed

certain advantages: (1) simultaneous and continuous pressure by

conventional and unconventional force, (2) a conventional force that

was continuously in being and indestructible because it had a safe

haven (Torres Vedras), and (3) a great power ally (Britain) that matched

or exceeded the adversary in technological means, global diplomatic

means, and other means one expects to find at the disposal of a major

power. The essence of this powerful complex of levers was, of course,

the first advantage: simultaneous application of regular and irregular

force. In practice, however, this could not be achieved against an

organizationally and technologically superior power without some

combination of the second and third levers. A larger, more developed

enemy force will normally track down and destroy a smaller,

less-developed conventional force unless the latter can escape to some

kind of safe haven. (Whether the safe haven is determined

geographically, technologically, diplomatically, or in some other way

is immaterial.) Moreover, unless a major power ally neutralizes the

102
technological advantages of the more developed enemy, the friendly

main force may not be viable enough or mobile enough to even survive

to reach its safe haven. The allied power may also add a mass of forces,

global diplomatic resources, and numerous other important

advantages. To keep the guerrilla movement alive, the main force must

be kept alive. Keeping the main force alive in the presence of a

technologically superior enemy force seems to require both a safe

haven and a technologically competent major power ally. Historically,

operators who, like Wellington, have brought all three of these

elements to bear—regular and irregular forces, safe havens, major

power allies—have almost always prevailed against superior numbers.

Naples and Spain exemplify ordinary and fortified compound war

respectively. Ordinary compound war, such as Napoleonic forces faced

in Southern Italy, is difficult to defeat. Fortified compound war, such as

Napoleonic forces faced in Spain, is nearly impossible to defeat. This

distinction between the difficult and the impossible is extremely

important for military planners to be aware of. In other words, ordinary

and fortified compound war have different characteristic outcomes,

which are usefully illustrated by our two Napoleonic cases. The Iberian

outcome, where the invaded minor power defeats the invading major

power, occurs when the three elements of fortified compound war are

effectively brought to bear, as we have seen. The Neapolitan outcome,

where the invading major power defeats the invaded minor power,

occurs where the strategic operator of the major power (1) destroys the

adversary’s main force, (2) takes steps to preclude intervention by

another major power, and then (3) destroys the guerrilla movement in

the regions by a main force at his leisure. This sequence, especially the

initial elimination of the foe’s main force, seems to be typical of

historical cases, such as the Boer War, where the major power has

prevailed against an ordinary compound-war operator. These cases

seem to show that victory against an ordinary compound operator is

costly but possible; victory against a fortified compound operator is in

most cases not possible—a crucial distinction. (The operator seeking

victory against a fortified adversary must first attempt to defortify

him—somehow decisively overcome the barriers of his safe haven or

somehow dissolve his major power alliance.)

The three techniques of fortified compound warfare—if they can be

successfully applied despite the enemy’s efforts to frustrate

them—greatly multiply the leverages of the practitioners such that it is

almost impossible to defeat them. At the least, a different calculus of

force must be used when a conventional operator faces a fortified

103
compound operator. Such a calculus must anticipate and explain how

40,000 troops may outnumber, in effect, 200,000. The best analysts

understood the need for such a calculus at the time. Clausewitz knew

that the dynamics of warfare of a “people in arms” were different from

those of other warfare. Jomini also cautioned that his celebrated

principles of war could not be directly applied in wars where one faced

“an army and a people in arms.”23

The significance of the dynamics of compound warfare—especially

fortified compound war—for the development of modern war is great,

because in conflicts since Napoleon’s time, fortified compound

operators seem usually to prevail, and the opponents of resourceful

fortified operators seem usually to fail. This is useful information for

planners. It would be going too far to assume that knowledge of the

dynamics of modern compound war would allow an analyst to predict

the outcome of a campaign. But it might be fair to say that a grasp of the

dynamics of compound war would enhance planners’ abilities to judge

the outcome of certain campaigns.

In order to achieve a better comprehension of the nature of

compound war and its usefulness for analyzing modern conflicts, let us

briefly consider two matching pairs of instructive cases in modern U.S.

experience: the American War of Independence, 1775-83 and the U.S.

Civil War, 1861-65; the Philippine Insurrection, 1899-1902 and the

U.S-Vietnam War, 1965-72. In each of these cases, which are fairly

familiar to most serious U.S. students of military history today, a power

with distinctly lesser population and industry opposed a power with

distinctly more population and industry. In each case, the contest as

embraced by the lesser power seemed to have been imprudent at best. In

each case, the lesser power won, nevertheless, if it applied the three

elements of fortified compound war, but lost if it did not. These

examples represent a whole category of unequal and hard-to-predict

cases, cases where estimating conventional force ratios seems to give

results that are erratic. This apparently erratic analytic effect can be

overcome, however, if the analyst applies the model of fortified

compound warfare to the case. If the three classical elements of

fortified compound warfare are present, the observer may know that he

must use an unconventional calculus, a kind of calculus where 40,000

troops outnumber 200,000. In those fortified cases and in them alone,

the smaller, less-developed power may prevail. The three-criterion

template of fortified compound warfare seems to provide a remarkably

reliable explanation of outcomes over a remarkably wide variety of

104
cases, cases that span broad differences in time, place, and political

culture.

In the American War of Independence, 1775-83, a population of 2.5

million opposed a population of 9 million ̄a country with

more-developed industries, a world class navy, and a global empire.

The attempt might have seemed foolhardy, but the colonial leaders

boldly went forward. They prevailed because Washington and the

Continental Congress had the wisdom to apply simultaneous pressure

through both the Continental Army and militia forces throughout the

country; because these same authorities kept a conventional army

continuously in being that was practically indestructible since

Washington could always withdraw into the great interior the British

did not control—a safe haven; and because a major power, France,

allied with the embattled colonists to neutralize the technological

advantage the British wielded on the sea, provided additional

conventional forces on the ground, furnished diplomatic means and

global legitimacy, and otherwise provided accommodations at the

disposal of a major power. In other words, Washington seemed

beleaguered, yet his force defeated a much larger redcoated force and

the empire behind it. This was because Washington was able to

resourcefully apply all the major leverages of fortified compound

warfare. (Of course, this was not the work of Washington alone but

grew out of a collective effort by the community that favored

independence, including notably Nathanael Greene, who masterfully

combined regular and irregular forces in the southern theater, and

Benjamin Franklin, who appreciated the need for and energetically

sought out the French alliance.) Washington and his resourceful

colleagues obliged the British to deal with an entirely different calculus

of war. Although the social and cultural context of the North American

case differed in many ways from that of the Iberian case, the operational

dynamics of fortified compound war seemed to function similarly.

Washington’s achievement antedated Wellington’s by half a lifetime.

The argument could plausibly be made that Washington, along with

adept military colleagues such as Nathanael Greene and the steadfast

statesmen in the Continental Congress, were the true authors of

modern, fortified compound war, even though the forces deployed by

the respective sides were only a fraction of the forces that would later be

deployed in Spain.

The leaders of the Southern Confederacy in 1861 self-consciously

wished to follow in the footsteps of Washington’s success. With a free

population of 5.5 million, they chose to stand against a population of 22

105
million that possessed more-developed industries and predominant

naval power. By any conventional estimation of force ratios, this effort

might have seemed unwise. For Southern statesmen, however, the most

compelling historical example was naturally Washington’s. If they

applied Washington’s unconventional calculus, they could win. They

could overcome the great odds against them, as Washington had. But

did Southern statesmen understand the dynamics that had allowed

Washington to win and could they apply them? The answer ultimately

was no. The South from 1861 to 1865 successfully implemented none

of the three criteria of modern fortified compound war. Therefore, the

military contest developed as a wearing struggle between conventional

armies in which Southern forces, though brilliantly marshaled, were

overcome. Southern leaders relied on conventional forces and never

envisioned or tried to prosecute a general uprising. The Confederacy

had a policy of maintaining conventional forces in being but had no safe

haven that would guarantee their security; Union armies could go

wherever Southern ones did and compel engagement. Let us note also,

that historically, successful minor operators have usually avoided main

force engagements unless and until the major operator’s preponderant

power was somehow compromised; they won by not losing. The

Confederacy followed the opposite policy and tried to win by winning.

This active operational policy, like the absence of safe haven, made it

difficult for the C.S.A. to keep its all-important main force in being. For

the minor-power operator, persistence rather than predominance may

be the more effective approach. Of course, such a policy of avoiding

engagement may only delay the final outcome for the minor-power

operator against a determined adversary unless the operator also has the

advantage of a safe haven or of a great open space combined with

superior mobility, which is the functional equivalent of a safe haven.

Though the South eagerly courted British intervention on its side, the

British never obliged. The main elements of fortified compound

warfare—the compounding of regular and irregular leverages, the safe

haven, the major power ally—were all absent from the Southern war

effort. The outcome of their enterprise thus hinged on conventional

force ratios, not on ratios of the exceptional calculus available to

Washington. If Confederate statesmen had more perfectly appreciated

the extraordinary methods that had allowed Washington to prevail, they

might have had a clearer understanding of real outcomes when they

made their plans in 1861.

The twentieth century has also brought the United States into wars in

which societies with lesser populations and industries have faced those

106
with larger ones and in which lesser operators have hoped to prevail

through guerrilla methods. One of these was the Philippine Insurrection

of 1899 to 1902. In this conflict, a resolute major power defeated an

ordinary compound-war operator. The United States, having defeated

Spain in the Spanish-American War, sought in 1899 to establish U.S.

authority in the former Spanish possession of the Philippines. Thus,

near Manila in February 1899, U.S. forces collided with Philippine

liberation forces under Emilio Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo’s army lost this

battle and withdrew from Manila. U.S. forces were unable to

effectively pursue until November 1899 when they attacked across the

Luzon plain and dispersed the Filipino army. Filipino guerrilla leaders

continued to resist, however, in the various regions.

The U.S. Army in the Philippines, with no conventional force to

face, developed rigorous methods for pacifying the guerrillas. They

established U.S. garrisons throughout the islands, gathered the civilian

population around those garrisons to protect them and prevent their

aiding the guerrillas, then patrolled actively from the garrisons.

Without food and other assistance from the population and militarily

pressured, guerrilla leaders began to surrender in February 1901. (Food

in this case, as in Naples and Spain and many other cases, tended to be

the weapon of decision.) Aguinaldo himself was captured in March. By

the summer of 1902, pacification of the guerrillas was substantially

complete. Aguinaldo was prepared to use regular and irregular force

together, the essential leverage of compound warfare; however, when

his conventional force was dispersed, U.S. forces were free to establish

dominant control in the countryside and use imposed food shortages, as

the French had in Naples, to force the guerrillas to engage. Without a

conventional force in being to oblige the U.S. forces to concentrate,

U.S. forces were free to disperse, pursue, and defeat the guerrilla bands,

and did. Napoleon’s classic Southern Italian sequence—eliminate the

main force first—worked for the Americans in the Philippines.

Aguinaldo could not keep a regular force in being, though he grasped

the advantages of doing so. This was because he had no safe haven that

would exempt his smaller force from engagement and no great power

ally to neutralize the Americans’ decisive technical and other large

organizational advantages. Aguinaldo had a robust guerrilla movement

to rely on, but guerrilla action of itself does not constitute modern

compound warfare and can often be defeated by a resolute major

power, as guerrillas were in the Kingdom of Naples in 1811. The

Philippine case, like the Neapolitan case, demonstrates the

107
characteristic outcome of ordinary compound war, as distinct from

fortified compound war.

The U.S.-Vietnam conflict, 1965 to 1972, was superficially similar

in many of its attributes to the Philippine Insurrection of 1899 to 1902,

and yet the Vietnam conflict hardly was similar to the Philippine

Insurrection because Vietnamese operators practiced fortified

compound war, and the Filipinos did not. In both cases an armed

population in Southeast Asia opposed determined forces of the U.S.

Army. A smaller, less-developed society opposed a larger,

more-developed society, hoping for good results by relying on guerrilla

methods. North Vietnamese statesmen relied on several advantages

unavailable to Aguinaldo, however. Their main force, though far

smaller than the Americans’, could never be destroyed because it

enjoyed a safe haven in the form of the North Vietnamese and

Cambodian borders, which U.S. forces could not cross because of

diplomatic pressures. Since the North Vietnamese Army could never be

destroyed, U.S. forces were perplexed throughout by the dilemma of

whether to prosecute the main battle or the guerrilla battle. Moreover,

the North Vietnamese had two great power allies, Russia and China,

who neutralized the technological and other major organizational

advantages of the Americans. The U.S. had decisive technological

advantages over the North Vietnamese, but this fact was moot because

the U.S. did not face the North Vietnamese but rather an alliance of

which the North Vietnamese were a part and over which the United

States had no decisive technological superiority. The North

Vietnamese leaders made resourceful, maximum use of all of the

criteria of fortified compound warfare—regular with irregular force, a

safe haven, and major power allies. Like Wellington and Washington,

they employed the elements of fortified compound warfare to create an

environment where a different calculus of warfare applied, a calculus

highly favorable to themselves. One wonders if U.S. planners in 1965,

like Confederate planners in 1861, did not suffer from insufficient

intellectual control over the dynamics of modern compound warfare:

what they were, when and how they might operate, and with what likely

consequences.

Napoleon’s experiences in his Spanish and Neapolitan campaigns

would cast long shadows. They provided a classic doctrinal school for

an important category of subsequent conflicts in modern warfare.

Above all, Wellington’s work defined the “fatal knot” of fortified

compound warfare: a conventional force that was indestructible

combined with a guerrilla force that was ubiquitous. Guerrilla war was

108
hardly new in 1808, but the “fatal knot” was new (although Washington

had used these same methods on a smaller scale earlier). These

sophisticated methods have been a continuous force in modern warfare

in the centuries since Napoleon, across a broad span of time, place, and

cultures. Those who wish to understand and explain the outcomes of

modern warfare need to know when they can apply the calculus of

conventional force ratios and when they must apply the extraordinary

calculus of fortified compound warfare, by whose leverages 40,000

may, in the correct circumstances, defeat 200,000.

109

Notes

1. Napoleon Bonaparte, Memorial de Sainte-Helene, Vol. 1 (Paris: 1961 [1823]),

609-10; quoted in John L. Tone, “The Fatal Knot: Popular Resistance and

Guerrilla Warfare in Navarre, 1808-1814” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University,

1989), vi.

2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

1976), 220.

3. David G. Chandler, “Wellington in the Peninsula,” 155-65, in David G.

Chandler, On the Napoleonic Wars(London: Greenhill, 1994), 156. (Hereafter

referred to as “Peninsula.”)

4. David G. Chandler, “Wellington and the Guerrillas,” 166-80, in Chandler,

Napoleonic Wars, 172. (Hereafter referred to as “Guerrillas.”)

5. Chandler, “Guerrillas,” 173.

6. The number 250,000 divided by 115,000 yields 2.2. See Chandler,

“Guerrillas,” 173, for the 50,000 figure. Note also, however, that some analysts

believe that force ratios in Spain were more favorable to Wellington than these

numbers suggest. They would argue that naval strength should also be put in his

column, as well as the numerous guerrillas who were only active intermittently.

7. Chandler, “Guerrillas,” 172.

8. Ibid., 170-71, 173, 175-76.

9. Cf. Tone, 224-25; cf. Chandler, “Guerrillas,” 171. In ibid., 173, Chandler

points out that as many as 30,000 “liberals” and townsmen may have been

eliminated by the guerrillas. These were, of course, liberals in the eighteenth

and nineteenth century sense, that is, persons who were nonetheless very

conservative with regard to the way such terms are usually used today.

10. Tone, 28-29, 32, 35-36, 550.

11. Ibid., 221; Chandler, “Guerrillas,” 176.

12. Chandler, “Guerrillas,” 174.

13. Quoted in ibid., 175.

14. Tone, 16-17.

15. Chandler, “Guerrillas,” 173-74.

111
16. Ibid., 172, 174. For Dumas quote, see Chandler, “Peninsula,” 157.

17. Don W. Alexander, Rod of Iron (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1985),

xvii, 233, 237-38.

18. Chandler, “Guerrillas,” 174.

19. Ibid., 171, 173-74, 177.

20. Ibid., 177.

21. The best recent scholarship on the Naples campaign is Milton Finley’s The

Most Monstrous of Wars(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994).

Most of the brief account given here is drawn from Finley’s insightful study.

22. For a discussion of religious motivation in all these cases, see Finley, 145.

23. Clausewitz, 47-83; Antoine de Jomini, The Art of War, 389-557, in Roots of

Strategy, Book 2, J. D. Hittle, ed. (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1987), 444-45.

112
Compound Warfare on the Great

Plains: A Missed Opportunity

Jerold E. Brown

The promise inherent in compound warfare is not always realized,

nor do practitioners of war always take full advantage of the

opportunities to employ all the forms of warfare available to them,

including compound war. This was certainly true in the series of wars

fought between the United States and numerous Indian tribes in the

Trans-Mississippi West from the early 1840s to about 1890. Most of the

necessary conditions for the successful employment of compound war

existed at that time: a vast area, sparsely inhabited, that called for

extensive skill in tracking and finding an enemy force or his village but

at the same time offered ample opportunity for undetected movement

and escape; a tenacious and skillful enemy superbly adapted to the

environment and capable of sustaining himself without returning to a

fixed base for extended periods of time; the availability of indigenous

peoples with a historic and deep-seated antipathy to the recalcitrant

groups that were the objects of government force; and a governmental

policy of expansion. Among the necessary conditions that were not,

perhaps, present were an understanding by the U.S. Army of the use of

compound warfare and the political will of the U.S. government

essential to appeal to it.

Although the Euro-American experience from the early seventeenth

century until the middle of the nineteenth century was replete with

struggles against the indigenous inhabitants of North America, that

experience substantially differed in nature from what awaited those

Americans trekking across the vast continent to the Pacific Ocean in the

second half of the nineteenth century. While the two experiences were

different, however, they were not entirely disconnected. The

experience of two and a half centuries of struggle by Euro-Americans

was critical in establishing attitudes, policies, and techniques for

dealing with each successive indigenous group as the frontier extended

across the continent. While the focus of this essay is on the

Trans-Mississippi West in the period after 1840, a brief review of the

earlier period of Indian warfare will help establish the connections, as

well as the disconnections, between the two periods.

The first Europeans to arrive in North America encountered myriad

peoples, some friendly and peaceful, others aloof and hostile.1 Most of

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the tribes along the eastern seaboard and in the woodlands of the Ohio

and lower Mississippi valleys were small, sedentary, keenly territorial,

and technologically primitive. They lived in permanent or

semi-permanent villages and kahokias ranging from several dozen to

several thousand in population. Generally, they subsisted on some

combination of agriculture and hunting. In the majority of cases, the

rich soil of the river valleys provided these tribes adequate amounts of

produce, and they supplemented their diet through hunting and fishing.

Some long-distance trade existed, reaching from the northeast down

through the Ohio Valley to the Mississippi River; however, most trade

was local, usually between bands of the same tribes and between

neighboring tribes.

All of the eastern tribes were well acquainted with war, and the use of

arms and fighting was integral to almost all Indian cultures. Internecine

tribal warfare was common, usually precipitated by territorial disputes.

Casualties were infrequently heavy, as few tribes had either the

numbers, stamina, or the resources to fight a protracted war. The

greatest threat to tribal survival, however, was the sporadic, deadly

forays of the militant tribes of the northeast, especially those of the

Iroquois confederation, that extended as far south and west as

present-day southern Illinois. These raids caused extensive destruction,

kept the woodlands of the Ohio and lower Mississippi valleys in

continual turmoil, and created the necessary conditions for the effective

use of indigenous peoples in compound warfare.

Meanwhile, the appearance of Europeans in the seventeenth century

dramatically changed the geopolitical relationships of the native

peoples of North America as well as their social, cultural, and

technological ways of life. In the first place, the ever-increasing

number of Europeans—whose numbers grew through natural

population growth and the annual arrivals of immigrants—employed

more aggressive agricultural techniques that placed a greater demand

on natural resources. The impact of this situation created considerable

pressure on the Europeans for the acquisition of further land that could

only be satisfied at the expense of the native populations. As Europeans

moved inland from the coast, they increasingly came into contact with

more Indian groups and ones of greater diversity. Those native groups

that survived the infectious diseases arising through this contact—the

contact, incidentally, was a two-way street, with small pox, chicken

pox, typhoid, measles, mumps, and other viral diseases killing large

numbers of native inhabitants, while malaria and a host of parasitic

diseases took a heavy toll on white immigrants—were forced to

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accommodate the new arrivals or ally with other Indian groups against

the Europeans.

The European presence in North America introduced another

dynamic factor to intertribal relations that would have far-reaching

effects. By the mid-seventeenth century, struggle for European

political and economic hegemony expanded to North America and was

played out principally between the French and the English in the north

but also, to some extent, between the Spanish and the English in the

south. While not inevitable, intertribal relations and Indian resistance to

white intrusion into their territory became inextricably bound up with

European politics.2 The political strife and wars of Europe came to the

New World. Regular European military forces organized, manned,

disciplined, trained, and equipped to fight the highly stylized,

late-dynastic and early-modern wars of the period thus found many

convenient uses for “savage” allies.3 Into this milieu, the effects of

compound war as described in this book made their appearance and

made a deep, abiding impression on the English settlers in North

America.

Following the successful struggle for American independence, the

U.S. government set about consolidating its hold on the territory

recognized by the Treaty of Paris as the United States. An area

extending from the Atlantic on the east to the Mississippi River in the

west, Canada in the north to the northern border of Florida in the south

defined the new nation. Included in these boundaries were still a great

many Indian tribes, some nearly extinct and passive, while others

remained vibrant and militant, posing a clear threat to whites with any

ambition to settle, establish homesteads, and develop the “dark and

bloody ground” (as the land beyond the Appalachians was called) for

farming and commerce.

The government of the new constitutional republic, meanwhile, had

no tolerance for Indian depredations against white settlements and little

patience for dealing with the tribes diplomatically. Almost two

centuries of fighting the indigenous inhabitants of North America had

left most whites with only one conclusion: the Indians had to be

completely pushed out in order to make way for the peaceful and

inevitable development of the rich lands of the Ohio and Mississippi

valleys. Within this context, there was no place for alliances with Indian

tribes, nor even for the employment of friendly tribes against their more

hostile neighbors. Thus, there was no place for compound war. After

many battles and numerous wars, this period would end with the defeat

of Tecumseh’s confederation in the north, the Creeks in the south,

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Black Hawk in the west, and the suppression of the Seminoles in

Florida.4 Perhaps most indicative of the attitudes of the white

population and the policy of the government in Washington was the

removal of the Cherokee from North Carolina and eastern Tennessee

across the Mississippi into the marginally useful land of the middle

west and southwest.5 This exodus, called the “Trail of Tears,” brutal

and inhumane as it was by later twentieth-century moral standards,

elicited only feeble protests at the time and few regrets in the coming

decades.

So what was the legacy of this 240-year period of history in our

consideration of compound war? First, and perhaps most important, the

experience of fighting Indians, armed and equipped first by the French

and then by the British, left a most unpleasant taste in the mouths of the

westward-looking Americans. The concept of Manifest Destiny was

already accepted by most Americans as a natural extension of the idea

of the “City on the Hill” that had lured many of their ancestors to the

New World in the seventeenth century.6 From this perspective, all

Indians, friendly or hostile, were viewed as impediments to progress.

The publication of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans

in 1826 only added to the perception of the native Americans as savage

and bestial.

Second, the pace of expansion was moving at a substantially greater

rate than heretofore. If it had taken 240 years to clear the area east of the

Mississippi, the expectation might have been that a similar time would

allow for the settling of the great heartland. But the tide of immigration,

in fact, was increasing at an unprecedented rate: the population of the

United States grew 32 percent from 1830 to 1840, from 12.8 to 17

million. Thomas Jefferson’s great gamble, the purchase of the

Louisiana Territory from France, was proving to be one of history’s

great bargains. The value of New Orleans alone was greater, by many

times, than the price paid for the entire package. With the admissions to

the United States of Louisiana in 1812 and Missouri in 1821, the

process of peopling and developing the vast interior of the North

American continent was proceeding apace.

To many Americans looking westward in the 1840s and 50s, the

Indian seemed to present the only significant obstacle to easy conquest

(the real obstacles were distance, nature, and the harshness of the land).

Early explorers (including Meriwether Lewis and William Clark), fur

and hide traders, travelers on the Santa Fe Trail, and numerous

adventurers had already attested to the hostility and militancy of some

of the Indians they had encountered, especially noting the ferocity and

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aggressiveness of tribes like the Lakota Sioux.7 They had also written

about and spoken of friendly Indians—Indians eager to trade for all

types of metal and other manufactured goods, Indians who had saved

whites’ lives and salvaged their expeditions on more than one occasion.

Nevertheless, the Indian threat always appeared monolithic and a

serious obstacle to Manifest Destiny.

The western Indians were soon recognized as substantially

different from the eastern Indians with whom the English colonists

and early Americans had previously dealt and dealing with them

would present a more complex problem. Most of the tribes on the

Great Plains—that vast expanse of land stretching from the Rio

Grande in the south to Alberta and Saskatchewan in the north and

from the Missouri River valley in the east to the Rocky Mountains in

the west—were nomadic peoples who annually followed the vast

herds of bison in their seasonal migrations. They lived primarily on

meat brought in from the hunt and the berries, nuts, roots, and wild

grains they gathered to supplement their diet. They had no fixed

villages or settlements and claimed great tracts of land only for

hunting purposes. Their hold on these hunting lands was always

tenuous because other groups of Indians continually encroached on

these lands; their claim could only be enforced through strength of

arms. The strongest, most aggressive, most ruthless, and wiliest were

bound to be the winners in this environment.8

Life and death, survival and extinction, success and failure largely

revolved around hunting and fighting. If the hunt was successful, the

village would eat well over the winter and, perhaps, have extra food to

trade with neighboring tribes for items they could not readily produce.

If the hunt went badly, the village might starve. Enemy raiders,

meanwhile, might strike the village while the hunters were away,

stealing the food gathered and stored for the winter and carrying off the

women and children they did not kill. Thus, the skill of hunters and the

courage of warriors became crucial in the lives of all Indians.9

The knowledge, skills, and abilities essential for tribal survival were

preserved and transmitted from one generation to the next through

hunter-warrior societies. These societies existed in nearly all of the

larger Indian nations and frequently crossed clan and band boundaries.

Typically, all young boys would be apprenticed at about eleven years of

age—size and strength being the likely determinants for admission—to

a society based on family tradition, the father’s status, and the young

boy’s potential for development. Over the next five or six years, each

initiate would undergo extensive and thorough training in every aspect

117
118

Map 1. Indian people of the Great Plains
of his prospective craft: the use of weapons, knowledge of the terrain,

tracking, survival skills, cover and concealment, communications and

sign language, and the lore and ceremonies of the society. The

apprenticeship culminated in an extraordinarily rigorous ordeal in

which the initiate was given a series of tasks and problems, each one of

which he had to accomplish. Successful completion meant full

induction into the society; failure—if the initiate survived the

ordeal—meant return to the village, where he would have a diminished

role in tribal affairs. The future of the village rested largely on the skill

and prowess of these hunter-warriors, who were responsible for feeding

and defending it.

For the Plains Indians, the village was the social, economic, and

political center of life. A typical village was composed of fifty or sixty

lodges or tipis, each with a family unit of about five or six people: a

mother, father, and perhaps an uncle, aunt, or grandparent and two or

three children. Upon their return to the village from hunting or raiding

parties, unmarried braves lived in wickiups, simple huts built of brush,

in the vicinity of or adjacent to the village. Normally, they did not live in

a lodge again until they married. From spring through autumn, the

village moved every ten to fourteen days, following the migrating herds

of bison north as the grass greened with the spring rains, then south as

the cooler temperatures of fall drove the bison toward their winter

pastures. The period a village could remain in the same location

depended upon the size of the village, readily available resources such

as water, grass, fodder, firewood, roots, and other foods that could be

easily gathered and the movement of the all-important bison. During

the winter, the village moved when weather permitted or when the

village site became so totally despoiled that a move became necessary

for health reasons. The village could be broken down, moved about

eight to ten miles, and reassembled in one day.

As an economic entity, the village was self-sufficient. Women were

the primary productive units within the village. They produced nearly

everything the village needed: stripped and dried the meat; scraped,

cleaned, and worked the hides for blankets, clothes, and lodges; cooked

and prepared meals; birthed babies and reared children; made and

repaired clothes; tended the sick; struck, moved, and set up the village;

and, occasionally, fought in defense of the village. Parturition was a

dangerous proposition: death resulting from childbirth was not

infrequent and infant mortality may have been as high as 50 percent.

What could not be produced within the village was acquired through

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trade with neighboring villages—which were normally of the same

band or tribe—or was stolen in raids on enemy or hostile tribes.

Politically, the Plains Indians practiced a type of democracy that

allowed each individual almost total freedom. At any time, any member

or family in the village who disagreed with the decisions of the village

leaders—who held their positions by dint of personality, reputation,

and wisdom, not by heredity or force—could take their lodge, family,

and any other members of the village who might choose to go with them

and leave. They could then establish a separate village or join another

village with ties to their band or clan. At the same time, each “chief”

was free to make decisions for himself and his immediate family and

was never compelled to subordinate himself to any other authority.

Thus, village decision making was a complex process characterized by

the accomplishment of consensus. Rarely was unanimity achieved.

This process always bewildered those with European ancestry, who

were used to centralized decision making and the delegating of political

authority.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the Plains Indians had benefited

from two elements of European culture introduced into the New World:

horses and guns. The Spanish brought the horse to New Spain in the

early seventeenth century, and Indian societies in Mexico and the

Southwest quickly adopted the hardy and versatile animals into their

local culture. By the end of the eighteenth century, horse culture had

spread north and east across the Great Plains, becoming an essential

element of Indian life that crossed tribal and cultural boundaries. The

horse offered the Plains Indians a degree of mobility previously

unknown. Now horses carried the villagers’ household goods from one

site to the next during the seasonal treks and gave hunting parties much

greater mobility and range to pursue the all-important bison and other

game. This enhanced the Indians’ ability to obtain nutrition and

provided them with a greater margin of security against starvation. War

parties, meanwhile, could rapidly concentrate their strength for raids

and disburse much more quickly and effectively for security than in the

past.10

The horse, moreover, added significant economic and social

dimensions to Plains Indian culture. Horses became a store of wealth

and value, important trade assets, as well as symbols of status and

prestige within the family and tribe. In the meantime, horsemanship

became an essential skill on the Plains. Accomplished riders were

admired, and the best and most daring riders held an advantage in the

hunt or in combat. Individuals painted their horses in the same

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distinctive way they painted themselves so that their horses would be

recognized and known after the hunt or the battle and the warrior would

achieve renown also. Thus, less than fifty years before the Europeans

launched their conquest of the Great Plains, the horse had transformed

native cultures.

Firearms would likewise have a deep and fundamental impact on

Indian cultures. Gunpowder weapons, however, came to the Indians not

from the Spanish—who had always striven to keep firearms out of

Indian hands lest the native peoples use them against the ruling

elites—but from the French and English in Canada and along the

Atlantic coast. Just as horse culture was spreading north and east,

gunpowder culture was inching its way south and west. The French and

English traded their firearms to the Indians for furs, food, shelter, and

other necessities, and the Indian quickly found them useful in hunting

and war making. Although the Indians never had the ability to

manufacture or perform more than minimal maintenance on their guns,

they became experts in their use.

Tribes or bands that possessed guns had a clear and evident

advantage over their neighbors that did not. Those tribes that already

held significant power, had visionary and perceptive leaders, had

readier access to valuable resources (such as abundant, high-quality

furs), or had the good fortune to be useful to the Europeans received

guns first and acquired a continuous supply of ball and powder without

which the weapons were useless. Thus, in some instances, the arrival of

firearms reinforced the existing order of dominance among the tribes;

in other cases, it led to the rearrangement of that order. In any case, the

spread of gun culture became a major factor in the social, political, and

economic life of the Indians of North America and their relationship to

the expanding white society.

The appearance of firearms and horses, however, did not

fundamentally change the role of war making in Plains cultures. The

fate of the band or tribe and an individual’s status continued to depend

largely upon success in war. The warrior gained status and position in

his society and village by counting “coup”—by performing a

prescribed act of bravery while engaged with an enemy. Acts of bravery

were hierarchical in nature. Thus, touching a live opponent in combat

with one’s “coup stick” was considered a greater deed than killing or

wounding an enemy. The quest to establish one’s reputation and gain

status in the hunter-warrior society through counting coup led to

extraordinary demonstrations of personal courage on the battlefield.

The best horsemen, the most skillful and knowledgeable warriors in the

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use of the new weapons, and the most daring braves served both

themselves and their people.

For the purpose of this essay, the significance of both horse and gun

culture is their convergence in the Great Plains in the latter part of the

eighteenth century. This coming together of two dynamic complexes

occurred on the Great Plains but was experienced by neither the

Southwestern nor Northeastern Indians. The adoption of the horse and

gun by the Plains Indians created the possibility for an Indian power

never before imagined on the North American continent. Armed with

this capability, the Lakota Sioux became well-armed, fast, agile,

mobile, capable of ranging far—in short, superbly suited to their

climate and terrain. Brigadier General Anson Mills, a veteran of the

Indian wars who served in the U.S. Army for fifty-five years, said of

them: they are “the best cavalry in the world; their like will never be

seen again.”11 With this newly gained potency, the native peoples of

the Great Plains might have effectively resisted the encroachment of

the white hordes. They lacked only a great visionary leader who could

resolve the tribal hatreds and animosities that had divided the

aboriginal inhabitants of North America since time immemorial. But no

messiah appeared to lead the Indian nations to their salvation.

This milieu, one can argue, was ideal for the employment of

compound warfare. The indigenous populations were deeply divided

by cultural differences (especially language), religion, and claims to the

same hunting grounds—that terrain so critical to the very survival of

each tribe, band, and clan. The introduction and rapid adaptation by

Indians to certain elements of European culture, firearms in particular

but to some extent all metal objects (which were far superior to the

stone-age tools previously in use), created a certain degree of

dependence by the Indians on continued, amicable contact with whites.

The success of this contact and the trade that it would most surely

continue to generate to the benefit of both the red man and the white

man could determine power relationships, not only between white and

Indian groups but also between Indian nations. Thus, if cleverly

exploited, the Indians’ training and experience, the inherent

animosities between the Indian tribes, and the Indians’ dependence on

white trade goods could have led to the successful use of irregular

indigenous units to complement regular U.S. Army units in subduing

and suppressing the Plains tribes.

That the U.S. government never developed such a policy to

systematically and deliberately use Indians in attacking and destroying

other Indians is, perhaps, more a result of the historic attitudes about the

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native Americans and the particular missions of the U.S. Army on the

frontier than any negligence or lack of insight. In retrospect, the

implementation of such a policy might have accelerated the process of

clearing the vast interior of the continent, reduced the cost to the

government, and saved the lives of untold numbers of Euro-American

immigrants trekking across the Great Plains on their way to California

and Oregon or endeavoring to eke out a living busting the sod of

Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, or Colorado. The government,

however, chose another course of action that did not include compound

war and resided more in the attitude of the American people, their

government, and the U.S. Army toward the native Americans than in

considerations of efficiency or economy.

Long before Horace Greeley told his fellow countrymen, “Go West,

young man,” Americans had already taken that advice. In the late 1820s

and 30s, thousands of individuals and families left Tennessee,

Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana and headed for Texas, lured by

stories of vast stretches of rich soil and promises of easy land grants

from the Mexican government. They scratched “GTT” (gone to Texas)

on gateposts and doorjambs, both as a forwarding address and an

encouragement to their neighbors to follow. As they proceeded, the

settlers encountered hostile Indians in Texas, primarily Apache and

Comanche, but a dozen smaller tribes inhabited this area as well,

Indians that the Mexicans were either unable or unwilling to subdue.

Texas cotton farmers and cattle ranchers struggled with this Indian

menace for decades after winning independence from Mexico and

being admitted as the twenty-eighth state of the Union in 1845. Some of

the great Indian heroes—Geronimo (born 1829) and Cochise (born ca.

1812) are perhaps the best known, but they are by no means the only

Indian heroes of the era—were born in west Texas and the seemingly

endless desert that lay beyond. Many stories of torture and the horrific

massacres perpetrated by these tribes were published in Eastern

newspapers and magazines. The frequency of the incidents and the

accuracy of the reports can be debated, but the perceptions they

engendered are indisputable. They served to keep alive now-fading

memories of Indian massacres on an earlier frontier, in the east, and

aroused new fears in immigrants, who had not been here long enough to

see native Americans. The consequence was the development of an

extremely bad, although not entirely unearned, reputation for the red

man.

When subsequent waves of Euro-Americans streamed west in the

1840s and 50s, drawn by cheap, fertile land in Oregon and by gold to

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California, they went well armed and deeply suspicious of any Indians

they encountered. Although few immigrants traveling up the Oregon

Trail or crossing the Sierra Nevadas saw Indians—incidents were few,

deaths were fewer, a great many more pioneers and Indians dying of

disease than by hostile action—the few incidents that did occur created

an enduring image. And every time an incident occurred (which

invariably became “massacres” thanks to the language reported in the

Eastern tabloids), a hue and cry went out for the U.S. Army to provide

more protection for the migrant trains and to discipline and punish the

miscreant Indians.

That the citizens of the nation would call upon the Army for defense

against a clear and evident threat is to be expected. But the Army was

hardly prepared to deal with a threat that was not always clear. If a

migrant train met Indians, they were just as likely to be “friendly”

(meaning not hostile) as they were to pose a serious obstacle to the

progress of the train. In fact, many Native Americans did not resist the

passage of whites through their territory; they found the opportunity to

trade with the travelers quite profitable. In his journal, Meriwether

Lewis noted the extent and importance of trade and assistance to his

expedition by the various tribes— several instances of which actually

saved the expedition.12 Some Native American groups, the Crow and

Shoshone, for example, welcomed the Europeans and found common

cause with the whites against the more aggressive and dangerous

nations, especially the Sioux and Cheyenne, who had earlier moved

west, pushing their Indian brethren out of traditional hunting lands.

Thus, the Indian threat was not monolithic, and it was never serious

enough to staunch the flow of immigrants west. But that does not mean

that the Army was prepared to surrender any of its authority to some

Indians in order to deal with others.

To better understand the nineteenth century U.S. Army of the

frontier and its relationship with Native Americans, the U.S. Army’s

institution, missions, and challenges must be examined.13 Military

institutions in America have always suffered from a number of

disabilities during periods of peace. During the nineteenth century, the

United States was at war for less than ten years, and during those

periods, it expended considerable national resources. But for the rest of

the period, during peacetime, the Army’s most significant disability

was the limited resources and manpower available to it. Congress,

expressing the attitude of the American people that a large military is

not only unnecessary but also dangerous and that government should

keep its hands out of the taxpayers’ pockets, provided for only a limited

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regular Army establishment. This regular Army, during wartime, could

be expanded and augmented by the state militias. This system left much

to be desired in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. In 1861,

however, Lincoln was forced to call for volunteers to put down the

Great Rebellion. In general, the system proved sufficiently satisfactory

that there was no concerted movement to change or reform it.

The system, nonetheless, left the peacetime Army on the frontier in

the precarious position of facing war-like conditions without wartime

resources and manpower. From 1840 to 1890, the Army built and

maintained scores of forts and posts spread across thousands of square

miles from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean and from the Rio

Grande to the Canadian border. Many of these posts were small,

manned by no more than a company of fifty or sixty men and a handful

of officers, and existed for only brief periods. Other posts, like Fort

Riley, Kansas, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona, endure as major Army

installations even today, a legacy of the frontier past.

In the nineteenth century, officers and enlisted men at frontier posts

accepted isolation as part of their lot, logistics and communications

were often tenuous, supplies arrived sporadically, and soldiers

frequently tended gardens and hunted bison and deer to supplement

their meager or uncertain rations. Moreover, medical care was

primitive; ambulances had no springs and hospitals were poorly

equipped. In addition, the paymaster was sometimes months

overdue—and when he did arrive, a private’s pay of $16 per month

(reduced to $13 in 1873) did not buy much. The desertion rate,

consequently, was extraordinarily high—one in three privates deserted

in some years. Not until the 1880s did the War Department take steps to

stem this annual, unauthorized exodus. Some officers and a very few

noncommissioned officers brought their wives and families to live with

them on the Plains, but it took a hardy woman, indeed, to make a home

in the shabby quarters available on a frontier military post hundreds of

miles from civilization. Enlisted men were strongly discouraged from

marrying, and they made do with Indian squaws or the “soiled doves”

that appeared on the periphery of military posts since biblical times.

Courts-martial were a weekly occurrence in most units, and discipline,

like life on the frontier, was harsh.

Perhaps most indicative of the government’s policy of economy

toward all things military were the arms provided the U.S. Army on the

frontier throughout the period of the Plains Indian wars.14 Firearms

designs progressed significantly from 1855 to 1875, and a number of

breech-loading and magazine-fed rifles and carbines that used metallic

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cartridges appeared prior to or during the Civil War. The best known,

although by no means the only such weapons, were the .56-caliber

(later reduced to .50-caliber) Spencer and the .44-caliber Henry. Both

saw extensive service during the Civil War. Nevertheless, for logistical

purposes, the War Department adhered to the .58-caliber Springfield

muzzle-loaded rifled musket as the standard shoulder weapon

throughout the Civil War. The Springfield’s rate of fire was three to

four rounds per minute, while the Spencer’s seven-round magazine

could be fired in ten seconds, and the fourteen-round Henry could be

emptied in fifteen to twenty seconds. Quite clearly, the days of the

muzzle-loader were nearing an end.

Once again, however, in the name of saving taxpayer dollars, the

War Department chose not to provide the U.S. Army with

state-of-the-art weapons. In 1865, Erskine S. Allin, working at the

Springfield Armory, patented a design to convert the muzzle-loaded

1861 Springfield to accept a center-fire, metallic cartridge loaded

through the breech. A military board’s subsequent recommendation to

reduce the standard round from .58- to .50-caliber led to a further

modification. Approved by the War Department and fielded for the first

time within a year of the Civil War’s end, the M-1866 Springfield rifle,

known as the “second Allin conversion,” offered the infantryman a

substantially higher and more reliable rate of fire than the

muzzle-loader, but it was still a single-shot weapon. The government

had saved money, but at a cost.

In 1873, the War Department adopted yet another single-shot

breechloader, the Model 1873 “Trapdoor” Springfield. In its basic

design, the Trapdoor was similar to the 1866 Allin conversion and was

operated the same way. The 1873, however, was not a converted

muzzle-loader. It was chambered for a .45-caliber cartridge, although it

retained the seventy-grain powder charge and was available in both a

long rifle (called the Long Tom) for the infantry and a carbine for the

cavalry. The carbine fired a 45-55 (fifty-five grains of powder)

cartridge, but it could fire the 45-70 cartridge when 45-55 ammunition

was not available. For the next two decades, the Trapdoor was the

standard shoulder weapon of the U.S. Army. It was used in every

regiment in the Army and in every engagement between the Army and

the Indians. But it was not the best weapon on many battlefields. All too

often, soldiers found themselves outgunned on the battlefield. Native

American warriors were frequently better armed, carrying a variety of

modern repeating rifles and carbines acquired through battlefield

pick-ups, purchases, trades, thefts, and distributions from Indian agents

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who believed that such gifts encouraged Indians to remain on the

reservations.

Nevertheless, in spite of the disabilities under which it operated over

the half century from 1840 to 1890, the Army on the frontier conducted

a multitude of missions. It provided security for migrant trains, miners,

homesteaders, cattle herders, and tradesmen along all of the major

immigrant trails. The Army, moreover, worked closely with Indian

agents on the reservations, supervised the distribution of government

supplies to Indian bands, and protected Indians and their lands from

white interlopers. At the same time, semi-permanent settlements grew

up around Army posts that provided immigrants with a haven from the

vicissitudes of pioneer travel with a variety of commercial opportunities

and with an opportunity to rest, to recover, and to refit before they

pushed on westward. Soldiers, meanwhile, rescued travelers during

floods, blizzards, and other natural disasters and provided emergency

food, water, and repairs to distressed and stranded migrants. In the

emerging territories of the West, the Army served as a constabulary,

frequently the only visible and viable symbol of the authority of the

United States government. In addition, Army engineers surveyed the

land, published maps, cleared roads, built bridges, operated ferries, and

performed a host of other activities that today would be considered

“nation building.” The Army was, in a real sense, the heart of the

developing infrastructure of the new nation as it spread across the

continent.

To support its operations on the frontier, the Army routinely

contracted with Indian bands and recruited and enlisted individual

Indians to serve as scouts.15 These scouts provided an extremely

valuable service for the Army. Their knowledge of the enemy and

terrain and their skills in tracking and survival clearly surpassed even

the best-trained Army scouts. On a few rare occasions, the Army

contracted with larger groups of Indians to support the Army in the

field. For example, in the 1876 Centennial Campaign against the Sioux

and Cheyenne in the unceded territory of Montana, Major General

George Crook delayed the departure of his Wyoming column from

Goose Creek (present-day Sheridan, Wyoming) until his chief civilian

scout, Frank Grouard, returned with a contingent of more than 260

Crow and Shoshone.16 These allies rode with Crook’s force of nearly a

thousand cavalry and mule-mounted infantry on the morning of 16

June. The next day, they fought alongside the Blue Coats at Rosebud

Creek, the largest Indian battle fought west of the Mississippi River.

The Crow and Shoshone proved themselves able and loyal allies,

127
saving the lives of more than a few white soldiers in the day’s action.

But the Army never armed, equipped, and commissioned these allies or

any other tribes or bands to act independently against enemy bands,

attack enemy villages, or undermine the enemy’s sustainment base by

slaughtering the bison upon which he depended. At the end of the

Rosebud battle, the Army’s Crow and Shoshone allies simply returned

to their villages. This was the modus operandi of the U.S. Army

throughout the Indian wars; the U.S. Army never resorted to compound

warfare on the western frontier.

Why, one might ask, did the U.S. Army not employ compound

warfare in this environment? After all, the necessary preconditions

were present. The plains presented a vast, sparsely populated area

inhabited by hostile or potentially hostile peoples. It addition, the area

offered ample opportunity for undetected movement and escape and

called for extensive skills in tracking and finding an enemy force.

Moreover, within the area resided a tenacious and skillful enemy

superbly adapted to the environment and capable of sustaining himself

without returning to a fixed base for extended periods of time.

However, also within this area were indigenous peoples who were

sympathetic to the U.S. Army and had a historic, deep-seated antipathy

to those groups that resisted the government’s expansion policy.

Furthermore, because the U.S. government had clearly demonstrated

that it was unwilling to provide more than minimum resources to

accomplish the task of opening the Trans-Mississippi West, the

existence of these Indian allies created an ideal situation, it would seem,

for the U.S. government to ally with one or more of these indigenous

tribes to conduct irregular warfare against a common enemy.

While a definitive response to the question posed above is, perhaps,

beyond the limited scope of this essay, one or two tentative answers can

be offered. In the first place, the entire intercultural history of North

America, from the arrival of the first Europeans at the beginning of the

seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, was one of

tension and conflict. Good relations between the white and red man

were episodic; poor or deteriorating relations were far more common.

Two such diametrically opposed cultures simply could not

accommodate each other. While each learned and adopted cultural

elements from the other, in the final analysis, both parties viewed more

thorough cultural accommodation as surrender. Almost two hundred

years of conflict east of the Mississippi established the paradigm for

intercultural attitudes, perceptions, and expectations west of the

Mississippi. By the time Americans were expanding into the

128
Trans-Mississippi West, racial and cultural prejudices and beliefs by

both parties were too deep-seated to give way to compromises.

Furthermore, the concept of Manifest Destiny left no place for a

primitive, backward-looking, anachronistic, stationary society to

coexist with what was perceived to be a modern, forward-looking,

progressive, dynamic society. While the aboriginal inhabitants of

North America comprised many different ethnic, religious, and

language groups and ways of life, Europeans did not distinguish

qualitatively between the subcultures. They viewed the indigenous

peoples as a monolith. All of the Indians appeared to them to be

essentially the same.

Armies represent their societies. They are products of the institutions

and ideas that societies value. This was certainly true of the

nineteenth-century U.S. Army on the frontier. The frontier Army

expressed the attitudes, perceptions, prejudices, and demands of the

young, developing United States. If the U.S. Army saw no reason to

resort to compound warfare, it was because the American people saw

no reason to make alliances and any binding promises to the Indians.

And, perhaps more important, there was nothing in the military

officer’s professional education that trained him to think in such terms.

After all, the school at Leavenworth—an institution that would play

such a vital and critical role in making the U.S. Army of the second half

of the twentieth century the preeminent army in the world—was not

established until 1881, very near the conclusion of the conquest of the

Trans-Mississippi West.

129

Notes

1. See Angie Debo, A History of the Indians of the United States (Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), 3-68; Richard H. Dillon,North American

Indian Wars (New York: Facts on File, 1983), 17-34; George E. Hyde, Indians

of the Woodlands: From Prehistoric Times to 1725 (Norman: University of

Oklahoma Press, 1962), passim; Patrick M. Malone, The Skulking Way of War:

Technology and Tactics among the New England Indians (Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins University Press, 1991), 9-32.

2. Debo, 69-83; Dillon, 35-48; Douglas Edward Leach, Arms for Empire: A

Military History of the British Colonies in North America, 1607-1763 (New

York: Macmillan, 1973), 43-44, 105-6, 211-12, 439-72.

3. See: Michael D. Pearlman, “The Wars of Colonial North America,

1690-1763,” supra, passim.

4. Following years of conflict with Spain along the southern border, the United

States offered to purchase Florida from that country. Spain finally ceded East

and West Florida to the United States in the Treaty of 1819, but the U.S. Senate

did not ratify the treaty until 1821, and the United States took possession of

Florida in 1822.

5. Numerous accounts have been published on the Civilized Tribes, the Cherokee,

and the “Trail of Tears.” See, for example, Samuel Carter, Cherokee Sunset: A

Nation Betrayed: A Narrative of Travail and Triumph, Persecution and Exile

(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), passim; Grant Foreman, Indian

Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians (Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1932, 1953, 1972), 229-312; Gloria Jahoda, The

Trail of Tears (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975), passim; Grace

Steele Woodward, The Cherokees (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,

1963), 139-237.

6. For a survey of twentieth century interpretations of Manifest Destiny, see

Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in

American History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935), passim;

Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A

Reinterpretation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), passim; Thomas R.

Hietala, Manifest Destiny: Anxious Aggrandizement on Late Jacksonian

America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), passim.

7. See, for example: Bernard DeVoto, ed., The Journals of Lewis and Clark

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1953), 33-41.

131
8. See Norman Bancroft Hunt, Native Americans: The Life and Culture of the

North American Indians (New York: Mallard Press, 1991), 140-72 and The

Indians of the Great Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981),

29-53; William K. Powers, Indians of the Northern Plains (New York: G. P.

Putnam’s Sons, 1969), 7-67.

9. Powers, 68-85; Colin Taylor, The Warriors of the Plains (New York: ARCO

Publishing Co., 1975), 4-16; Francis Haines, The Plains Indians (New York:

Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976), 70-90.

10. Haines, 42-8, 58-69, 112-9; Taylor, 18-33, 50-69.

11. Anson Mills, My Story (Washington, D.C.: Byron S. Adams, 1918), 406.

12. Lewis comments frequently on trading with Indians throughout the expedition.

On several occasions, trading with the Indians was crucial to the continuation or

survival of the expedition. If the Shoshone chief Cameahwait had not agreed to

provide the expedition with horses at the end of August 1805, the expedition

might not have been able to go on. Cameahwait’s decision, however, was not

entirely beneficent; the Shoshone drove a hard bargain and received premium

prices in trade goods for the horses, most of which were not their better animals.

See: Stephen E. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas

Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (New York: Simon &

Schuster, 1996), 280-3. Also, passim.

13. On the frontier Army, see: Edward M. Coffman, The Old Army: A Portrait of

the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898 (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1986), 42-103, 137-286, 328-399; Don Rickey, Forty Miles A Day on

Beans and Hay: The Enlisted Soldier Fighting the Indian Wars (Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1963), passim; Robert M. Utley, Frontier

Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891 (Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1977), 10-93, passim, and Frontiersmen in Blue: The

United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865 (New York: Macmillan, 1967),

1-90, 261-340; Robert Wooster, Nelson A. Miles and the Twilight of the

Frontier Army (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 76-128, 177-94.

14. On U.S. Army weapons throughout the Indian Wars, see David F. Butler,

United States Firearms: The First Century (New York: Winchester Press,

1971), 174-93, 202-10, 222-34; James E. Hicks, U.S. Military Firearms,

1776-1956 (La Canada, CA: James E. Hicks & Sons, 1962), 79-102; Joseph W.

Shields, From Flintlock to M-1 (New York: Coward-McCann, 1954), 46-51,

69-131.

132
15. On Indian Scouts, see: Fairfax Downey, The Red/Bluecoats: The Indian Scouts,

U.S. Army (Ft. Collins, CO: Old Army Press, 1973), passim; Thomas W.

Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers: Indian Scouts and Auxiliaries with the

United States Army, 1860-90 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982),

passim.

16. John S. Gray, Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876 (Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 111-23; J.W. Vaughn, With Crook at the

Rosebud (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), 20-6, 151-4.

133

The Anglo-Irish War of 1919 1921:

“Britain’s Troubles Ireland’s

Opportunities”

John T. Broom

How is it that the English political parties are shaken to their

foundations and even shattered in almost every generation by contact

with Irish affairs?... Whence does this mysterious power of Ireland

come? It is a small, poor, sparsely populated island, lapped about by

English Seapower, accessible on every side, without iron or coal. How

is it that she sways our parties, and inflicts us with bitterness, and

deranges our actions? How is it she has forced generation after

generation to stop the whole traffic of the British Empire to debate her

domestic affairs?1

—Winston Churchill

The Anglo-Irish War of 1919−21 and the creation of the Irish Free

State pose an interesting problem and question for the study of

compound warfare. In this war, there was no regularly constituted

major force on the Irish side, no substantial official outside power

providing support to the Irish, and no apparent sanctuary for the Irish

forcesconditions that often exist in struggles characterized as

compound warfare. Upon closer examination of the situation in Ireland

and England, however, other factors and resources appear to have

existed in relation to that struggle that provided replacements to the

Irish for all those mentioned resources.

Those factors, which we will shortly examine in detail, were (1) the

need of the British government to provide military forces to garrison

and protect a worldwide empire, (2) the ability of the Irish Republican

movement to create a variety of threats to British security forces, (3) the

impact of world opinion on British policy, and (4) the self-imposed

restrictions on various actions by British security forces. Together

these factors created circumstances that can be analyzed using the

compound warfare model. These factors are also significant for

analyses in the context of current democratic governments that seek to

restore and ensure order in an increasingly fragmented and disordered

world.

135
Historical Background

Prior to the Easter Rising of 1916, the last significant rising in Ireland

had been the Fenian Rising in 1867. After the failure of that attempt, the

vast majority of Irish nationalists attempted to work through

constitutional means to secure some form of independence, typically a

home rule bill from the British government. Despite this attempt,

however, there was still an undercurrent of activity by those who would

resort to physical force to achieve their ends.

The Irish nationalists had traditionally attempted to wage open,

positional warfare against the English forces. In this vein, the modern

series of uprisings began in 1798 with the United Irishmen, inspired and

led by Wolfe Tone. This coincided with an attempted landing and

invasion of Ireland by French forces. This rebellion was crushed

rapidly by the English and posed difficulties for them only in the area

around Wexford Town in County Wexford. A few years later, in 1803,

Robert Emmet led another abortive rising. This was followed by the

First Fenian Rising in 1848, which occurred subsequent to the massive

emigration and starvation of the potato famine years. “Fenians” was

the popular name for a group known officially as the Irish Republican

Brotherhood (IRB). Once again, the English forces easily quelled this

uprising, that had attempted to wage conventional warfare by seizing

positions and attempting to hold them. The final rising of the

nineteenth century was the Fenian Rising of 1867.

This rising, too, was rapidly crushed, and many of the Fenians were

imprisoned. A few of the surviving Fenians, however, subsequently

experimented with new forms of physical violence. The aftermath of

the 1867 incident was one prison breakout, an assassination, and a rash

of bombing attacks in England. These were the isolated storm clouds

and harbingers of an entirely new approach to violent resistance to

English control of Ireland.

A most evident foreshadowing of the new struggle was the “land

war” agitations of the 1870s−90s. In this situation, the Irish peasants

had been renters on land held for centuries by Anglo-Irish landlords.

The potato famine of the 1840s, however, highlighted and exacerbated

the problem. That famine caused widespread evictions when the

tenants were unable to pay their skyrocketing rents; the eventual result

was massive overseas emigrations to the United States, Australia,

Canada, and the British Isles itself. By the 1870s, the Irish peasants and

small landholders took the matter of rents into their own hands and

began attacking landlords and their agents. In some cases, the landlords

136
137

Map 1. Ireland
or their agents were assaulted; in other cases, they were assassinated.

Eventually, a tradition of relatively low-level, violent resistance was

generated. The British Liberal party responded to this unrest by

recognizing the legitimacy of the peasants’ complaints and by passing

land reform acts that allowed the peasants to purchase their rental plots

with loans from the government.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, the nationalist

approach moderated and took the form of three separate movements

that eventually came together under the leadership of Charles Stuart

Parnell of the Constitutionalist Irish party. These three elements were

the surviving Fenians, the land agitators, and the Constitutionalist Irish

party itself. After 1880, many of the Fenians abandoned their policy of

noncooperation and moderated their rhetoric and actions.

Nevertheless, breakaway elements known as the “Invincibles,”

primarily located in the United States, initiated a series of bombing

attacks in England in 1881. Meanwhile, Irish land agitators continued

to wage a land war to establish fairer rents, to redistribute land in

Ireland, and to stop the wave of evictions that plagued the Irish

peasantry in the nineteenth century. At the same time, a series of land

bills passed the British Parliament that suggested a constitutional

solution to the home rule issue.

Parnell’s Irish party quickly gained enough seats in the British

House of Commons to periodically shift the balance of power from the

Conservative party to the Liberal party. The result of this Irish party

strength was a series of home rule bills that passed the House of

Commons only to be held up and defeated in the House of Lords.

However, Parnell became involved with a married woman, suffered

personal embarrassment, and was driven from office. The resulting

scandal temporarily weakened the Irish party’s influence until its

resurgence in the early years of the twentieth century under John

Redmond.2

During this period of parliamentary weakness, several other Irish

nationalist groups rose to prominence. Among these were the Gaelic

League, which promoted the Irish language, culture, and literature; and

the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), which encouraged the

renaissance of such Irish games as Irish football and hurlingin

contrast to English soccer, rugby, and cricket. These two groups were

joined by a literary group that attempted to create a new sense of Irish

nationality and culture. This movement resulted in a brief literary

revival in Ireland from the turn of the century to the outbreak of the First

World War.3 The IRB, which after the rise of Parnell became primarily

138
an Irish-American organization, began to revitalize itself in America

and Ireland.4 In 1907, Tom Clarke, an old Fenian and member of the

Irish Republican Brotherhood, returned to Ireland and slowly rebuilt

the organization there. By the time of the resurgence of the Irish party

in 1912 and with the renewed hope for a home rule bill, these

organizations had merged to some extent with members of the IRB,

forming an interlocking network within the Gaelic League and the

GAA.5

Three separate religious groupings and ethnic subgroups in Ireland

played crucial roles in the evolution of the Irish rebellion and

settlement. Throughout most of Irish history many Irish nationalists

were Protestants, a number of these prominent figures within British

political and cultural circles.6 However, the most numerous group in

Ireland was the native Irish (Gaelic) Catholics. They constituted the

proprietary, tenant farming, and working class in the southern counties

of Ireland, as well as a prominent and relatively affluent middle and

professional class in the southern counties. In the north, the Catholics

were overwhelmingly the poorest of the working class, having been

subjected to nearly 200 years of religious and economic persecution by

the predominant Presbyterian Scots-Irish of the Ulster “plantations.”

Also located predominantly in the southern counties were

Anglo-Irish Anglicans, who constituted most of the aristocracy,

landowner, professional, and literary classes. The Anglo-Irish had

roots in Ireland dating back to the late 1100s and often thought of

themselves as being simply Irish who were Anglican, rather than being

a distinct ethnic subgroup. Traditionally, many of the leaders of earlier

Irish rebellions had been organized and led by members of this

Anglo-Irish aristocracy, many of whom felt that Ireland was a separate

and distinct political and cultural unit within the British Isles.

The third major ethno-religious grouping was the previously

mentioned Presbyterian Scots-Irish. Unlike the Anglo-Irish, the

Scots-Irish immigrated to Ireland over a short period of time, in the late

1600s and early 1700s, and came to Ireland with the intent of

completely replacing native Gaelic Catholics in the province of Ulster.

While the Catholics were never completely supplanted, they did

become a minority in most of the province. The Scots-Irish were a

cross-section of society constituting all classes and were more apt to

view themselves as distinctly different from and superior to the Gaelic

Catholics. Thus, politicians and other leaders could use the fear of loss

of status by these people to mobilize “Unionist” sentiment among

139
working and middle-class Presbyterians in opposition to a

Catholic-dominated Irish home rule state.7

The election of a Liberal party to government in 1906with the

Irish party again having the deciding votes in the Imperial Parliament in

Londonset the stage for a renewed attempt by the Irish dissenters to

gain home rule for Ireland. By 1911, the Irish party, now led by John

Redmond, had an advantage that Parnell had lacked. Changes in the

British constitution now restricted the House of Lords to only delaying

a bill; they could no longer prevent its passage. Redmond, meanwhile,

believed in and trusted in the British devotion to the constitution and the

rule of law; over the next seven years, he was to be sadly disappointed.8

At the same time, the unionist sentiment in Ulster was strong, and

under the leadership of Sir Edward Carson, unionists became

determined to resist the home rule of a unified Ireland—by force if

necessary. As the passing of a home rule bill became more likely, the

unionists protested strongly. As the initial debates over home rule

started in the spring of 1912, the unionists began a series of mass

demonstrations in Belfast. Upwards of 100,000 unionists attended a

demonstration to hear Carson argue that the Ulstermen would resist a

Dublin-led home rule by any means necessary. They adopted Lord

Randolph Churchill’s phrase: “Ulster will fight and Ulster will be

right.”9

By the fall of 1912, the Ulster Covenant had been signed by

thousands of unionist supporters pledging resistance to the home rule

measure, and in November 1912, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)

was formed to resist the home rule bill, by military means if necessary.

An indication of the level of support these radical unionists had was that

Carson went to Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts of the British

Army for recommendations as to who should command the UVF.

Another indication of the support the unionist cause commanded was

the successful smuggling of a large quantity of German arms into Ulster

in the spring of 1914.10

It was the creation of this volunteer force to support the resistance to

home rule that inspired the creation of the Irish Volunteers in the fall of

1913. On 1 November 1913, Eoin MacNeill wrote in the nationalist

Gaelic League’s journal that the Ulster unionists had demonstrated to

the Irish nationalists that Britain, to be forced into action, needed to be

prodded by the threat of physical force.11 Just as Carson welcomed the

creation of an armed force to lend credibility to his opposition to home

rule, so John Redmond welcomed the formation of the Irish Volunteer

140
Force (IVF), which supported his own constitutional attempts to secure

home rule. Founded on 11 November 1913, the Irish Volunteers were

not as successful as the UVF in gaining highly placed support, although

many of its original members were drawn from outside Catholic circles.

The Irish Volunteers were also not as successful in gathering arms as

the UVF was. The British authorities did not turn as blind an eye to the

activities of the Irish Volunteersformed ostensibly to defend the

constitutional creation of Irish home ruleas they did to the unionists’

activities. Meanwhile, the largest shipment of arms to both sides came

from Germany; on one occasion, the IVF succeeded in landing two

yacht loads of arms near Dublin, one of which was brought in by

Erskine Childers, author of Riddle of the Sands.

12

The acquisition of arms by either group was technically illegal, and

on several occasions, there were raids on arms shipments and caches

held by the UVF. But, by and large, the British authorities were more

energetic in seizing arms intended for or held by the IVF. Meanwhile,

the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood quickly gained control of

several seats on the Irish Volunteers executive council, effectively

taking over the organization, while still remaining in the background

and keeping their distrust of the British to themselves.13

Another Irish nationalist force was the Citizen Army. This force was

formed as a reaction to police attempts to break the 1913 transport

workers strike by intimidation. Created primarily by James Connolly, a

Scottish-born Irish socialist and labor organizer, this small

(approximately 220-man-strong) organization was primarily a

defensive body created to provide security for the labor organizers. As

the tension increased through 1914 and 1915, however, Connolly and

Larkin, the two principal Irish socialist labor leaders, came to see the

cause of Irish nationalism as bound up with their own socialist cause.

Larkin immigrated to the United States to organize labor and Irish

nationalist activity there. Under Connolly’s leadership, the Citizen

Army would join with the Irish Volunteers in the Easter Rising.14

Though Redmond continued to trust his British parliamentary

colleagues, many Irish nationalists began to suspect the motives of the

British again. This suspicion was confirmed in the spring of 1914 by

the Curragh mutiny, which involved British officers in the Irish

garrison based at Curragh Barracks. When the troops in Ireland were

warned that actions might have to be taken against the unionists in the

province of Ulster and the Ulster Volunteer Force, a strong reaction

developed. Senior officers led by Sir Hubert Gough informed the chief

of the Imperial General Staff and the Secretary of State for War that

141
they would resign before taking up arms against the unionist cause. The

army, officered to a large extent by the landed gentry classmany of

whom were from Anglo-Irish familiessupported the would-be

mutineers. One of their strongest supporters was the director of

military operations for the British Army, the future chief of the Imperial

General Staff, Sir Henry Wilson.15

Rather than discipline these officers, the British government backed

down. This concession perhaps ignited the Easter Rebellion and the

subsequent Anglo-Irish War of 1919−22. Meanwhile, soon after the

Curragh mutiny, the storm clouds of the First World War began

gathering over southeastern Europe. While Britain prepared for war in

the summer of 1914, Parliament finally passed the Irish Home Rule

Bill, with the proviso, however, that it would become effective only

after the war was oversomething that many thought would happen

soon anyway.16

When the war broke out, there were 180,000 Irish Volunteers,

though many of them were not active members. These were matched

by 100,000 Ulster Volunteers who were supportive of the unionist

side.17 Both Redmond and Carson offered their Volunteers for British

service, Redmond without consulting the Irish Volunteer executive.

The experience of the two, at best quasilegal forces, was another cause

of anger on the part of the Irish nationalists. The UVF was incorporated

into existing Ulster-based regiments as intact units, eventually forming

the 36th Ulster Division in Kitchener’s “New Armies.” Although

Kitchener was willing to accept the Irish Volunteers into service, too,

he would receive them only as individuals and resisted accepting them

en bloc.

18

Eoin MacNeill, founder and commander of the Irish Volunteers,

opposed Redmond’s offer of the Volunteers for British service. This

resulted in the first split in what became the Irish Republican Army.

Approximately 10 percent of the 100,000 actively enrolled Volunteers

refused to follow Redmond’s lead and stayed with MacNeill.

Redmond’s volunteers became known as the National Volunteers,

while MacNeill’s faction became known as the Irish Volunteers. The

Irish Volunteer element, meanwhile, became even more dominated by

the Irish Republican Brotherhood.19

As the war dragged on and political conditions in Ireland

deteriorated, tensions began to rise. The core of the Irish Republican

Brotherhood, centered around such figures as Padraic Pearse, became

convinced that a unified Ireland with home rule would not emerge after

the war. One of the principal reasons for this hardening attitude was the

142
introduction into the British War Cabinet of Sir Edward Carson and F.

E. Smith, both diehard unionists. This action was not matched by the

corresponding introduction into the cabinet of any of the prominent

Irish nationalists.20 Padriac Pearse, among others, became convinced

that the Irish people needed to be roused from their slumber, that the

cause of the republic needed a rising in this generation to maintain its

momentum, even if the rising were unsuccessful. Thus, he and his

collaborators resolved to stage a rising before the end of the war.21

Instrumental in this attempt would be the activities of Sir Roger

Casement, a Protestant Irish nationalist and a veteran of the British

Foreign Service. Highly regarded and decorated by the government for

his exposé of Belgian excesses in the Congo, Casement had gradually

gravitated to the Irish nationalist movement.22 He had been in the

United States in 1914, where he attempted to raise money and public

support for the Irish cause. In late 1914, he left the United States and

traveled to Germany. There, he undertook two separate but related

tasks. The first was to form an Irish Brigade for German service from

among Irish prisoners in captivity. In this, Casement was notably

unsuccessful. The second task was to attempt to obtain German arms

and support for a rising. While he succeeded in securing a limited

amount of arms, however, the Germans gave him no practical

support.23

The Easter Rising of April 1916

The Easter Rising was timed to coincide with a bank holiday (Easter

Monday) and the arrival of Casement’s German arms shipment. The

plotters planned on a nationwide rising, and to cover the assembly of

the Volunteers and the Citizen Army, a long holiday weekend of

training activities was scheduled. Many members of the Irish

Volunteers, however, did not know that a rising was intended, and the

plotters were limited in their assembly of manpower to the Irish

Republican Brotherhood and its close associates. Even the commander

of the Irish Volunteers was only informed late in Holy Week.

Subsequently, when the arms shipment was intercepted and Casement

captured, Eoin MacNeill attempted to call off the rising. He succeeded

in canceling the exercises in all areas except Dublin and Dublin County,

where the IRB successfully called out the Irish Volunteers and held

exercises, countermanding his orders.24

At noon on Easter Monday, the rebels assembled and occupied some

key positions in the center of Dublin, principal among them being the

General Post Office. The leaders, Pearse and Connolly among others,

143
proclaimed an Irish Republic. The onlooking crowd was unimpressed

and disinterestedif not hostileas many of their husbands and sons

were currently fighting for the British, and they were dependent upon

stipends paid by the British Army through the General Post office.25

The British reaction, meanwhile, was at first disorganized and

hampered by the scattering of the garrison’s officers at holiday

activities. The reaction, however, gathered strength and organization,

and by the end of the week, the isolated Volunteer forces’ positions

were reduced one by one. As one position surrendered, the post

commander warned his surviving troops to never allow themselves to

be caught in fixed positions again. This was to be a prophetic

warning.26

The public reaction was initially one of derision, with jeering crowds

lining the streets as the defeated rebels were marched off. The British

then made perhaps their most significant mistake. Beginning shortly

after the apprehension of the last rebels, a series of court-martials were

held, and many of the rebel leaders were hastily shot, including all those

who had signed the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. James

Connolly, because of the wounds he had received in the rising, had to be

shot while strapped in a chair. After a trial in England that invoked an

archaic Norman-era statute, Sir Roger Casement was hung for treason.

In reaction to the severity of this British response, however, the tide of

public opinion in Ireland began to shift swiftly. The rising had achieved

its purpose: the awakening of the Irish people.27

Many of the remaining rebels were incarcerated in various prisons

and prison camps in England, the most famous of them being Frongoch,

in Wales, which came to be called “The University of Republicanism.”

There, Eamon De Valera, Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy, and

others began to assess the significance of the rising. During what

amounted to an eight-month after-action review, the IRB selected new

members and created a truly nationwide organization of men familiar

with one another.28

The release of prisoners began in August 1916 and continued over

the next year, with almost all of the prisoners released by Christmas

1917. As the former prisoners returned to Ireland, they found a much

different feeling in the country. At the same time, they found legal

organizations (The Irish National Aid Fund and the New Ireland

Insurance Company among them ) now available to them as a cover for

further organizing and fund-raising activities.29 Sinn Féin, the old

political organization of Arthur Griffith dedicated to noncooperation

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with the British, began to win by-elections and gradually increased its

abstentionist strength among the Irish members of Parliament.30

The Crisis of 1919

The IVF (soon to be known widely as the Irish Republican Army)

was reorganized and began clandestine training in a new style of

hit-and-run warfare. Once again, senior members of the IRB were

placed in key positions within the IRA. The IRB and the IRA also

created full-time administrative organizations, chief among them the

General Headquarters.31 Meanwhile, Michael Collins, appointed as

director of intelligence, began to examine the security and intelligence

structure of the British administration in Ireland.32

The British then made their second most significant error of the

period: they attempted to extend conscription to Ireland. The result was

widespread opposition and resistance. Although theoretically Ireland

had been liable to conscription under the 1916 Conscription Act, the act

had not been implemented in Ireland until the manpower crisis of 1918.

In response, John Redmond called for the immediate creation of home

rule, but the British government ignored him, and he died a broken and

bitter man in March 1918.33

In April, the British government announced that conscription would

be extended to Ireland. An immediate and fierce reaction ensued. The

decision to implement conscription united all segments of the Irish

nationalist movement: the Irish party, Sinn Féin, the IRA, the IRB, and

the Catholic Bishops (who up until then had been staunch opponents of

the nationalist movement). All rose in joint opposition. The resistance

became so fierce that a month later the British government announced

that the order to extend conscription was “suspended.”34 The Irish had

won this round. The effect of the opposition was felt more significantly

in the fall: Sinn Féin won the parliamentary elections of December

1918, handily sweeping aside the late John Redmond’s Irish party. This

was the first general election held in Great Britain and Ireland since

1910 and included a much larger percentage of the population than

previous elections, as the franchise had been extended to nearly all

males over the age of twenty-one and women over the age of thirty.

Sinn Féin won 73 of the 103 seats in the Irish delegation and was

strongly supported by the new, younger male voters and by the newly

enfranchised women voters. Separatism and noncooperation became

the order of the day.35

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Instead of attending Parliament, however, the Irish members of Sinn

Féin created the Dáil Éireann, proclaimed that an Irish republic existed,

and began immediately to create a parallel government in Ireland,

complete with courts and finance.36 The Dáil, meanwhile, sent

representatives to Versailles to place the issue of Ireland before the

Peace Conference, which was ostensibly designed to protect the

interests of national self-determination and the rights of small nations.

Meanwhile, the Dáil appealed to Britain’s allies to support the cause of

the infant Irish Republic. The appeal was ignored.37 The British also

began to strike back at the Dáil, arresting members of the illegal body.38

In the late summer and fall of 1918, simultaneous with the

campaigning for the “Khaki Election” (so named for the large influence

wielded by World War I veterans), the IRA began a series of raids to

secure arms and ammunition from the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).

As the Dáil opened in January of 1919, the Tipperary Brigade of the

IRA under Dan Breen struck a convoy carrying gelignite (gelatin

dynamite) and killed two RIC men at Soloheadbeg in County

Tipperary. The Anglo-Irish war was on. Breen’s attack was without

orders and unsanctioned by either the GHQ or the Dáil, but it was

approved and reluctantly supported by them after the fact.39 This was

to be a different kind of Irish rising. Instead of attempting to defeat the

British quickly and throw them out of Ireland, this war was to be

characterized by guerrilla warfare, terrorist attacks, and diplomatic and

propaganda campaigns.

The Troubles and Compound War

The conflict was a nontypical example of Compound Warfare.

Compound Warfare theory essentially specifies four interrelated and

dynamic factors: first, a guerrilla war conducted by irregular forces;

second, a supporting main force element capable of conducting open

conventional warfare; third, an unassailable or viable sanctuary; and

fourth, active support from an outside power. In the case of the

Anglo-Irish War of 1919−22, these elements are present, but in a

nontypical form and amalgamation that has to be understood in its own

special context.

The guerrilla war in Ireland was waged on three fronts. The first, and

perhaps most important front, was the urban terrorist campaign waged

by Michael Collins against the intelligence system of the “Castle.”

(The Castle was the headquarters of the British government in Ireland,

the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the Dublin Police.) The second front

was the small-scale warfare waged by part-time guerrillas attacking the

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RIC and outlying British posts. And the third front was the larger scale

but still guerrilla war conducted by the flying columns of the IRA.

To comprehend how the Irish struggle involved Compound Warfare,

one needs to understand that in the Irish struggle, British “imperial

overstretch” (i.e., the effect of imperial commitments) replaced and

compensated for Compound Warfare’s usual supporting main force.

British worldwide military commitmentsthe overstretchprevented

the British from massing sufficient forces in Ireland to overwhelm the

guerrilla forces. This situation was the result of Britain’s requirement

to garrison a far-flung empire, its provision of forces for the League of

Nations newly mandated territories, and the sustaining of an occupation

force for the German Rhineland. In addition, the British government

faced public pressure to reduce the unprecedented size of the British

Army and to control costs in the wake of a very expensive global war.

By 19 May 1920, the entire British strategic reserve was thirty-seven

battalions, garrisoned in Britain.40

Besides the worldwide British commitment and the paucity of forces

available for the Irish conflict, the actions of the IRA’s flying columns

further exacerbated the situation for the British. The flying columns

presented an opposing force just large enough so that the British

military, as opposed to paramilitary forces, was required to deal with

them. These flying columns were the full-time, irregular field forces of

the IRA.

Although portions of Ireland were difficult and remote to traverse,

the British also provided the Irish rebels with a viable sanctuary. Being

a democratic state supposedly dedicated to the rule of law and to

freedom of the press, the British Government was limited in its actions

to those supportable and acceptable to Parliament and the British

people. Extraordinary measures to seek out and destroy the

rebelsespecially measures that could be perceived publicly as illegal

or immoralwould be difficult to justify and thus difficult to effect in

the light of an open press and public opinion.

The fourth element, significant outside support, would take the form

of popular opinion and governmental disapproval in the United States

and among the dominionsSouth Africa, Canada, and especially

Australia. In addition, substantial financial aid and a small, though

critical, armaments supply would become available from the United

States and to a lesser degree from the British dominions. Together,

these would create a complex, nontypical case of Compound Warfare

that is especially instructive for the soldiers of global democratic

powers.

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The Guerrilla Campaign, Intelligence

The first element of the guerrilla campaign was the

counterintelligence campaign of Michael Collins and “The Squad,”

centered in Dublin but having implications across the island.

Historically, the British government and its paramilitary police force,

the Royal Irish Constabulary, had been able to infiltrate every Irish

nationalist organization. The RIC’s agents moved freely and built

dossiers on all the nationalist leaders.41 Collins, as the director of

intelligence for the IRA’s GHQ, sought to eliminate this threat.

Although the British accused him of unbridled murder, the Irish-born

targets of his campaign were carefully identified, researched, and

generally warned before being targeted for elimination. British officers

involved in the activities were equally well-researched and identified

but were much less likely to be warned.

To combat the Castle’s extensive intelligence system, built around

RIC agents and paid informers, Collins built a network of his own

informers. He chose common people as his agents. They were

positioned to observe actions and overhear comments of value to the

IRB and the Volunteers. They were the invisible people that kept the

society going: mailmen, telegraph and telephone operators, railway

employees, and maids in hotels and even residences. They provided

timely and accurate information, each piece of which was nearly

meaningless but when centralized, assessed, and placed in a pattern

revealed extensive information about the Castle and its garrison’s

activities. As a capstone to this system, Collins also recruited, or

accepted as volunteers, a select group of RIC agents, constables, and

even a few British Army officers who, for a variety of reasons, had

nationalist sympathies.42 Consequently, for the first time, the

nationalists had an intelligence system as pervasive and effective as the

British government’s network.43

Once Collins had built a file of potential targets, he recruited a

special squad of twelve hard young men, known as the Twelve

Apostles, to carry out executions. Just as Collins attempted to do

thorough investigative work to identify his targets, he and the squad did

extremely detailed planning to conduct the actual assassinations. The

general method was to follow the target to establish his habits and

patterns of action. Then, a team of two to four gunmen was selected to

conduct the attack. The attack was planned to provide the greatest

possibility of success and to allow for a subsequent escape. As an

example of the level of planning, in one case, the squad ascertained that

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the target consistently wore a bulletproof vest, so he was intentionally

shot in the head.44

Collins ran an effective urban terrorist campaign in the heart of

British-occupied Dublin, challenging the British government within

yards of the Castle gates itself. Despite its focus on the intelligence

apparatus of the British government in Ireland, the campaign also had

the effect of challenging the legitimacy of that government. If the

British could not even control the streets of Dublin, how could they

control widespread Irish opposition?

Within a year of the inception of Collins’ deliberate attack on the

Castle’s intelligence system, the traditional sources of information for

the British government in Ireland dried up. Now, the British were

forced to bring in serving intelligence officers to augmentin reality

replacethe lost Irish agents. The largest and most effective group of

these men was collectively known as the “Cairo Gang.” Sir Henry

Wilson had ordered this group created and organized in Cairo, Egypt.45

The Cairo Gang relied on intimidation and force for information (much

of which was unreliable for that very reason) and this generated

negative comments in the press, even in England. The Gang was,

however, successful in getting information that resulted in the arrest

and detention of hundreds of active political and military members of

the nationalist movement. However, this was not the real purpose of the

group.

Once it had identified the leaders of the nationalist movement, which

still operated relatively openly in Dublin, the Cairo Gang intended to

conduct its own series of assassinations, effectively eliminating the

leadership of the nascent Irish republic. The Gang had already

conducted several nighttime attacks, killing the sitting Lord Mayor of

Limerick and the former Lord Mayor as well. The murder of the Bishop

of Killaloe by the same team was prevented only by the intervention of

the commander of the “Auxiliaries”a special paramilitary police

force brought in to augment the RIC. In this instance, General F. P.

Crozier warned the bishop to take a holiday; thus, the bishop wisely

took a vacation and was out of the area when the strikes were made.46

The Cairo Gang was clearly operating beyond the pale, at the very

edge of legality. Collins’ intelligence network even uncovered a plot

by the Gang to assassinate Arthur Griffith, acting president of Sinn

Féin, and thus acting president of the surreptitious “Irish Republic.”

Griffith eventually briefed the press on the plot.47

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By November 1920, the Gang had conducted a few selective attacks,

but it had not yet really begun its offensive. What the British press and

public’s reaction would have been is conjectural. However, given the

developing opposition to the war and the reaction to both the hunger

strike death of Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork City,48 and

the execution by hanging of the teenaged Volunteer Kevin Barry for his

part in an attack on British soldiers,49 it is likely that reaction would

have been counterproductive to the British cause. However, Collins

was more concerned about the efficiency of the nationalist movement

and his own security than about the potential propaganda value of

British mistakes.

He took the information that his network had gathered to the chief of

the General Headquarters staff and to key members of the Republican

cabinet. General Richard Mulcahy, chief of the GHQ Staff, supported

the decision to strike preemptively to eliminate the Cairo Gang. The

cabinet went along with the decision as well, after reducing the hit list

from thirty-five to twenty. Cathal Brugha, Minister of Defense in the

Republican government, was suspicious of both Collins and his

organization and questioned the accuracy of the information on the

fifteen to be spared. It is a sign of the discipline of this supposed

“murder gang” run by Michael Collins that the decision of the cabinet

was obeyed.50

In a stunning attack, Collins decided to eliminate the Cairo Gang in

one morning. On 21 November 1920, the Twelve Apostles augmented

by members of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA struck at locations across

the city. In a carefully timed series of attacks, his special squad and the

reinforcing men of the Dublin Brigade executed fourteen of the twenty

English agents between 9:00 A.M. and 9:20 A.M. Although the

“Castle” was aware that something was afoot in Dublin and had

conducted a series of raids the night before, capturing two of Collins’

men in the process, the attack was a complete surprise and was over

before the authorities were even aware it had begun. There were several

close calls on the part of the hit teams, but in the end, the entire force

escaped into the crowded streets of Dublin.51

The Irish would continue to maintain an edge in the intelligence field

throughout the conflict, though, of course, the British would also

achieve some successes in arresting members of the political and

military wings of Sinn Féin. Collins and Mulcahy seemed to lead

charmed lives, however, freely moving about Dublin on bicycles,

blending into the population and effectively controlling the military

organization of the Irish republic. Collins’ intelligence and

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counterintelligence campaigns operated primarily in Dublin but were

matched by a campaign to force the withdrawal of the RIC from its rural

stations as well.

The Guerrilla Campaign, Attacks on the Rural Outposts

In order to destroy the intelligence and security structure of the

British government in rural Ireland, the Royal Irish Constabulary’s

hold in the countryside also had to be attacked. The field brigades of the

IRA, under the overall direction of General Richard Mulcahy, staged

attacks on RIC barracks across Ireland. These isolated police posts

were vulnerable, and the members of the RIC, being for the most part

Irish, were susceptible to intimidation and threats. The combined

campaign to drive the RIC out of the countryside and to drive members

of the RIC out of their organization was designed to reduce the visibility

and effectiveness of the British government in Ireland.52

Mulcahy attempted to coordinate the attacks on police posts, both

occupied and unoccupied, to demonstrate the size and reach of the IRA.

In the month of January 1920, the IRA attacked thirteen RIC barracks.

In the first six months of 1920, sixteen barracks were destroyed,

forty-seven courthouses burned, and hundreds of unoccupied barracks

put to the torch to prevent reoccupation, serving as a reminder of the

retreating influence of the British administration.53 On the night of the

4 April 1920, three hundred unoccupied police posts were burned as

well as every tax office in Ireland with all their records.54 The IRA was

driving the British administration from the countryside.

The IRA generally lacked the strength to win open engagements,

though it could conduct hit-and-run raids and ambushes. By focusing

on destroying the power of the RIC in the countryside, the IRA could

achieve a number of objectives simultaneously. In addition to reducing

the visibility and authority of the British administrationits most

obvious resultit also raised the visibility and authority of the republic

in the minds of the population. The campaign, moreover, gave

part-time members of the IRA experience in a reasonably controlled

environment.55 Furthermore, the campaign gained arms and

ammunition for the IRA, supplies that were in chronically short

supply.56

The part-time guerrillas conducting these attacks were spread across

the countryside and, as with most guerrilla movements, relied on their

ability to blend in with the population for security and survival. At the

same time, they forced the British to disperse their forces in their

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attempt to control as much of the countryside as possible and to restrict

the free movement of the guerrillas. This enabled the semi-regular

forces of the IRA, the flying columns, to strike at these dispersed British

security forces.57

Although probably not really welcomed by the IRA, the campaign

also forced the British to bring in the Auxiliaries to supplement the

beleaguered RIC. A second force also entered the fray in Ireland as a

supplement to the RIC.58 These were the infamous “Black and Tans.”

Recruited from among veterans of the Great War and uniformed in a

mixture of RIC and military uniforms (thus their nickname), these

forces were less than ideal. Lacking the knowledge of the local

population possessed by the RIC, they were less than selective in

striking out at the IRA and its supporters, thus driving many people into

the ranks of the opposition by their actions. Additionally, they lacked

the discipline of regular military formations and frequently got out of

control, increasing their reputation as an illegitimate force.59 The

reprisals and counterreprisals conducted primarily by the Auxiliaries

and the Black and Tans did much to generate unfavorable publicity in

Britain and overseas.60 The British clearly were maintaining their

position in Ireland through the use of naked force, not a very

supportable or survivable position for a democratic government.

By late 1920, Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the cabinet

would seriously consider abandoning most of Ireland, withdrawing

their forces to the major cities and port areas of Ireland, and thus tacitly

conceding their inability to control Ireland or the Irish as a whole.61

Nonetheless, the security services were successful in arresting

increasing numbers of Sinn Féin political figures and members of the

IRA. This success combined with the realization that an “enclave”

policy would be conceding defeat persuaded the British government to

engage in further reprisals and attempts to effectively control all of

Ireland and to crush the resistance.62

The Guerrilla Campaign, The Flying Columns

The success of the British in 1920 in arresting members of the

political and military wings of Sinn Féin caused the IRA to create a

third element in its guerrilla campaign, the semi-regular Flying

Columns. These 30- to 100-man formations were full-time Irish

fighters who had been identified by the British and were being hunted.

The British authorities, by arresting and detaining nationalists, had

created a usable manpower pool for the IRA of men who had escaped

the British grasp but still could not remain at home.63

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Mulcahy and the IRA’s GHQ exerted their time, money, and

expertise to equip and train these men as part of Flying Columns as

close to regular military standards as possible. Although the Flying

Columns never posed a threat to the bulk of the British Army in Ireland

and never attained conventional campaign strength, they still posed a

significant threat. The RIC, Auxiliary, and the Black and Tans were not

normally strong enough to deal effectively with the Flying Columns.

And the British forces, by attempting to mass and contend with the

Flying Columns, abandoned their primary task of controlling the

countryside. Thus, the fight against the Flying Columns had to rely on

the British Army’s regular units, which by late 1920 included nearly

40,000 regular British troops. This size of force was required to

contain, at most, 2,000 Irishmen in the Flying Columns.64

Remote Theater and Regular Forces

The three-pronged guerrilla campaign conducted by the IRA

comprised the first element of compound warfare found in the

Anglo-Irish War. It effectively presented diverse threats to the British,

never permitting its authorities the time or resources to concentrate on

any one of the three efforts. The second element of compound warfare

was the regular military threat that supplemented the guerrilla

campaign.

In conventional compound war theory, as was noted earlier, a regular

military threat is generally a recognizable physical force present in the

theater of war as a “supporting main force element capable of

conducting open conventional warfare” to augment rebels. In the case

of the Anglo-Irish War of 1919–21, this threat was not located in

Ireland at all. A substitute for it was found in the pressures placed on

British resources, outside that theater of war in England’s empire, that

sapped British strength available in Ireland and made a “supporting

main force element” unnecessary for the rebels. While Great Britain

and its empire and commonwealth had just emerged victorious from a

long and exhausting war, the British, before and during the First World

War, had maintained the world’s largest empire with an almost

ridiculously small military force. However, after the war, the British

public would not accept even that large a standing force.

In addition to the “Irish Troubles,” the British were beset by “the

nascent Indian nationalist movement of Mahatma Gandhi and the

Amritsar Massacre,”65 the need for garrisons in the newly mandated

territories of the German and Turkish Empires, and a requirement for an

army of occupation in the German Rhineland, all in addition to the

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traditional need for British garrisons in the empire itself.66 This

combination of requirements was matched by the rapid demobilization

of wartime British forces. Thus, the British tried several innovative

expedients to reduce the need for troops on the ground in the Empire,

one notable example being the attempt to police Iraq with air power

augmented by Royal Tank Regiment armored car units.67

Because of all these requirements, many of the 40,000 men of the

Irish garrison were desperately needed elsewhere, and any

reinforcements for Ireland would seriously strain an already

overstretched British Army. By the summer of 1920, over 20 percent of

the British Army was concentrated in Ireland,68 and the creation of the

“Black and Tans” and the Auxiliaries, were expedients meant to relieve

the need for further manpower.

Added to this problem were the danger of labor unrest in Britain and

the spilling over of Bolshevism into Poland and Central Europe

(including Germany), both posing omnipresent threats to British

interests. Obviously, the empire was strapped for manpower and cash.

The Great War had turned Britain from the world’s greatest creditor

nation to the world’s greatest debtor nation.69 Meanwhile, the

continuing “Irish Troubles” distracted the British government and

reduced the available manpower and financial options open to it in

solving military problems in other areas.

While the IRA lacked the strength to face the British Army in open

warfare, the British Army was so decisively engaged elsewhere that it

could apply little of its main strength in Ireland. And because of these

commitments elsewhere, the British lacked sufficient troops to

effectively impose Ireland-wide martial law. The RIC, Black and Tans,

and Auxiliaries were unable to do the job alone, and the undermanned,

regular British troops in Ireland were occupied trying to contain the

Flying Columns. Britain’s imperial commitments prevented it from

employing a main-force threat in Ireland, and thus the Irish did not need

a substantial outside power to provide them with support, which

fulfilled the requirements of the second element of compound war

theory.

Public Opinion and Sanctuary

The third element of compound war theory is the requirement of an

unassailable sanctuary for insurgents. While portions of the Irish

countryside are rugged and difficult to traverse, the small size and

barren nature of these areas, combined with the small size of the theater,

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argue against the utility of such terrain as sanctuaries. Thus, no part of

Ireland was truly secure against determined penetration by British

security forces. While the guerrillas could find some measure of

security in hiding among the population, Ireland is neither large enough

nor its land difficult enough to travel over for it to act as a safe haven for

large numbers of full-time fighters. Had Britain possessed sufficient

troops, the will to conduct extensive search-and-cordon activities, and a

policy of concentrating the population in controlled areas, the Irish

Republican Army could have conducted little else but terrorist actions.

Counterinsurgencies, by their nature, are a cruel and nasty way of war.

Insurgents, in such struggles, feel free to take all necessary actions to

secure victory, justifying their actions by the fact that they are fighting

for their freedom from an oppressive power. When facing a totalitarian

state, these actions can be and often are matched by an equally

unrestrained policy on the part of the established order, which acts

largely unconstrained by either domestic or world opinion. However, an

ostensibly democratic government, like Britain, was faced with

limitations. Atrocities, real or imagined, by the insurgentswhen

matched by what are seen by the outside world as atrocities by the

established ordercall into question the legitimacy of that established

order. This Irish situation for the British, in this regard, was further

amplified by the presence of a freely elected body that represented the

“oppressed” population. This was the dilemma faced by the British in

Ireland between 1919−21.

The Dáil was freely elected as part of the British elections of

December 1918, even if its members participated in the Imperial

Parliament in London. In this case, the people of Ireland chose the

separatists of Sinn Féin to represent them, knowing full well the

noncooperation policy of the Sinn Féin party. Thus, one could perceive

a certain popular legitimacy to the actions of the rebel forces in Ireland.

In the meantime, this “shadow” government created administrative law

courts to adjudicate land disputes and other civil matters, raised a

national loan by subscription, maintained an active press campaign,

and to a degree, oversaw economic and social conditions in Ireland.70

Having just emerged from a war supposedly waged for the rights of

small nations, the British government faced a severe problem wherein it

was impelled into a sort of split personality over the issue of rising

nationalism in the Empire and Commonwealth. Making conciliatory

moves to India (while participating in the Amritsar Massacre), the

government was granting increasing autonomy to the dominions.71 At

the same time, it was engaged in the application of martial law, police

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terrorism, and reprisals against the Irishwho were constitutionally a

part of the United Kingdom. As time went on, this practice would be

increasingly difficult to justify to the Irish, the British public, British

critics, members of the Commonwealth, and citizens of the United

States.72

Despite having granted “Home Rule” to Ireland in 1914, albeit

delayed until the end of the war, the British were now engaged in a war

to suppress the very independence that home rule had theoretically

established. Only within the context of domestic interparty politics

does this make sense. The Khaki Election of 1918 in Great Britain, for

instance, had returned a Conservative majority to Parliament, a

majority built around a hard core of unionist sentiment. Lloyd George

had maintained the coalition government primarily as a means of

stemming the rising tide of Labor party power, but he could maintain

his power only with the active support of the Conservative majority. To

do this, he had to placate unionist sentiment. In a series of pledges,

beginning in 1916, he had personally promised that the British

government would never coerce the unionists in Ulster to join the Irish

State.73

Simultaneously, the nationalists in the south and in Ulster had

always insisted that there be a single Ireland, and they could not

understand the intransigence of the Protestant unionists. After all, most

of the great Irish nationalists from Wolfe Tone in 1798 to Parnell in the

1890s had been Protestants. But they had been southern Protestants,

part of an imposed elite minority class well-integrated into Irish life in

general. In the north of Ireland, in Ulster, Protestant society ranged

from the upper classes, to peasant farmers, to the working classall

immigrants or their descendants from England and more especially

from Scotland. They had created a society in which they dominated the

remaining Catholic minorityeconomically, politically, and socially.

Thus, they were understandably reluctant to surrender their protection

by Great Britain and to be subsumed into the larger Catholic society of

Ireland as a whole.74

Determined to maintain their unique and privileged positions,

supported by members of the landed gentry and business classes in

Britain and especially within the army and government service, the

Ulster unionists refused to consider anything that would place them

under a Dublin-based home rule. The Anglo-Irish War of 1919−21 was

not fought merely for Irish independence; it was also fought by the

unionist side to preserve the traditional special privileges of the

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Protestant North. The unionists and their Conservative party colleagues

supported the uncompromising policies that Lloyd George and the

cabinet adopted.75

British public opinion provided the final and best sanctuary for the

Sinn Féiners and the IRA. A portion of British sentiment had always

favored the Irish cause, and as the repressive measures of the

government became widely known, this portion grew. The hunger

strikes and reprisal executions of Irish nationalist prisoners drew much

public attention, and the British public began to recoil from this

precipice of unrestrained violence. Opposition in Britain was voiced

not just by unfriendly newspapers; even newspapers that had

previously been staunch supporters of Lloyd George began to take the

prime minister and the government to task over the policy of police

terrorism and reprisals in Ireland.76 The protestant bishops of Britain

also expressed deep concern and reservations over the Irish policies of

the government.77 Some members of the press and later historians have

described this period as the “blackest” period of modern British

history.78

In the end, however, the British government was restrained from

taking the military and security steps it needed to control the

insurgencynot because they could not but because they would not.

Imposing martial law across Irelandthat is, deploying thousands of

troops and police to control the Irish populationwas impossible in the

light of a free press in a democratic society. Militarily far stronger than

the IRA could ever hope to be, the British government, in the end,

sought to secure only what was truly vital to British interests: domestic

tranquility within Britain itself, the independence of the unionists, and

the semblance of imperial unity. The nature of the British government

and the society it represented provided, to a degree, a special potency to

the Irish that replaced the advantages of the sanctuary needed by Sinn

Féin and the IRA to operate between 1919 and 1922.

Foreign Opinion and Major Power Alliances

A significant element of fortified compound war theory is the

existence of military and diplomatic support from a significant foreign

power. The examples of France’s support to the nascent American

republic during the American Revolution, Britain’s support of the

Spanish guerrilla campaign against Napoleon, and Western support to

the Afghan rebels in recent memory are all examples of this sort of

support. The outside partner, in such instances, provides arms,

equipment, and expertise, as well as diplomatic pressure to assist the

157
insurgent forces. In the case of Ireland, obviously this direct support

and intervention did not appear; instead, it was provided by other,

analogous means.

Perhaps the greatest specter hanging over the British government’s

attempt to quell the “Irish Troubles” by force of arms was the

disapproval of Britain’s policies by the British dominions and the

United States. While never officially recognized by any power during

the period of the “troubles,” the Dáil and the Irish people in general had

a great reservoir of support in these countries. The Diaspora of the Irish

during the great potato famine and the land struggles of the nineteenth

century had sent between three to five million Irish men and women to

Australia, Canada, and America. In addition, the recent experience of

South Africans in the Boer War made them sympathetic to the

suggestion that the British were attempting to impose their will by force

of arms on a weaker power.79

Throughout the Irish conflict, the British were sensitive to the

feelings of the dominions and the United States. Therefore, the British

tried to influence public perceptions in two separate ways: the first was

to portray the nationalists as intransigent and in collusion with outside

opponentsspecifically the Germans during the First World War and

the Bolsheviks in the period 1919−21. The second way was to attempt

to mollify the émigré Irish and their overseas friends with efforts to

reach a compromise with the Irish. Neither was successful.

The intransigence of the Irish nationalists was difficult to portray

since they were ostensibly only trying to secure that which the

imperial Parliament had already granted them in 1914 with the Home

Rule Act. Attempts to paint the Irish nationalists to the British public

as a danger to British society and democratic society failed and also

fell short within the dominions and the U.S. Meanwhile, the links

with Germany became moot by 1920, and Irish connections alleged

with the Soviet Union were tenuous at best.80 Any serious

examination of these charges by impartial observers easily

discredited the claims. The last contacts from the Germans had been

dismissed by the Irish themselves, and the Soviets were more

interested in gaining recognition and economic agreements from the

British than in the ephemeral advantages of recognition of the

underground Irish republic. Irish attempts to secure Soviet

recognition, moreover, were seen in the light of their attempts to gain

general recognition from any overseas governments, including that of

the United States.81

158
The attempts to reach a compromise all foundered on the unionist

rock of Ulster. Beginning with the creation of the Ulster Covenant and

the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1912, and continuing though the Curragh

mutiny of 1914, Ulster had exercised a decisive veto on British policy

through its unionist majority. The defection of the unionist vote in

Parliament would have brought down the wartime coalition needed to

wage the First World War. After the Easter Rising in 1916, an attempt

to reach a quick compromise failed when it became apparent that Lloyd

George, then minister of munitions and chief negotiator for the

government, was playing a double game. He was promising the Irish

nationalists that Ulster separatism was only a temporary solution while,

at the same time, promising Sir Edward Carson that Britain would

never concede to coercion against the unionists.

The all-Irish convention called in 1917 was equally destined to fail

because the wide diversity of views (even among the moderates)

prevented any sort of consensus or unanimity demanded by the

Conservative and unionist elements in the British Parliament and

government.82 Although discussions were carried on for almost a year,

the base positions of a united Irish state and a separate Protestant Ulster

were incompatible. By May 1918 when the Convention’s final report

was published, the British had already ruined any hope of its success by

attempting to impose conscription on Ireland, then deciding not to

enforce it, and then by arresting the open and moderate members of

Sinn Féin after trying to portray them as being involved in a German

plot.

The Irish also made conscious and deliberate attempts to get their

message out to the émigré Irish in the U.S., Australia, and Canada. The

Dáil created and supported a propaganda campaign by releasing

information twice a week in the Irish Bulletin. Eventually funded at a

number of 4,000, the Bulletin presented the Irish side of the story to the

world’s press.83 Also involved in the overseas efforts were Irish

nationalist figures, including Eamon De Valera. De Valera remained in

the U.S. for over a year after being spirited out of Lincoln Jail in

England. He toured the country and spoke to large sympathetic crowds

and many political figures. Though unsuccessful in his attempts to

speak to President Woodrow Wilson, he spoke with governors,

senators, congressmen, and mayors.84

In addition to the publicity campaignas a part of Michael Collins’

National Loan campaignbonds were sold in the U.S. and the

dominions, which resulted in the raising of several million badly

needed dollars for the Irish cause.85 Much of this money went into the

159
daily accounts of the shadow Dáil government, whose power and

influence extended from foreign affairs to judicial courts. Some of the

money, however, was diverted to the purchase of weapons for the IRA.

The number of weapons was small but, on occasion, significant. In a

force lacking automatic weapons, fifty .45-caliber Thompson

submachine guns was a substantial augmentation.86 Rifles, pistols, and

hand grenades made up the bulk of the military suppliesweapons

that, in the hands of IRA guerrillas, could be used to secure additional

arms from the British themselves.

In the end, it was the decisive intervention of the dominion leaders,

chief among them Prime Minister and General Jan Smuts of South

Africa that forced a settlement on the British government. It was Smuts

and the other dominion leaders’ belief that the Anglo-Irish War was

poisoning the attempt to build a new “empire” dominated by the good

will of subjects, to expand home rule for many areas, and to establish a

system of sovereign but associated dominions.87 Beginning at the

Versailles Conference and building to a crescendo during the Imperial

Conference of May and June 1921, Smuts pressured Lloyd George to

accept a negotiated end to the war. Smuts prepared the first draft of the

king’s conciliatory address to the newly seated Ulster Parliament on 21

June 1921.88

During the cabinet’s deliberations over the proposed truce in June

and July 1921, Smuts took an active part, sitting with the cabinet as he

had during much of the First World War.89 He constantly reminded the

cabinet of the damage being done to Britain’s reputation and its

reservoir of good will by the harsh means it was employing to bring the

Irish to heel. Ultimately, it was pressure from the public in Great

Britain, the dominions, and the United Statesas well as the

substantial influence of the dominion’s leaders, especially Jan

Smutsthat brought an end to the Anglo-Irish War of 1919−21.

Conclusion

While a non-typical example of compound war theory, the

Anglo-Irish War of 1919−22 does validate the components of the

theory. Existing in that war were all the requisite factors for success by

the insurgents. The Irish presented a complex set of challenges to the

British, who were unable to bring the full power of the Empire to bear

due to other commitments and the restraints to violence present in a

democratic state. The Irish insurgents, meanwhile, were able to

capitalize on the limitations inherent in a free and democratic state by

waging a counterinsurgency campaign that created a type of sanctuary,

160
one that existed more in the mind of the enemy than in the advantages of

geographical features. Meanwhile, the Irish were able to mobilize

sufficient sympathy and practical (though limited) support abroad that

approximated the effect of a supporting outside power.

Ireland’s war for independence presents an interesting variation of

the compound war theory that is timely and relevant. In an age of

worldwide communications and a pervasive media, with conflicts often

muddied by conflicting moral and ethical claims to the high ground, the

Irish insurgency demonstrates how difficult it is for a democracy to

wage a counterinsurgency campaign. Thus, with the Irish experience in

mind, policymakers and soldiers should examine the unique

circumstances of the Anglo-Irish struggle and appreciate and anticipate

the traps that ensnared both sides and eventually led to a British

withdrawal. Ironically, oftentimes the military actions initiated in an

attempt to quell such an insurgency will provide the insurgents with

components of compound war theory, in transmuted form, that will

ensure the rebels success.

In the opening of this paper, a quotation by Winston Churchill

comments about Ireland’s impact on British affairs. Another of his

remarks offers sage words that apply equally well to the United States

as with Great Britain on the subject of counterinsurgency warfare in

general. Churchill said: “No country in the world is less fitted for a

conflict with terrorists than Great Britain, not because of weakness and

cowardice, but because of our restraint and our virtues.”90

161

Notes

1. Winston Churchill, Papers of Winston Churchill, Vol. IV, 1916-1922, ed.,

Martin Gilbert (Boston, 1969), 190-201, as quoted in F. J. Costello, “The

Anglo-Irish War, 1919-1921: A Reappraisal,” Ph.D. dissertation, Boston

College, 1992, iii.

2. Ulick O’Connor, Michael Collins and the Irish Troubles: The Struggle for Irish

Freedom (New York, 1996), 16-19; Alan J. Ward, The Easter Rising:

Revolution and Irish Nationalism (Arlington Heights, IL: A. H. M. Publishing

Co., 1980), 39-45.

3. O’Connor, 21-22, 26-28.

4. O’Connor, 51-53; Ward, 50-56; J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA

from 1916-1979 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983), 7-9.

5. O’Connor, 20-21; Ward, 58-59; Frank J. Costello, “The Anglo-Irish War,

1919-1921: A Reappraisal,” Ph.D. diss., Boston college, 1992, 12-17.

6. O’Connor, 23-25; Ward, 58-60.

7. Ward, 17-31, 82-83.

8. Costello, 11.

9. Ibid., 5-8; Ward, 81-87.

10. Costello, 6; Ward, 87-88.

11. F. X. Martin and P. Byrne, “Eoin MacNeill and the Irish Volunteers” in The

Scholar Revolutionary (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1973), 169.

12. Peter De Rosa, Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 (New York: Fawcett

Columbine, 1992), 13-27.

13. Costello, 22-23; Maryann Gialanella Valiulis, Portrait of a Revolutionary:

General Richard Mulcahy and the Founding of the Irish Free State (Lexington,

KY: University of Kentucky, 1992), 7-9.

14. O’Connor, 54-59.

15. Stephen Mark Duffy, “No Question of Fighting: The Government, the Army,

and the Currah Incident, 1914,” Ph.D. diss., Texas A&M University, 1993,

presents a detailed study of the entire incident.

163
16. Ward, 90-92; F.X. Martin, “The Origins of the Irish Rising of 1916,” in The

Irish Struggle, 1916-1926, ed., Desmond Williams (London, 1966), 15-16.

17. UVF strength from Martin, “Origins”10, IVF Strength from Tim Pat Coogan,

The IRA: A History (Niwot, CO: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1993), 14.

18. O’Connor, 69-70; Ward, 98; F. X. Martin, “Origins,” 16.

19. Coogan, IRA, 14; O’Connor, 71.

20. Ward, 97-98.

21. Martin, “Origins,” 16; Costello, 25-26; O’Connor, 71-78.

22. Brian Inglis, Roger Casment (New York: Harcourt Jovanovich, 1974, 1973),

19-91, provides a detailed history of Casement’s service to the British Foreign

Ministry, especially his exposure of Belgian excesses in the Congo.

23. Bell, 5; Ward, 100-103.

24. Valiulis, 13; Bell, 6; O’Connor, 79-80.

25. Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland (Boulder, CO:

Roberts Rinehart: Distributed by Publishers Group West, 1996), 45; Bell, 12;

Ward, 14-15.

26. G. Hayes McCoy, “Military History of the Rising,” in The Making of 1916, ed.

K. Nowland (Dublin: Library of Trinity College of University of Dublin, 1969),

300.

27. Costello, 32; Bell, 13; Ward, 110-12; O’Connor, 95-96.

28. Coogan, Collins, 54-57; Bell, 14.

29. Costello, 34; Coogan, Collins, 55, 63-65.

30. Ward, 115-21; Coogan Collins, 73-93.

31. M. L. R. Smith, Fighting For Ireland? The Military Strategy of the Irish

Republican Movement (London, Routledge, 1995), 33-34; Coogan, Collins,

72-75; Costello, 112.

32. Coogan, Collins, 75-77.

33. Ward, 115-21; Costello, 108; Coogan, Collins, 88-89.

34. Ward, 118; Costello, 110-15.

164
35. Ward, 120-21; Costello, 110-15.

36. Coogan, Collins; 104-7; Costello, 117-18.

37. Coogan, Collins, 107-13; George Dangerfield, The Damnable Question (Little

Brown & Co., Boston, 1976) 309.

38. O’Connor, 136.

39. Smith, 39; Costello, 118-19.

40. Dangerfield, 317.

41. Coogan, Collins, 78-80; O’Connor, 137-38.

42. Dangerfield, 313.

43. Coogan, Collins, 78-84; Smith, 34-35; O’Connor, 138-40.

44. Coogan, Collins, 116-18; O’Connor, 142-44.

45. Coogan, Collins, 157-58; Costello, 159-62.

46. O’Connor, 177; Coogan, Collins, 124; Costello, 138.

47. Costello, 159.

48. Ibid., 133; Coogan, Collins, 155-56.

49. Coogan, Collins, 154-55.

50. O’Connor, 178-79.

51. Costello, 159-63; Coogan, Collins, 159-60.

52. Smith, 34-35; Costello, 133-35, 146-47.

53. Smith, 34; Costello, 124.

54. Dangerfield, 316.

55. Costello, 201-5; Tom Barry, Guerrilla Days in Ireland: A Firsthand Account of

the Black and Tan War, 1919-1921 (New York: Devin-Adair Co., 1956), 7-29.

56. Smith, 34; Costello, 123-24.

57. Smith, 34; Costello, 126-27, 167-68; Coogan, Collins, 140.

58. Dangerfield, 316-19.

165
59. Coogan, Collins, 125-27; Costello, 130.

60. Smith, 35; Coogan, Collins, 143-46, 160-64, 166; Costello, 153-56.

61. Costello, 310.

62. Ibid., 312-13.

63. Costello, 152-53; Barry, 30-37.

64. Costello, 125.

65. John R. McLane, The Political Awakening in India (Englewood Cliffs, NJ,

1970), 69-73.

66. Anthony Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 1919-1939 (Athens,

University of Georgia Press, 1986), 45-247.

67. Ibid., 124-28.

68. The British Army’s peacetime establishment was set at 153 infantry battalions,

16 of them southern Irish battalions that as a rule were not used in Ireland; data

from various sources.

69. David Stevenson, The First World War and International Politics (Oxford,

Oxford University Press, 1988), 254-58.

70. Smith, 34; Costello, 116-17, 137-39, 251-54.

71. Costello, 304-5; Clayton, 13-16.

72. Dangerfield, 314-15, 323-24. Dangerfield, in fact, argues throughout his work

that the British government from 1916 on was looking across the Atlantic to the

United States whenever considering its actions in Ireland, first for continued or

increased support during the First World War and then subsequently for

continued good relations. Interestingly, the Washington Naval Arms

Limitations negotiations were on-going in 1920 and 1921, and reducing naval

expenditures while maintaining at least parity with the United States was a vital

interest to the British government.

73. Costello, 179-81, 307-8; Ward 112-14; C. L. Mowat, “The Irish Question in

British Politics, 1916-1922,” in Williams, 141-52.

74. Ward, 23-25.

75. Costello, 200.

166
76. Ibid., 175-99, 229-31.

77. Ibid., 291-92.

78. Ibid., 154-56,165-66, 175-76, 308.

79. Dangerfield, 328, discusses Smuts’ characterization of the Irish situation as

similar to the Boer experience.

80. Dangerfield, 283, 285-90. Dangerfield, in the most detailed chronicling of the

British government’s attempts to paint the Irish nationalists as a danger, makes

no mention of contacts with the Soviet Union.

81. Costello, 290-300.

82. Maureen Wall, “Partition: The Ulster Question, 1916-1926,” in Williams,

83-85.

83. Costello, 285-89.

84. O’Connor, 158-59; Costello 176-80, 197-98; Dangerfield, 313-15.

85. Coogan, Collins, 106-7; Costello, 136.

86. Valiulis, 75-76.

87. Costello, 294, and 312 (Lloyd George specifically mentioned both relations

with the United States and the dominions as reasons for seeking a settlement).

88. Costello, 322-28.

89. Coogan Collins, 86; Costello.

90. Winston Churchill,Churchill in Parliament: The Sayings of Winston Churchill,

ed., Dennis Bardens (London: Duckworth Publishing, 1967), 45.

167

Compound Warfare in the Military

Thought and Practice

of Mao Zedong and the Chinese

People’s Liberation Army’s Huai Hai

Campaign (November 1948—January

1949)

Gary J. Bjorge

Acknowledgment: I wish to acknowledge the assistance I received

from a number of military historians at the Chinese Academy of

Military Science, the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s

Revolution, and the Huai Hai Campaign Memorial Museum in

Xuzhou in obtaining information about the Huai Hai campaign. That

information appears in this paper without attribution. This study also

contains material obtained as a result of the U.S. Army initiative in

1998 to conduct a military history exchange with the Chinese People’s

Liberation Army. In October of that year, it was my good fortune to be

able to study the Huai Hai campaign as a member of a U.S. Army

military history delegation that carried out a staff ride to the main

battlefields of the campaign and the Huai Hai Campaign Memorial

Museum in Xuzhou, the main geographical objective of the campaign.

The thematic glue binding the studies in this book together is that

recurring pattern of warfare in which forces categorized as regular,

conventional, or main units and those described as irregular or guerrilla

forces are used together in pursuit of victory. The editor of this work has

adopted the term “compound warfare” to denote this pattern and, in his

introductory essay, he discusses the various forms that this pattern may

take. One pattern that received particular attention is a theoretical

construct the editor calls “fortified (strengthened) compound warfare,”

a situation in which a political entity not only possesses conventional

and irregular forces but also enjoys the benefits of having a safe haven

for its regular forces and the direct or indirect support of a major power

ally. Where these four elements are present for one side in a conflict, the

editor postulates, that side is virtually assured of winning.

The present study will examine the use of compound warfare by the

Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) during their

169
long struggle (1927 to 1949) to wrest political power from the

Nationalists under Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek).1 The discussion

begins with the origins of this civil war and examines Mao Zedong’s

military thought and practice during the late 1920s. A summary of the

events of the 1930s and 1940s is then followed by a more detailed look

at the most decisive campaign of the Chinese Civil War, the Huai Hai

campaign of 6 November 1948 to 10 January 1949. This campaign is

interesting from the perspective of compound warfare because of the

high degree to which irregular regional and local forces were integrated

into what was the largest conventional campaign ever conducted by the

Communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The campaign also

highlights the level of regularization and professionalism achieved by

the PLA at that time. If General Douglas MacArthur had studied the

accomplishments of Communist forces during the Huai Hai campaign,

his views on Chinese capabilities a year later in Korea might have been

strikingly different.

The Early Development of Mao Zedong’s Military Thought

and Practice

Mao Zedong was born in Hunan Province in 1893 and grew up in an

age of turmoil and violence, an era when China was attacked by

imperialist powers from without even as internal strife tore it apart from

within. Fascinated by the stories of past Chinese heroes and foreigners

like Peter the Great, Washington, Wellington, and Napoleon, Mao

dreamed of a day when China would be strong militarily and once again

a great nation. Attracted to Marxism by the success of the Bolshevik

Revolution in Russia, he began working with others to promote the

study of Marxism in China. In July 1921, he was present when the

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was established in Shanghai and, two

years later, he was elected to the CCP Central Committee.

In 1923, at the urging of agents sent to China by the Soviet Union, the

Communists and the Nationalist Party (KMT) agreed on a policy of

collaboration in an effort to bring down warlord rule and implement a

social revolution in China. Shortly afterward, in January 1924, Mao

was elected an alternate member of the KMT Central Executive

Committee.2 During the next few years, Mao held a number of posts,

one of the most important being director of the Peasant Movement

Training Institute (founded in 1924). This school for peasant organizers

gave 128 hours of military training as well as political training as part of

its 380-hour course of study.3 The fact that many of the young men who

attended this school were Communist activists from Mao’s home

170
province of Hunan is taken by some as evidence that Mao foresaw the

coming rupture in CCP-KMT relations that occurred in 1927 and was

preparing already a cadre of supporters to join him in the struggle.4 In

any case, when this split occurred and Mao was forced by Nationalist

military pressure to seek refuge in the remote Jinggan (Chingkang)

mountain area along the Hunan-Jiangxi border, many former students

at the institute went there and helped him set up a base area (see Map 1.)

Several thousand former KMT soldiers led by Communist officers

such as Zhu De (Chu Teh) also made their way to join Mao. These

forces played an important role in defending Mao’s base area and, a

year later in autumn 1928, Mao saw reason for optimism about his

prospects. “It is possible for an armed independent regime of workers

and peasants to survive and grow,” he wrote to the CCP Central

Committee, “[if] the incessant splits and wars within China’s

comprador [tool of foreign capital] and landlord classes [continue] ...,

[and we have] the following conditions: (1) a sound mass base, (2) a

sound Party organization, (3) a fairly strong Red Army, (4) terrain

favourable to military operations, and (5) economic resources

sufficient for sustenance.”5 Clearly, these conditions proposed by Mao

show that he saw his path to victory as much more than a military

problem. There were significant political, social, and economic issues

that had to be resolved correctly also. Effective organizations for

implementing policies and mobilizing human and materiel resources

had to be created. Yet, as the following excerpt from a report he made to

the CCP Congress of the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Area in October 1928

indicates, Mao believed that even if CCP policies were gaining

widespread popular support, without a regular Red Army to defend

them, his base area could not survive:

The existence of a regular Red Army of adequate strength is a

necessary condition for the existence of Red political power. If we

have local Red Guards only, but no regular Red Army, then we cannot

cope with the regular White forces, but only with the landlords’ levies.

Therefore even when the masses of workers and peasants are active, it

is definitely impossible to create an independent regime, let alone an

independent regime which is durable and grows daily, unless we have

regular forces of adequate strength.6

But if from the beginning of his revolutionary struggle, Mao viewed

a regular military force as an essential requirement, as this quote

indicates, Mao saw that military power could come from irregular

forces as well as from regular forces. Because the Communist base area

171
172

Map 1. Political map of eastern China, 1928
had only enough economic resources to support a limited number of

full-time soldiers, two irregular military organizations were

established. The Red Guards, the forces Mao refers to in the above

quote, was organized on a county basis. The other force, called

“insurrectionary detachments,” was organized on a township basis.

Both forces provided military capability while allowing their members

to continue their regular productive work. Of these two irregular

organizations, the Red Guards was better trained and equipped. Their

commanders had generally completed a training course with the Red

Army, and the soldiers had a number of rifles to go along with their

spears, knives, and other simple weapons. Their main mission was to

combat the local security forces of the warlords and the levies of the

landlords by using the principles of dispersion.7 The insurrectionary

detachments were armed with spears and some shotguns. Their job was

to “suppress counter-revolution, protect the township government, and

assist the Red Army and Red Guards in battle when the enemy

appear[ed].” 8

The regular Red Army at this time was not large. In June 1928, when

the name of regular forces present in the Hunan-Jiangxi Border Areas

was changed from the Worker-Peasant Revolutionary Army to the Red

Army, that army consisted of slightly over 6,000 soldiers organized

into four regiments.9 Ideally, these regiments’ three subordinate

battalions contained four companies of riflemen, a special task

company, a machine-gun company; and a trench-mortar company. A

regiment ideally wielded 1,075 rifles.10 This small force by applying

the principle of concentration, taking advantage of the terrain,

maneuvering rapidly, and often achieving surprise, enabled Mao to

keep the red flag of revolution flying in the Jinggang Mountains during

1928. In November 1928, Mao reported to the CCP Central Committee

in Shanghai that his base was impregnable: “All the strategic passes in

the mountains are fortified. Our hospitals, bedding and clothing

workshops, ordnance department, and regimental rear offices are all

here. At the present grain is being transported to the mountains from

Ningkang. Provided we have adequate supplies, the enemy can never

break in.”11

If this base were defended, Mao told the Central Committee, it would

serve as a foundation upon which to develop Communist strength.

Here, he believed, conditions were favorable for the protection and

expansion of his military forces and the areas under Communist

control:

173
If the Red Army does not move away, then, building on the

foundations we already have, we shall be able gradually to expand to

surrounding areas and our prospects will be very bright. If we want to

enlarge the Red Army, the only way is to engage the enemy in a

prolonged struggle in the vicinity of the Chingkang Mountains where

we have a good mass base... utilizing in this struggle the divergence

of interests between the enemy forces of Hunan and Kiangsi

Provinces, their need to defend themselves on all sides and their

inability to concentrate their forces. We can gradually enlarge the Red

Army by the use of correct tactics, fighting no battle unless we can win

it and capture arms and men.12

Mao’s Early Military Thought and the Compound Warfare

Model

Considering the elements of the compound warfare model (that is,

where both regular and irregular forces contribute to a military

struggle) and the fortified (strengthened) compound warfare model

(where the regular and irregular forces fight with the benefit of a safe

haven for the regular forces and with the direct or indirect support of a

major power ally), it can be seen that Mao’s early military thought and

practice are compatible with both models. From the beginning of his

armed struggle against the Nationalists, he utilized the diverse

capabilities of regular conventional forces and irregular elements. In

addition, he saw the value of a base area and worked hard to establish a

safe haven for the Red Army. Perhaps most important, he understood

the relationship between his own operations and outside support. Mao

did not have the support, direct or indirect, of a major power ally, but

divisions among his enemies were producing the functional equivalent

of such support. These divisions, by diverting warlord forces away

from attempts to wipe out Mao’s base area, inadvertently aided him in

his struggle. In his October 1928 report to the Hunan-Jiangxi Border

Area CCP Congress, Mao described this inadvertent assistance as

essential to Communist survival:

The long-term survival inside a country of one or more small areas

under Red political power completely encircled by a White regime is a

phenomenon that has never occurred elsewhere in the world. There

are special reasons for this unusual phenomenon.... This unusual

phenomenon can occur only in conjunction with another unusual

phenomenon, namely, war within the White regime. It is a feature of

semi-colonial China that since the first year of the Republic (1912),

the various cliques of old and new warlords have waged incessant

wars against one another, supported by imperialism from abroad and

174
by the comprador and landlord classes at prolonged splits and wars

within the White regime provide a condition for the emergence and

persistence of one or more small Red areas under the leadership of the

Communist Party amidst the encirclement of the White regime.

In difficult or critical times some comrades often have doubts about

the survival of Red political power and become pessimistic. The

reason is that they have not found the correct explanation for its

emergence and survival. If only we realize that splits and wars will

never cease within the White regime in China, we shall have no doubts

about the emergence, survival, and daily growth of Red political

power. 13

Developments During the Period 1928-1948

One can only speculate about what might have happened had Mao’s

vision been the basis for CCP policy in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Instead of following Mao’s recommendations to rely on the peasantry

and build up Communist base areas in the countryside, the CCP

leadership, adhering to orthodox Communist doctrine about the need

for urban workers to play the leading role in a Communist revolution,

sought to capture cities. The result was a series of blunders that ended

with the destruction of the Communist-controlled area in Jiangxi by the

Nationalists in 1934. The Communists then were forced to flee to a

remote area in northern Shaanxi (Shensi) Province.

In October 1934, Mao and approximately 100,000 other

Communists broke through the Nationalist forces encircling their

Jiangxi base and began a yearlong trek covering 6,000 miles. A year

later, the 25 percent who survived the battles and other hardships of this

“Long March” reached northern Shaanxi. Along the way, Mao

emerged as the paramount Communist leader. Once established in

Shaanxi, he worked to strengthen the party’s organization and to

mobilize the human and materiel resources to defend his new rural base

area. As he had in the Jinggang Mountains, Mao built Communist

military power using the three-tiered force structure of local militia,

regional forces, and the regular Red Army.

In late 1935, the military situation facing the Communists looked

bleak. Chiang Kai-shek had eliminated the Communist base areas in

southern China and was determined to eradicate the northern Shaanxi

base area to finish off the Communists once and for all. Even the most

effective use of “simple” compound warfare (i.e., the simultaneous use

of regular and irregular forces) would probably not have enabled the

175
Communists to protect the northern Shaanxi base against the

Nationalist forces that Chiang was concentrating against them.

However, at this time, Japanese aggression against China was

changing the strategic situation and was about to weaken the

Nationalist efforts against the Communists. During 1936, Nationalist

officers and soldiers increasingly came to view the Japanese as the

major threat—not their fellow Chinese. In December, when Chiang

Kai-shek visited the front in an attempt to spur on the anti-Communist

campaign, this sentiment reached the breaking point. Nationalist

officers in Xian (Sian) mutinied and took Chiang into custody,

demanding that he cease the campaign and organize a United Front with

the Communists to fight Japan. After nearly two weeks of negotiations,

Chiang was released and flew back to the capital in Nanjing (Nanking).

Meanwhile, offensive operations against the Communists ceased.

During 1937, a United Front against Japan was agreed upon.

Inadvertently, “simple” compound warfare had become fortified

(strengthened) compound warfare with Japan, contrary to its important

policy objective of destroying the Chinese Communists, actually

becoming the equivalent of a major power ally to the Communists.

Japan, in other words, saved Mao.

For the next eight years, Japan continued unintentionally to aid the

Communists in their struggle with the Nationalists. During this period,

Japanese armies pushed Nationalist forces out of much of northern and

eastern China and implemented harsh occupation policies. This

provided fertile ground for Communist infiltrators to organize

underground peasant resistance. The Nationalists could do little

because of the agreed-upon United Front against Japan and the attacks

upon their forces by the Japanese Army. As a result, the Communists

spread their influence across much of northern China and greatly

expanded their military forces.

By 1945, the Communist army had grown to a strength of perhaps

900,000—a nearly twenty-fold increase over what it had been a decade

earlier.14After the Nationalist-Communist civil war resumed in earnest

in 1946, these strengthened forces made it possible for the Communists

to defend large base areas, which facilitated, in turn, an even greater

increase in the number of Communist soldiers. Meanwhile, Nationalist

troop strength, despite the addition of several hundred thousand

replacements, was declining due to heavy battle casualties. In

mid-1948, Nationalist troop strength stood at approximately

3,600,000, as opposed to 4,300,000 in 1946. Communist strength

176
during these two years had risen from 1,200,000 to 2,800,000,

including 1,490,000 regular troops.15

Compound Warfare in 1948

Evaluating this changing balance of power between the PLA and the

Nationalist Army during the summer of 1948, the Communist

leadership decided to concentrate its regular forces and conduct

large-scale conventional operations to destroy Nationalist armies north

of the Yangtze River. While the Nationalists still possessed an overall

edge in manpower and firepower, their armies were widely dispersed

and not mutually supporting. Some 500,000 troops were effectively

isolated in the northeast. Around 600,000 more were tied down holding

a narrow corridor running from the seacoast at Tianjin (Tientsin) and

through Peiping (Beijing), Zhangjiakou (Kalgan), and into Suiyuan

Province. Far to the south of these forces, approximately 1,750,000

soldiers were spread out in a wide band running some 1,500 miles from

the coastline in southern Shandong Province, through Henan Province,

and then turning northwestward to the Mongolian border. At the same

time, the Nationalists had no strategic reserves and had lost the ability

to mount major offensives against the largest Communist base areas.

The situation was ripe for the Communists to seize the initiative in the

civil war, and they did so.

The Communist decision to carry out large-scale mobile operations

with regular forces did not mean their abandonment of what we call

compound warfare. Certainly, the fortified compound warfare model

does not apply to what happened at this time. During the 1920s and

1930s, Communist success and even survival had depended upon other

forces drawing Nationalist units away from the main battle with the

Communists. Now, there was no other power distracting Nationalist

attention from their effort to defeat the Communists. This did not matter

because PLA strength had increased to such an extent that the

Communists welcomed the concentration of Nationalist forces against

them. The Communists now felt that such concentration provided

opportunities to destroy large Nationalist formations and accelerate

their march to final victory.

But while the fortified compound warfare model does not have

relevance for describing the campaigns of late 1948 and early 1949, the

ordinary or simple compound warfare model does, as will be

demonstrated by the following examination of the Huai Hai campaign,

the largest of the three great conventional offensives launched by the

PLA during the autumn of 1948. In this campaign, regular conventional

177
forces—the PLA’s East China Field Army (ECFA) with 360,000

soldiers and Central Plains Field Army (CPFA) with 150,000

soldiers—clearly played the predominant roles.16 Regional forces

numbering some 90,00017 and local militia forces totaling some

400,00018, however, also made significant contributions to the

campaign. The three-tiered military organizational structure that Mao

had developed in the Jinggang Mountains twenty years earlier was still

present, but it had grown greatly in size, capability, and sophistication.

The Huai Hai campaign was compound warfare on a grand scale.

Development of the Huai Hai Campaign Plan

The roots of the Huai Hai campaign can be traced back to 14 July

1948 when an ECFA offensive isolated the Shandong capital of Jinan.

On the next day, the Communist’s Central Military Commission

(CMC) directed Su Yu, the acting ECFA commander, to concentrate

his forces around Jinan and prepare to attack it. “If Jinan is taken in

August or September,” the order of 15 July read, “then in the winter or

spring Xuzhou can be seized.”19 Xuzhou, the primary geographical

objective of the Huai Hai campaign, thus became a major consideration

in ECFA operational planning.

Xuzhou, the largest city in northern Jiangsu, had significant military

value. In Chinese strategic terms, it had been from ancient times “a

place that military strategists must contend for.” Its position on high

ground between the lakes and marshes that extend to the southeast and

northwest of the city had long made it an important point for commerce

moving north and south and east and west in eastern China.

Construction of the Long-Hai and Jin-Pu rail lines early in the twentieth

century, moreover, had further increased the economic and military

value of the region.20 Xuzhou, being the place where the two lines

crossed, became an important military objective during the warlord era

(1916-27). It also became a major objective of the Japanese after they

invaded China in 1937. Now, the Communists saw the capture of

Xuzhou as a way to link base areas in eastern and central China and

make it possible for the ECFA, operating in Shandong, and the CPFA,

which was operating primarily in Henan Province, to coordinate

operations more closely. For the Nationalists, holding Xuzhou kept

these two field armies apart and also contributed to keeping Communist

forces away from the capital city, Nanjing, and the rest of the lower

Yangtze River valley. For these reasons, the Nationalists had several

hundred thousand troops in and around Xuzhou and were expected to

mount a vigorous defense of the region.

178
The ECFA launched its offensive to capture Jinan on 14 September,

and it quickly became apparent to Su Yu that the time required to take

Jinan and the casualties that would be suffered were less than originally

calculated. Su Yu had a reputation as a general who, while fighting one

battle, was already looking ahead to his next. Accordingly, once he

realized that the fight for Jinan was progressing well—and even before

the battle was over—he initiated discussions with his staff about how to

attack Xuzhou.21

Su Yu considered two options. One was an ECFA move to the

southwest, from Jinan into eastern Henan south of the Long-Hai

Railroad. Advancing there, he noted, would make it easier to coordinate

operations with the CPFA, and the broad open plain would facilitate the

fighting of mobile battles of annihilation.22 He felt that after a number

of these battles, it would be possible to complete the encirclement of

Xuzhou by pushing east. But advancing into eastern Henan had some

disadvantages too. Since the ECFA would be separating itself from its

base areas and fighting in what would be newly liberated areas,

supplying food for the soldiers would be difficult. Also, because the

army would be placing itself between the large Nationalist forces

around Xuzhou and the Nationalist armies in the central Yangtze River

valley, it would be hard to concentrate the ECFA for an attack against

Xuzhou.23

The alternative to a move into Henan was a southward thrust into

northern Jiangsu Province. The Nationalist Seventh Army had vacated

its positions east of the Grand Canal, along the Long-Hai Railroad, and

had moved into Xuzhou to take part in an effort to relieve the siege of

Jinan. Few Nationalist units, therefore, remained in this area, so it was

an opportune moment for the ECFA to strike. Su wanted to seize

control of the Long-Hai Railroad between the Grand Canal and

Haizhou, capture Huaiyin and Huaian, and push as close to the Yangtze

River as possible in the area east of the Grand Canal. If he succeeded,

the base areas in Shandong would be linked with those in eastern

Jiangsu, thus giving the ECFA access to more grain and manpower.

Following this option would put the ECFA in a position to threaten the

lower Yangtze River valley, and by moving against the

Xuzhou-Jiangpu segment of the Jin-Pu Railroad from the east, his

forces would isolate Xuzhou.

Su Yu selected the advance into northern Jiangsu as the preferable

course of action. On 24 September, as Jinan was about to fall to the

ECFA, he sent a radio message to Communist national headquarters in

Xibaipo, a small village in west central Hebei Province, proposing what

179
he called the Huai Hai campaign. The name reflected the importance he

placed on three objectives, the cities of Huaiyin, Huaian, and Haizhou.

The next day, the CMC radioed Su its approval and encouraged him to

move quickly: “We feel that carrying out the Huai Hai campaign is

absolutely essential. At the present time you do not need much rest and

reorganization. Wait until after the Huai Hai campaign is over, and then

rest and reorganize. The Huai Hai campaign can begin around 10

October.”24

The campaign did not begin on 10 October because, after Jinan fell,

the Nationalist Seventh Army was ordered back to its positions east of

the Grand Canal. This caused the CMC to change the focus of its

campaign. In keeping with the strategy of destroying Nationalist forces

north of the Yangtze River, CMC directed Su Yu to plan how to

annihilate this force after receiving intelligence reports indicating that

the Seventh Army would return to its former positions. This new

objective, the CMC stated, meant an increase in requirements for the

operation and that, in turn, necessitated a longer period of preparation.

Therefore, in its message of 28 September directing Su Yu to annihilate

the Seventh Army, the CMC pushed the date for starting the campaign

from 10 October to 20 October.25

The basic plan was to attack the Seventh Army with several ECFA

corps, while at the same time isolating the battlefield from Nationalist

reinforcements with a large blocking force on a line east of Xuzhou. To

confuse the Nationalists about ECFA intentions, diversionary attacks

against Nationalist defenses to the northeast and northwest of Xuzhou

were to be conducted by ECFA units. The CPFA was also brought into

the operation for the first time with the mission of drawing Nationalist

forces in central Henan westward, thus making it harder for them to

move east toward Xuzhou to support the Nationalist armies that would

be fighting the ECFA.

Due to the complexity of preparing for the Huai Hai campaign, Su

Yu suggested on 12 October moving the start of the offensive to 25

October.26 This was in large part because although the casualties in the

battle for Jinan had been unexpectedly light, they had been

concentrated in two corps, which were now unable to move south

before the end of the month. The CMC response was to order the start of

the campaign delayed until 5-10 November to be sure that all units were

available and up to full strength at the start of the offensive. The CMC

also wanted to be sure that winter clothing had been issued to the

soldiers.27

180
While the ECFA was bivouacked around Jinan readying its move

southward, west of Xuzhou, large-scale movements were taking place

that would have a significant impact on the campaign. On 7 October,

the Nationalists ordered their Sixteenth Army to move east from

Zhengzhou to position itself close to the Second Army west of Xuzhou

and join in an offensive into southwestern Shandong Province. On 31

October, the Nationalist Twelfth Army was ordered to assemble at

Queshan in southern Henan and to move to Fuyang in Anhui Province

by 10 November. The effect of these eastward movements by

Nationalist forces was to bring the CPFA eastward as well. In the

original Huai Hai campaign plan, the role of the CPFA was to tie down

Nationalist forces in Henan so they would not be shifted toward the

Xuzhou-Bengbu area. Once the Nationalist shift began, however, the

CPFA moved eastward, too, in an attempt to keep these two armies

from adding their combat power to the Nationalist forces that would be

fighting the ECFA east of Xuzhou. Unintentionally, the Nationalists

were turning the Huai Hai campaign into a joint ECFA-CPFA

offensive.

On 31 October, Su Yu set the evening of 8 November as the time for

the start of the Huai Hai campaign,28 and on 4 November, the campaign

warning order was issued.29 All units were directed to move from their

forward assembly areas to their attack positions on the evening of 6

November. Forces east and west of Xuzhou were to launch their attacks

simultaneously.

During this same period in late October and early November, the

Nationalists made decisions about how to deploy their forces in the

Xuzhou area. Some generals suggested abandoning Xuzhou and setting

up a strong defensive line to the south along the Huai River. They saw

this shortening of Nationalist lines as the best way to keep the

Communists out of the Yangtze River valley and away from Nanjing.

Other generals argued that such a withdrawal would be a further sign of

Nationalist weakness at a critical juncture in the civil war and would

have negative consequences politically as well as militarily. On

4 November, Gu Zhutong, the Nationalist Army chief of staff, flew

from Nanjing to Xuzhou to discuss strategy with his army commanders.

At their meeting on 5 November, they agreed that Xuzhou had to be

held.30 In order to accomplish this, they decided to abandon all

positions east of the Grand Canal and to concentrate their forces close to

the city.31 The intention was to create flexibility in their use of interior

lines of operation against either the ECFA, the CPFA, or both. The

major thrust of this new deployment plan was the decision to bring the

181
Seventh Army back across the Grand Canal and deploy it on the east

and southeast sides of Xuzhou. Had this movement been completed

before the Huai Hai campaign began, it would have been much more

difficult for the Communists to isolate and annihilate the Seventh

Army. However, the Seventh Army was unable to issue orders to shift

positions until 6 November, and its corps movements did not begin

until 0500 7 November, only one day before the ECFA was to launch its

offensive.32

Comparison of Opposing Regular Forces at the Start of the

Huai Hai Campaign

As stated earlier, the Communists utilized three types of armed

units—regular conventional forces, regional forces, and local militia

forces—during the Huai Hai campaign. This combined use of regular

and irregular forces means that the campaign, by definition, is an

example of compound warfare. Nevertheless, it may be asked how

“regular” or “conventional” were the two Communist field armies that

fought in this campaign. The following examination of the force

structure, organization, and weapons of the Communist and Nationalist

forces on the eve of the campaign seeks to answer that question.

Clearly, differences in the level of training and equipment among PLA

units existed. However, on the whole, the approximately 600,000

troops represented in Figure 1 were organized, supplied, equipped,

trained, commanded, and controlled in a way that justifies calling them

“regulars.” Furthermore, the complexity, scale, and duration of

operations conducted by the ECFA and CPFA against Nationalist

forces during the campaign obviously place them in the conventional

category.

Within the PLA of 1948, which was a light infantry army, the

column (zongdui) was the largest tactical unit. Columns were

equivalent to corps in function and usually contained two to three

divisions with 20,000 to 30,000 men. A notable exception was the

CPFA’s 4th Column, the largest column in the Huai Hai campaign.

After the regional force, Southern Shaanxi (SS) Division, was attached

to this column on the eve of the campaign, the column contained five

divisions and numbered approximately 45,000 soldiers.33

Generally speaking, ECFA columns were larger than those in the

CPFA. This was because ECFA divisions had more men than CPFA

divisions. At this time, there was no standard size for a division in the

PLA, but the PLA was evolving toward 10,000-men divisions.

Reflecting the fact that the ECFA had advanced further along the path

182
of “regularization” in organization, weaponry, and style of fighting

than the CPFA, ECFA divisions were closer in strength to the

10,000-men figure than were those of the CPFA. On average, ECFA

divisions had over 9,000 men, while CPFA divisions numbered

between 7,000 and 8,000 men.

PLA divisions were organized on a triangular basis (see Figure 2).

Divisions had three regiments, the regiments three battalions, the

battalions three companies, the companies three platoons, and the

platoons three squads. At each of these levels, a separate unit provided

additional firepower. Just as ECFA divisions had more soldiers than

CPFA divisions, they also had greater firepower. ECFA divisions

generally had a separate artillery battalion, while CPFA divisions

usually had only a separate artillery company.

Tables 1 and 2 show the weapons in a hypothetical “average” ECFA

and CPFA division at this time. With no standard table of organization

and equipment (TO&E) for PLA divisions and because even within the

same field army divisions varied in size and weaponry, the chance of

any one division actually possessing weapons in these exact numbers is

small. However, the numbers are reasonable general estimates and

illustrate two important points: first, they show the “lightness” of

PLA divisions; second, they show that the firepower of CPFA divisions

was much weaker than that of ECFA divisions.

On average, CPFA divisions only had two 75mm pack howitzers as

opposed to an average of four in an ECFA division. Also, CPFA

divisions had fewer mortars and machine guns than ECFA divisions.

This difference was due, in part, to their smaller size. It also reflected

the fact that the “regularization” of the CPFA organization and fighting

style had not advanced as far as that of the ECFA.

In the autumn of 1948, the CPFA was still trained and equipped to

execute the PLA’s doctrine of attacking small towns, isolated

Nationalist units, and Nationalist units that were on the move. At

neither the division nor the column level did the CPFA have the artillery

necessary to carry out positional warfare and to successfully assault

large, well-fortified positions. A CPFA column was fortunate if it had a

full artillery battalion with three companies and a total of twelve guns to

supplement the artillery in its divisions. There was not a single 105mm

howitzer in the entire CPFA.

The ECFA, on the other hand, had the firepower for positional

warfare and the support for frontal assaults where necessary. During

1948, divisional firepower was increased across the board as large

183
quantities of weapons were captured from the Nationalists. In addition,

four ECFA columns—the 3d, 9th, 10th, and 13th—were designated as

special attack columns and given additional artillery, mortars, and

heavy machine guns so they could destroy well-prepared defenses and

successfully attack large cities. For the 3d Column, this meant that each

184

Huai Hai Campaign Headquarters

Commander Chen Yi

Political Commissar Deng Xiaoping

Central Military Commission

Central Plains

Field Army

East China

Field Army 7th Column (3)*

9th Column (3)*

13th Column (3)*

Central-Southern Shandong (LZN)

Column (2)

Bohai (BH) Column (2)

PLA General Headquarters

This headquarters was established

on 1 November 1948.

On 16 November, the CMC established

the Huai Hai campaign Front Committee

to command and control the campaign.**

1st Column (3)*

2d Column (2)

3rd Column (3)

4th Column (4)

6th Column (3)

11th Column (3) Attached to

ECFA’s Subei Army

Yu-Wan-Su (YWS) Military

District Independent Division

Yu-Xi (YX) Military District

District Independent Division

Southern Shaanxi (SS) Military

District Independent Division

9th Column (2)

*The number in parentheses is the number of

divisions in that column.

the CPFA commander; Chen Yi, the ECFA commander;

Su Yu, deputy commander of the ECFA; Deng Xiaoping,

political commissar of the CPFA;

political commissar of the Shandong

political commissar of the ECFA. The

of the committee was Deng Xiaoping.

and Tan Zhenlin,

Army and deputy

general secretary

** The members of this committee were Liu Bocheng,

Shandong

Army

2d Column (3)

11th Column (3) CPFA Unit

12th Column (2)

Subei

(Northern

Jiangsu)

Army

1st Column (3)

3d Column (2)

4th Column (3)

6th Column (3)

8th Column (2)

10th Column(2)

Liangguang (LG)

Special Type (ST) Column (1)

Ji-Lu-Yu (JLY) Military District

Independent Divisions (2)

Jiang-Huai (JH) Military District

Independent Divisions (2)

Figure 1. PLA organization for the Huai Hai campaign34
of its divisions was given two 75mm pack howitzer batteries instead of

the usual one, and the column also received a battery of 105mm

howitzers. These special attack columns also underwent specialized

training in assault tactics and artillery-infantry coordination. In 1948,

furthering its ability to concentrate its firepower at decisive points on

the battlefield, the ECFA acquired several batteries of 105mm

howitzers. Some of these batteries were placed under the control of

Shandong Army headquarters, but most were placed in the Special

Type Column under direct ECFA command.

185

Figure 2. PLA infantry division organization, autumn 1948

Infantry

Plts

Operational

Sect

Infantry Division

Admin

Sect

HQ Divisional

Artillery

Commo &

Recon

Sect

Organizational

Sect

Security

Sect

Education

Sect

Civil

Liaison/

Mobilization

Sect

Logistics

Dept

Political

Dept

Medical

Sect

Transport

Sect

Quartermaster

Sect

Infantry

Regts

HQ

Logistics

Dept

Heavy

Weapons

Co

Heavy

Weapons

Co

Infantry

Cos

HQ

Political

Dept

Logistics

Dept

Mortar/Machine

Gun Plt HQ

Infantry

Bns

Machine-Gun

Sqd

Platoon

Leader

Infantry

Sqds
186

Divisional Weapons (ECFA)

75-mm Pack Howitzers 4-8

82-mm Mortars 20

60-mm Mortars 36

Heavy Machine Guns 36

Light Machine Guns 180

Automatic Rifles 250

Rifles 2800

Carbines 350

Pistols 130

Table 1

Divisional Weapons (CPFA)

75-mm Pack Howitzers 2-4

82-mm Mortars 9

60-mm Mortars 12

Heavy Machine Guns 30

Light Machine Guns 150

Automatic Rifles 150

Rifles 2,000

Carbines 300

Pistols 100

Table 2
By the time of the Huai Hai campaign, the Special Type Column,

also known as ECFA “Artillery Headquarters,” was the size of an

expanded division with approximately 11,000 soldiers. It had three

artillery regiments and also contained the ECFA’s small light tank

force and a number of engineer battalions. Each of the three artillery

regiments had three battalions, and every battalion had three companies

with a battery of four guns in each company. Two of the regiments had

105mm howitzers, and the third had thirty-six Japanese 75mm guns.

The Nationalist forces defending east central China against the

ECFA and the CPFA numbered approximately 700,000. Their

organization is presented in Figure 3. All Nationalist ground forces in

the broad area around Xuzhou were under the command of the Xuzhou

Bandit Suppression Headquarters (XZBSHQ). This headquarters had

operational control over the Second, Seventh, Thirteenth, and

Sixteenth Armies; the 1st, 3d, 4th, and 9th Pacification Areas; two

independent corps; railroad protection troops headquartered in Suxian;

and several independent regiments located in Xuzhou. However, this

headquarters did not control the Twelfth Army that was about to begin

moving from Queshan toward Xuzhou. That army was under the direct

command of the Army Supreme Command in Nanjing and remained

under its control for the duration of the campaign. Also, the Xuzhou

Bandit Suppression Headquarters did not have control over the Chinese

Air Force units stationed in Xuzhou. They were under the command of

Air Force Headquarters in Nanjing.

The two types of large units under Xuzhou Bandit Suppression

Headquarters reflected the two types of operations being conducted by

the Nationalist Army—conventional operations against large regular

Communist forces and pacification operations against irregular

guerrilla forces. Although the armies and the pacification areas were

roughly similar in size and organization, they had significant

differences. The armies, by and large, were made up of units raised and

trained by the central government. Their weapons and training were the

best in the Nationalist Army. Pacification area forces, on the other

hand, had generally not been formed by the central government but had

been created originally by one of China’s regional warlords. The 3d

Pacification Area, for example, had its roots in General Feng Yuxiang’s

(Feng Yü-hsiang) Northwest Army. Differences in background and

fighting capability between army and pacification area units sometimes

led to tension between their commanders and hampered their ability to

cooperate. In the eyes of officers in the armies, the pacification area

forces were definitely second class.

187
188

Special

Staffs

Ministry of

National

Defense

Chief of Supreme

General Staff

President/

Commander in Chief

of the Armed Forces

Twelfth

Army

Air Force

Headquarters,

Nanjing

Xuzhou Bandit

Suppression

Headquarters

Air

Groups

at

Xuzhou,

Nanjing,

Shanghai,

and

Beiping

Second Army: V (3), XII (2), LXX (3),

and LXXIV (2) Corps

Seventh Army: XXV (3), LXIII (2), LXIV (2),

and C (2) Corps

Thirteenth Army: VIII (3), IX (3) Corps

and 39 Division

16th Army: XLI (2) and XLVII (2) Corps

1st Pacification Area: IV (2), XXI (2), and

LI (2) Corps

3rd Pacification Area: LIX (2) and LXXVII (2)

Corps

4th Pacification Area: LV (3), LXVIII (3),

and XCVI (2) Corps

9th Pacification Area: XLIV (2) Corps

LXXII (2) Corps (located in Xuzhou)

CVII (2) Corps (located in Suining)

Jinpu Line Southern Section Railroad

Protection Headquarters (Located in Suxian)

Armored Force Headquarters (About one

Tank Regiment located in Xuzhou)

Artillery Regiments (5)

Heavy Mortar Regiments (2)

Engineer Regiments (5)

Military Police Regiments (1)

Communication Regiments (2)

Railroad Regiments (1)

th

*The number in parentheses behind the

corps number is the number of divisions

assigned to that corps. The number in

parentheses behind the regiments indicates

the number of regiments.

X (3) Corps

XIV (2) Corps

XVIII (3) Corps

LXXXV (3)

Corps

Figure 3. Nationalist military organization in the Huai Hai campaign35
In both the armies and the pacification areas, corps were the next

lower subordinate unit. Nationalist corps were roughly equivalent in

size to Communist columns, ranging in size from around 25,000 to

40,000 men, depending upon how many divisions were attached and

whether or not they were at full strength. Corps also had their own

assets. In the better Nationalist corps, an engineer battalion, a security

battalion, a communication battalion, a 105mm howitzer battalion, and

a transportation regiment were attached to corps headquarters.

Nationalist divisions, like PLA divisions, were also organized on a

triangular basis. In early 1948, the size of a Nationalist division was set

at 14,488. However, in August, the military conference in Nanjing

authorized a change in the divisional TO&E for Nationalist infantry

divisions (all divisions were infantry divisions) that reduced the

standard size of divisions to 10,445. How far this reorganization had

proceeded on a division by division basis by the time of the Huai Hai

campaign is unclear. However, given the problems that the Nationalist

army was having finding replacements for battle casualties, this change

in the TO&E certainly brought the TO&E closer to the manpower

situation as it existed in the field. Figure 4 shows the general

189

Signal

Co HQ General

Affairs Co

Quartermaster

Co

Engineer

Bn

Infantry

Regts

Transport

Bn

Medical

Co HQ Signal

Co

Engineer

Co

Supply

Co

Heavy

Weapons

Co

Infantry

Bns

HQ Supply

Co

Infantry

Cos

Heavy

Weapons

Plt

HQ Infantry

Plts

Infantry Division

Medical

Bn

Artillery

Bn

Heavy

Weapons

Co

Figure 4. Nationalist infantry division organization, autumn 194836
organizational structure for the smaller division adopted in August

1948.

In terms of regular soldiers, the Nationalists had a numerical

advantage. They also had an advantage in firepower based on a

comparison of the divisional weapons in both armies as shown in tables

1, 2, and 3. However, in both cases that these figures represent

manpower and weapons available on paper, not what was present on the

battlefield.

At corps level, the Nationalists had additional firepower. Usually,

this was provided by an artillery battalion containing three artillery

companies equipped with four 75mm pack howitzers each and a

4.2-inch mortar company with eight mortars. In the best corps—the V

and XII Corps of the Second Army, the XVIII Corps of the Twelfth

Army, and the VIII Corps of the Thirteenth Army—the corps artillery

battalion was equipped with 105mm howitzers.

Nationalist armored forces represented another important source of

firepower. Even though the tanks were light Stuart tanks that only

mounted a 37mm main gun and three 30-caliber machine guns, they

were formidable weapons when wielded against the lightly armed PLA

infantry. The Nationalists did not have a great number of tanks,

however, and used them basically in an infantry-support role. The four

armored battalions in Xuzhou possibly had sixty to eighty tanks

available. In addition, the three infantry divisions that were completely

equipped with American weapons and truck transport (the 96th

Division of the LXX Corps in the Second Army, the 118th Division of

the XVIII Corps of the Twelfth Army, and the 125th Division of the

XLVII Corps of the Sixteenth Army) each had a tank battalion of

eighteen tanks. As the campaign developed, other Nationalist tanks,

possibly numbering as many as eighty, were thrown into the fighting on

the southern front north of the Huai River. But because of their small

numbers, they were not able to turn the tide of battle.

The Nationalists also had an air force with significant potential

combat power. At the start of the campaign, the Nationalists had the

capability of putting some eighty fighters, forty bombers, and forty

transports into the air around Xuzhou (see Table 4). However, as shown

in Figure 3, air force units in Xuzhou were not under the control of the

ground force commander. This lack of unity of command, poor

communication links between aircraft and ground units, and a lack of

training in close air support operations, all combined to diminish the

impact of the air force. Aircraft maintenance was a serious problem,

too, as the campaign progressed. Still, at the start of the campaign, the

190
191

Nationalist Army Divisional Weapons, Autumn 194837

75-mm Pack Howitzers 18

4.2-inch Mortars 18

82-mm Mortars 27

60-mm Mortars 54

Heavy Machine Guns 54

Light Machine Guns 285

Automatic Rifles 72

Submachine guns 1,100

Rifles 2,419

Carbines 434

Pistols 219

Rifle Grenade Launchers 255

Bazookas 29

Table 3

Nationalist Aircraft Available for Use During the Huai Hai Campaign38

Type of Aircraft Air Base Model Number

Fighters Xuzhou P-51 41

Fighters Nanjing P-51 16

Fighters Nanjing P-47 16

Fighters Unspecified P-51 or P-47 10

Bombers Xuzhou B-25 5

Bombers Xuzhou/Nanjing FB-26 22

Bombers Nanjing/Shanghai/Beiping B-24 18

Reconnaissance Nanjing F-5 3

Reconnaissance Nanjing F-10 1

Transport Nanjing C-46 30

Transport Nanjing C-47 10

Table 4
Nationalist air force did contribute to the Seventh Army’s fight east of

Xuzhou.

While the Nationalists had an advantage in the number of regular

soldiers under arms and in firepower, had the benefit of operating on

interior lines on the defense, and could use the Long-Hai and Jin-Pu

Railroads to move troops and supplies rapidly from one point on the

railroads to another, they faced major problems in several areas.

Factionalism within the Army’s leadership was a serious weakness;

disloyalty was another. The worst example of this was in the 3d

Pacification Area headquarters, where two deputy commanders who

were secret members of the CCP provided intelligence to the

Communists and also orchestrated the surrender of certain units when

the Huai Hai campaign was launched. This opened the way for ECFA

units to rush across the Grand Canal and move south quickly to cut off

the Seventh Army before it could reach Xuzhou. Maneuver was also a

problem. Reliance on the railroads for logistical support created areas

of vulnerability that had to be defended and limited options for

maneuver. Mechanized and motorized units had problems moving

around the area because of the limited road network. In addition, the

Nationalist Army had a weak intelligence-gathering capability, fought

poorly at night, developed a defensive mind-set, and suffered from an

over-centralized command structure. Too many matters had to be

referred to the Supreme General Staff in Nanjing for a decision and,

often times, action had to wait until Chiang Kai-shek had personally

examined the issue and passed judgment. By then, the benefits of a

possible course of action had generally long since disappeared. One of

the best examples of a delay caused by the over-centralized command

structure was the debate in late October over how to redeploy the

Nationalist forces around Xuzhou. While the Nationalists did nothing,

the ECFA and the CPFA used this time to move into locations that gave

them a significant positional advantage (see Map 2). The bulk of

Nationalist forces were positioned far forward, supported by a long,

weakly defended line of communications (LOC). Their failure to keep

the CPFA from moving eastward, moreover, allowed a major potential

threat to this LOC to develop. On the other hand, the CPFA and ECFA

had no threats to their flanks or rear that limited their freedom of

maneuver. The Nationalist redeployment agreed to on 5 November was

an attempt to recover the situation but, by this date, the PLA had an

advantage in space and time that was virtually impossible to overcome.

Map 2 shows the deployment of Communist and Nationalist forces

on 5 November 1948. Standard symbols, with some variations, have

192
193

Map 2. Positions of Communist and Nationalist forces, 5 November 1948
been used to designate the units on each side. The ECFA is represented

as an army group because it contained two armies, the Shandong Army

and the Subei Army. The CPFA was linked to the ECFA through an

interweaving of command assignments and responsibilities but was a

distinct and separate army operating in its own geographical region.

Within the PLA armies, the next lower unit was the column. Since

columns were equivalent to corps in size and function, on Maps 2 and 3,

they are presented as such. On the right side of column boxes, there is

either a CP, which stands for CPFA, or an EC, which stands for ECFA,

to distinguish between EFCA and CPFA columns. The specific

designation of each column appears on the left side of column boxes.

Most columns had numerical designations, but some had names that

reflected the area from which they had been recruited. An example is

the LZN Luzhongnan (Shandong [Lu]) Central [zhong] and Southern

[nan]) Column, which was part of the ECFA. The ECFA also had a

Special Type (ST) Column (tezhong zongdui) that contained special

artillery, armor, and engineer assets. On Maps 2 and 3, on the left side of

column boxes, either the appropriate number or letter abbreviation

indicates individual columns.

No attempt is made, on the maps or in the text, to track the activities

of individual CPFA or ECFA divisions. However, because military

district divisions are of special importance in this study as examples of

regional forces supporting a large regular force in the conduct of a

major conventional campaign, their activities are described in the text;

their locations at various times during the campaign are indicated on

Maps 2 and 3. The symbols used on Maps 2 and 3 for the military

district divisions are unusual in that they have the abbreviation of their

military district name inside their respective boxes. Thus, the JiLuYu

Military District divisions have a JLY inside their boxes and the Jiang

Huai Military District divisions have a JH inside theirs. When military

district divisions appear on the map, they are not designated as

belonging to either the ECFA or the CPFA. They were shifted around

the campaign area during the campaign and were attached to either

army as needed.

Symbols for Nationalist units have a KMT inside their boxes. KMT

is the abbreviation of Kuomintang (Kuo [national] min [people] tang

[party]) or Nationalist Party. It has been used traditionally as shorthand

for the Nationalists. PA on the right side of a KMT army box indicates

that this multicorps force is what was called a pacification area force.

This term was explained earlier in this section. The Xuzhou Bandit

Suppression Headquarters (XZBSHQ) is designated a group army

194
because it exercised command over several KMT armies and

pacification area forces. Referring to Figure 1 (PLA organization for

the Huai Hai campaign) and Figure 3 (Nationalist military organization

in the Huai Hai campaign area) will help clarify the unit designations

used on Maps 2 and 3.

In contrast to Nationalist weaknesses in organization and the ability

to generate unity of effort, organization was a Communist strength.

From the beginning of the civil war, the CCP leadership had pursued

the twin goals of gaining control of the central government and

implementing revolutionary changes in Chinese society. Through

years of struggle, they had forged a political-military organizational

structure that was able to mobilize the human and materiel resources of

rural China and then employ those resources effectively on the

battlefield. The large conventional forces that were ready to undertake

the Huai Hai campaign were products of that organization. So, too,

were the many regional and local militia units that had been formed.

The existence in Communist units of long-time comrades-in-arms who

worked and fought together for a common cause made the Communist

organizations function well at all levels.

Figure 5 shows the Communist military and political organization

from the national down to the regional level. Regional party bureaus

implemented the CCP’s political, economic, and social programs in the

various areas under CCP control. Within these same areas was also a

military region organization responsible for defending and expanding

Communist-controlled territory. Unity of effort between the political

and military activities was achieved by appointing people to serve

concurrently in CCP regional bureau positions, military region

positions, and field army command positions.

No better example of this phenomenon exists than Chen Yi. At the

time of the Huai Hai campaign, Chen was commander and political

commissar of the East China Military Region; commander and political

commissar, ECFA; and assistant secretary, CCP East China Bureau. In

addition, since May 1948—when the CCP Central Committee had

decided to strengthen the CCP’s military and political work in the

Henan Province area—he had served as deputy commander, Central

Plains Military Region; deputy commander, CPFA; and second

secretary, CCP Central Plains Bureau. The multiple positions held by

other members of the Central Plains Bureau at this time, as shown in

Table 5, further illustrate how concurrent appointments were used to

forge the links between the CCP’s political and military tasks. The

concurrent appointments also show that well before the Huai Hai

195
196

Central Committee Politburo

Chairman: Mao Zedong

CCP Central Committee

General Political

Department

General Staff

& Operations

Department

General Rear

Services

Department

Political

Direction

Coordination Central Military Commission

Chairman: Mao Zedong

Dep Chm: Zhu De

Zhou Enlai

Secretary: Yang Shangkun

Members: Liu Shaoqi

Peng Dehuai

PLA General Headquarters

Central Plains Field Army

Central Plains Military Region

East China Field Army

East China Military Region

Northeast China Field Army

North China Military Region

Northwest Field Army

Shen-Gan-Ning-Jinsui Joint Defense

Military Region

South China Guerrilla Forces

PLA Cdr:

Zhu De

Deputy Cdr:

Peng Dehuai

CCP East China

Bureau

CCP Central Plains

Bureau

Other CCP

Regional

Bureaus

coordination

coordination

coordination Northeast China Military Region

North China Field Army

Figure 5. Communist military and political organization down to the regional level,

summer-fall 1948
campaign was even conceived, the outline of an organizational

structure that could bring the resources of east and central China

together to support such a large campaign was already in existence.

Organization and organizational flexibility were extremely

important in the Huai Hai campaign because the goals of the campaign

and its scale continued to expand as it was being fought. This made the

question of mobilizing more resources and transporting more supplies

to the battlefields a matter of greater and greater importance with each

passing day. Communist military doctrine had traditionally

emphasized maneuver as a way to protect forces and to set favorable

conditions for battle. In the Huai Hai campaign, maneuver was to be

used to offset the Nationalist advantage in firepower, but maneuver by

large numbers of soldiers required extensive logistical support. The

Communist response was an unprecedented organization that

mobilized resources and operated a flexible transportation system that

followed the fighting forces wherever they went. Relying primarily on

human and animal muscle power, the logistics system moved a

tremendous amount of materiel and actually helped the ECFA and

CPFA gain strategic surprise by enabling them to continue large-scale

operations longer than Nationalist strategists had believed was

possible. Table 6 provides data on the size of the logistical system and

what it accomplished.

Table 5

Concurrent Appointments Held by Members

of the CCP Central China Bureau, Summer-Fall 1948

197

First Secretary, CCP Central Plains Bureau;

Political Commissar, Central Plains Military

Region; Political Commissar, CPFA

Third Secretary, CCP Central Plains Bureau;

Deputy Political Commissar, CPMR;

Deputy Political Commissar, CPFA

Member, CCP Central Plains Bureau;

Commander, CPMR; Commander, CPFA;

Commandant and Political Commissar,

Central Plains Military and Political College

Member, CCP Central Plains Bureau;

Deputy Commander, CPMR; Deputy

Commander, CPFA

Deng Xiaoping

Deng Zihui

Liu Bocheng

Li Xiannian
Table 6

Selected PLA Logistics Statistics for the Entire Huai Hai Campaign39

Total Civilian Laborers 5,430,000

Long-Term Laborers (accompanied the army

and worked for the entire campaign) 220,000

Rear Area Laborers (left their home areas

to work for more than thirty days) 1,300,000

Base Area Workers (temporary laborers who

worked in or near their home areas for

about ten days) 3,910,000

Draft Animals 767,000

Boats 8,539

Trucks 257

Handcarts, Pushcarts, Wheelbarrows, and Two-Wheeled

Carts Pulled by Draft animals 881,000

Shoulder Poles 305,000

Stretchers 206,000

Total Tonnage of Grain Transported 217,380

Mortar Rounds and Artillery Shells Transported 679,943

Rifle and Machine-Gun Rounds Transported 20,149,633

198

Member, CCP Central Plains Bureau; Third

Deputy Political Commissar, ECFA

Member, CCP Central Plains Bureau;

Acting Commander, ECFA; Acting Political

Commissar, ECFA; Deputy Commander,

ECFA; Second Political Commissar, ECFA

Member,CCP Central Plains Bureau;

Commander, 4th Column, CPFA

Member, CCP Central China Bureau;

Deputy Political Commissar, CPMR;

Deputy Political Commissar, CPFA

Member, CCP Central Plains Bureau; First

Deputy Political Commissar, ECFA;

Political Commissar, Shandong Army

Member, CCP Central Plains Bureau; Chief

of Staff, CPFA

Song Renqiong

Su Yu

Chen Geng

Zhang Jichum

Tan Zhenlin

Li Da
Conduct of the Campaign

As noted earlier, the Huai Hai campaign was scheduled to begin on

the evening of 8 November 1948 with the objective of destroying the

Seventh Army. The westward movement of the Seventh Army that

began on the morning of 7 November threatened the success of this

plan, but two developments facilitated the ECFA advance and still

made it possible to cut off the Seventh Army before it reached the

eastern edge of Xuzhou. One was the defection of a large number of 3d

Pacification Area units, which was orchestrated by two deputy

commanders of this force who were secret CCP members. The second

was the Nationalist decision, after the Communists began their attacks,

to have the Thirteenth Army leave its positions east of Xuzhou

immediately and move into the city to protect it. This removed more

defenders from the paths of the ECFA columns and made it possible for

them to still encircle and isolate the Seventh Army. However, the

encirclement occurred on the west side of the Grand Canal, not the east

side, and it was much closer to Xuzhou than originally expected. This

meant that Seventh Army soldiers were more hopeful about being

relieved if they held out, so they fought harder. It meant, moreover, that

Nationalist air support based in Xuzhou and Nanjing was more

effective. Also, the four Seventh Army corps that made it to

Nianzhuangxu before stopping to reorganize were able to use

fortifications constructed by the Thirteenth Army to quickly establish

strong defensive positions in and around the village. The combined

effect of these factors was to make annihilating the Seventh Army more

difficult than planned. Not until 22 November was the last resistance

crushed and the Seventh Army finally eliminated.

In the meantime, a series of decisions by both the Communists and

the Nationalists raised the stakes of the campaign immensely. First, on

9 November, the CMC agreed with Su Yu’s 8 November

recommendation to annihilate all Nationalist forces in the Xuzhou area

and not to allow them to escape to the south. Consequently, the CMC

ordered the main force of the CPFA to capture Suxian, thereby cutting

the Xu-Beng (Xuzhou-Bengbu) Railroad and isolating Xuzhou. This

operation was made easier by the Nationalist’s 9 November decision to

move the Sixteenth Army from west of Suxian to Xuzhou to help

defend that city. Suxian was encircled on 13 November and captured in

a general attack two nights later. This cut off the Second, Thirteenth,

and Sixteenth Armies in Xuzhou, even as the Second and Thirteenth

Armies were fighting to move east from Xuzhou to relieve the Seventh

199
Army at Nianzhuangxu. It also put the CPFA in a central position

between several Nationalist armies.

The Nationalists’ response was to order two new armies that had

been formed from several corps in the Bengbu area, the Sixth and

Eighth Armies, to attack northward along the Xu-Beng Railroad to

recapture Suxian. The plan was to have these armies link up with the

Nationalist Twelfth Army at Suxian and then reopen the rail line to

Xuzhou. The Sixth and Eighth Armies, however, were unable to reach

Suxian because of the resistance put up initially by CPFA units that had

pushed south after capturing Suxian and later by ECFA columns that

had marched southward rapidly from the Nianzhuangxu area after the

Seventh Army was destroyed on 22 November. The arrival of these

ECFA columns allowed the CPFA to concentrate all of its forces

against the Twelfth Army. This army had received orders on 31

October to go from the Queshan area in south central Henan to the

Suxian-Xuzhou area, but due to delays in receiving supplies and

bringing units together, it did not begin moving eastward until 8

November, when the General Staff in Nanjing issued an urgent order

for it to do so immediately. Bad weather and the actions of local

Communist irregulars then combined to hamper the movement of this

army so that its lead elements did not reach Mengcheng until 18

November. While waiting there for his LXXXV Corps to catch up with

the rest of his army, army commander Huang Wei radioed the General

Staff in Nanjing proposing that his force move toward Bengbu and push

northward to Suxian in concert with the Sixth and Eighth Armies.40

This concept was rejected by the Nanjing headquarters and, on 21

November, the Twelfth Army began moving from Mengcheng toward

Suxian. On 24 November, the CPFA encircled this army and trapped it

in the Shuangduiji area, some fifteen miles southwest of Suxian.

With relief efforts from the Bengbu area blocked and the Twelfth

Army surrounded, the Nationalists decided on 28 November to

abandon Xuzhou and to try to break out toward the southwest. The main

elements of the Second, Thirteenth, and Sixteenth Armies began

moving on 30 November with a goal of reaching Yongcheng by 3

December. Before reaching Yongcheng, however, this force received

orders to change direction and move toward Shuangdiuji to free the

Twelfth Army. As the force stopped at Chenguanzhuang to organize for

this movement, it was surrounded by ECFA columns that had marched

day and night from positions to the east and southeast of Suxian. By 5

December, this group army was tightly encircled with no prospect of

being relieved.

200
On 15 December, the Twelfth Army was finally destroyed, but the

three armies encircled in the Chenguanzhuang area were not attacked

until 5 January. Then, a general offensive from all directions eliminated

the pocket in five days of fierce fighting. On 10 January, the Huai Hai

campaign was declared over. Nationalist losses were staggering. Five

armies consisting of fifty-six divisions had been annihilated. Some

170,000 soldiers had been killed, 320,000 had been taken prisoner, and

massive amounts of equipment and weapons had been lost. It was a

defeat from which the Nationalists could not recover and a Communist

victory that ensured their success in the civil war.

For a general overview of the actions taken by both sides in the area

between Xuzhou and Bengbu during the Huai Hai campaign, see Map

3. Not shown is the movement of ECFA forces east of Xuzhou to

encircle and destroy the Seventh Army at Nianzhuangxu. That

operation, the first phase of the campaign, ended on 22 November when

the Seventh Army was finally destroyed. Some of the events

represented on the map occurred simultaneously, but most occurred

sequentially over a period of weeks. This is why some ECFA columns

are shown as participating in both the fight to block the Sixth and Eighth

Armies and the encirclement of the Second, Thirteenth, and Sixteenth

Armies in the Chenguanzhuang area after these armies abandoned

Xuzhou. After the battle at Nianzhuangxu, ECFA columns first went to

the southern front; then, on 30 November, they were ordered to move to

the northwest to block the advance of the three Nationalist armies

coming out of Xuzhou. The arrows pointing south from the Xuzhou

pocket represent the failed Nationalist attempt of 25-28 November to

push south along the Xu-Beng Railroad. For a detailed discussion of the

meaning of unit designation symbols, see the introduction to Map 2.

Contributions of Regional Forces and Local Militias to the

Campaign

The Huai Hai campaign was primarily won by two highly

competent, professional armies, the ECFA and the CPFA, fighting in

large-scale conventional battles. Yet, as already noted earlier, the Huai

Hai campaign was more than a contest between regular forces. From

beginning to end, the regular forces counted on the support of regional

forces and local militia units. Pre-campaign planning assigned these

units specific missions and, during the campaign, they contributed in

many ways. In addition, as mentioned previously, over 5,000,000

civilians were mobilized to form a logistics system that sustained these

forces in the field. The combined effect of this extensive mobilization

201
202

XZBSHQ

KMT

XZBSHQ

KMT

Map 3. Major movements of forces, 24 November 194810 January 1949
and detailed organization of resources was what might be called

compound war with Chinese characteristics. In the words of Mao

Zedong, it was a “real people’s war.”

During the Huai Hai campaign, approximately 500,000 regional and

local militia soldiers assisted the main forces. The independent

divisions of the military districts that are listed in Figure 1, being

regional forces, were either attached to regular force columns or given

special missions inside or outside their districts. The militia units were

generally kept close to home in their subdistricts, although because

these formations performed military-political indoctrination and

training functions, many young men who served in the militia ended up

in the regular force. For example, in Shandong Province alone, 168,000

young men entered military service during the campaign. Among the

tasks performed by the militia were providing security for production,

escorting goods and materiel, protecting communications, suppressing

bandits, maintaining public security, rounding up stragglers,

maintaining custody of prisoners, and cleaning up battlefields.41

Elements of the militia were also called upon to sabotage railroads,

construct fortifications, and harass enemy units.

Regional and local militia forces were organized in a hierarchical

organizational structure that linked small geographical areas to

increasingly larger areas. Starting from the county level, the system

included military subdistricts of several counties, military districts, and

then military regions that were the size of provinces or larger. Map 4

shows the military districts and subdistricts in the area where the Huai

Hai campaign was fought. Their names reflect their location. The Yu

(Henan)-Xi (West) District is in western Henan Province. The

Yu-Wan-Su District covers parts of Yu (Henan), Wan (Anhui), and Su

(Jiangsu) Provinces. The Ji-Lu-Yu District includes parts of Ji (Hebei),

Lu (Shandong), and Yu (Henan) Provinces. The Lu-Zhong-Nan

District is in the Zhong-Nan (central-southern) part of Lu (Shandong)

Province. The Jiang-Huai District is north of the Chang Jiang River

(Yangtze River) and is centered on the Huai River. The Su

(Jiangsu)-Bei (North) District is in the northern part of Su (Jiangsu)

Province. Except for the case of the Su-Bei District, the regional forces

of these districts appear on the PLA organization table (see Figure 1).

Interestingly, the force from the Lu-Zhong-Nan District is designated a

corps in the Shandong Army, while the other district forces are

independent divisions.

Communist peasant organizers had begun working in these districts

during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45) and had put down

203
204

Map 4. Communist military districts and subdistricts in the area of the Huai Hai campaign
roots of support and loyalty that the Nationalists were unable to

eradicate when they moved back into these areas after the Japanese

surrender in 1945. Now, in 1948, former base areas against the

Japanese were bases against the Nationalists. In the planning and

conduct of the campaign, the PLA leadership was counting on regional

forces and local militia forces from these base areas to support main

force operations. This support was viewed as so important that a major

factor influencing Su Yu’s decision about where to attack after

capturing Jinan was the presence or absence of old base areas.

Excerpts from messages sent between various headquarters prior to

the start of the campaign show how regional and local forces were

integrated into the offensive. Su Yu’s warning order for the Huai Hai

campaign, issued on 23 October, directed several military districts “to

begin destroying the Long-Hai and Jin-Pu Railroads when the

campaign started in order to cut off enemy communications and

resupply from the rear, slow or block enemy reinforcements, and

support main force operations.”42 Specific areas of responsibility for

wrecking the railroad lines were assigned to the various districts. The

warning order also assigned local forces the task of helping to provide

security to conceal the movement of Communist troops into southern

Shandong prior to the start of the campaign.43

The CPFA also assigned supporting tasks to military districts. For

example, on 28 October, the CCP Central Plains Bureau and the Central

Plains Military Region sent out a directive giving the Yu-Wan-Su

Military District four tasks: (1) augment its independent division so that

it had three regiments of 2,000 soldiers each; (2) establish a second

independent division; (3) prepare to send 16,000 soldiers to the ECFA

in early 1949; and (4) establish a garrison force to undertake the

responsibility for garrisoning Kaifeng, the capital of Henan Province,

which had just been occupied on 24 October.44 This same message also

directed the Yu-Xi Military District to provide a force to garrison

Zhengzhou, which had been taken on 22 October, and to prepare to send

at least 12,000 soldiers to the CPFA. 45

During the campaign, the military district divisions carried out

missions across the campaign area. On 8 November, the two Jiang Huai

divisions along with the ECFA 11th Column pushed north along the

west side of the Grand Canal to help cut off the Nationalist Seventh

Army. That same day, the two Ji-Lu-Yu divisions joined the ECFA 3d

and Liangguang Columns in a diversionary attack northwest of

Xuzhou. By 12 November, the ECFA 3d and Liangguang Columns had

shifted to the area southwest of Xuzhou and, in concert with the CPFA

205
4th Column, were putting pressure on the city defenses from that

direction and moving to cut the railroad between Xuzhou and Suxian.

This left the mission of keeping pressure on Xuzhou from the northwest

completely in the hands of the two Ji-Lu-Yu Divisions. Also on

12 November, the Yu-Wan-Su and Yu-Xi Divisions thrust deep into

Nationalist territory to capture Guzhen and begin destroying the

Xu-Beng Railroad between Guzhen and Suxian.46 On 15 November,

the Yu-Wan-Su Division joined the CPFA 9th Column to stop the

Nationalist forces that had retaken Guzhen from continuing their

advance toward Suxian.

During the next several weeks, the Yu-Wan-Su and Yu-Xi Divisions

stayed on the southern front and supported the successful efforts of,

first, the CPFA and, later, the ECFA columns in blocking the

Nationalist Sixth and Eighth Armies in their attempt to reach Suxian

and the Twelfth Army. On 25 November, the two Jiang-Huai Divisions

assisted the ECFA 13th Column in a successful attack against Lingbi.

On 7 December, these two divisions crossed the Huai River east of

Bengbu for the purpose of destroying part of the Bengbu-Jiangpu

Railroad. On 11 December, they attacked in the hilly country midway

between Bengbu and Jiangpu and tore up some twenty-five miles of

track.47 Meanwhile, as these events were taking place in the south, in

the northern part of the campaign area, around Xuzhou, the Ji-Lu-Yu

Divisions were engaged in the efforts to keep the Nationalist Second,

Thirteenth, and Sixteenth Armies bottled up in Xuzhou or in the

Chenguanzhuang area after they broke out of Xuzhou. Also, during this

period, the Southern Shaanxi Division was fighting with the CPFA 2d

Column in the battle to destroy the Nationalist Twelfth Army at

Shuangduiji.

The military district divisions (regional forces) accomplished much

during the campaign, but they were not equipped to conduct positional

warfare and needed the assistance of regular forces to attack cities and

fortified defenses. But being lighter than the lightest regular PLA

divisions, they were highly mobile. This made them ideal for deep

thrusts against Nationalist LOCs. Often, familiarity with the local

people and local terrain in a given area facilitated their movement on

such missions. Probably many officers and soldiers in the Jiang-Huai

divisions were pleased with the orders to destroy the Bengbu-Jiangpu

Railroad in the southern part of the Jiang-Huai Military District

because it gave them a chance to return to their home area.

The contributions of local country and subdistrict militia who did not

leave their home areas during the campaign were also significant. They

206
provided a ready force to establish security in areas abandoned by the

Nationalists, which they did in Haizhou on 7 November, Lianyungang

on 8 November, and Huaiyin and Huaian on 9 December. They also

provided a ready force to hinder the movement of Nationalist forces

throughout their area. An important contribution to the success of the

Huai Hai campaign was made by local forces in the Yu-Wan-Su

Military District when they used every possible means to obstruct the

movement of the Nationalist Twelfth Army from Queshan to Fuyang

and Suxian. On 2 November, Chen Yi and Deng Xiaoping sent a

message to the CMC telling them that they had already informed Liu

Bocheng and the Yu-Wan-Su Military District authorities of the need to

“resolutely hinder and slow the movement of the Twelfth Army.”48

That same day, Liu Bocheng informed the CMC of how he would

deploy forces to do just that. In addition to ordering the CPFA 2d and

6th Columns to attack the rear of the Twelfth Army as it moved along,

Liu Bocheng also ordered “the interrelated armed units in the

Yu-Wan-Su District to destroy the bridges on the roads over which

Twelfth Army would be moving and to make harassing attacks against

it.” 49 Harassment by the Yu-Wan-Su local forces coupled with

unusually wet weather succeeded in slowing the Twelfth Army enough

so that on 21 November, with the Twelfth Army in Mengcheng,

elements of the CPFA’s 6th Column were already moving into

positions between Mengcheng and Suxian. When added to the CPFA

main force, which was already situated in the Suxian area, these

columns made it possible to block and surround the Twelfth Army. The

efforts of the Yu-Wan-Su local forces had given the PLA time to create

the conditions for phase two of the Huai Hai campaign—destruction of

the Twelfth Army in the Shuangduiji area.

The Yu-Wan-Su Military District also made important contributions

to the third phase of the campaign—the destruction of the Nationalist

Second, Thirteenth, and Sixteenth Armies—after they broke out from

Xuzhou on 30 November. In one case, the 3d Subdistrict of the

Yu-Wan-Su District had an intelligence network in Xuzhou that

learned of the plan to abandon Xuzhou on 30 November.50 After this

information was reported to the Huai Hai campaign’s Front Committee

Headquarters, the Front Committee directed the subdistrict to

immediately prepare to protect the materiel in a large PLA supply depot

at Yongcheng. In the words of Deng Xiaoping, “The central military

stores depot at Yongcheng is very important. You must organize a good

defense and absolutely not allow the enemy to capture it. You need to

hold at Yongcheng for 2-3 days until [help] arrives.”51 Support for the

207
3d Subdistrict came quickly from the military district, when its

commander led four regiments to the area. Also, several ECFA

columns rushed to the area to block the Nationalist forces. But it was the

3d Subdistrict’s local forces, in place on the ground, that made the first

contributions to halting the enemy. They not only quickly built three

defense lines but also moved the stores from the Yongcheng depot to

other locations.52 As a result, not one item of supply was lost to the

Nationalists.

Another mission performed by the Yu-Wan-Su Military District

during the chaotic days of early December was the apprehension of

Nationalist stragglers and Nationalist officers and men trying to make

their way south to Nationalist lines. The district issued orders to every

local militia unit and even civilians to be on the lookout. Militia

checkpoints were set up and patrols conducted. As a result, the 3d

Subdistrict took more than 200 Nationalist soldiers prisoner, including

the commander of the XLI Corps. For apprehending this officer, who at

the time was walking along disguised as a peasant, a militia platoon

commander named Wang Kejin was given a cow to till his fields.53

Similar stories abound. Two militiamen fooled a tank crew into

surrendering their tank. A peasant captured three Nationalist soldiers

by threatening them with the hoe he was using to gather manure from

the road. As they passed, he raised his hoe and shouted loudly, “Turn

over your weapons and I won’t kill you!” 54 Immediately, they knelt

down on the ground, gave him their guns, and became his prisoners.

This hoe, appropriately, is now in the Huai Hai Campaign Memorial

Museum in Xuzhou.

The Huai Hai Campaign as Compound Warfare; The Huai

Hai Campaign as People’s War

Clearly, the Huai Hai campaign fits the definition of compound

warfare used in this study. The three-tiered structure for developing and

employing military power that Mao Zedong began using in the

Jinggang Mountains some twenty years earlier was used very

successfully. Regular, regional, and local militia forces, and even

civilians, contributed to the great victory that was achieved. At the same

time, Communist base areas made it possible to conduct and sustain the

campaign.

But the same characteristics of the campaign that make it an example

of compound warfare also make it an example of what the Chinese

Communists call “people’s war.” “People’s war” may, in fact, be a

better analytical concept to use when examining Mao’s military

208
thought and the conduct of the Huai Hai campaign than is the

compound warfare model. This is because the concept of people’s war

addresses a key factor that is not part of the compound warfare model,

namely, the depth of popular support for a cause and the level to which

that popular support is developed and organized to fight a war on behalf

of that cause. Compound warfare is impossible without a certain

amount of popular support. This support is the source of the human and

materiel resources with which such a war is fought. The compound

warfare model simply assumes the existence of sufficient popular

support to carry on a war. It does not deal with such matters as a war’s

justness or how those leading a war motivate and mobilize a population

to fight and sacrifice for victory. When looked at from the perspective

of people’s war, the relevance of these important issues comes into

sharper focus and the conduct and outcome of a war become more

understandable.

The very term people’s war implies that a war is a just struggle that

will engender popular support. The Great Chinese Encyclopedia

definition of this term says that a “people’s war is a war fought by

oppressed classes and nations who are striving for their own

liberation,” and that “all just wars which advance historical

developments and promote social progress and have the support of the

broad masses can be called people’s wars.” 55 In the words of a former

professor at China’s National Defense University, Wang Sanxin, “Its

just character establishes the political foundation for carrying out

people’s war.” 56

But as Wang goes on to explain in his book, Research into the

Military Thought of Mao Zedong, there are differing degrees of justness

in people’s wars, and this difference affects the level of popular support

for a war effort. Wang established a spectrum of people’s wars that

extends from modest popular involvement in what he calls “ordinary”

people’s wars at one end of the spectrum or continuum to the virtually

complete participation of all people at the other. Looking at the history

of people’s wars, he made the following assessment:

[A discussion of] people’s war includes the question of how much

mass participation exists on top of the foundation created by the just

war, for this is an indicator of how broadly and how intensely the

people are joining the war effort. Ancient China and foreign countries

have had people’s wars. Engels described the early 19th century war

of the Spanish people against Napoleonic aggression as a people’s

war. He also called China’s war against English and French

imperialistic aggression that began in 1851...a people’s war....

209
History also contains many slave rebellions and wars in which

peasants rose up.

. . . All of these wars, as far as their political nature was concerned,

represented the interests of the people to a certain degree. The people

also enthusiastically participated in these wars to a certain extent.

I call these wars ordinary (italics mine) people’s wars. They reflect the

patterns of past and present wars, both Chinese and foreign. But these

wars differ from a Communist-led people’s war in principle because

the limits imposed on the dominant class by class interests cause them

to seek objectives that are in their own class interests and not in the

interests of all the people. This limits the mobilization of people to

participate in the war. It is impossible for the mobilization to be

complete. 57

In contrast to those people’s wars that had inherent factors which

limited mass mobilization, Wang argued that “the revolutionary wars

led by the CCP were utterly and completely people’s war.”58 In his

view, because the CCP represented the interests of the broad peasant

masses in rural China and adopted the correct principles, policies, and

methods for organizing and leading them, these CCP-led wars had

“more people participating with greater enthusiasm... than any other

people’s war in history.”59 Among the practices that led to Communist

success, according to Wang, were the following: “organizing armed

strength in a structure that integrated the three elements of field armies,

regional forces and local militias into one system; the establishment of

revolutionary base areas; the implementation of democratic

government and improvements in the standard of living of the people;

the mobilization, organization, and arming of the broad masses to

support and join in the war; and the close coordination under

centralized Communist Party leadership of the political, economic,

cultural, and diplomatic fronts with the military main effort in a

comprehensive all-out war.”60

Comparing the level of popular support and participation in the

Communist-led revolutionary wars in China with that in other people’s

wars is beyond the scope of this study. But even without such a

comparison, Wang Sanxin’s main point, that a high level of mass

support and the thorough organization of the masses played a key role

in the Communist victory, cannot be denied. Mao believed that “the

deepest and most profound sources of war’s mighty power is to be

found among the masses,”61 and he consistently sought to tap that

210
source of power and mobilize it to support his revolutionary struggle.

From the period when he was in the Jinggang Mountains to the time of

the Huai Hai campaign, he worked hard to establish an effective

revolutionary program and a comprehensive organizational structure to

promote it. The depth of Mao’s organizational effort can be seen in the

following discussion of people’s war contained in his political report

entitled “On Coalition Government” made to the 7th National Congress

of the CCP in April 1945:

[Our] army is powerful because all its members have a discipline

based on political consciousness; they have come together and they

fight not for the private interests of a few individuals or a narrow

clique, but for the interests of the broad masses and of the whole

nation. The sole purpose of this army is to stand firmly with the

Chinese people and to serve them whole-heartedly....

Furthermore, this army is powerful because it has the people’s

self-defence corps and the militia—the vast armed organizations of

the masses—fighting in co-ordination with it. In the Liberated Areas

of China all men and women, from youth to middle age, are organized

in the people’s... self-defence corps on a voluntary and democratic

basis and without giving up their work in production. The cream of the

self-defence corps, except for those who join the army or the guerrilla

units, is brought into the militia. Without the co-operation of these

armed forces of the masses it would be impossible to defeat the enemy.

Finally, this army is powerful because of its division into two parts, the

main forces and the regional forces, with the former available for

operations in any region whenever necessary and the latter

concentrating on defending their own localities and attacking the

enemy there in co-operation with the local militia and the self-defence

corps. This division of labour has won the whole-hearted support of

the people. Without this correct division of labor—if, for example,

attention were paid only to the role of the main forces while that of the

regional forces were neglected—it would likewise be impossible to

defeat the enemy in the conditions obtaining in China’s Liberated

Areas. Under the regional forces, numerous armed working teams

have been organized, which are well trained and hence better qualified

for military, political and mass work; they penetrate into the rearmost

areas behind the enemy lines, strike at the enemy and arouse the

masses,... thus giving support to the frontal military operations of the

various Liberated Areas. In all this they have achieved great success.

Under the leadership of their democratic governments, all the...

people in the Liberated Areas of China are called upon to join

211
organizations of workers, peasants, youth and women, and cultural,

professional and other organizations, which will whole-heartedly

perform various tasks in support of he armed forces. These tasks are

not limited to rallying the people to join the army, transporting grain

for it, caring for soldiers’ families and helping the troops in meeting

their material needs. They also include mobilizing the guerrilla units,

militia and self-defence corps to make widespread raids and lay land

mines against the enemy, gather intelligence about him, comb out

traitors and spies, transport and protect the wounded and take direct

part in the army’s operations. At the same time, the people in all the

Liberated Areas are enthusiastically taking up various kinds of

political, economic, cultural and health work. The most important

thing in this connection is to mobilize everybody for the production of

grain and other necessities and to ensure that all government

institutions and schools, except in special cases, devote their free time

to production for their own support in order to supplement the

self-sufficiency production campaigns of the army and the people and

thus help to create a great upsurge of production to sustain the... war. .

. . Such is a real peoples war. 62

The extensive network of military and civilian organizations

described above and the high level of mass participation in, and support

of, the armed struggle that this organizational network encouraged and

directed produced the type of people’s war that Wag Sanxin described

as going beyond “ordinary” people’s war to become “complete”

people’s war. Arousing and organizing the masses so that virtually

every member of society was contributing to the war effort was Mao

Zedong’s way to create what he referred to as “real people’s war.”

Looking at the Huai Hai campaign as an example of a Communist

attempt to implement “real” or “complete” people’s war helps explain

why and how the campaign developed as it did.

This is not to say that examining the campaign as an example of

compound warfare does not provide meaningful insights into what

happened. As discussed earlier, the Communists made good use of

main forces, regional forces, and local militia forces during the

campaign. These different type forces worked together in

complementary ways to defeat Nationalist units. But the Communist

implementation of compound warfare was possible and was successful

because it was part of a people’s war. The recruitment, organization,

replenishment, reconstitution, and effective employment of the forces

engaged in the campaign were all dependent upon broad mass support

and the mobilization of all available resources. Communist victory did

not ultimately rest upon some multiplicative effect produced by the

212
coordinated use of regular and irregular forces. It rested instead upon an

overwhelming numerical superiority. As noted by William Whitson, a

retired U.S. Army colonel and the former Director of China Studies,

Rand Corporation, the Communists overwhelmed the Nationalists in

the Huai Hai campaign by mobilizing millions [of men] throughout the

campaign area and surrounding provinces:

While the campaign was a tribute to the professionalism of senior and

junior Communist commanders alike, it must be recognized that the

commissars [party representatives/political officers] played a crucial

role in creating and maintaining a logistical system that never failed to

support the military plan. All three Party bureaus— East China,

Central China, and North China—were committed to the assembly,

movement, and final distribution of supplies and manpower necessary

to feed troops, evacuate wounded, dig fortifications, replace losses,

maintain ammunition levels, and, perhaps most important, inspire the

combat forces with the sacrifices and moral support of more than 2

million common peasants, who pushed their wheelbarrow-loads of

fuel, ammunition, and food around the battlefields. In the sphere of

propaganda, the commissars also brought long experience to bear.

Pamphlets and leaflets were distributed about the battle area by

political workers who assured the troops under attack that relief would

come, that the battle was going well, and that popular support

remained firm.... 63

The collaboration and division of labor between increasingly

professional commanders and commissars was a crucial factor in the

Communist victory at Huai-Hai. Commanders had exceptional

freedom of movement, since they were confident that the commissars

had arranged logistical, replacement, and intelligence support that

could precede or follow them as necessary. Thus, it is probably more

accurate to reckon the troop strengths at Huai-Hai in terms of total

manpower committed to the battle area, rather than regular forces

alone. While the ratio of first-line Communist to Nationalist troops

was about one to one, the total Communist commitment, including

logistical and guerrilla support units, brought that ratio to about six to

one. . . . The Huai-Hai Campaign was thus “people’s war” carried out

with professional excellence on a relatively limited battlefield.

64

(italics mine).

213

Notes

1. The romanization system used to represent the pronunciation of Chinese

characters in this study is basically the pin-yin system used in the People’s

Republic of China today. Thus, the name of the Chinese Communist leader

appears as Mao Zedong, not Mao Tse-tung, as his name is romanized in the

many works that use the Wade-Giles romanization system. One exception to

the use of pin-yin romanization in the text is the use of the nonstandard

romanization Chiang Kai-shek for the name of the Nationalist Party leader.

This romanization has become so well known through long usage that it will be

retained. A second exception is the use of the Wade-Giles romanization

Kuomintang for the three characters (Kuo-Min-Tang/National People’s Party)

that make up the name for what in English is called the Nationalist Party. KMT

is used frequently in this study as shorthand for this party’s name as is CCP for

the Chinese Communist Party.

2. Stuart Schram, Mao Tse-tung (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books,

1966), 75.

3. Ibid., 90.

4. Ibid.

5. Mao Zedong, “The Struggle in the Chingkang Mountains,” in Selected Works

of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 1 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), 73 (hereafter

referred to as SWM).

6. Mao Zedong, “Why Is It That Red Political Power Can Exist in China?” in

SWM, vol. 1, 66.

7. Ibid., 84-85.

8. Ibid., 84.

9. Junshi kexueyuan junshi lishi yanjiubu (Academy of Military Science’s

Historical Research Department), ed., Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Zhanshi,

(A history of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s wars) vol. 1 (Beijing:

Military Science Press, 1987), 1, 21 (hereafter referred to as JFJZS).

10. Mao Zedong, “The Struggle in the Chingkang Mountains,” in SWM, vol. 1, 85.

11. Ibid., 86-87.

12. Ibid., 101.

215
13. Mao Zedong, “Why Is It That Red Political Power Can Exist in China?” in

SWM, vol. 1, 64-65.

14. Chalmers A. Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The

Emergence of Revolutionary China 1937-1945 (Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press, 1962), 74.

15. JFJZS, vol. 3, 232.

16. Ibid., 267

17. Ibid.

18. Zhonggong zhongyang dangshi ziliao zhengji weiyuanhui (Chinese

Communist Party Central Committee’s Committee for the Collection of Party

Historical Material), ed., Huai Hai Zhanyi (The Huai Hai campaign), vol. 1

(Beijing: Communist Party Historical Material Publishing House, 1988), 42

(hereafter referred to as HHZ).

19. JFJZS, vol. 3, 234.

20. The Long-Hai Railroad was an east-west line running from the sea (hai) near

Haizhou to Gansu (single character name: Long) Province. The Jinpu Railroad

was a north-south line running from Tianjin in the north, through Jinan and

Xuzhou, to Jiangpu, a small city on the north bank of the Yangtze River

opposite the Chinese capital of Nanjing.

21. Zhongguo geming bowuguan laozhanshi shiwen jibian weiyuanhui (Museum

of the Chinese Revolution’s Committee for Collecting and Compiling the

Writings of Old Warriors) ed., Ming Jiang Su Yu (The famous general Su Yu)

(Beijing: New China Publishing House , 1986), 377 (hereafter referred to as

MJSY).

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. HHZ, vol. 1, 52. This quote is from a CMC radio message that was also sent to

the CPFA commander and others. The CMC’s selection of 10 October as the

day on which to start the campaign is interesting because that was China’s

National Day.

25. Ibid., 54-55.

26. Ibid., 68.

216
27. Ibid., 72.

28. Ibid., 103.

29. Ibid., 117-21.

30. Zhou Kaicheng, “Huai Hai Zhanyi zhong de dibajun” (The VIII Corps in the

Huai Hai campaign), in Huai Hai Zhanyi Qinliji: Yuan Guomindang Jiangling

de Huiyi (Personal experiences of the Huai Hai campaign: Reminiscences of

former Nationalist generals), ed. by Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi

quanguo weiyuanhui wenshih ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui Huai Hai Zhanyi

Qinliji bianshenzu (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference

National Committee’s Historical Materials Research Committee’s Editorial

Committee for Personal Experiences of the Huai Hai Campaign,) (Beijing:

Historical Material Publishing House, 1983), 243-44 (hereafter referred to as

HHZQ).

31. Liao Tiejun, “Nianzhuangxu diqu zuozhan huiyi” (Reminiscences of the

fighting in the Nianzhuangxu area), in HHZQ, 180.

32. Ibid., 181.

33. HHZ, vol. 2, 127.

34. Zhongguo renmin geming junshi bowuguan (Military Museum of the Chinese

People’s Revolution), ed., Zhongguo Renmin Geming Zhanzheng Dituxuan

(Selected maps of the Chinese People’s Revolutionary War (n.p., Map

Publishing House, 1981), 70

35. Sanjun daxue zhanshi pianzuan weiyuanhui (Joint Staff College’s Military

History Compilation Committee), ed., Xu-Beng Huizhan (The Xu-Beng

campaign) [Taipei, Taiwan]: Joint Staff College, n.d.), appendix table

1.(Hereinafter referred to as XBH.) The Nationalists call the fighting associated

with the Huai Hai campaign the Xu-Beng campaign after the two cities of

Xuzhou and Bengbu.

36. Harry H. Collier and Paul Chin-chih Lai, Organizational Changes in the

Chinese Army, 1895-1950 (Taipei, Taiwan: Office of the Military Historian,

1969), 257-58, 262, and 222.

37. Ibid.

38. XBH, 5-6.

39. HHZ, vol. 3, 359.

217
40. Huang Wei, “Di shier bingtuan beijian jiyao” (A summary of the destruction of

the Twelfth Army), in HHZQ, 486.

41. HHZ, vol. 1, 42.

42. Ibid., 84.

43. Ibid., 85.

44. Ibid., 99.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid., 324.

47. Ibid., 330.

48. Ibid., 111.

49. Ibid., 112.

50. HHZ, vol. 2, 200.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid., 202.

54. Ibid.

55. Zhongguo dabaikequanshu zong bianji weiyuanhui junshi bianji weiyuanhui

(Military Editorial Committee of the Great Chinese Encyclopedia’s General

Editorial Committee), ed., Zhongguo dabaikequanshu, junshi (Great Chinese

Encyclopedia, Military) vol. 2 (Beijing: Great Chinese Encyclopedia Press,

1989), 876 (hereafter referred to as ZDJ).

56. Wang Sanxin, Mao Zedong junshi sixiang yanjiu (Research into Mao Zedong’s

military thought) (Beijing: People’s Liberation Army’s National Defence

University Press, 1988), 194. (Hereafter referred to as MZJSY.)

57. Ibid., 195-96.

58. Ibid., 196.

59. Ibid., 197.

60. Ibid., 196-97.

218
61. ZDJ, 877.

62. Mao Zedong, “On Coalition Government,” in SWM, vol. 3, 214-17.

63. William W. Whitson with Chen-hsia Huang, The Chinese High Command: A

History of Communist Military Politics, 1927-71 (New York: Praeger

Publishers, 1973), 186.

64. Ibid., 242-43.

219

Compound Warfare in the Vietnam

War

Randall N. Briggs

War is the highest, most comprehensive test of a nation and its social

system. War is a contest that not only tests the skill and strategy of the

two adversaries, but also their strength and will. Victory goes to the

side which has the correct military strategy, which makes the best use

of the art of military science and which most successfully limits the

war-making capacity of its adversary.

 ̄Senior General Van Tien Dung

People’s Army of Vietnam1

North Vietnam won the Vietnam War because it ruthlessly and

systematically applied a version of fortified compound warfare. South

Vietnam and its ally, the United States, lost because they were unable or

unwilling either to counter this effort or institute their own version.

With support from both the Soviet Union and China and with

sanctuaries from American military might, the North Vietnamese

conducted a guerrilla campaign that culminated in the 1968 Tet

Offensive. This campaign confused, distracted, and wore down the

South Vietnamese and drove the United States from the war. Then, the

North Vietnamese employed a massive conventional campaign that

unified the two nations.2

The United States found itself in the classic dilemma of the

conventional operator in compound warfare; it faced an enemy that

intelligently and ruthlessly combined main and guerrilla forces,

utilized safe havens, and received support from powerful allies. The

Americans and South Vietnamese, continually responding to the aspect

of compound warfare that seemed predominant at any given time, tried

a plethora of approaches until the American public lost its willingness

to support the war. This “strategy of tactics” was ultimately a strategy

for defeat.3

Background of the Conflict

Over the centuries, the Vietnamese have fought against their

neighbors4 and among themselves. Tensions between the northern and

southern sections of Vietnam go back at least as far as the sixteenth

century, when competing royal families divided the nation roughly

221
222

Map 1
along the seventeenth parallel, the same boundary that would exist from

1954 to 1975.5 In 1858, the French invaded Vietnam, toppled the

existing monarchy, and eventually incorporated all of Indochina into

the French Empire. Nonetheless, the Vietnamese resisted, and after the

Imperial court capitulated, talented amateur commanders fought a

guerrilla war that lasted for decades. Ho Chi Minh, the man who

became the nemesis of France as well as the United States, continued

this resistance and founded the Indochinese Communist party in 1929

in Hong Kong. The following year, the party began developing a

worker-peasant armed force that would eventually become the

People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN).6

The First Indochina War

France’s defeat in Europe in 1940 and its reduction to a puppet of

Nazi Germany provided Ho with a wonderful opportunity to advance

the cause of Vietnamese independence. To this end, he formed a new,

united-front organization, the Vietnam Independence League, or

Vietminh, to expel the French. In 1944, the Communist party’s military

leader, Vo Nguyen Giap, began attacking French outposts with armed

propaganda teams, demonstrating the importance of Ho’s slogan:

“political action is more important than military action; propaganda is

more important than fighting.” Obviously, political as well as military

action was important. After Emperor Bao Dai abdicated as head of

state, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed on 2 September 1945 that the nation was

independent of France and would henceforth be called the Democratic

Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Soon, armed rampages by French troops,

Vietminh agents, and armed gang members initiated the First Indochina

War (or the Vietminh War.) Early in the conflict, Ho warned a French

visitor: “You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But

even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.”7

In 1949, the French reinstalled Bao Dai as the emperor of a “united”

Vietnam within the French union. For the next five years, while they

fought the war against France, the Vietminh simultaneously waged a

political struggle against Bao Dai’s government.8 Throughout the war,

the Vietminh demonstrated ruthlessness, courage, tenacity, and

cunning. By late 1953, despite commanding a force of over 500,000

French and Vietnamese troops and winning most of the battles, the

French command had failed to secure control of the countryside. The

bloody war culminated with the dramatic Vietminh victory at Dien

Bien Phu on 7 May 1954.9

223
While the siege of Dien Bien Phu was under way, the United States

considered intervening to salvage the French position. President

Dwight D. Eisenhower attempted to persuade the British to participate

in a multinational endeavor. Failing this, he directed the Joint Chiefs of

Staff (JCS) to study the possibility of a unilateral American

intervention. The JCS subsequently considered several options,

including possible use of tactical atomic weapons. Army Chief of Staff

General Matthew B. Ridgway and his chief of plans and operations,

Lieutenant General James M. Gavin, effectively squashed this notion

with the analysis that serious American entry into the conflict would, in

the aftermath of the Korean War, likely result in another war with

Communist China.10 This fear of another war with China would affect

American policies on Vietnam for another twenty years.

The Partition of Indochina

The Geneva Accords, signed on 20 July 1954 to conclude the First

Indochina War, divided Indochina into four countries: Cambodia,

Laos, and the two Vietnams—North and South, split along the

seventeenth parallel. This division was to be temporary, pending

nationwide elections. Ho Chi Minh led the northern state, while Bao

Dai and the French controlled the south. The accords also established a

300-day regroupment process during which 900,000 refugees moved

from northern to southern Vietnam. Meanwhile, about 80,000

Vietminh troops in the south moved north under Communist party

orders, but 10,000 remained behind as a hedge against the failure of the

scheduled elections. In 1960, most of these men would still be in the

south to form the nucleus of the People’s Liberation Army.11

Meanwhile, Bao Dai installed a Catholic mandarin, Ngo Dinh Diem,

as his prime minister. Diem was a fervent nationalist who was also a

dedicated anti-Communist and had been imprisoned by the Vietminh in

1945. In the spring of 1955, Diem deposed the emperor and appointed

himself chief of a new state, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). Diem also

canceled nationwide elections, evicted the French, and replaced them

with U.S. support.12

From the start, the RVN government had problems gaining the

loyalty and support of its rural population. To the rural Vietnamese, the

RVN represented the same urban elite interests that had benefited from

French rule.13 While Diem had initially inspired the hopes of

nationalists within South Vietnam, it soon became clear that he was

more interested in consolidating his own power than in correcting the

inequities inherited from the French. In 1957, Diem canceled his

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previously announced land reform program, and the following year, he

launched an “urban redevelopment” plan that merely displaced the

poor peasants to sampans or shanty villages. Both actions served to

increase their resentment against Diem’s government and his U.S.

sponsors. Such policies, along with the widespread (though false)

perception that “the Americans were steering the boat and Diem [was]

doing the rowing,” gave many nationalists little choice but to oppose

Diem.14

In American eyes, the peasants who made up the overwhelming

majority of the South Vietnamese population were largely apolitical,

despite their obvious widespread support for the Communists and other

anti-Diem resistance groups. In this view, the peasants, except for a

small minority who had specific grievances with the regime, would

follow whichever side was locally stronger. The truth was more

troubling: most peasants saw the resistance movement as the heir of the

heroic Vietminh, with whom they had sympathized. Thus, Diem, by

returning landlords to their status of the French era, was viewed by the

peasants as destroying their dignity and livelihood.15

By 1960, peasants had four major grievances against the officials of

Diem’s government: (1) they stole national funds and commodities, (2)

they extorted and stole from private individuals (principally through

the secret police and soldiers), (3) they tortured prisoners, (4) and they

falsified elections.16

Early Communist Insurgency and American Involvement

John F. Kennedy, an ambitious young American politician, had

visited Vietnam in 1951. In 1956, as a U.S. Senator, Kennedy noted:

“What we must offer [the Vietnamese people] is a revolution—a

political, economic, and social revolution far superior to anything the

Communists can offer—far more peaceful, far more democratic, and

far more locally controlled.”17 Later, as president, Kennedy would

attempt to implement such a policy. But neither he nor his successors

grasped that this solution—a political, economic, and social

revolution—was not achievable with a primarily military approach.

The leaders of the DRV had not immediately utilized compound

warfare against the RVN. It was not necessary, as the RVN did not have

the significant American military support that would have required it.

Instead, Hanoi sought first to unify North and South Vietnam under its

control by attacking Diem’s regime from within rather than without.18

The Communists planned to overthrow Diem through a three-phase

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insurgency. During Phase One, they would establish their political

organization and build a base of support among the population. Phase

Two would advance to guerrilla warfare—small-scale military attacks

on selected targets, with the aid of the previously established base of

support. Phase Three would feature compound warfare, combining

conventional, main force operations with guerrilla operations.19

By the end of 1956, the Communist party began Phase One of the

insurgency with an “extermination of traitors” program, wherein party

assassins murdered secret police (Cong An) agents, influential

anti-Communist teachers, and honest, effective local government

officials. Corrupt, inefficient officials were left in place to advertise the

evils of the Diem government.20

By 1959, as the level of Communist assassinations continued to rise,

Diem convinced the Americans that the insurgent activity was the “last

gasp” of a movement already politically defeated. In May 1959, Diem

published Law 10/59, providing harsh punishment for virtually any

antigovernment activity.21 In response, the Communist party

announced the formation in the south of the National Liberation Front

(NLF), with representatives from several non-Communist opposition

factions. In February 1961, the Front established the People’s

Liberation Army (PLA) as its military wing. The following January, the

party established the People’s Revolutionary party (PRP) as the

nominally independent Communist movement of South Vietnam

within the umbrella organization of the NLF. (In reality, the DRV,

working through the PRP, controlled the Front.) The Diem regime

called the new organization the “Vietcong,” for “Vietnamese

Communists,” and it was as the Viet Cong, or “VC,” that the United

States would know the NLF.22

Forming the NLF was a brilliant stroke for Hanoi. With the Front as a

nominally non-Communist organization, it became easier for South

Vietnamese reformers, as well as liberals in the West, to support it than

it would have been had its control by Hanoi been overt. The seemingly

independent existence of the NLF would prove to be an enduring thorn

in the side of Western anti-Communists.23

American advisers repeatedly emphasized to Diem the necessity of

social and economic reforms if he were to gain and maintain the loyalty

of the peasant population. Diem occasionally took actions to mollify

these advisers. In February 1959, for instance, he launched the

Agglomeration Centers Plan, through which he housed suspected

Communist-sympathizer families with loyal families. The plan was an

immediate failure. In June of the same year, Diem tried again with a

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rural consolidation plan called the Agroville Program, promising to

create eighty large Agrovilles and 400 Agrohamlets by 1963. The

program was harsh and corrupt, and the rural population hated it. Work

halted with the program only 25 percent complete, when the

Communist party began its armed-struggle phase in early 1961.24

American Commitment

In America, John Kennedy became president in 1961. He seemed to

embody a new spirit in America and a new determination to use

American power in pursuit of positive goals. In his inaugural address,

he proclaimed that his generation had been given the task of defending

freedom and declared that America would “pay any price, bear any

burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to

ensure the survival and the success of liberty.”25 However, Kennedy

fumbled his early diplomatic engagements with the Soviet Union,

which left him needing to demonstrate American credibility and

looking for an opportunity to do so. In Vietnam, he found that

opportunity.26 In Kennedy’s mind, the choice was simple: he must

either halt communism in Southeast Asia or retreat to “Fortress

America.” Thus, Vietnam’s situation was analyzed in the context of the

Cold-War confrontation with international Communism. Kennedy and

most of his advisers rejected the idea of withdrawing U.S. support from

Vietnam, even though problems there seemed to be mounting.27 The

stage was set for an escalation of the anticommunist effort that would

result in America losing its first war.

Soon there would be additional complaints. As the PLA increased its

military activity, Diem’s measures to fight the guerrillas escalated. The

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the Vietnam Air Force

(VNAF) used artillery and air strikes to attack hamlets suspected of

housing PLA soldiers. These attacks were effective mainly in

destroying hamlets and further alienating the rural population.28 One

study estimated that while there may have been only 5,000 active

guerrillas opposing the government in early 1961, a year later there

were 16,000 of them, actively supported by 100,000 sympathizers

within the general population.29

The Agglomeration Center and Agroville projects, both designed to

win the loyalty of the rural populace, had the opposite effect. Diem’s

next attempt, the Strategic Hamlet Program, was equally unsuccessful.

Villagers disliked it for many reasons: they had to surrender their

bamboo crops for construction, those working on construction could

not grow their own cash crops, forced labor was reminiscent of coercive

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French practices, and they had no way to express their discontent

because all “antigovernment” criticism was forbidden. In short, the

increased security was not worth the cost. The villagers saw the

program as a means by the government to control their actions, not to

protect them from an external threat. In the words of one NLF

propagandist, “People don’t like to be looked on and treated as VC.”

For these reasons, 60 to 70 percent of Strategic Hamlet residents would

eventually cooperate with the NLF.30

Opposition to Saigon did not automatically translate into support for

the NLF. The Communist cadres had to work diligently to win the

support of the rural population and to convince them that the NLF was

the legitimate government of South Vietnam. Of course, it helped their

cause that the elements of South Vietnamese society suppressed by

Diem and his successors had few alternatives but to support the Front.31

The Communist strategy was to consolidate the allegiance of the

peasants and fragment and win over the landlords. The NLF proclaimed

that despite the Saigon regime’s attempts to reimpose the authority of

the landlords, the land belonged to the peasants. (The party, however,

was evasive in its descriptions of who would actually own the land and

how ownership would be implemented once the peasants were

collectivized.) A key element of this strategy was for the PLA to assume

control of the local government and replace the governmental tax

system with a “progressive” one under its own auspices. Under

Communist rule, the peasants had land, saw their standard of living

improve, and willingly paid taxes.32

As it worked to transform rural discontent into outright support for

the revolution, the party attempted to match words with deeds. A visible

difference existed between the self-sacrificing rural PLA cadres and the

Saigon government appointees, who came largely from the urban elite.

Another contrast was the consistent courtesy of the Front cadres versus

the often-arrogant behavior of ARVN troops. Simply put, under

“Vietcong” control, peasants had status and power. The Front,

moreover, provided hope for advancement for intelligent peasants and

their children. Many peasants, therefore, were willing to fight to

prevent the return of government control, under which they saw no

hope of a better life.33

Meanwhile, the PLA continued its effective terror campaign.

Assassins murdered very bad officials to gain the villagers’ support.

They also killed honest, efficient, and loyal officials to earn the

villagers’ fear. As part of this policy, the party encouraged mediocre

and dishonest administration by government officials. The PLA further

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intimidated the rural population by executing noncooperative peasants.

The NLF, as a whole, conducted a successful disinformation campaign

that further alienated peasants from the Saigon government and the

Americans. For their part, the guerrillas, when occupying a hamlet,

would force villagers to destroy their government-issued ID cards.

This, of course, put the villagers in danger of arrest if they ventured into

government-controlled areas.34

The Saigon government inadvertently aided the Front through its

repressive tactics, destroying the possibility of moral outrage that the

PLA’s use of terror might otherwise have aroused. The government

routinely tortured even non-Communist NLF members. Many, perhaps

most, of the guerrillas were not ideologically committed. Nevertheless,

the government insisted that all of its opponents must be considered

Communists. Article 4 of the RVN Constitution excluded Communists

from the protection of the law. Thus, for one to express dissatisfaction

with the government meant risking imprisonment, torture, or death.35

Encouraging anti-Communist nationalism was the key to long-term

RVN success, but this would not be possible without a complete

transformation of the Saigon government. The regime had to become

responsive to the needs and desires of the rural population. As

American adviser John Paul Vann said later: “If I were a lad of eighteen

faced with the same choice—whether to support the [government] or

the NLF—and a member of a rural community, I would surely choose

the NLF.”36

By 1963, the NLF’s campaign to gain the support of the rural

population had succeeded. General Duong Van (“Big”) Minh frankly

acknowledged to Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge in September of that

year that more people supported the NLF than the government.37

The North’s Compound Warfare Plans

While it was the grievances of the rural South Vietnamese that

nourished the NLF, and while the revolution in South Vietnam was not

necessarily dependent on DRV support, the direction of the overall

insurgent effort always lay in the hands of the North Vietnamese. The

DRV began infiltrating Communist cadres into South Vietnam in 1956.

By the time the NLF announced its existence in 1960, Hanoi had

already organized its military force, the PLA (later People’s Liberation

Armed Forces [PLAF]). Indeed, when Hanoi publicly announced

support for the NLF, it signaled that political agitation would soon

escalate to armed conflict, Phase Two of the insurrection.38

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The PLA was organized on two levels: (1) full military (main force)

units and (2) paramilitary, guerrilla force units of two types: (a)

regional, or territorial, guerrillas and (b) local guerrillas.39 The PLA

included a command and control headquarters (Nam Bo, later called

COSVN, for “Central Office in South Vietnam”) and logistical support

groups operating in Laos and along the coastline. But while the DRV

pulled the strings, it also ensured that its forces in South Vietnam

operated according to a key principle of “people’s war”: the armed

force must be self-supporting and self-contained. Thus, until 1968,

Hanoi limited its support to the PLA. Key technicians and the top

leadership came from the North Vietnamese, but most of the troops

were either South Vietnamese or individuals from the south who had

moved to the north during the 1954 regroupment process.40

To support and reinforce the guerrillas in South Vietnam, Hanoi

needed an overland supply route. The construction of this route, what

would become the Ho Chi Minh Trail, had begun in 1959. To hide its

involvement, Hanoi, at considerable logistical difficulty, required that

its soldiers infiltrating into South Vietnam not wear or carry anything

traceable to the DRV. Generally, soldiers would exchange their

clothing and equipment at the Laotian border. The journey down the

trail was a grueling one. Despite way stations along the trail, the

infiltrators endured illnesses, injuries, and shortages of food and

medicines. In addition, they risked interception by ARVN ranger

patrols.41

Hanoi also directed actions to undermine the Saigon regime from

within. It had agents within Diem’s government at least as early as

1956. It formed the nominally independent PRP to convince city

people, intellectuals, and Westerners that opposition leadership came

from a broad spectrum of South Vietnamese society. Meanwhile, from

1961 on, a Communist agent named Albert Thao established a network

of connections within the highest RVN government and military

circles. Thao served as deputy director of the Strategic Hamlet Program

and ran it at breakneck speed to encourage resentment among the

forcibly resettled peasants. He also worked to instigate plots and coup

attempts until his exposure and execution in 1965.42

At the same time, Communist efforts in South Vietnam received

outside support from several quarters and on many different levels. The

guerrillas fighting in South Vietnam had, of course, the covert, and later

overt, assistance of the Hanoi regime. The DRV had sufficient military

power of its own to seemingly threaten conventional

invasion—introducing the dynamics of compound warfare—even as

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Saigon attempted to control the insurgency. Later, and at a higher level,

Hanoi needed a powerful ally to avoid being overwhelmed by

American military power. Here, Ho had the assistance of the Soviet

Union and the People’s Republic of China, enabling him to wage the

fortified variety of compound warfare.43

In late 1949, Mao Zedong’s Communists had triumphed in the civil

war with the Nationalists. Thereafter, the presence of a Communist

regime on Vietnam’s northern border provided Ho with a physical link

to the worldwide Communist camp. Mao provided Ho with training

camps in China and with advisers. In addition, he massed 200,000

troops on the border in a show of support. But the relationship between

the Chinese and Vietnamese Communists was an uncomfortable one

from the start. The Vietnamese recalled centuries of conflict with China

and resented the fact that Mao’s government did not support Ho’s

claims at Geneva in 1954. The Chinese, meanwhile, were determined to

continue the struggle against the United States, but they were sobered

by their heavy losses in the Korean War and wanted to use Ho as a

cheap, safe proxy.44

Ho’s relationship with the Soviet Union was similarly complex. The

USSR disappointed Ho when it failed to recognize his newly

proclaimed government in 1945, not doing so until January 1950 in

conjunction with China. For the USSR, Vietnam was always secondary

to calculations concerning its own requirements. In 1953, after the

death of Stalin in March and the Korean armistice in July, the Soviets

declared their desire for “peaceful coexistence” with the West, and

pressured Ho to settle the conflict with France. Soviet Foreign Minister

Vyacheslav Molotov brokered the 1954 Geneva agreement between

the DRV and France that resulted in the “temporary” partitioning of the

country and the plan for national elections within two years. This left

Ho receiving less at the peace table than he had won on the battlefield.

To make matters worse for Ho, after Diem canceled the scheduled 1956

elections, the Soviet Union proposed a permanent partition of Vietnam

(the United States rejected that proposal). Nonetheless, Ho had to

depend on this less-than-reliable helpmate, as his choices for a

powerful ally were few.45

The South’s Response

Diem needed more than pseudo-reform packages; he needed the best

and brightest rural youth of South Vietnam to willingly risk their lives

to defend the state. Instead, these young people typically joined the

insurgents. In the absence of committed youth, the South Vietnamese

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government had to rely on the ARVN. Unfortunately for Diem, the

ARVN was a weak reed, a force with no military tradition prior to 1954,

which also had the negative heritage of succeeding the

French-controlled Vietnamese National Army.46

After first proposing a police-type force capable of fighting

Communist guerrillas and infiltrators, the American advisers (MAAG,

the Military Assistance and Advisory Group) designed a conventional

Western-style army, organized into divisions and corps and heavily

mechanized by Asian standards. Diem was enthusiastic; he wanted a

powerful army with officers loyal to him. As 80 percent of the U.S. aid

to the RVN was going into military development, the army’s escalating

costs were not major concerns for him.47

At issue in the organization of the ARVN was its basic mission. A

“light” force would have been better for fighting guerrillas and could

have conducted the dismounted patrols necessary to know and secure

the countryside. But in American eyes, the ARVN had to be ready at all

times to defend against a conventional invasion such as the Communist

had used to start the Korean War. Thus, the ARVN was deliberately

designed to be “heavy.” The Cong An (secret police) and local security

forces were to fight the guerrillas. In any event, while it was not

optimally designed for counter-guerrilla warfare, the ARVN faced a

bigger problem in developing good leadership and motivation.48

Under the guidance of MAAG, the government organized local

security forces to fight guerrillas. But the reality did not match the

concept. The main function of the provincial militia (also called the Bao

An, or Civil Guard) proved to be the protection of provincial

administrators, reinforcing the perception of Diem as a fearful dictator

with no support in the countryside. And the village militia (Dan Ve, or

People’s Self-defense Forces) were miserably equipped and trained

and got tied down in the defense of pitifully weak fortifications. These

soldiers also frequently lost their weapons, either through inadequate

security measures or by being captured or killed. Thus, they served as

an unwitting source of supply for the PLA.49

A typical ARVN operation of this period was the attack on the

village of Binh Hoa on 21 January 1962. Operating on five-day-old

intelligence, four infantry battalions moved by boats to positions in the

nearby river the night before the attack. B-26 bombers then mistakenly

bombed a village across the Cambodian border instead of the suspected

Viet Cong encampment, killing and wounding several civilians. B-26s

and T-28 fighter-bombers next attacked a suspected enemy battalion

and munitions plant next to the drop zone, after which the

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pre-positioned units moved into blocking positions. Finally, an ARVN

airborne battalion dropped in to assault the PLA. What enemy

guerrillas had been present had left an hour prior to the air strike, which

killed five civilians and wounded eleven. Among the dead were three

children. The net gain in the propaganda war was to the PLA.50

The enemy did not always run away, however. In October 1962, the

ARVN 7th Division, operating in the Mekong Delta, had an entire

platoon of rangers killed by a PLA unit that chose to stand and fight.

This was an ominous sign of the increasing strength and aggressiveness

of the enemy. Even worse, though, was Diem’s reaction. He personally

rebuked the division commander, ordering him to be less

offensive-minded in the future. The division, thereafter, conducted

operations only in areas known to be free of the PLA.51

Why was the ARVN so ineffective? There were several reasons.

Senior commanders, who had been given little responsibility within the

French system, were inexperienced, and the troops were not highly

motivated. Moreover, officers frequently disobeyed orders that did not

suit them. Diem also misused ARVN units, ordering them to avoid

decisive contact with the guerrillas and reserving the best units for

“palace guard” assignments in Saigon.52

Worse, still, was the fact that the ARVN did not understand the

nature of the enemy it was fighting. PLA units were successful in large

part because they had the overwhelming support of the rural people.

Moreover, the ARVN’s battle tactics, emphasizing air and artillery

attacks on “enemy” hamlets, only exacerbated the situation, further

alienating the rural population. The prevailing concept was to kill,

rather than win over, the rural population sympathetic to the

guerrillas.53 Supported by the U.S. Air Force, the conventional-oriented

MAAG commander, General Paul Harkins, continued to support air

strikes, the use of artillery, and “harassment and interdiction” (“H&I”)

fire, not just against known targets but at random, “suspected” targets.

From January to August 1962, air-strike tonnage quadrupled. The

ARVN established “free-bombing zones,” “free-strike zones,” and

“free-fire zones.” The theory was to eliminate the sea of people in

which the guerrilla “fish” swam. The reality was that this created tens of

thousands of demoralized refugees hostile to the Saigon government.54

Still another way in which the ARVN helped the Communist cause was

by serving as a weapons supply service, similar to the way in which the

village militias did. In 1963, when the PLA expanded to regiment and

division size, it did so using American weapons captured from the

ARVN.55

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What could have been a turning point in U.S. perceptions of ARVN

operations against the guerrillas came with the Battle of Ap Bac in

January 1963. In this operation, a PLA force mauled an ARVN division

despite the fact that the ARVN force outnumbered its enemy at least

four to one and had air support, helicopters, artillery, and armored

personnel carriers (APCs). The ARVN unit lost sixty-one men killed

and a hundred wounded. In addition, five U.S. helicopters supporting

the operation were shot down, with three Americans killed. Known

PLA casualties were three killed. It was a military catastrophe. As the

officers responsible for the debacle were mostly Diem appointees, the

disaster clearly reflected poorly on Diem’s leadership. Several

American reporters witnessed the battle and were astonished and

disgusted when Diem, as well as General Harkins at the newly named

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), proclaimed it a

victory.56 Ap Bac provided America an opportunity to reexamine the

premises of its aid to the Diem regime, and a U.S. military commission

investigated the disaster. However, despite the testimony of U.S.

advisers on the spot and scathing after-action reports, the commission

concluded that Diem was an effective leader and that the war was

progressing well.57

America and Guerrilla Warfare

From beginning to end, the U.S. Army faced a guerrilla war in

Vietnam. It should have been well prepared for such a conflict, for its

own history contained vast experience both in fighting as guerrillas and

in combating them. From the earliest colonial times, Americans fought

irregular wars against Indian tribes of the Atlantic seaboard. They

continued to fight guerrilla or counterguerrilla campaigns during the

French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the Seminole War,

the Civil War, the Indian wars of the Great Plains and the desert

Southwest, the Philippine Insurrection, and World War II. The U.S.

Army had also prepared for guerrilla operations under the rubric of

“unconventional warfare” during and after the Korean War (although

the concentration on a nuclear battlefield implicit in Eisenhower’s

“massive retaliation” doctrine later caused this interest to wane). Thus,

the U.S. Army entered the Vietnam War with a history of guerrilla and

counterguerrilla operations that matched any country in the world.58

When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, he fully

subscribed to the theory of containment that had been the foundation of

American foreign policy for over a decade. However, he rejected

Eisenhower’s “massive retaliation” doctrine in favor of a concept that

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retired General Maxwell Taylor termed “flexible response.” Along

with this, Kennedy was fascinated with the idea of

“counterinsurgency.” In his view, it was the obvious approach to take in

Vietnam. In fact, one of the newly inaugurated president’s first

questions to his military aides was, “What are we doing about guerrilla

warfare?”59

At this point, counterguerrilla expert Edward Landsdale brought the

administration news of the deteriorating situation in Vietnam.

Landsdale proposed that American officers and NCOs be sent as

advisers to ARVN units to improve their combat effectiveness. While

Landsdale recommended that the advisers be given long-term

assignments, the Pentagon, with bureaucratic shortsightedness, refused

to accept this deviation from normal assignment policies. Kennedy,

nonetheless, endorsed Landsdale’s concept.60

Later that spring, presidential aide Walt W. Rostow gave a speech to

the U.S. Army Special Forces School. He noted that the history of

insurgencies in the Philippines and Malaya indicated that ten to twenty

troops might be necessary to contain each guerrilla. Men such as

Rostow and Roger Hilsman, head of the State Department’s Bureau of

Intelligence and Research and a witness to the January 1962 Binh Hoa

debacle previously discussed, understood clearly many of the basic

requirements of counterguerrilla warfare.61

Along with the British counterguerrilla expert Sir Robert Thompson,

Hilsman analyzed the mission in Vietnam in terms of five military

tasks: (1) enforcing static defense of vital installations; (2) initiating

“clear and hold” operations that pushed the PLA out of given areas,

allowing civic action cadres to work and provide security for the time it

would take to turn an area into a solid bloc of secure strategic hamlets;

(3) reinforcing of strategic hamlets or civil guard units under attack and

the setting up ambushes on PLA escape routes; (4) maintaining

pressure against PLA main force units to keep them off-balance; and (5)

conducting guerrilla operations against enemy infiltration routes.62

But Rostow, Hilsman, and Thompson all failed to understand a

salient fact: the South Vietnamese government did not have the support

of its own people. Thus, thinking that focused on “providing security”

and “tracking the guerrilla to his sanctuaries” missed the essence of the

problem. Nowhere in their assessments was there the recognition that

fundamental reforms of the Saigon regime were a prerequisite to

gaining support of the rural population.63 At Kennedy’s request,

Hilsman wrote the proposals up into a document titled “A Strategic

Concept for Vietnam.” To Hilsman’s assertion that it would never be

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possible to completely cut infiltration trails, Kennedy noted: “Those

trails are a built-in excuse for failure, and a built-in argument for

escalation.”64

By the end of 1961, it was clear to all observers that the PLA was

ascendant; by this time, Vietnam was a priority problem for the

Kennedy administration. Two themes emerged for the first, but not the

last, time: the tendency of American planners to view problems faced

by the RVN and the United States in terms of defective organization

(e.g., the lack of coordination between the ARVN and the provincial

militia), and the question of to what degree, if any, Washington should

exercise sovereignty over the internal affairs of the RVN.65

Meanwhile, Kennedy searched for a “first-rate back-stop man” to

coordinate all Vietnam support operations from Washington.

Landsdale might have been the proper man, but he had too many

enemies in the Defense and State Departments. Ultimately, no one had

both the credentials and the bureaucratic support, so the position was

never developed.66

In October 1961, Maxwell Taylor and a party of experts visited

Vietnam for two weeks. Taylor returned with three sets of

recommendations. First, the Diem government should implement

political, governmental, and administrative reforms. Second, the

United States should provide material aid and advisers for a

broad-based antiguerrilla campaign of economic measures and

village-level civic, social, and political action. The United States

should also provide arms and equipment for self-defense forces, as well

as specialized equipment (e.g., three battalions of helicopters) to

provide the ARVN sufficient mobility to abandon static defense and

seek out guerrillas “in their own territory.” (Of course, “their own

territory” was most of the RVN.) This recommendation also included

the “Farmgate” squadrons of T-28s and B-26s to provide air support

against the guerrillas. Third was a totally new proposal that the United

States increase its advisers to the 10,000-man level and contemplate the

introduction of up to six U.S. divisions to preclude a Korea-type attack

from the DRV. Taylor dismissed the possibility that the DRV might

respond to this buildup with one of its own by claiming that the DRV

was extremely vulnerable to a bombing campaign.

Kennedy did not like the last proposal, perhaps remembering his

1951 assessment that nationalism, not military force, was the key to

securing Southeast Asia against Communism. Secretary of Defense

Robert McNamara and the JCS also rejected it as inadequate. Yet no

one in the administration had an alternative proposal. Kennedy

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approved all the recommendations except the introduction of combat

troops.67

American enthusiasm for counterinsurgency warfare continued. The

January 1962 issue of the Marine Corps Gazette was entirely devoted to

guerrilla warfare and included the texts of speeches by Hilsman and

Rostow to the Special Forces Center.68 On 6 June 1962, Kennedy spoke

to the West Point graduating class, saying: “This is another type of war,

new in its intensity, ancient in its origin—war by guerrillas,

subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by

combat; by infiltration, instead of aggression; seeking victory by

eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. . . . It

requires in those situations where we must counter it a whole new type

of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and therefore a new and

wholly different kind of military training.”69 Meanwhile, in May,

McNamara had visited Vietnam for a personal assessment. In

forty-eight hours, he reviewed all the numbers and pronounced “that we

are winning the war.” In his fascination with quantitative measurement,

he completely missed the qualitative dimension not easily reducible to

statistics.70

Not satisfied with the Pentagon’s response to his counterinsurgency

proposals, Kennedy decided to upgrade the Special Forces training

program at Fort Bragg and to provide more support to General William

P. Yarborough, its commander. But institutional resistance to the ideas

of counterinsurgency continued. On 18 April 1961, General Lyman

Lemnitzer, chairman of the JCS, recently returned from a trip to

Vietnam, was quoted in the press as saying that the administration was

“oversold” on the importance of guerrilla warfare. Lemnitzer warned

that overconcentration by the ARVN on counterguerrilla operations

would leave it vulnerable to a conventional attack from the north. On 7

November 1962, moreover, in a speech at Fordham University,

soon-to-be Army Chief of Staff and later chairman of the JCS General

Earle G. Wheeler declared that “Despite the fact that the conflict is

conducted as guerrilla warfare, it is nonetheless a military action. . . . It

is fashionable in some quarters to say that the problems in Southeast

Asia are primarily political and economic rather than military. I do not

agree. The essence of the problem in Vietnam is military.”71

This conflict between conventional military theory and

counterinsurgency (COIN) theory was evident early on in American

operations in Vietnam. In March 1962, Hilsman returned to the RVN

and queried General Harkins about the negative political ramifications

of using napalm on villages. In response, Harkins claimed that napalm

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“really puts the fear of God into the Viet Cong. And that is what

counts.” There was also controversy over bombing. Both the Army and

the Air Force agreed that close air support (CAS) was good, but the Air

Force wanted to concentrate on the interdiction bombing that was the

heart of its doctrine. Everyone agreed that such bombing would turn the

villagers toward the NLF, but neither the United States nor the RVN

military were willing to sacrifice it. The resulting policy was possibly

the worst of both worlds: interdiction bombing with tight controls, and

neither the Army nor the Air Force satisfied.72

Many U.S. advisers in the field thought that U.S. policy missed the

point. John Paul Vann noted: “This is a political war and it calls for

discrimination in killing. The best weapon for killing would be a knife,

but I’m afraid we can’t do it that way. The worst is an airplane. The next

worst is artillery. Barring a knife, the best is a rifle—you know who

you’re killing.”73 Despite this analysis, the United States would

continue to emphasize the use of artillery and airpower as the answer to

the Communist insurgency.

The Critical Year: 1963

The year 1963 was critical for the United States in Vietnam. Despite

ample evidence to the contrary, such as the ARVN debacle at Ap Bac,

MACV kept insisting that the ARVN was winning the war. Marine

General “Brute” Krulak, in a report for the JCS, concluded similarly:

“We are winning slowly on the present thrust, and... there is no

compelling reason to change.”74 The truth was that the Communists

were growing increasingly strong, and the RVN was on the verge of

total collapse. In November 1963, a cabal of disgruntled generals, with

covert assistance from Maxwell Taylor and Ambassador Henry Cabot

Lodge, overthrew and murdered President Diem. This initiated a

succession of unstable military governments, and the country plunged

into chaos.75 Less than three weeks after Diem’s ouster, President

Kennedy was assassinated. His foreign policy legacy was one of an

expanded commitment to South Vietnam as an experiment in

counterinsurgency. Meanwhile, having colluded in deposing Diem, the

United States was forced to support his successors.76

In the aftermath of the coup, Ambassador Lodge reported that the

change of regime would improve morale and shorten the war.

However, some indicators predicted otherwise, such as a dramatic

increase in VC activity, the exposure of the failure of the Strategic

Hamlet Program, and no evidence of a successor to Diem strong

enough to take charge of the RVN government.77

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Post-Diem, a dizzying succession of governments attempted to rule

South Vietnam. Amid the chaos, the United States imposed the Hop

Tac (“cooperation”) Program, the latest version of the so-called “oil

spot” concept previously proposed by Ambassador Lodge. Despite

official pronouncements of partial success, in less than a year the

program was recognized as another total failure.78

For the United States, there was a smooth transition in policy making

from Kennedy to the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson. The new

administration determined that the U.S. objective in South Vietnam

remained that of assisting “the people and the Government of the

country to win their contest against the externally directed and

supported Communist conspiracy.” As had all previous U.S.

assessments, this missed the point that internal conditions drove the

fundamental support of the NLF and that Hanoi would not cease its

support and direction.79

America’s Point of No Return

President Johnson moved quickly to increase the American effort in

the spring of 1964. The administration adopted a policy of graduated

pressure, rooted in Taylor’s strategy of flexible response, as its strategic

concept for the war. This meant that, rather than attempting to

administer a knockout blow against either the DRV or the NLF, the

United States would gradually increase its level of military operations

until the Communists ceased their attempt to defeat the RVN.80

By August, Ambassador Taylor submitted a pessimistic but accurate

assessment of the new Saigon government of General Nguyen Kanh,

noting war weariness, lack of experience, high-level jealousies, a

confused and apathetic population, and a high desertion rate in the

ARVN. However, Taylor failed to note that the PLA was having no

trouble replacing its losses, while the ARVN was. He also failed to

appreciate that the RVN’s social and economic system, not its political

process, was the grievance that provided recruits to the NLF.81

That same month, the Gulf of Tonkin “incident” led to Johnson

launching air strikes against the North Vietnamese and increasing the

American role from advice and support to direct military action. The

Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving Johnson carte

blanche to escalate the war. The president spent the next several months

downplaying Vietnam in order to push his legislative agenda through

the Congress and to avoid an unpleasant issue in his campaign for

reelection.82

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Throughout 1964, however, the PLA continued to grow stronger. By

1965, it challenged more heavily armed ARVN units in several major

battles, scoring impressive victories. That spring, the ARVN suffered

catastrophic defeats, culminating in the 9-10 June Battle of Dong Xoai.

The PLA took the position with heavy casualties even with the ARVN

force firing artillery on the enemy units preparing to attack.83

Beginning in December 1964, the United States conducted a

surreptitious bombing campaign called Operation BARREL ROLL

against North Vietnamese infiltration routes in Laos. The JCS viewed

this as setting the stage for an upcoming air campaign against North

Vietnam itself, a campaign that would quickly end the war.84 On 7

February 1965, PLA sappers struck the American advisers’ compound

at Pleiku in the Central Highlands, killing 8 Americans, wounding 109,

and destroying or damaging twenty aircraft. Johnson, now safely

elected president in his own right, considered this attack to be the final

straw. He quickly ordered retaliatory air strikes, this time called

Operation FLAMING DART. This was succeeded by the systematic

ROLLING THUNDER campaign of attacks against North Vietnam. In

addition, Johnson decided to commit U.S. ground forces to the war.

Johnson gave the ground troops who began deploying to Vietnam that

spring the mission of “killing Viet Cong.”85

The American Search for a Strategy

By May 1965, MACV was forced to assess the danger that the

increasing U.S. involvement might undermine the RVN government’s

legitimacy by making it appear to be an American puppet. General

William C. Westmoreland, now commanding MACV, asserted that the

danger was minimal. At the same time, it was difficult for the United

States to develop any policy that recognized the RVN government as

“corrupt, rotten, and basically responsible for the conditions that led to

the insurgency.” Therefore, American planners concentrated on the

ever-increasing bombing campaign and on various efforts to reorganize

the floundering pacification campaign. When Washington planners

discussed using American aid as leverage to force fundamental reforms

on the Saigon regime, the U.S. Embassy and MACV objected, desiring

no conditions on U.S. assistance.86 Nonetheless, some U.S. officials,

and even some South Vietnamese, believed that the insurgency was a

direct result of RVN policies. They were willing, therefore, to risk U.S.

direct intervention in internal South Vietnamese affairs, and to endure

the United States being called “imperialists” and the RVN government

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“puppets,” especially since they both were already being called that

anyway. However, the United States never took such steps.87

By June 1965, it was becoming apparent that victory was not at hand.

The RVN governmental chaos continued, and ARVN units were

suffering defeat everywhere on the battlefield. Westmoreland viewed

the deteriorating situation with alarm. He appealed to Johnson to

provide more U.S. troops quickly, to bring the total to 180,000,

including a South Korean division funded by the United States. He

envisioned increasing the level another 100,000 in 1966 and warned:

“We are in for the long pull. I see no likelihood of achieving a quick,

favorable end to the war.”88

Other observers were even less optimistic than Westmoreland.

Johnson’s United Nations ambassador, George Ball, privately

predicted nothing but a gloomy future, foreseeing an “investment trap,”

in which American soldiers would “take heavy casualties in a war they

are ill-equipped to fight in a noncooperative if not downright hostile

countryside.” This, of course, in Ball’s logic, would require that

America send still more troops to accomplish the desired mission.

Eventually, the commitment would become so great that the United

States would risk national humiliation if it pulled out.89

During the week of 21–27 July 1965, Johnson met with his National

Security Council, the JCS, and others to discuss war options. The

discussion was limited to three options: McNamara’s limited

escalation; evacuating the country; or maintaining the present force of

80,000 troops and losing slowly. Virtually no discussion occurred

concerning how any additional troops might be used or of

Westmoreland’s proposed “search-and-destroy” strategy. NSC head

McGeorge Bundy presented all the questions Congress would probably

ask (which actually constituted an articulate critique of the war

strategy), but there was no discussion of the actual criticisms other than

how to counter them in Congressional testimony. Throughout, Johnson

kept in mind the need to deceive Congress about the cost of the war—to,

as Bundy later put it, “protect his legislative program.”90

After all this, despite the landing of U.S. Marines in March, the

arrival of the first U.S. Army combat troops in April, the escalating

American bombing campaign against the DRV, and U.S. superiority in

numbers and firepower, the ARVN was on its way toward complete

collapse.91

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The American Dilemma

It may have been that even as Johnson decided to intervene, the war

was for all practical purposes unwinnable. Because of the structure of

the RVN government and the nature of the U.S. armed forces, the actual

options available to the Americans were few. At least four major

difficulties, each virtually beyond solution, stood in the way of any

American military or political policy in Vietnam. First, the RVN

government lacked legitimacy. It never had the support of the majority

of peasants, and they were the class that counted. Aloof, corrupt, and

inefficient, it represented a continuation of the structure established by

French colonial administrations. Second, the NLF had tremendous

strength in rural areas. As the direct descendant of the Vietminh, its

existence and legitimacy predated and superseded that of the RVN.

Bright young peasants saw a better future joining the NLF than

government organizations. NLF leaders, moreover, were generally

superior to RVN leaders in their commitment, determination, and

morale. Third, weakening the Front did not equate to strengthening the

government. The United States recognized the importance of the

political struggle in the countryside, and made great efforts during

every phase of the war to improve the government position there. But

most “progress” was coercive and obtained only through negative

processes. Finally, military force, largely American, was the only force

available to combat the Front. Until PLA military units were defeated,

nation building would be impossible. But it was almost impossible for

the U.S. Army to fight the necessary military campaign without causing

great destruction and loss of innocent life. At best, it was terribly

difficult to distinguish friend from foe. In addition, PLA units often

provoked U.S. fire into populated areas. Heavy casualties could shake

the NLF badly, but at the same time, the very violence necessary to

inflict such casualties would undermine U.S. political support.92

An example of how difficult it was for American troops to “win the

hearts and minds” of the rural people is seen in the account of Marine

William Erhart. His unit conducted “cordon-and-search” missions in

the region around Danang.

We would go through a village before dawn, rousting [sic]

everybody out of bed, and kicking down doors and dragging them out

if they didn’t move fast enough. They all had underground bunkers

inside their huts to protect themselves against bombing and shelling.

But to us the bunkers were Vietcong hiding places, and we’d blow

them up with dynamite—and blow up the huts too. If we spotted extra

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rice lying around, we’d confiscate it to keep them from giving it to the

Vietcong.

[As the peasants emerged, they were] herded like cattle into a

barbed wire compound, and left to sit there in the hot sun for the rest of

the day, with no shade. . . . If they had the wrong identity card, or if the

police held a grudge against them, they’d be beaten pretty badly,

maybe tortured. Or they might be hauled off to jail, and God knows

what happened to them. At the end of the day, the villagers would be

turned loose. Their homes had been wrecked, their chickens killed,

their rice confiscated—and if they weren’t pro-Vietcong before we

got there, they sure as hell were by the time we left.93

Hanoi’s Response to the American Intervention

As the American buildup accelerated in the last half of 1965, the key

issue for Hanoi and the NLF was whether to match the American

escalation or to continue the successful unconventional war. The big

battles initiated by the PLA in 1965 were the result of a controversial

decision by General Nguyen Chi Thanh, the Communist commander in

South Vietnam, to move to Phase Three of the insurgency. Thanh

intended to engage the ARVN and the Americans when they arrived, in

conventional, large-unit confrontations. This would, presumably,

destroy the ARVN and encourage an American withdrawal. This plan

ultimately led to a series of bloody losses for PLA main force units.94

Meanwhile, General Westmoreland was determined that the

inbound U.S. troops would kill Communists until the North

Vietnamese quit. Westmoreland and his staff were euphoric that “the

American soldier has come.”95 Westmoreland and his J3, Major

General William E. Depuy, had developed simple plans for employing

the inbound troops. The intervention would have three phases. In Phase

One, U.S. troops would protect logistical bases and occasionally serve

as “fire brigades.” During Phase Two, the Americans would gain the

initiative, then penetrate and eliminate the enemy’s base camps and

sanctuaries. Phase Three would see American troops move into

sustained ground combat and either mop up the last of the main forces

and guerrillas or push them back across the frontiers. This strategy, to

destroy the PLA in a war of attrition, was essentially a repeat of General

Harkins’ ideas from the MAAG era, with the exception that ARVN

troops were to be replaced with U.S. forces.96

The first large-unit fight for American ground troops was the Battle

of the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. Near the Cambodian border,

the Third Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, fought a meeting engagement

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with three PAVN regiments, inflicting an estimated 3,561 killed while

losing 305 American dead. But when the North Vietnamese retreated

into Cambodia, the Americans, prohibited by political restrictions, did

not pursue them. Moreover, when the Americans helicoptered out of

the valley, the North Vietnamese retook possession of the field.97

Both sides learned lessons from the encounter. The PAVN learned

that it could fight the best U.S. troops and “win” ̄by its definition.

General Giap concluded that the Americans seemed to have merely a

“strategy of tactics,” and that it would take very decisive tactics to

produce a strategic victory. The PAVN, on the other hand, had a

strategy to unite Vietnam under Communist rule. Therefore, if the

Communists could defeat American tactics—and American

helicopters—they could win the war. The PAVN also learned that it had

a sanctuary in Cambodia.98 This battle forced a reassessment of

strategy upon the Communists. Throughout 1966 and into 1967, they

would continue to engage the Americans in large, conventional fights.

However, by the time that General Thanh was killed (supposedly in a

B-52 attack in mid-1967), the DRV’s leaders realized that a victory

over the Americans in a conventional military campaign was highly

unlikely.99

American Delusions

The Americans saw the near 12:1 “kill ratio” of the Ia Drang battle as

proof that they could bleed the enemy to death in a war of attrition.

Lieutenant Colonel Harold G. Moore, whose battalion was decisively

engaged during the battle, briefed McNamara on the discipline,

determination, and numbers of the PAVN. McNamara responded: “It

will be a long war.”100

Despite such favorable kill ratios, Westmoreland’s attrition strategy

was flawed, as it ignored the views, and ultimately the will, of the

American people. Most Americans refused to equate the lives of their

sons with those of the enemy, so it was likely that public opinion would

eventually reject increasing casualties no matter how many

Communists were killed. Westmoreland’s determination to pursue

main force units and force big battles was also doomed to failure, as

PAVN and PLA units could rarely be engaged unless they chose to

stand and fight. One U.S. officer said later that it was like “Primo

Carnera going after Willie Pep in a pigsty ten miles square.”101

Although the victory along the Ia Drang forestalled conventional

military defeat in South Vietnam, it did not win the war. McNamara

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advised Johnson that the proposed additional troops for 1966 would

only maintain the status quo. In his opinion, the United States had only

two options: seek a compromise solution or greatly increase the level of

commitment and continue to try to win the war. This would mean a

greatly expanded air campaign against the DRV, an increase in U.S.

strength to 400,000 combat troops by the end of 1966, and a possible

increase to 600,000 the following year. And it might cost 1,000

American dead each month. The definition of what sort of victory this

effort might attain was becoming increasingly problematic. Johnson

himself avoided decisions on the subject, admitting in February 1966,

“I want to put it off as long as I can, having to make these crucial

decisions.”102

Concurrent with the increasing U.S. ground and air effort in South

Vietnam was an intensifying air campaign against North Vietnam.

From March 1965 until November 1968, Operation ROLLING

THUNDER (originally designed to end the war within eight weeks)

dropped one million tons of bombs, roughly eight hundred tons a day

for three and a half years. Within a month of the start of ROLLING

THUNDER, General Wheeler, chairman of the JCS, informed

McNamara that the strikes were not reducing North Vietnam’s military

capabilities “in any major way.” In August 1966, Westmoreland

conceded that he saw “no indication that the resolve of the leadership in

Hanoi has been reduced.” A year later, McNamara admitted the same

thing to a secret session of the Senate Armed Services Committee.103

One reason that ROLLING THUNDER did not succeed was that North

Vietnam was prepared to defend against it. In November 1964, DRV

Premier Pham Van Dong visited Moscow to meet with Soviet leaders.

Anticipating an American air campaign, he requested materiel and

technical assistance to build a modern air-defense system. Shortly

thereafter, the DRV received modern jet interceptors, and Soviet

technicians began setting up surface-to-air missiles and a sophisticated

radar-control system ̄the most capable air-defense complex seen in

any nation since World War II.104

Another reason for the American failure was that the United States

did not understand the nature of compound warfare and did not

understand Hanoi’s role in the war. Hanoi was not just supporting the

war effort in the south, it was directing it. Once the United States

intervened, the conventional war became one between the United

States and the DRV. But the United States limited itself in its strikes

against North Vietnam. Despite its impressive statistics in terms of tons

of bombs dropped, the air campaign left many vital targets untouched.

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For example, the dikes along the Red River upstream from Hanoi were

never bombed. Destroying them would have unleashed floodwaters

and killed hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese. Similarly, the

DRV’s major cities of Hanoi and Haiphong never received the

devastating “carpet bombing” that had destroyed the urban areas of

Hitler’s Reich a generation earlier.105

This self-imposed limitation was due to American fear that China

would enter the war. For the same reason, the Johnson administration

decided to limit ground fighting to South Vietnam alone. Not only was

the DRV off-limits, so were its supply lines and staging bases in Laos

and Cambodia. Thus did the North Vietnamese have the great-power

ally and the sanctuaries necessary to conduct fortified compound war.

American strategy did not account for these factors. Senior South

Vietnamese leaders wondered why the United States poured, in the

words of ARVN General Tran Van Don, “more and more men into the

country without some clearly defined plan for military victory. . . .”106

The air raids not only failed to sufficiently hurt North Vietnam, but

also failed to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In 1966, Communist units in

South Vietnam needed only fifteen tons of supplies a day from the

DRV. By this time, the Soviet Union and China were furnishing Hanoi

with over 6,000 tons of supplies a day; only a trickle of this largess had

to reach South Vietnam for the logistical effort to succeed. Meanwhile,

American air power advocates consistently oversold their ability to

interdict this flow. They argued that they could cut the supply lines to

South Vietnam, despite America’s previous failures to interdict enemy

supply lines in Italy and Korea and despite the problems inherent in

trading $3 million airplanes for $6,000 trucks. By late 1967, the air

attacks had inflicted $300 million in damage on North Vietnam, but

they had cost more than seven hundred aircraft worth $900 million to do

so. Indeed, the bombing of North Vietnam was actually

counterproductive. Instead of forcing Hanoi to capitulate, it rekindled

the nationalistic zeal of the North Vietnamese, even those who

originally had been opposed to the Communist regime.107

America’s Concentration on Conventional War

Two operations in late 1966 typified how the U.S. Army applied the

“lessons” of the Ia Drang fight. One was Operation PAUL REVERE IV,

a fight by the 4th Infantry Division along the Cambodian border in

November. The other, Operation ATTLEBORO, conducted from

mid-September to late November of the same year, was a series of troop

movements, patrols, firefights, and full-blown battles in Tay Ninh

246
province northwest of Saigon involving the 196th Infantry Brigade, a

battalion of the 25th Infantry Division, and eventually most of the 1st

Infantry Division. In both cases, the enemy initiated the overwhelming

majority of contacts, sucking one American unit after another into

ambushes. In both cases, the American command proclaimed victory,

but good performances by U.S. units were few. When the 1st Infantry

Division took over ATTLEBORO, its commanding general, William

DePuy, ordered Rome plows to destroy the entire area. This operation

used twelve tons of ordnance from fighter-bombers, 35,000 artillery

rounds, and eleven B-52 strikes. The cost was 155 Americans killed and

741 wounded. The enemy supposedly lost 1,106 killed, but only 141

weapons were found, so these figures, like so many of the statistics of

this war, are suspect. It is likely that many of the Vietnamese killed

were civilians.108

The U.S. Army continued to expend more and more effort searching

out the enemy and more and more firepower to destroy him, seeking to

recreate the success of the 1st Cavalry Division in the Ia Drang.

Meanwhile, the PLA had pulled back into an economy of force mode,

making contact when and where it desired.109 Outsiders questioned the

American high-firepower approach to fighting guerrillas. In late 1966,

Moshe Dayan, soon to become famous as the architect of Israel’s

victory in the Six-Day War, noted with amazement that in one

operation, resulting in a claim of 200 enemy killed, an American unit

had expended more artillery ammunition than the Israeli Army used in

the entire 1956 Sinai campaign. These methods were not merely failing

on the battlefield, they were destroying the rural Vietnamese society as

well as the countryside.110

Part of the inability of Americans to understand the guerrilla war

being waged against the RVN government was their tendency to

believe that the war in South Vietnam was dependent on infiltration of

military forces from North Vietnam. Thus, the United States command

repeatedly emphasized “cutting” the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Actually, the

Communist “people’s war” strategy did not require outside forces until

Phase Three, the move to conventional battle. This move, of course,

began in 1965. Still, the Communists were not critically dependent

upon using PAVN forces until after the Tet Offensive of 1968 resulted

in the near-annihilation of the PLA.111

By the time of PAUL REVERE IV and ATTLEBORO, the U.S. Army

conducted operations from huge “base camps.” Lieutenant Colonel

David Hackworth, who during this period toured Vietnam with the

famed military author S. L. A. Marshall, later described a visit to the 1st

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Cavalry Division’s headquarters at An Khe. He found that it contained

a general’s mess with black soldiers in white livery acting as waiters.

The base was so large that one brigade, one-third of the division’s

strength, was necessary to guard it at all times. Frequently, the presence

of these camps actually attracted an enemy presence where there had

been none before. According to Hackworth, the general officers lived

lives of relative luxury, removed from the day-to-day realities of the

war their troops were fighting, and seemed unconcerned about any

revealing combat deficiencies. The assistant division commander of

the 1st Infantry Division, Brigadier General Bernard Rogers (later

supreme military commander of NATO forces in Europe), emerged

each morning from his air-conditioned bungalow in pajamas and a

bathrobe.112

Meanwhile, MACV provided U.S. and ARVN units with huge

amounts of war materiel—guns, ammunition, oil, spare parts, etc. But

they also flooded South Vietnam with luxuries for the American

military. Even troops in remote artillery fire bases received cigarettes

and cold beer, flown in by helicopter. Rear-echelon troops (who

constituted most of the American presence) shopped at clubs, snack

bars, and post exchanges, some of which were huge even by American

standards. Inevitably, much of the merchandise filtered into the RVN

black market, unbalancing South Vietnam’s economic system.113

The PLA and PAVN units learned how to fight the Americans during

this period. One PLA soldier later stated that “Americans fought better

than the ARVN. But you can’t fight really well without hatred.”

Chinese advisers, based on their Korean War experience, predicted that

the PLA would need one division to destroy one U.S. battalion. But

PLA commanders believed that they could fight on equal terms. There

was a tremendous difference in tactics between the PLA and the

Americans. The PLA fought close in; the Americans fought at long

range with air and artillery. Even when Americans tried to surround the

PLA to destroy them with firepower, PLA forces could usually break

contact because they knew the terrain better. The PLA leaders believed

that their superiority lay in their hatred of their enemy, their devotion to

the cause of “liberating” South Vietnam, and their faith in the ultimate

success of their cause. These beliefs were constantly reinforced by

effective propaganda.114

A Critique of the Conventional War

During 1966, U.S. adviser Vann submitted a policy critique opposed

to the official viewpoint. Official policy held that the U.S. bombing of

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North Vietnam and intervention in the ground war were justifiable

responses to North Vietnamese aggression against a sovereign state.

The insurgency was a creature of the DRV, and PAVN units in the RVN

justified U.S. participation in the ground war. The success of the

insurgency, they believed, was due to the cynical manipulation of a

simple population by Communist cadres, direct aid from the DRV, and

a ruthless terror campaign. Thus, although the RVN government was

flawed, its problems stemmed largely from the insurgency and could be

fixed once the insurgency was defeated.

Vann argued otherwise. He believed that the insurgency was a

symptom of the crisis facing the RVN government rather than a cause

of that crisis. In his view, the major problem of the RVN was its

structural inability to adapt to the genuine social revolution that had

been under way in Vietnam for decades. Nothing could be

accomplished unless the government had “leaders who come from,

think like, and are responsive to the majority.” Communism was not the

answer; the peasants were hostile to socialism and its official atheism.

But the NLF was strong because RVN policies forced virtually all

non-Communist progressives into an alliance with the Communist

party. Thus, Vann argued that U.S. policies were counterproductive.

With the countryside as the theater of war, the American

firepower-intensive tactics and overreliance on technology turned

apathetic villagers into NLF supporters.115

Such on-the-record dissents were rare. Officially, all was going well.

U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson disputed the

notion that the Vietnam conflict was fundamentally any different from

previous wars. However, an anonymous Pentagon wit during this

period observed that “Although we have redoubled our efforts, we have

lost sight of our objective.”116

The American Conventional Campaign Continues

By this time, the U.S. military in Vietnam had come to resemble

anything but a force designed to win a dirty, difficult counterguerrilla

war. Visitors to high headquarters received standard briefings from

spit-shined officers in air-conditioned buildings. Everywhere, the

claim was the same—the war was being won.117 Similar problems

were evident in the field, even in the Army’s veteran units. An observer

noted that even in the elite 173d Airborne Brigade, officers and NCOs

did not take care of the small things that make a unit effective in combat.

The observer noted one soldier returning from patrol listening to Jimi

Hendrix on a portable radio.118

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Some units were better than others, however. The 1st Brigade, 101st

Airborne Division, avoided using helicopters and “harassment and

interdiction” artillery fire. It concentrated on night operations, patrols,

and ambushes. One of its battalions caught 100 PAVN soldiers in a box

ambush, killing 41 and capturing 36. A squad from the same brigade

killed 19 PAVN soldiers, captured 1, and captured 18 weapons. This

was part of Operation GERONIMO I, which inflicted 149 KIA, captured

76 POWs, and secured 143 weapons. But such performances were the

exception rather than the rule.119

More typical was CEDAR FALLS, the January 1967 operation to

clear the Iron Triangle north of Saigon. Earlier efforts by the ARVN in

late 1964 and the U.S. 173d Airborne Brigade in late 1965 had failed.

This time, the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, 25th Infantry Division, 173d

Airborne Brigade, and the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment attacked

the enemy logistical center. But, forewarned, the PLA evacuated the

area prior to the operation. The U.S. units, nonetheless, engaged in a

massive effort to destroy tunnel complexes and logistical facilities and

converted 7,000 civilians into refugees at the cost of 72 U.S. killed. But

as soon as the Americans left the area, the PLA reoccupied it. One year

later the Iron Triangle served as the major staging area for PLA attacks

on Saigon during the Tet Offensive.120

In early 1967, Bernard Fall, the veteran French observer of

Indochina, discussed the war with visiting American officers in

Vietnam. His thesis was that the United States could no more win the

war than France could have. While the United States might win

militarily (firepower and mobility might prove decisive), such a

military victory would be irrelevant because the Vietnam War was, first

and foremost, a political war. The Americans, like the French, did not

understand this and would therefore lose. Fall claimed that the United

States dropped more bombs every day than the French did in the

six-month siege of Dien Bien Phu. Bombing the enemy back to the

stone age was not the solution, however. Social reform was.121

Interviews with enemy POWs in this period revealed the

determination of the Communists to prevail. Almost unanimously, they

declared that they were prepared to fight ten or fifteen or twenty years to

win. Some would ask, “Are the Americans ready to fight that long?”122

Robert Thompson later described the U.S. dilemma, “In a People’s

Revolutionary War, if you are not winning you are losing, because the

enemy can always sit out a stalemate without making concessions.”123

MACV, however, was encouraged in the latter half of 1967 by a

series of engagements with aggressive PLA and PAVN units in the

250
251

Map 2
Central Highlands. The Communist soldiers carried new Soviet

weapons and equipment and were deployed in regimental and even

division strength. This time, the United States was able to bring its

awesome firepower effectively to bear on the enemy. At Conthien, a

small Marine outpost just south of the 17th Parallel, nearly eight

hundred B-52 sorties dropped 22,000 tons of bombs, while

fighter-bombers and warships in the South China Sea also bombed and

shelled the area. Communist losses were staggering; MACV estimated

that the enemy had suffered 90,000 killed in action during the year.124

Thus, by the end of 1967, MACV’s faith in its attrition strategy was

unshaken. The only question that Westmoreland had concerned time. If

speedier results were desired, then more American troops would have

to come to Vietnam, and it would be necessary to remove the political

restrictions on the war. While the U.S. military had not achieved

victory, it had not suffered any significant defeats on the battlefield

either. The Communist Tet Offensive of 1968 would change this sort of

thinking on the part of the American people and of the Johnson

administration, but not that of the military leaders.125

Tet 1968

On 30 January 1968, the NLF drastically shifted the focus of the war.

Nearly 70,000 PLA soldiers launched a surprise offensive against more

than one hundred cities and towns, including Saigon, violating the Tet

lunar new year holiday that the Communists had pledged to observe.

PLA soldiers fought stubbornly, ferociously, and blindly, frequently

abandoning flexible tactics in favor of direct assaults. They

demonstrated, moreover, unprecedented brutality, murdering minor

government officials, schoolteachers, foreign doctors, and

missionaries. In addition, they attacked U.S. and ARVN supply dumps

and headquarters. They also seized the U.S. Embassy compound in

Saigon, holding it for more than six hours. What is more, they held the

provincial capital of Hue for twenty-five days, committing horrendous

atrocities against the local population.126

In many places, U.S. and government troops crushed the attackers

with overwhelming force. But the Communist feat, displayed to the

world on television screens, stunned U.S. public opinion. One of the

most vivid and horrible images of the entire war was that of General

Nguyen Ngoc Loan, head of the national police, executing a PLA

captive with a revolver to the head. An Associated Press photographer

and a National Broadcasting Corporation cameraman recorded the

scene and showed it to the world.127

252
Contributing to American unpreparedness was the ongoing battle for

Khe Sanh, a small U.S. Marine outpost near the Laotian border. In an

effort to divert American attention from the PLA’s preparations for the

Tet Offensive, Communist forces began converging on Khe Sanh in

late December 1967, and a two-month siege ensued. Eventually, the

Communists were crushed by U.S. air power and artillery fire and

suffered perhaps ten thousand dead, while killing fewer than five

hundred Marines. But the siege grasped the attention of both MACV

and the White House, resurrecting the specter of the French debacle at

Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and haunting President Johnson. Westmoreland

perceived the siege of Khe Sanh to be part of a Communist offensive to

seize the RVN’s northern provinces prior to proposing a peace

settlement, and he deployed the majority of U.S. combat forces to the

Central Highlands to prevent such an occurrence. This, of course,

helped ensure that U.S. forces were distant from the South Vietnamese

urban areas when the Tet Offensive began.128

The Tet Offensive was the end result of a reconsidered Communist

strategy. In September 1967, General Giap appraised the current

situation and conceded that the situation was deadlocked on the

battlefield. In his estimate, the impasse favored the Communists.

Considering all their other global commitments, as well as Lyndon

Johnson’s domestic social programs, the Americans could not escalate

the conflict without overextending themselves. Therefore, Giap’s

continuing strategy would be to bleed the United States until it agreed to

a settlement on Hanoi’s terms. Giap also saw an opportunity to drive a

wedge between the United States and the RVN. One objective of the

upcoming offensive would be to demonstrate that the Americans were

vulnerable despite their immense military power, thus encouraging the

RVN’s urban administrators to turn against the United States. At the

same time, the rural population was to begin an uprising.

Significant internal conflicts existed between the Communist

military and political leaders before and during the offensive,

especially within South Vietnam. PLA leaders, with first-hand

experience in dealing with the rural population, did not believe that the

people as a whole would actively support the offensive. Party leaders,

more attuned to policy decisions in Hanoi, asserted that the people

would certainly revolt and overthrow the Saigon government.129

Militarily, the net result was a disaster for the Communists. The

Allied response to the offensive devastated PLA main force units. In its

aftermath, Communist morale reached all time lows, and PLA soldiers

denounced their political leaders for “grievous miscalculations.”

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Young men in North Vietnam began attempting to avoid service in

South Vietnam, and many had to be assigned to labor and transport

units rather than to combat commands. In addition, the loss of so many

guerrilla leaders meant that they would be replaced by men from North

Vietnam, foreigners to many South Vietnamese.130

But in compound warfare, battlefield results are not all that counts,

and politically, the result was different. The American high

command—from MACV, to the JCS, to the White House—was

stunned that the Communists had been able to achieve near-total

surprise for their massive attack. While Westmoreland and Johnson did

their best to demonstrate calm confidence, the gap between the

optimistic, official American assessments and reality had never before

loomed quite so large. American public support for the war, which had

been ebbing since early 1966, reacted adversely to Tet and began an

even steeper decline than before.131

The American political reaction was an unexpected result, and for

the Communists a fortunate one. Just as the military strength of the PLA

was virtually destroyed and the NLF’s political strength in the

countryside was revealed to be less than claimed, the landscape of U.S.

domestic politics shifted. In Washington, Robert McNamara began

indicating that he had doubts about American strategy and was eased

out of office. At the end of February, the chairman of the JCS, General

Earle Wheeler, submitted to President Johnson a report that

encapsulated the American and RVN difficulty. It discussed the classic

dilemma any conventional power faces when attempting to fight a

compound warfare operator with a powerful ally and political or

geographical safe havens. The ARVN had to secure key points to

maintain the government and the security of military installations.

However, the concentration of forces necessary for this effort ceded

control of the countryside to the Communists. In light of this situation,

Wheeler asserted that MACV’s strategy must be to secure Saigon and

the provincial capitals. Again, U.S. leadership missed the key point: it

was control of the countryside, not of key installations, that mattered in

the long run. Faced with this report and a request for 200,000 more

troops, Johnson assigned his newly designated Secretary of Defense,

Clark Clifford (a past proponent of a tough war policy), to conduct a

meticulous review of U.S. strategy.132

In addition to more troops, Westmoreland and the JCS were

requesting the mobilization of U.S. reserves and permission to attack

PLA sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos. Clifford, guided by input from

disillusioned civilians within the Defense Department, asked tough

254
questions of the service chiefs and did not get the answers he wanted.

The chiefs reluctantly conceded that they did not know how long it

would take to win the war, how many more troops it might take to do so,

whether the Communists might be able to match any American

buildup, or whether there was any alternative to the attrition strategy

being followed.133

Clifford reported to Johnson that there was no reason to believe that

200,000 additional troops or even two or three times that number would

succeed in defeating the Communists. Implicitly ruling out the prospect

of victory, he proposed that Westmoreland reduce the scope of his

operations and, further, that the United States put the Saigon regime on

notice that continued American assistance would depend on improved

ARVN performance.134

While a somber Johnson considered this report, Congressional

opposition to the war mounted. In response to rumors of a JCS request

for more troops, many heretofore allies of the president took to the floor

of the House and Senate to question the direction of the war. Suddenly,

as the presidential primary season began, Johnson faced stiff opposition

from antiwar senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy. On

31 March 1968, in a television address to the American public, Johnson

announced that he was halting the bombing of North Vietnam north of

the 20th Parallel as a gesture to induce the DRV to consider peace

negotiations. Then, he announced dramatically that he would not run

for another term in office.135

Six weeks later, on 10 May, U.S. and DRV diplomats met in Paris to

begin peace negotiations. Hopes ran so high on the U.S. side that the

team chose to live in hotel rooms, thinking that a settlement was near at

hand. Within weeks, however, the talks were at an impasse. The United

States insisted that the DRV pull all its forces out of South Vietnam, and

the Communists, on their part, insisted that the Saigon regime must be

reformed in a manner that included NLF representation. Neither side

would concede, and the negotiations continued for another five

years.136

Meanwhile, the war in the South Vietnamese countryside persisted.

While the Americans sought large-unit battles, the Communists

reverted to small-scale operations as they attempted to rebuild in the

aftermath of Tet. In addition, the PAVN now took up the burden of

military operations. One method of avoiding American advantages in

mobility and air power was to use infiltrators and sappers to attack U.S.

fixed positions. This was an expensive process for both sides. Many

sappers were lost, caught in booby traps or in artillery protective fires.

255
Frequently, in such cases, the bodies of the PAVN dead could not be

recovered. However, on the receiving end, sappers were a constant

threat and seemed to cause damage and inflict casualties out of

proportion to their own losses.137

In the United States, the political turmoil continued throughout

1968. The Democratic party’s convention in Chicago in August was a

disaster; police efforts to control violent antiwar protestors escalated

into a riot. With the public’s dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war

a major issue, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidential

election in November. Nixon recognized that the United States could

not obtain a military victory, but he still believed that he could achieve a

diplomatic settlement favorable to American interests. One of his

earliest decisions was to appoint Henry Kissinger, an academic foreign

policy expert, as his national security adviser.138

Another appointment was that of Melvin Laird as Secretary of

Defense. Laird recognized that the United States would no longer offer

South Vietnam open-ended support, that it would be necessary for the

RVN to assume more of the burden of the war. He coined the term

“Vietnamization” to describe the process of replacing U.S. troops (who

numbered 540,000 by the end of 1968) with ARVN soldiers.139

Nixon Changes American Strategy

Nixon became president in January 1969. By this time, eight years

after John F. Kennedy declared that America would “pay any price,

bear any burden,” it was becoming evident to friends and foes alike that

the United States was not committed to victory in Vietnam. Within the

U.S. military establishment, especially within the units in Vietnam,

morale plummeted as this realization sank in.

Nixon had inherited a bad situation, but he was determined to do his

utmost to change the dynamic of the war while he still had sufficient

public support to prosecute it. Nixon seemed to have understood the

nature of compound warfare far more clearly than had Johnson. He

decided to attack the Communist effort by severing the guerrillas from

their safe havens and the support they received from outside allies. In

March 1969, with the tacit approval of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the

United States began secretly bombing the Communist headquarters in

Cambodia. This so-called “hot pursuit” operation would last fourteen

months and achieve some noteworthy results but would ultimately fail

to deter PAVN operations through Cambodia.140

256
The other part of Nixon’s plan was to disrupt the support the North

Vietnamese received from the Soviet Union and China. Starting in

early 1969, Nixon and Kissinger attempted to use the Soviets to put

diplomatic pressure on the DRV. Described as “linkage,” this attempt

came to nothing in the near term. The Soviet relationship with China

was chilly in the aftermath of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the

Soviet’s own 1969 invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Soviets feared that

any pressure they put on the DRV would merely cause Hanoi to seek

closer relations with China.141

While Nixon and Kissinger pursued diplomatic solutions, the killing

war went on. A battle that seemed to typify American frustrations

occurred in May. A battalion of the 101st Airborne Division assaulted a

PAVN position on Apbia mountain in the A Shau Valley eleven times

over a period of ten days. In support, the Air Force dropped 500 tons of

high explosives and seventy-six tons of napalm. When the Americans

finally took the hill, they counted over five hundred enemy dead. But

they had suffered 476 casualties themselves, including fifty killed.

Apbia Mountain had acquired a new name—“Hamburger Hill.” Press

reports were extremely critical, as were the reactions of many within

the U.S. Congress. In an incredible indicator of how far American

soldier morale had fallen, the GI protest newspaper, GI Says, offered a

$10,000 bounty on Lieutenant Colonel Weldon Honeycutt, the

commander of the attacking battalion.142

America’s war of attrition had come home to roost. Westmoreland,

by then serving in Washington as Army Chief of Staff, defended the

utility of such actions as the Hamburger Hill fight. He asserted that

fighting large battles in the unpopulated hinterlands was to the

Americans’ advantage, as their superior mobility meant that units could

deploy for battle, fight and win, then move back to the populated areas

to protect Vietnamese civilians. In addition, by fighting in remote

regions, U.S. units could destroy the enemy with minimal damage to

populated areas. Furthermore, the Hamburger Hill operation was in

accordance with the U.S. strategy of attrition warfare. While relocating

the population might be harsh, in the long run, it was for the good of the

rural population. Westmoreland was aware of the My Lai massacre

(although the public, as yet, was not) and later cited it as an example of

what could happen when U.S. troops operated with the peasants left in

place. Finally, according to Westmoreland, there was nothing wrong

with attrition warfare. While attrition had gotten a bad name at the

Somme and Verdun, the war in Vietnam was not against “Asian

hordes” but against an enemy with relatively limited manpower. As the

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United States killed more and more enemy and the RVN government

gained control of more and more of the countryside (as Westmoreland

asserted it was doing), the PLA would have to turn to the North

Vietnamese to replace its losses. Meanwhile, the United States was

buying time to build up the ARVN and “enable the government to

solidify its position in the countryside.” Also, given the political

restrictions and limits on troop strength, there was, in any case, little

choice for an alternative strategy.143

Despite such official optimism, however, Westmoreland’s

successor in Saigon, General Creighton Abrams, received orders to

scale down future military operations to avoid such heavy

casualties.144 While attempting to disrupt the DRV’s compound

warfare effort, President Nixon was simultaneously attempting to scale

back U.S. involvement in the war, as he had promised to do in his

presidential campaign. In June, he met with RVN President Nguyen

Van Thieu at Midway and announced a 25,000-man troop withdrawal,

with 40,000 more to follow in September. Secretary of Defense Laird

pressed Nixon to commit to further reductions to reach a level of

206,000 troops by the end of 1971.145

Thus, at the same time that the United States went on the diplomatic

offensive and, at the tactical level, the military offensive, it began a

strategic withdrawal from the war. In the midst of this activity, on 2

September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died at the age of seventy-nine. He had

earlier retired from day-to-day management of national affairs in favor

of a collective leadership headed by Le Duan, the senior member of the

Politburo, Pham Van Dong, the prime minister of the DRV, and Vo

Nguyen Giap, head of the armed forces. Any hopes the Americans had

that Ho’s death might derail the DRV’s war effort were quickly dashed.

Ho’s successors were determined to carry forward his goal of unifying

Vietnam regardless of U.S. threats.146

Later that month, in what must have seemed to the DRV leadership a

further demonstration of the lack of American staying power, Nixon

announced the second round of U.S. troop withdrawals as well as a

reduction in draft calls. This did not have the desired effect of placating

his domestic opposition, however. Many senators urged that all U.S.

troops be home by the end of 1970.147

Further undermining Nixon’s ability to extend the war, the

American people, in November 1969, learned of the My Lai massacre.

In March of the previous year, U.S. soldiers had committed an atrocity

that seemed reminiscent of the actions of the Nazis or the Japanese in

World War II. Soldiers of the Americal Division had murdered scores,

258
perhaps hundreds, of Vietnamese civilians at a small village in Quang

Ngai province. It had been a methodical operation that went on all day,

with the soldiers even stopping to eat lunch before resuming the

butchery.148

Amidst all the gloom, there was one American initiative that was

succeeding—the Phoenix Program to infiltrate the PLA rural apparatus

and “neutralize” Communist leaders. This was the only government

military operation based on the recognition that the Vietnam conflict

differed radically from conventional war. Phoenix was an attempt to

“break the cycle” of Communist domination of the countryside by

creating an environment wherein friendly political structures could

survive but the enemy’s structures could not.149

Phoenix had many shortcomings. While its goals were to be

accomplished from a spectrum of actions, from friendly persuasion to

assassination, many agents apparently thought that this made them

“honorary participants in Murder, Inc.”150 Phoenix was also corrupt.

Often “Viet Cong” were arrested on the basis of anonymous

denunciations received by the police. Worse still, large numbers of

suspects were arrested in connection with the efforts of each provincial

security agency to fulfill the quota assigned to it, regardless of a

suspect’s political affiliation. It was not unknown for province chiefs or

police chiefs to seek to exceed their quotas each month to demonstrate

their competence. The Phoenix Program often turned into a

money-making scheme through which a villager’s release could be

obtained for the payment of a bribe, usually about $25 to $50.151

Furthermore, Phoenix was never a high priority for the Saigon

government. The manpower devoted to it never reached even 5 percent

of that devoted to the war effort as a whole.152

Nonetheless, the Phoenix Program was effective. It frightened the

Communists. Their leaders after the war admitted that it had created

tremendous difficulties for their operations in the countryside, forcing

Communist units to withdraw to sanctuaries in Cambodia.153

These Cambodian sanctuaries would lead Nixon into a serious

misstep. In March 1970, while in Moscow attempting to gain support

for the eviction of DRV troops from Cambodia, Prince Norodom

Sihanouk was overthrown by his defense minister, Lon Nol. In May,

with Lon Nol’s approval, U.S. and ARVN troops invaded Cambodia in

an attempt to destroy Communist staging areas. While they destroyed a

large amount of foodstuffs and other supplies and reduced Communist

military pressure against the Saigon region, the triumph was only a

temporary one. The Communists were able to replace their losses with

259
new supplies from the Soviet Union and China, and they merely shifted

their operations to a new area, the northern provinces of the RVN.154

Back in America, antiwar protests reached a crescendo in response

to this action, which seemed to contradict Nixon’s stated policy of

deescalating the war. At Kent State University in Ohio, nervous

National Guardsmen fired on angry demonstrators, killing four of

them. Across the nation, many middle-class students staged strikes,

shutting down over 400 colleges and universities. Congress responded

to the clamor, attaching to an appropriation bill an amendment that

prohibited U.S. ground troops from operating in Laos or Cambodia.155

In Vietnam, U.S. troop strength stood at 280,000 at the end of 1970.

The morale of those soldiers remaining continued to plummet. In many

units, discipline broke down completely. A large percentage of

American troops turned to drug and alcohol abuse, racial conflict

escalated, and the heretofore rare practice of “fragging” (killing)

unpopular officers became commonplace. To make matters worse, the

Vietnamization policy received a major setback early the following

year. President Nixon and his advisers foresaw a major Communist

offensive in 1972 designed to, if nothing else, influence the U.S.

presidential election. To disrupt this, in February 1971, the ARVN

launched Operation LAM SON 719 to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Without U.S. advisers present, the South Vietnamese conducted an

offensive across the border into Laos. The operation was a disaster. As

Communist resistance mounted, ARVN units began to fall apart, and

their subsequent withdrawal became a near rout.156

President Nixon now returned to his effort to disrupt the compound

warfare dynamics favoring the DRV. Recognizing that anything

resembling victory would only be possible by separating North

Vietnam from its powerful sponsors, he renewed an intensified

diplomatic offensive in conjunction with a stepped-up bombing

campaign against North Vietnam. In February 1972, he visited Mao

Tse-tung in China, where the two great antagonists exchanged toasts.

Then, in May, Nixon visited Moscow, where Soviet party leader

Leonid Brezhnev welcomed him despite the increased bombing of the

DRV.157

The cordial receptions Nixon received in Beijing and Moscow

demoralized North Vietnam’s leaders, but they did not halt their efforts

to demonstrate their strength, show that Vietnamization was a failure,

and improve their military position while negotiations in Paris

continued. On 31 March 1972, Hanoi launched its long-awaited

attack.158 This so-called “Easter Offensive” was a massive,

260
coordinated, conventional operation—the type of fight the Americans

had warned about and prepared for since 1956. The Communist

strategists believed that the 65,000 U.S. troops remaining in Vietnam

(only 6,000 of whom were in combat units) could not intervene

effectively and that the U.S. political situation would not allow

commitment of any additional troops. The PAVN objectives were to

achieve a resounding victory to humiliate President Nixon, destroy his

war policy, and prevent his reelection; to destroy as many ARVN forces

as possible and to occupy key terrain threatening Saigon and the

viability of the Thieu government; to discredit the ongoing

Vietnamization and pacification programs; to cause U.S. troop

withdrawals to accelerate; and, ultimately, to seize control of South

Vietnam. One of the highlights of this offensive was the siege of An Loc

from April through June 1972. This operation illustrated in microcosm

both the successes and the failures of Vietnamization. The stakes in the

battle were high for both sides, as President Thieu virtually challenged

the PAVN to take the city.159

During the two-month siege, three PAVN divisions reinforced with

tanks subjected An Loc to heavy shelling unprecedented in the war. But

in doing so, they fought a set-piece battle and exposed themselves to

massive American air power. In the words of a senior U.S. adviser,

“hold them and I’ll kill them with air power; give me something to

bomb and I’ll win.” B-52 “Arc Light” strikes saved the day countless

times at An Loc. Indeed, the primary task of the ARVN’s U.S. advisers

was to coordinate air strikes.160

The siege was lifted on 18 June, and the battle proper ended on 20

July. An Loc received an estimated 78,000 rounds of enemy shellfire

over a three-month period, and 15,000 refugees were forced from their

homes. Meanwhile, the ARVN defenders took 5,400 casualties.

American air strikes certainly made the difference. The U.S. Air Force

flew 262 Arc Light missions, and the USAF and VNAF provided 9,203

tactical air strikes. Estimated PAVN casualties were 10,000 killed,

15,000 wounded, and more than eighty tanks and other vehicles

destroyed.161

Seen in another light, these figures were less reassuring. At an

average of fifty pounds each, the 78,000 PAVN shells meant that An

Loc received 1,950 tons of enemy artillery fire. By contrast, the 262 Arc

Light strikes alone dropped 42,444 tons of bombs. This is a better than

20 to 1 firepower advantage for the ARVN and does not even include

tactical air sorties, AH-1 Cobra gunship fires, or the six 105mm

howitzers fired by the ARVN defenders. Casualty figures were also

261
unedifying. The total strength of participating PAVN units prior to the

battle was 35,000. Somehow, these units absorbed 25,000 casualties

(assuming the U.S. estimates were correct), a rate greater than 70

percent, and they still continued to press the attack. In contrast, the

ARVN defenders, absorbing about 40 percent casualties, were on the

verge of rout at several points.

President Nixon proclaimed that An Loc was proof of the success of

Vietnamization, but the ARVN “victory” was more accurately an

avoidance of defeat. Even this achievement would not have been

possible without U.S. advisers and massive U.S. air power. With some

exceptions, ARVN leadership was mediocre and discipline poor. This

boded ill for the ARVN’s future should U.S. support disappear. On the

other side of the ledger, the PAVN demonstrated how ruthlessly it

would operate in order to win. On several occasions, the Communists

attacked refugees attempting to flee An Loc, and a PAVN T-54 tank

killed 100 civilians inside a Catholic church.162

The Communist leadership made a mistake in 1972, abandoning its

previously successful compound warfare tactics to conduct

conventional assaults, such as at An Loc. This gave the advantage to the

United States, which had been trying unsuccessfully for years to force

the PLAF and PAVN to wage a stand-up fight. As such, it was a tactical

victory for the American way of war, but one with adverse

consequences. A serious examination of An Loc and other ARVN

operations, such as LAM SON 719, should have demonstrated clearly

that the ARVN was not ready to take over the war. It still suffered from

the same weaknesses that it had exhibited in 1960: politicized

commanders, inept leadership, and tactical incompetence at higher

levels of command. This would become painfully evident in 1975 when

the PAVN would destroy South Vietnam’s army in fifty-five days.163

Richard Nixon decisively defeated the antiwar candidate, Senator

George McGovern, in the 1972 election. During his campaign, Nixon

proclaimed that his war policies had been successful and that, for all

practical purposes, peace was at hand. However, with U.S. troops

continuing to withdraw, he had few remaining weapons in his arsenal to

persuade Hanoi to accept that this was indeed so. What he did have left

was air power, and on Christmas Day 1972, Nixon ordered the bombing

of Hanoi and Haiphong to force the DRV to agree to a settlement. The

bombing was heavy and destructive, but it was aimed at military targets

and civilian casualties were relatively light. Finally, on 27 January

1973, in Paris, the United States, RVN, DRV, and PRV (see NLF)

262
signed a cease-fire agreement. A comprehensive political settlement

was to follow.

The Failure of Nixon’s Strategy

The last American soldiers left Vietnam on 29 March 1973. Three

days later, American prisoners of war were released in Hanoi. For

America, the war was over.164 But Nixon could not fulfill his

promises to continue to support the RVN government with U.S. aid

and air power, for his administration began unraveling that summer.

As Congressional inquiries into the secret bombing of Cambodia and

into the emerging Watergate scandal intensified, the Communists

resumed their offensive military operations in South Vietnam.165

By January 1974, Thieu announced that the war had begun again.

But whatever help he might have wanted to provide, Nixon’s hands

were tied. Impeachment hearings began in May, and in August, he

resigned his office, to be replaced by the new president, Gerald R. Ford.

Meanwhile, the DRV planned a final offensive for the coming dry

season.166 In January 1975, the Communist offensive began. The

ARVN, on whom the Americans had lavished so much effort since

1956, collapsed, and PAVN forces captured one city after another,

finally seizing Saigon on 30 April 1975. The war was over, and the

United States’ long effort in Vietnam had failed.167

Conclusion

Analysts have expended much effort in examining how and why the

United States failed in Vietnam. Colonel Harry Summers (U.S. Army,

Retired) observed that the United States never established a “polarity”

with the Communists in its war efforts. That is, the United States never

had the will to match the enemy’s will, and it limited its efforts to what it

thought was reasonable, while the Communists devoted their entire

national effort to the war. While nothing is inherently wrong with

limiting the means of war, it is self-defeating to do so unless the enemy

is bound by similar limits. Because of its fear of nuclear war and its

unwillingness to fight a land war against China, the United States never

developed effective counters to the DRV’s strengths. This is an

example of the fundamental asymmetry of compound warfare. While

most warfare is asymmetrical to some degree (e.g., British radar and

fighters versus German bombers in the Battle of Britain), a clever

compound operator makes the asymmetry work in his favor. In the case

of the Vietnam War, the DRV fought a political war, using military

force as only one of its tools or means. It also skillfully and ruthlessly

263
employed political agitation, propaganda, terrorism, and international

diplomacy. Meanwhile, the United States emphasized a military war

and pursued battlefield successes even as its political situation

crumbled.168

Additionally, many critics have denounced the ARVN, as it was

formed by the Americans, as too “heavy” a force. In their view, to

defeat guerrillas, the RVN government needed primarily light infantry

forces. Such troops needed to have been mobile on the ground in order

to patrol the populated areas intensively to keep guerrilla bands

off-guard and away from the people. Light infantry forces, organized

and trained for counterinsurgency, would have avoided the tendency,

fostered by conventional doctrine, to cluster their strength in large

units. Only in Phase 3 of the guerrilla offensive did friendly forces need

large, conventional units.169

The United States’ principal problem in Vietnam was its inability to

effectively combat the enemy’s use of compound warfare dynamics.

The Americans were unable to combat guerrillas effectively while

simultaneously maintaining the ability to fight large conventional

battles. Moreover, a large part of America’s difficulty in applying

military force directly to North Vietnam, the sponsor of the guerrilla

warfare, was its reluctance or inability to attack the supply lines from

China and the Soviet Union or the Communist sanctuaries in Laos and

Cambodia.

And no matter what force structure or strategy the Americans might

have adopted, they still faced an implacable enemy ̄time. This, too, is

part of the compound warfare dynamic. As analyst Walter Krepinevitch

notes: “Time is an ally of the insurgent.... [T]he longer the insurgency

continues, the greater the sense of futility and frustration on the

government’s part, a frustration that can lead to ill-advised

shortcuts.”170

In large part, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam succeeded in

winning its war by utilizing all the classical elements of fortified

compound warfare: a conventional force, a guerrilla force, safe havens,

and a major-power alliance. Throughout much of the war, the DRV

directed a conventional campaign with largely southern personnel and,

at the same time, maintained the threat of a conventional invasion from

North Vietnam. Initially, the DRV sponsored a guerrilla movement

within the RVN composed largely of southerners. After the southern

guerrillas were nearly annihilated in the Tet Offensive, the DRV

renewed the irregular campaign with infiltrators from North Vietnam

and shifted the burden of the conventional campaign from the mostly

264
southern PLA to its own PAVN units. Meanwhile, throughout most of

the war, Communist units retained the capability of withdrawing to

sanctuaries in North Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia to escape pressure

from U.S. and ARVN operations. The DRV established a supply and

infiltration route, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, to supply these men; the

United States never succeeded in cutting this logistical artery. At the

same time, until it was too late for the Americans to reverse the course

of the war, the DRV had powerful allies in the Soviet Union and China.

When Richard Nixon became president of the United States, and at

least partly recognized a way out of the dilemma, the American public

no longer provided sufficient support for what still promised to be a

long, grinding war effort. Nixon scored diplomatic successes with the

Soviet Union and China, but these occurred too late to enable America

to reverse the course of events and win the war. It was a near-perfect

demonstration of the strength of fortified compound warfare when

employed by an intelligent operator.

Perhaps the classic example of fortified compound warfare is

Wellington’s campaign against Napoleon in Spain. Britain, the great

power, utilized Spanish guerrillas to fix, attrit, and demoralize the

French in an economical and ultimately successful effort. Hanoi’s

campaign was similar in many respects and clearly utilized the

principles of fortified compound warfare. But the success of the Hanoi

regime in its thirty-year effort to gain independence from France and to

unify Vietnam under its rule also can be contrasted with Wellington’s

campaign. In Vietnam, the “compound operator” was neither the Soviet

Union nor China—the two great powers involved on the Communist

side—but the DRV. Neither of those great powers successfully

exploited the North Vietnamese in the struggle against the West.

Instead, Ho Chi Minh and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam used

both the Soviets and Chinese, as well as the National Liberation Front,

as means of obtaining uniquely North Vietnamese ends.

Hanoi’s ends demonstrate another dissimilarity to Wellington’s

campaign in Spain. North Vietnam’s enemy was not primarily the

United States but the government of South Vietnam. North Vietnam’s

primary goal was not to defeat the United States but to unify Vietnam

under Hanoi’s rule. America’s inability to see the DRV’s war effort

through Hanoi’s eyes meant that, even when it recognized the dynamics

of compound warfare, it was fatally hindered by its ignorance of its

enemy.

265

Glossary

A Shau Valley PLA stronghold. Site of the 101st

Airborne Division’s assault on

Apbia Mountain (“Hamburger

Hill”) in May 1969.

Abrams, General Creighton W., Jr. Commander of MACV after 1968.

Agglomeration Centers Plan The 1959 attempt by Diem to

neutralize Communist sympathizers

by housing them with families

known to be loyal. It was an

immediate failure.

Agroville Program The 1959 attempt by Diem to

concentrate loyal peasants in

controlled, protected villages and

hamlets. Only 25 percent complete,

it was deemed a failure by 1961.

An Loc Village in South Vietnam. Site of

PAVN siege of ARVN units from

April through June 1972.

Ap Bac Village in South Vietnam. Site of a

disastrous January 1963 attack by the

ARVN.

Arc Light U.S. Air Force technique. On each

mission, three B-52 strategic bombers

dropped conventional bombs in tactical

support of ground troops.

ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The

South Vietnamese army.

Bao Dai Emperor of Vietnam under French rule.

Abdicated in 1945, reinstalled by the

French in 1954, and deposed in 1955.

Binh Hoa Village in South Vietnam. Site of a

flawed January 1962 attack by the

ARVN.

Cong An RVN secret police.

COSVN Central Office, South Vietnam. The

command and control headquarters

of the PLA.

Diem, Ngo Dinh Last prime minister for Bao Dai,

first president of South Vietnam,

overthrown and murdered in

November 1963.

Dien Bien Phu A village in northwestern Vietnam,

site of the decisive 1954 battle of

the Vietminh War.

267
DRV Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The Communist state of North

Vietnam.

Easter Offensive The DRV’s March 1972 attack.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. U.S. president, 1953-61. Refused to

intervene militarily to save the

French position in Indochina in

1954. Later, committed U.S.

advisers to aid South Vietnam.

Farmgate Program whereby VNAF attack

squadrons were equipped with

American aircraft and secretly manned

by U.S. crew members.

French Union The French equivalent to the British

Commonwealth, established after

World War II.

Geneva Accords The 1954 agreement ending the

Vietminh War.

Giap, Vo Nguyen Military leader of the Indochinese

Communist party and, later, of North

Vietnam.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident The August 1963 encounter between

U.S. naval vessels and DRV patrol

boats that resulted in a greatly

expanded American commitment to

South Vietnam.

Hanoi Capital of North Vietnam.

Harkins, General Paul D. Commander of MAAG at the time it

grew into MACV.

Hilsman, Roger U.S. State Department official

charged with observing and

analyzing U.S. assistance to South

Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh The founder of the Indochinese

Communist party and the leader of

North Vietnam until his death in 1969.

Ho Chi Minh Trail The logistical supply route from North

Vietnam, through Laos and Cambodia,

into South Vietnam. Used to supply

essentials to the PLA.

Ia Drang Small river near the RVN-Cambodia

border. Site of the first major ground

battle fought by U.S. forces, November

1965.

Iron Triangle Area north of Saigon containing major

PLA supply caches and command

headquarters.

268
Johnson, Lyndon B. U.S. president, 1963-69. Increased U.S.

role in Vietnam to include major

combat forces.

JCS The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S.

military planning and coordinating

body composed of the chiefs of the

armed services and headed by a

chairman designated by the president.

Kennedy, John F. U.S. president, 1961-63. Committed

the United States to an expanded

advisory and combat role in South

Vietnam.

Khe Sanh Site of a small U.S. Marine outpost

near the Laotian border. Assaulted and

besieged by the PLA beginning

December 1967.

LAM SON 719 The February 1971 ARVN invasion of

Laos.

Landsdale, Edward U.S. counterguerrilla authority.

Lodge, Henry Cabot U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam at

the time of Diem’s ouster.

McNamara, Robert S. U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1961-68.

MACV Military Assistance Command,

Vietnam. The command and control

headquarters for the U.S. Military

effort in South Vietnam.

main force Full-time military units of the PLA.

MAAG Military Assistance Advisory Group,

early headquarters for U.S. Assistance

to South Vietnam.

Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) Founder and leader of Communist

China.

My Lai Village in South Vietnam. Site of

U.S. troops’ massacre of civilians

in March 1968.

Nam Bo Early name for the command and

control headquarters of the PLA. Later

called COSVN.

Nixon, Richard M. U.S. president, 1969–74. Began

“Vietnamization” program; ultimately

reached a peace agreement with the

DRV.

NLF National Liberation Front. The

umbrella organization containing

representatives from several factions

opposing the RVN government. In

269
reality, controlled by the Communist

party.

NVA North Vietnamese Army.

PAVN People’s Army of (North) Vietnam.

The armed forces of North Vietnam.

Phoenix Program Covert program to infiltrate the PLA

and assassinate Communist leaders.

PLA/PLAF People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The

armed forces of the NLF, later, the

People’s Liberation Armed Forces

(PLAF).

PRP People’s Revolutionary party. The

nominally independent Communist

party of South Vietnam.

regroupment The 300-day process established by

the Geneva Accords during which

refugees could move freely between

the northern and southern partitioned

areas of Vietnam.

ROLLING THUNDER The systematic series of U.S. Air Force

attacks against North Vietnam

beginning in 1965.

Rostow, Walter Aide to President Kennedy and

national security adviser to President

Johnson.

RVN Republic of Vietnam. The

pro-American state of South Vietnam.

Saigon Capital of South Vietnam.

Sihanouk, Prince Norodom Ruler of Cambodia, 1940-71.

Strategic Hamlet Program Successor to the Agroville Program.

An expanded attempt to consolidate

rural peasants into villages and hamlets

for self-protection and control.

Taylor, Maxwell D. Retired Army general recalled to active

duty by President Kennedy to become

chairman of the JCS, 1962-64.

Ambassador to South Vietnam,

1964-65.

Tet Offensive The series of major PLA attacks

launched in January 1968 at the time of

the Buddhist lunar New Year’s

celebration.

Thieu, Nguyen Van President of South Vietnam, 1967-75.

Thompson, Sir Robert British counterguerrilla expert.

Credited with developing the

successful strategy the British

270
employed to defeat insurgents in

Malaya.

VC Viet Cong. The pejorative name given

the NLF by the RVN government.

Vietminh The Vietnam Independence League,

the united-front organization founded

by Ho Chi Minh in 1940.

Vietminh War The conflict between followers of Ho

Chi Minh and French Union forces

from 1945 to 1954.

VNAF South Vietnamese Air Force.

Westmoreland, General Commander of MACV, 1964-68.

William C.

271

Notes

1. Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam (Novato, CA: Presidio Press,

1986), v.

2. Harold G. Moore, and Joseph L. Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once . . . and

Young (New York: Random House, 1992), 338-39.

3. Moore and Galloway, 339.

4. Pike, 9-13.

5. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: The Viking Press, 1983),

106.

6. Karnow, 69-78, 110-25; Pike, 17.

7. Pike, 22, 25, 29-34; Karnow, 126-27, 142, 146-47, 149, 183.

8. Pike, 34-35, Karnow, 173-78.

9. Pike, 39-41; Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien

Phu (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967, 408-11; Cecil B. Currey (“Cincinattus”),

Self-Destruction: The Disintegration and Decay of the United States Army

During the Vietnam Era (New York: Norton, 1981), 9-11.

10. Karnow, 196-99; Harry G. Summers, Jr., On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of

the Vietnam War (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1995), 98-100.

11. Andrew F. Krepinevitch, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore, MD: Johns

Hopkins, 1986; Johns Hopkins, 1988), 19; Pike, 41; Karnow, 213-19.

12. Karnow, 215-16, 218-23.

13. Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese

Province (Berkely, CA: University of California, 1972; University of

California, 1973), 66.

14. Truong Nhu Tang, with David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai, A Viet Cong

Memoir(New York: Random House, 1985; Vintage, 1986), 30-40, 44, 63-69.

15. Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

(New York: Random House, 1988), 67-68; Truong, 28; Eric M. Bergerud, The

Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Ngia Province (Boulder, CO:

Westview, 1991; Westview, 1993), 56.

273
16. Race, 66.

17. Robert B. Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, Vol. 1

(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 977.

18. Pike, 42-43.

19. Krepinevitch, 7-10.

20. Pike, 42-43; Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy

in the Administration of John F. Kennedy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967),

423; Bergerud, 18-19.

21. Bergerud, 19.

22. Ibid., 27.

23. Sheehan, 195-96.

24. Bergerud, 19-20, 49-51, 70-80.

25. Kennedy quoted in Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New

York: Harper Collins, 1997), 857.

26. Karnow, 248-49. After a grueling conference with Soviet Premier Nikita

Kruschev in Vienna, Kennedy told journalist James Reston: “Now we have a

problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.” Also see

Bernard Fall, Street Without Joy, 381. The neutralization of Laos was a

strategic defeat for the United States, for it meant that Laos did not join the Free

World’s defense system.

27. Karnow, 249; Asprey, 981. When George Ball dissented, predicting the

American involvement might eventually reach 300,000 troops, Kennedy

responded: “you’re crazier than hell.”

28. Sheehan, 67-68; Truong, 28; Bergerud, 56.

29. Currey, 26.

30. Bergerud, 49-51, 53, 56-61; Karnow, 256. The Strategic Hamlet Program was a

“vast and expensive enterprise.” It was the idea of Robert G. K. Thompson

(head of the British Advisory Mission), a British counterinsurgency specialist

who had succeeded against Communist guerrillas in Malaya. But Vietnam was

not Malaya, where the guerrillas had been ethnic Chinese, hated by the Malays,

and where there was a shortage of rice so that the guerrillas could be starved into

submission. See also Hilsman, 429.

274
31. Truong, 85-86, 91.

32. Truong, 45-46; Race, 125-29. The Party evaded the issue of ultimate ownership

of land. Earlier Party difficulties with collectivization in North Vietnam, after

they had told peasants that the land was “theirs,” were no doubt on their minds.

See also Bergerud, 56-61.

33. Bergerud, 61-64; Race, 129-30; Sheehan, 552; David Chanoff and Doan Van

Toai, “Vietnam”: A Portrait of its People at War(New York: I. B. Tauris & Co.,

1996), 115-16.

34. Bergerud, 67-68; Race, 124; Chanoff and Doan, 103-6.

35. Truong, 109, 111-13.

36. Sheehan, 524.

37. Pentagon Papers, 208-10.

38. Race, 107; Truong, 68, 72-73.

39. Pike, 48-49. The PLA reached a peak strength of 400,000 by early 1968, then

declined from combat losses. By 1972, North Vietnam’s army, the PAVN,

accounted for 90 percent of the day-to-day combat troops in South Vietnam.

40. Truong, 45-46; Pike, 44-47, Race, 123.

41. Chanoff and Doan, 147-48, 152-54.

42. Truong, 45-81; Race, 123; Karnow, 256-57. The American military and

diplomatic corps was also taken in by Albert Thao, as evidenced in several

cables from Ambassador Lodge and General Harkins, although Harkins in one

cable mentions that some do not trust him because of his “VC background.” See

Pentagon Papers, 202, 210; the formation of the PRP and other propaganda

efforts had the desired effect on Americans and other Western intellectuals.

Among those influential individuals, public support for the NLF and DRV was

widespread as early as 1961. See Chanoff and Doan, 81.

43. Karnow, 171-75. In early 1950, after his negotiations with the French had

broken down, Ho had obtained Soviet and Chinese recognition of his

government. This had rendered him instantly suspect to American observers,

who had previously regarded him as an able nationalist.

44. Karnow, 169, 185-86, 193, 327-28.

45. Ibid., 152, 169, 191-93; 202, 204, 224.

275
46. Bergerud, 23-24; Krepinevitch, 21.

47. Bergerud, 24. In reorganizing the ARVN, the United Stares overrode RVN

wishes. It forced a size reduction to emphasize retaining conventional forces

rather than light infantry units. Over 6,000 veteran NCOs were hastily

discharged. The United States standardized ARVN units along American

lines—basically translating U.S. Army organizational documents into

Vietnamese. The Americans emphasized training exercises oriented towards

regimental and division maneuvers. See Krepinevitch, 20-26.

48. Bergerud, 24-26; Krepinevitch, 11-12.

49. Bergerud, 26-27.

50. Hilsman, 437-38. Hilsman witnessed the operation. The B-26s and T-28s were

supplied by the United States for “Farmgate,” a semi-covert program with

mixed USAF and VNAF aircrews, with planes painted with VNAF markings.

Afterward, villagers said that perhaps two hundred guerrillas had been in the

village earlier.

51. Ibid., 446-47.

52. Sheehan, 75-79, 90-91.

53. Ibid., 106-9.

54. Ibid., 110-14, 540-41.

55. Ibid., 308-9.

56. Karnow, 259-62; Hilsman, 447-49.

57. Sheehan, 298-302.

58. Currey, 13-17; Robert A. Doughty, The Evolution of US Army Tactical

Doctrine, 1946-76, Leavenworth Papers No. 1 (Leavenworth, KS: Combat

Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1979), 25.

59. Karnow, 247-50; Hilsman, 413-14.

60. Hilsman, 419; Bergerud, 105-6. Kennedy initially decided to send Landsdale as

ambassador to Vietnam but then bowed to objections from the Pentagon that he

had become too political.

61. Hilsman, 421-25, 428-35. Regarding Rostow’s estimate of ten to twenty troops

for every guerrilla, the RVN had a population of approximately 14 million. If

only 0.1 percent were guerrillas—a conservative estimate—that would be

276
14,000 guerrillas. The U.S. estimate in January 1962 was actually 16,000

guerrillas (later revised to 23,000), just over 0.1 percent of the population. This

would require 160,000 to 320,000 troops just to combat the guerrillas, to say

nothing of guarding against the conventional threat from the DRV. In addition,

due to the lack of ethnic differences between the guerrillas and the bulk of the

population, Vietnam was a far more difficult case than Malaya had been.

62. Ibid., 435-36.

63. Ibid., 421-35. Hilsman presents a clear analysis of guerrilla warfare, with a

discussion of Robert Thompson’s success in Malaya and ideas for

Vietnam ̄that is, until he gets to the basics of how to defeat guerrillas by

depriving them of support from the population. Here, instead of solving the

fundamental social and economic problems that caused the peasants to support

the NLF, he discusses providing physical security to the peasants, as if the only

reason the peasants joined or supported the NLF was out of fear. This type of

misconception led to programs such as Strategic Hamlets, with all its

bureaucratic impedimenta, such as plastic ID cards, etc. Drawing on his OSS

experience in fighting the Japanese in World War II, Hilsman refers to the

guerrillas’ “mountain and jungle fastnesses.” In reality, the guerrillas were

largely village people. Hilsman does see clearly that “the way to fight guerrillas

is to adopt the tactics of the guerrilla.” He discusses establishing a grid of

squares thirty to fifty miles on a side. Within each square, one counterguerrilla

patrol would operate to ambush guerrilla bands. This would wear down the

guerrillas using their own tactics.

64. Ibid., 438-39.

65. Bergerud, 28-30.

66. Asprey, 979-80; Bergerud, 28.

67. Karnow, 251-53. Taylor’s party also included Landsdale, but instead of dealing

with the declining political situation, he was put to work estimating the number

of troops required to “seal off” the RVNs land border to halt infiltration. Rusk

sent no high-ranking representative from State, despite his recent efforts to have

responsibility for the Vietnam Task Force moved to his department. He thought

that Vietnam was primarily a military problem. The party also included Walt

Rostow, from the White House staff, who concentrated on border-sealing issues

and ultimately recommended bombing the DRV. See Hilsman, 422-24. At the

same time he approved the Taylor recommendations, Kennedy authorized

Ambassador Nolting to demand reforms from Diem, primarily for the sake of

world and U.S. opinion, not because they might be essential for winning the

war. He indicated that the United States was ready to share in joint sovereignty

277
in South Vietnam. Diem naturally rejected this demand and began an anti-U.S.

press campaign. Already, two diametrically opposed schools of thought on

Vietnam were evident in the United States. The first position, advocated by

Landsdale and Nolting, was that the war, by definition, must be fought and won

by the South Vietnamese. Saigon’s fundamental difficulties were the result of a

perfidious enemy rather than to structural problems in society. Eventually, most

of the State Department and the CIA (and in-country advisers such as Vann and

Daniel Elsberg) were opposed, arguing that the Saigon regime was

fundamentally unsound and that direct American intervention in RVN affairs

was required for the war effort. Many Americans would begin carrying out this

policy independent of government channels (e.g., U.S. Army Special Forces

units tacitly encouraged Montagnard revolts against the government in 1964).

Of course, this latter view, whatever its merits, made the Vietnamese people and

their government just a means to an American end. See also Bergerud, 31-33.

68. Hilsman, 53, 427.

69. Ibid., 415.

70. Karnow, 254.

71. Hilsman, 426-27. In 1961, Kennedy had the opportunity to change the direction

of the U.S. commitment by appointing a counterinsurgency expert. But instead

of choosing for the head of MAAG someone like General Yarborough, the

Special Forces commander, the president accepted General Taylor’s

recommendation of the very conventional General Paul D. Harkins.

72. Ibid., 442-43. The Army’s heel-dragging was not the only institutional

difficulty the counterinsurgency concept encountered. From the start, CI had

been the victim of bureaucratic inertia and ineptitude. Kennedy established a

“Special Group, Counterinsurgency” (SGCI), but its members were all

conventional thinkers. Maxwell Taylor was primarily interested in limited war;

Walt Rostow wanted to seek out the “ultimate source of aggression”; Attorney

General Robert Kennedy knew nothing on the subject; Roswell Gilpatric, the

Defense Department’s representative, had an Air Force background irrelevant

to CI; U. Alexis Johnson, from the State Department, “[got] things done,” but

knew nothing about CI; Edward R. Murrow of the U.S. Information Agency,

John McCone of the CIA, and McGeorge Bundy represented key agencies but

had no particular expertise on the subject; and General Lemnitzer of the JCS

was entirely unenthusiastic. See also Krepinevitch, 31-35.

73. Sheehan, 317.

278
74. Ibid., 303-5, 307-8, 344. A positive indication was that, for the first time, in late

1962, the ARVN had captured more enemy weapons than it lost. See Hilsman,

445. A bad indicator was the circulation among the U.S. advisers of the

anonymously composed “Ballad of Ap Bac,” lampooning the war effort. See

Sheehan, 306. For MACV’s suppression of unwelcome intelligence reports, see

Ibid., 323-24. Krulak’s report, delivered to a meeting of the National Security

Council on 31 August 1963, typified U.S. preoccupation with “the war,” as

opposed to the social and economic conditions that swelled support for the

NLF. Hilsman wondered how much repression the United States could afford to

support, in light of its attempts to reform other regimes (e.g., the ROK). State

Department official Paul Kattenburg provided a key dissent to Krulak’s report

and a recognition of the key role of the Vietnamese people. He predicted that if

they stayed with Diem, the United States would be forced out of Vietnam within

six months. Taylor, McNamara, and Rusk rebutted Kattenburg. As late as

October 1963, a high level of official optimism continued. McNamara and

Taylor submitted another report on 2 October. They were very optimistic about

the military situation (“[the] military program in Vietnam . . . is sound in

principle”). They emphasized tactical security needs for strategic hamlets,

envisioned turning over ever-more missions to the ARVN, and the withdrawal

of the bulk of U.S. troops by the end of 1965. General Harkins cabled a report to

Taylor on 30 October 1963. He was optimistic about the military situation. He

did not believe RVN Vice-President Tho’s negative assessment of RVN

support in the countryside. He insisted that he (Harkins) knew better. He

disbelieved the “few rumors” that ARVN generals were being paid off with

money and flashy cars; he reported that he had seen “few if any” flashy cars. He

disputed all reports that the NLF was gaining. See Pentagon Papers, 174,

202-5, 210-13, 219-24.

75. H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The

Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam (New York: Harper

Collins, 1997), 324.

76. Ibid.

77. Pentagon Papers, 189.

78. Bergerud, 38-43.

79. Pentagon Papers, 189 (extract from NSAM 273, 26 November 1963), 232-33.

80. McMaster, 324.

279
81. Pentagon Papers, 292-93. Karnow, 679. Kanh seized power in a January 1964

coup but allowed Minh to remain as figurehead chief of state.

82. McMaster, 324-25.

83. Bergerud, 42.

84. Dave R. Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.—Vietnam in Retrospective

(San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1978), 75.

85. Palmer, 71-72; McMaster, 324-25.

86. Bergerud, 112-13.

87. Ibid., 113.

88. Karnow, 421-22.

89. Ibid., 422.

90. McMaster, 312-15, 319.

91. Chanoff and Doan, 159-61. Johnson’s United Nations Ambassador, George

Ball, sounded a note of caution. On 1 July 1965, he warned against converting

an Asian war to an American war. See also Pentagon Papers, 449.

92. Bergerud, 3-5.

93. Karnow, 467-68.

94. Chanoff and Doan, 158, Karnow, 454.

95. Sheehan, 554.

96. William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden City, NY: Doubleday,

1976), 145; Sheehan, 567-68; Paul H. Herbert, Deciding What Has to Be Done:

General William E. DePuy and the 1976 Edition of FM 100-5, Operations,

Leavenworth Papers Number 16 (Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute,

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1988), 19-20.

97. Moore and Galloway, 338-39.

98. Ibid.

99. Palmer, 113; Chanoff and Doan, 161.

280
100. Moore and Galloway, 338-41; Karnow, 481-82. McNamara flew to Saigon

within days of the Ia Drang battle to consult with MACV commanders. See

Palmer, 107-8.

101. Karnow, 480-82.

102. Palmer, 107-9.

103. Karnow, 415-54.

104. Palmer, 74-75.

105. Karnow, 415; Palmer, 109-10.

106. Palmer, 110.

107. Karnow, 454-58; Sheehan, 675-81. For an account of a teenager in the DRV,

see, Chanoff and Doan, 127-28.

108. David H. Hackworth and Julie Sherman, About Face: The Odyssey of an

American Warrior (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989; Touchstone, 1990),

557-61; 569-71; George L. MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive: October 1966

to October 1967, in the series, United States Army in Vietnam: Combat

Operations (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1998), 31-59.

While General DePuy claimed that, as a result of ATTLEBORO, one PLA

regiment had been rendered ineffective and two others were badly hurt,

captured enemy documents later revealed that only one regiment had taken

heavy casualties. DePuy used the results to reinforce his assertions that the

army should conduct large-scale offensives rather than attempting to comb the

jungles with riflemen.

109. Hackworth, 554.

110. Hackworth, 549-52; Sheehan, 621-28.

111. Krepinevitch, 9-10.

112. Hackworth, 554-57.

113. Karnow, 437-38. The main post exchange outside Saigon was almost as large as

New York’s Bloomingdale’s department store.

114. Chanoff and Doan, 155-56.

281
115. Bergerud, 107-9.

116. Hackworth, 549-52; Moore and Galloway, 344.

117. Hackworth, 552.

118. Ibid., 565.

119. Ibid., 565-67. This was an extraordinarily high ratio of weapons captured to

enemy casualties claimed—1:1.6. A 1:4 ratio was considered excellent, and

1:10 or worse ratios were common (casting doubt on the validity of many battle

claims of enemy casualties).

120. Palmer, 135-39; Karnow, 439, 463.

121. Hackworth, 579-80. Fall was killed two weeks later by a mine.

122. Ibid., 575.

123. Palmer, 114.

124. Karnow, 538-39.

125. Krepinevitch, 237.

126. Karnow, 523-27.

127. Ibid., 525-29.

128. Ibid., 540-42.

129. Chanoff and Doan, 156-57.

130. Chanoff and Doan, 157; Sheehan, 724.

131. Karnow, 540-49.

132. Sheehan, 707-22; Karnow, 548-50.

133. Pentagon Papers, 615-21; Karnow, 550-55.

134. Karnow, 555-56.

135. Ibid., 558-66.

136. Ibid., 566.

282
137. Charnoff, 161-68.

138. Karnow, 577-85.

139. Ibid., 587, 595-96, 682.

140. Ibid., 590-92.

141. Ibid., 592-93, 637.

142. Maclear, 270; Westmoreland, 151-52. Honeycutt was a former aide to

Westmoreland.

143. Westmoreland, 151-53. Westmoreland implicitly conceded his belief that

American soldiers, operating among the rural population, would commit

atrocities if not kept away searching for the elusive enemy forces in the

highlands. The issue of “protecting” the population was more involved than

Westmoreland admitted. Successful protection would require some degree of

control, as much of the danger the population faced was from PLA members in

its midst, as opposed to external aggressors.

144. Karnow, 601.

145. Ibid., 595.

146. Ibid., 597-98.

147. Ibid., 598.

148. Westmoreland, 375-80.

149. Race, 237.

150. Currey, 120.

151. Allen E. Goodman, “The Political Implications of Rural Problems,” Asian

Survey (August 1970): 677-78.

152. Race, 238-39.

153. Karnow, 601-2.

154. Ibid., 603-10.

155. Ibid., 610-12, 629.

283
156. Ibid., 629-32, 683.

157. Ibid., 638-646.

158. Ibid., 639-41.

159. James H. Willbanks, Thiet Gap! The Battle of An Loc, April 1972 (Fort

Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and

General Staff College, 1993), 3, 21; Karnow, 642.

160. Willbanks, 13, 21-24, 30-31, 33.

161. Ibid., 58-60.

162. Ibid., 30, 41-42, 60-62.

163. Ibid., 75-77.

164. Karnow, 684.

165. Ibid.

166. Ibid., 684-85.

167. Ibid., 685.

168. Summers, 69. However, Summers also misses the point of revolutionary

warfare in Vietnam. Contrary to his analysis, guerrilla operations were not a

“smoke screen.” They were just a part of the war, as were the conventional

attacks of 1972 and 1975. He protests that the VC were “just a means to an end,”

but in warfare, what weapons and forces are not? Summers, 96-97.

169. Krepinevitch, 11-12.

170. Ibid., 8.

284
Compound War Case Study: The

Soviets in Afghanistan

Robert F. Baumann

When on 24-25 December 1979 Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan,

they intended to conduct a neat, surgical intervention to stabilize a

client regime on which they had lavished years of attention and aid. The

immediate military objectives were to secure the capital, Kabul, and the

main lines of communication, especially those leading back to the

Soviet border (see map l on next page). According to the plan, the small

intervention force would complete its mission and assume a low profile

while the Soviet client army of the Democratic Republic of

Afghanistan restored government authority in the outlying provinces.

At the time, most Western political and military observers believed

that, sooner or later, the mighty Soviet Army would subdue any and all

resistance in Afghanistan. They would succeed, most calculated,

because the Soviet Army would prosecute its war unconstrained by

those factors that fatally crippled America’s efforts in Vietnam.

Accordingly, domestic public support of the war in the USSR would

never fade because its totalitarian regime enjoyed comprehensive

control of the press, would ruthlessly stifle any manifestations of

dissent, and would never be compelled to negotiate with the

resistance.1 Moreover, the observers maintained that the USSR, its

political course governed by a clear and ruthless sense of purpose,

would remain steadfastly indifferent to international opinion. Thus, the

unleashed firepower of a technologically advanced military would

make short work of poorly organized, undisciplined third world

guerrillas.

What followed, of course, belied predictions. After nearly a decade

of futility in Afghanistan, Soviet forces withdrew. Their losses

transcended the subsequent loss of a client state and the resultant

international embarrassment. The anguish of the war in Afghanistan

deepened emerging fissures in Soviet society and contributed to its

eventual disintegration.

In its general contours, the Afghan War fits within the elastic

theoretical model of compound war, although it exhibited many

distinctive features of its own as well. In this light, this essay will

establish the ways in which the Soviet misadventure in Afghanistan

285
286

Map 1
adhered to the definition of compound war as summarized in the

introduction of this volume. At the same time, it will demonstrate that

the advantageous effects of compound war can manifest themselves in

various forms.

A principal strength of compound war theory is that it does not

purport to explain everything or presume unerring predictive

capability. The outcome in war, including compound war, is seldom if

ever inevitable. The dynamism of the Clausewitzian trinity as

summarized in On War—the interplay of reason, violent passion, and

chance—cannot be overlooked. In particular, it would be dangerous

(and all too easy) to dismiss the roles of chance and passion.

In any case, the analytical model of compound war facilitates a

deeper understanding of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Much to their

surprise, the Soviets confronted the classic dilemma posed by an

elusive, intensely motivated, irregular enemy that enjoyed, as a

consequence of the larger political context of the struggle, the support

of a powerful ally possessing a formidable regularforce. Although this

ally never entered the war directly, the weight of its might nevertheless

influenced the strategic situation in profound ways. In addition, due to

the presence of lesser allies, the Mujahideen enjoyed vital sanctuaries

that the Soviets felt compelled to respect for larger diplomatic reasons.

Faced with these complications—which they might have anticipated

but did not—the Soviets met with frustration and defeat.

Background

The Soviet military intervention aimed to restore a deteriorating

political situation in Afghanistan as evidenced by emboldened and

aggressive popular resistance to the DRA (Democratic Republic of

Afghanistan) regime in Kabul. Having invested its money and

influence in Afghanistan for twenty-five years, the Soviet Union was

not about to watch idly while a client state on its southern doorstep

collapsed. Since a 1956 accord providing for the reequipping of the

Afghan Army by the USSR, Russia steadily insinuated its influence

into Afghan politics. Subsequent military collaboration included the

education of Afghan cadets and officers in the Soviet Union and the

arrival of Soviet officers as military advisers. Symbols of the Soviet

presence included numerous economic programs and construction

projects. However, the relationship reached a new and critical stage

with Afghanistan’s so-called 1978 “April Revolution” that

consolidated the power of the People’s Democratic Party of

Afghanistan or PDPA. The proclamation of the Democratic Republic

287
of Afghanistan and signing of a friendship pact with the Soviet Union

marked an advanced stage of the assimilation of that country into

Moscow’s bloc of “socialist” states.

In reality, this apparent achievement in Soviet foreign policy was

less than it seemed. In the first place, no regime in Kabul had ever

effectively controlled the independent-minded clans and villages of

rural Afghanistan. In one particularly trenchant assessment, Western

scholar Anthony Arnold appropriately likened the country to 25,000

village states.2 Furthermore, the construction of Soviet-style socialism

was antithetical to the cultural values most revered by the majority of

Afghans, whose outlook was based on village traditions intertwined

with religion and a historic xenophobia. Moreover, the legendary

warrior ethic of male Afghans, whatever their ethnicity, had been

amply demonstrated by a history of ferocious resistance to foreign

intrusion.

Somehow oblivious to these facts, the PDPA undertook an

ambitious, Soviet-style modernization program that threatened the

authority of the Islamic clergy, exhibited strong centralizing

tendencies, and sought to reshape the educational system. Land reform

proposals, redefinition of the societal role of women, and the

conspicuous presence of foreign (Russian) experts and advisers

particularly offended the clergy and other traditionalists. Popular

discontent erupted in March 1979 when angry Afghan mobs in Herat

openly defied Kabul’s authority and murdered a group of Russian

technicians. This event prompted the Soviets to rush Mi-24 helicopters

(which had proved effective against Eritrean rebels in Ethiopia) to the

scene and increase their contingent of military advisers to 3,000.3At the

same time, bitter political infighting between the Khalq and Parcham

factions of the PDPA also troubled Soviet observers. In September

1979, a smoldering dispute at the top of the Afghan regime came to a

head when Hafizullah Amin assumed the presidency following the

assassination of his rival, Nur Mohammed Taraki. A peculiar political

minuet followed in which Amin, on multiple occasions, apparently

requested Soviet military assistance to quell domestic resistance only to

meet with polite but firm refusals.4 When Soviet troops finally did

arrive on 24-25 December 1979, Amin, perceived in Moscow to be part

of the problem, was targeted for removal and became one of the first

casualties of the military intervention.

At first glance, the Soviets’ skillfully executed surprise incursion

seemed to achieve its objectives: a change of regime, capture of Kabul,

and control of the principal lines of communication. Forces inserted by

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air paralyzed the capital while a conventional column of about 15,000

approached the country along the main road from the Soviet frontier.

The strike was complete within hours. In the view of the government of

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid

Brezhnev, this lightning success ought to have stabilized the situation

in Afghanistan. However, it was only a matter of days before a hostile

reaction began, both within and outside of Afghanistan. Though at first

lacking any sort of cohesion, popular guerrilla resistance mounted

across the country with the benefit of international support—initially

moral and diplomatic but before long material as well. By February

1980, Soviet forces left their garrisons to confront mushrooming

opposition. Soviet calculations, shaped by a preoccupation with

conventional war, failed to account for the possibility that the resistance

might resort to the tactics and strategy of unconventional war.5 This

seemingly inexplicable neglect occurred in spite of the extensive

historical experience of Russian and Soviet forces in waging

unconventional wars in the Caucasus and Central Asia against tribes

similar to those in Afghanistan.

Later, in the aftermath of Soviet failure in Afghanistan, none of those

still alive who played a prominent part in the war claimed responsibility

for the decision to invade or the strategy that followed. Soviet Army

General V. I. Varennikov, former chief of the Supreme Operations

Administration, asserted that his office had advised that Soviet forces in

Afghanistan remain in garrison. He attributed the decision to have

Soviet forces take the lead in conducting the war to the insistence of

newly appointed (by the Soviets) Afghan President Babrak Karmal.

Karmal subsequently noted that he was not even in office when the

initial decisions were made and that later he asked to resign out of

disagreement with Soviet prosecution of the war.6 Virtually by

acclamation after the war, it was expedient to blame the

dead—Communist party chief Brezhnev, Foreign Minister Andrei

Gromyko, KGB Chief Iurii Andropov (later general secretary),

Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov, and so forth—who had been best

positioned to make policy decisions.

That the war in Afghanistan would end so miserably and be so

widely disowned would not have been predicted at the beginning. In

the wake of the seizure of Kabul, Soviet forces conducted their first

major offensive operation of the war in the Kunar Valley in February

March 1980. The Soviet effort employed about 5,000 soldiers, liberally

endowed with air support and modern armor. A pattern immediately

emerged that would in large measure define the war in Afghanistan.

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The Soviet force swept aside the guerrilla resistance, superior

firepower devastating villages controlled by the opposition. Again,

however, the result was deceptive. The Afghan guerrillas or

Mujahideen, as they were soon widely known, withdrew to avoid the

heaviest blows and suffered only modest losses. Furthermore,

thousands of villagers were abruptly transformed into refugees, now

more steadfastly hostile to the new regime than ever. After a brief

stay—because Soviet forces were in no position logistically to occupy

the Kanur Valley—they soon withdrew. This foreshadowed what

became a pervasive pattern: tactical successes did not add up to

tangible, strategic gains.

Still, it appeared that Soviet combat power would eventually

bludgeon the Mujahideen and their supporters into submission.

Undeterred by the limited success of initial operations, however, the

Soviets pursued the persistent strategy of deep offensives into

Mujahideen strongholds. Operations in 1981 focused heavily on the

Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul. About seventy miles in length, this

fertile valley rests on a perch roughly 7,000 feet above sea level, with

precipitous, rocky slopes along its flanks and slender defiles and

valleys radiating out in all directions. At the start of the war, the valley’s

inhabitants numbered perhaps as many as 100,000.7 By May and

August 1982, the Soviets campaigned in the Panjshir Valley for the

fifth and sixth times. Their aim was to crush the power of Ahmad Shah

Masoud, a Tajik commander of about 3,000 resistance fighters, whose

organizational talent, charisma, and resilience were rapidly making

him a near-mythical figure. Meanwhile, Masoud’s resistance front

trained fighters from among the local population and assigned

administrative and political responsibilities among the villages that

sustained his movement. Masoud separated his combatants into mobile

units (about seventy-five men in strength) and local defense elements,

dividing the Panjshir Valley into seven operational areas.8

The May operation, rather typical of the larger Soviet offensives in

Afghanistan, employed about 15,000 Soviet and DRA Army troops

equipped with armored personnel carriers and tanks and supported by

artillery and Mi-24 helicopter gun ships. Still, over six weeks of

combat, the firepower-intensive attack lacked decisive effect, and the

Soviets suffered up to 3,000 casualties. Even more disturbing was the

pattern of defections, possibly as many as 1,000 in this operation alone,

that plagued the official Afghan Army.9 Tactically, by this time, the

rebels had become skilled at setting ambushes for Soviet armored

columns. In addition, thanks in part to foreign assistance, the

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Mujahideen were increasingly well armed with mortars, RPG-7 rocket

launchers, and an assortment of antiaircraft guns. They also became

accomplished at laying mines along all major routes supporting

vehicular movement, thus impeding Soviet communications.10 Above

all, their superior mobility on foot in the rugged, often impassible

terrain afforded the resistance the edge that enabled their survival.

In 1983, Masoud and the Soviets both utilized a new

tactic—delay—and agreed to a six-month truce in the Panjshir Valley.

Neither even remotely anticipated an end to hostilities. Rather, each

hoped to gain some near-term advantage. The Soviets, on their part,

gained the opportunity to concentrate more of their effort in other

locations, such as Herat and Kandahar. Masoud, in turn, found time to

rest his forces and solicit additional outside support.

This episode highlighted another crucial aspect of the war—the

fragmented character of the guerrilla resistance. Various ethnic groups,

in particular Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkomans, Hazara, and

Baluchis, played significant roles. Still, the most important divisions

corresponded to local and clan ties among the prewar population of 15

million. Political representation of the resistance to the international

community embraced at one time or another not less than ten major

factions. Oddly, this very lack of cohesion denied the Soviets a true

focal point or center of gravity for political and military operations in

Afghanistan.

In any case, it is doubtful that the Soviets ever possessed the combat

doctrine, concentration of forces, or political will to meet the exorbitant

price of success in Afghanistan. But having staked their prestige on

their Afghan adventure, the Soviets could not comfortably withdraw.

To be sure, the Soviets made many adjustments in their modus operandi

once it became clear that no ready political or military solution was at

hand. Still, their greatest error was already perhaps beyond remedy. By

virtue of their obtrusive presence, heavy-handed methods, and belated

diagnosis of real conditions in Afghanistan, Soviet decision makers

placed the Soviet Army in a position, almost from the war’s beginning,

where it had to fight not only scattered bands of guerrillas but also

virtually the entire Afghan population.11 Or, as Karmal put it, “If

sending in the troops was a mistake, it was caused by a failure to

understand Afghanistan—by a poor knowledge of the country and the

Afghan character.”12

Nevertheless, the Soviet regime would not abandon its goal to

establish control over Afghanistan. Thus, the key military-political

291
problem from the Soviet point of view was to defeat or, at the very least,

marginalize the Mujahideen soldiers in a holy war.

Both in terms of doctrine and training, the Soviets entered the war

unprepared to wage unconventional war.13 Moreover, in their haste to

act in the late fall of 1979, the Soviets neglected the opportunity to

conduct a war game or staff exercise based on the anticipated Afghan

scenario.14 To address their increasingly apparent tactical deficiencies,

Soviet professional military publications, almost from the start of the

war, reflected a new emphasis on physical conditioning for mountain

warfare and stressed the importance of initiative among lower-level

commanders in small-unit combat. Ambush tactics, reconnaissance,

and communications in severe terrain at high altitudes also drew

extensive comment.15 Soviet adaptations included increasing reliance

on specially trained air assault and spetsnaz (or special operations)

forces. Such belated wisdom could not, however, reverse the course of

the war or compensate for the Soviets’ flawed strategy.

Compound War

Analysis of the conflict in Afghanistan as a compound war

necessarily begins with the Mujahideen, the irregular force, whose

diffuse but nearly ubiquitous presence across the country left powerful

Soviet conventional forces without an appropriate target against which

to mass their power. Reflecting the social and cultural makeup of

Afghanistan, where village and clan ties were the primary bases of

loyalty, the Mujahideen lacked strong coherent political and military

direction. In fact, local rivalries were so fierce that, even after the Soviet

invasion, resistance factions often skirmished among themselves. For

the most part, however, they temporarily put aside their animosities to

focus on the outside intruder. This was necessary both to fight the

Soviets more effectively and to form a more or less united diplomatic

front in search of assistance from foreign powers.

As guerrilla fighters, the Afghans possessed many virtues. Their

formidable warrior tradition is legendary in Central Asia. Perhaps the

best known illustration of this fact is the series of disastrous campaigns

conducted by the British during the nineteenth century. Warrior status

in Afghan society is a source of individual prestige for young men and

spiritually affirmed by the Islamic concept of martyrdom. Superbly

adapted to the rugged terrain and severe climate of their homeland, the

Mujahideen could strike suddenly almost anywhere or stage ambushes

and then melt away into the mountains or scattered villages. Above all,

drawing enormous moral strength from their defense of their homes

292
and way of life, they provided a supreme example of the power of

motive force (Clausewitz’s violent passion) in warfare.

Still, the Mujahideen were no less vulnerable to bullets and bombing

than soldiers in any other army. The trick for the Soviet Army and its

junior partner, the Army of the DRA, was to reach them with their

superior firepower. Unfortunately for the Soviets, the Mujahideen were

remarkably well-schooled in the Soviet style of warfare. Many Afghan

resistance fighters were former officers in the Afghan Army who had

even received military schooling in the USSR. Their resultant

knowledge of Soviet doctrine and equipment capabilities was

invaluable, allowing the resistance on occasion to parry what otherwise

might have been devastating thrusts.

Reduced to its essence, Soviet strategy for victory in Afghanistan

rested on fulfillment of five crucial objectives, all of which focused in

large part on overcoming the irregular opposition.16 First, they needed

to control the principal population centers and lines of communication.

In this respect, the Soviets achieved tenuous control of Kabul, the

capital and largest population center at the outset of the war. With the

installation of “their man” Babrak Karmal as president, the Soviets

were in a position to manipulate all essential government ministries and

organs. Had Afghanistan been more cohesive as a state to begin with,

the advantage derived might have been considerable. In most

developed states, for example, occupation of the capital would carry

great symbolic importance. Earlier Soviet invasions of Hungary in

1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 firmly established the effectiveness

of this modus operandi. Such was not the case, however, in

Afghanistan. Unlike Budapest or Prague, Kabul did not represent the

psychological center of gravity of the country. At every step,

government authority required the support of military force.

Consequently, the domestic legitimacy of the regime was minimal.

To accomplish their first objective, Soviet forces quickly positioned

themselves along the few major roads of Afghanistan. Almost in

anticipation of future events, the Soviets had in the 1960s constructed

Afghanistan’s major highway, forming a ring linking the cities of

Kabul, Kandahar, Heart, and Mazare Sharif. The road’s principal spur

connected it with the Soviet border to the north. Built to withstand tank

traffic, the road validated Soviet foresight. Yet the road also proved to

be an important staging area for Mujahideen ambushes against

government convoys and military columns. The resistance acquired

considerable skill in laying mines along frequently used lines of

communication. Ultimately, the maintenance of some degree of

293
security along the highway, around Kabul and near key Soviet bases,

tied down one-third of the Soviet’s manpower.

As essential as security was, it was essentially a passive,

troop-intensive occupation mission that exacted a high toll on the

morale and efficiency of typical Soviet motor-rifle units. Living in

miserable conditions amidst a hostile populace, many Soviet soldiers

saw little purpose in their presence and grew disillusioned with the war.

Indeed, defections from Soviet units, especially among the Central

Asian contingent, reflected pervasive discouragement.17 Eventually,

drug use and the illegal sale of weapons and other equipment became a

problem. In general, numbing tedium, occasionally punctuated by

skirmishes with an unseen enemy or the explosion of a mine, became

the normal lot of the roughly 110,000 Soviet soldiers stationed in

Afghanistan at any given time.18

Soviet forces initially included large numbers of reservists from the

Central Asian Military District. Though probably employed due to the

convenience of their proximity to the Afghan theater, their use also was

intended, perhaps, to make the Soviet presence seem less invasive, less

foreign. Although the evidence remains unclear on this point, some

Soviet leaders apparently expected that Soviet Central Asians would

exercise a beneficial or soothing influence on their cousins across the

border. If anything, the influence ultimately seemed to flow in the other

direction, as the Afghans swayed the attitudes of their linguistic and

ethnic cousins in Soviet uniforms. Whatever the case, employment of

large numbers of Soviet Central Asian reservists ceased not long after

the invasion.19 In general, as Soviet soldiers discovered, the war was far

different than advertised; they perceived quickly that they were not

helping the Afghan people defend their sacred revolution against

American and Chinese mercenaries and their local, reactionary pawns.

Learning this, Soviet soldiers rapidly lost enthusiasm for the war.

Meanwhile, a minority of Soviet forces were available to pursue the

second Soviet operational objective: the conduct of large-scale (in the

Afghan context) offensive operations to secure the countryside and

wrest the initiative from the resistance. From 1980 through 1987, at

least a few times per year, the Soviets conducted army-level operations

employing up to two motor-rifle divisions complemented by engineers,

air assault forces, and air support. Rarely were more than 10–15,000

men involved. More common were conventional division- or

regiment-level operations that were always tethered to roads and

supply bases. According to M.A. Gareev, deputy chief of the Main

Operations Directorate of the Soviet Army during the war, Soviet

294
forces executed 416 planned operations against the most powerful

resistance groups.20

Generally, the lavish use of Soviet firepower masked the relatively

modest results of most operations. Although the Soviets repeatedly

demonstrated their ability to obliterate villages and drive the resistance

into remote recesses of the countryside, they never had any intention of

occupying areas where logistical support was nearly impossible to

obtain and the inhabitants had largely fled. Indeed, the exodus of the

population from many areas subjected to ground and air attacks led one

scholar to describe Soviet strategy as “migratory genocide.”21

Although estimates of the migration varied, up to five million Afghans

sought refuge in Pakistan or Iran.

Though spectacular in its immediate effect, the typical Soviet

offensive was counterproductive in practical terms. On the one hand,

the Mujahideen often suffered many casualties, and the populace could

hardly fail to be impressed by the might of the invader. On the other

hand, these operations primed the pump of the Mujahideen replacement

pool. For example, a general Soviet disregard for civilian casualties, not

to mention the destruction of villages, prompted the displacement of

many Afghans to refugee camps outside Afghanistan. There,

Mujahideen recruiters and trainers harnessed their anger and

incorporated them into the growing war effort.

Thus, the availability of sanctuaries to the resistance was not merely

helpful, it was indispensable. Due to the fragile nature of the

agricultural economy in many rural areas, villages were vulnerable

targets for Soviet air power. Subsistence was entirely dependent on

scarce water sources. As one knowledgeable observer put it, “Let one

canal break or simply be poorly maintained, and a village dies.”22 In

other words, even if Soviet military might could not directly strike at

small resistance bands away from the capital, it could render their

sustainment difficult, if not impossible, by systematically depopulating

whole areas. If the traditional formula for victory against guerrillas is to

“drain the water” so as to defeat “the fish,” the Soviets might well have

succeeded in Afghanistan had they been able to envelop the country and

seal the borders.

In the absence of such an envelopment, Afghanistan’s frontiers

remained porous and, amidst the vast refugee camps of Pakistan, in

particular, Mujahideen organizers nurtured the hatred of the fugitives

for the Soviets and their client government in Afghanistan. Trainers and

weapons were liberally available courtesy of the government of

Pakistan, which enjoyed the financial backing of the United States,

295
Saudi Arabia, and China, among others states who brought their wealth

to bear on the task of thwarting the Soviet Union. In sum, the very

Soviet offensive actions aimed at neutralizing the resistance often had

the effect of strengthening it.

Logically, therefore, the partially successful conduct of offensive

operations generated the third military objective: closing the Afghan

frontier with Pakistan. This posed a particularly thorny problem. To

avoid further aggravating international opinion, which was broadly

hostile to the Soviet adventure in Afghanistan anyway, as well as the

possible political and military complications of widening the war,

Soviet forces did not, as a rule, wantonly trespass onto Pakistani soil or

violate its air space. They consequently endured a most frustrating

situation, not at all unlike the dilemma posed by the Ho Chi Minh Trail

to American forces in the Vietnam War. Although the Mujahideen

could cross back and forth into Afghanistan with virtual impunity,

Soviet forces could not reciprocate. Soviet columns and aircraft were

denied the opportunity to strike at Mujahideen training camps or supply

bases from which armed men and supplies trickled steadily into

Afghanistan. Moreover, as the war dragged on, the Mujahideen

acquired advanced weaponry—which eventually included Stinger

missiles—with an unmistakable impact on the Soviet conduct of

tactical operations.

The arrival of antiaircraft systems is a significant case in point. At the

start of the war, the Mujahideen possessed virtually nothing but small

arms with which to combat Soviet aircraft. This weakness proved acute

as the Soviets began to exploit their air capabilities fully. Bombing

assumed huge proportions and helicopters facilitated the rapid

movement of troops and equipment, thereby compensating for the

limited mobility of ground columns in mountainous defiles and valleys.

Meanwhile, to prevent ambushes and to gain the initiative in combat,

the Soviets learned to land troops along the commanding heights

overlooking routes of movement. By the midpoint of the war, if not

sooner, reports from Afghanistan noted the employment of not only

Swiss-made Oerlikon antiaircraft guns but also British blowpipe and

American Stinger antiaircraft missiles. The latter, especially, proved to

be extremely lethal and forced the Soviets to operate with far more

caution. Subsequently, Soviet Tu-16 intermediate-range bombers, as

well as Su-24 and Su-25 attack aircraft, largely abandoned low-altitude

bombing and had to release their ordnance from above 10,000 feet, with

a significant corresponding loss of accuracy. In turn, Mi-24 and Mi-25

helicopter pilots could no longer linger over target areas but had to

296
engage in quick runs and rely on nap-of-the-earth flying to avoid

premature detection and destruction.23 The tactical consequences were

no less dramatic for ground columns, which forfeited much of their air

support and once again became more vulnerable to ambushes from

heights and ridges along the roads.

Thus, the limits of military success accentuated the importance of

the fourth and fifth Soviet objectives (which did not directly involve

combat missions): to rebuild the DRA government and army and to

organize an effective propaganda campaign. If, as in their own

experience in the conquest of Central Asia in the 1920s, they could

reach accommodation with a significant share of the population, the

military stalemate might find resolution.

Fixing the government, however, required a Herculean effort as well

as an intellectual exercise in wishful thinking. The Soviets could

scarcely have done more at the beginning of the war to discredit the

very regime upon whose legitimacy their mission would later depend.

The installation of the relatively little known Babrak Karmal, following

the assassination of President Amin by Soviet forces, left a void at the

top that neither he nor any other Soviet-appointed leader could expect

to fill. At first, the Soviets doubtless hoped that he would gain

legitimacy as Soviet forces gained ever-increasing control of the

country. However, no mutually reinforcing linkages between military

and political efforts ever materialized, a result that Gareev later deemed

the “main factor” in the failure of Soviet and DRA military operations

to influence the popular mood in Afghanistan. He noted, for example,

that twelve major operations over ten years more than once cleared the

Panjshir Valley of rebel forces but achieved no strengthening of state

authority.24

In the absence of either decisive military or political successes,

Karmal appeared to be both a stooge of the godless foreigners and

effectively powerless. The installation of Dr. Nadjibullah as president

in 1986 indicated recognition of this dilemma but could do little to

change it. In short, as long as the official regime lacked even a

semblance of popularity, it could do little to neutralize the appeals of the

Mujahideen for the loyalty of the populace.

Beneath the presidential level, neither the government apparatus nor

the army could rely on the loyalty of its own members. Defections

among both were rampant throughout the war, and ample numbers of

those who remained operated as informants for the resistance. One

estimate held that the numerical strength of the Afghan Army eroded

from about 80,000 in 1978 to as low as 25,000 by the end of 1980. The

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manpower drain correlated closely with the loss of weapons that

defectors took with them. The situation became so severe that the

Soviet Army withheld antiaircraft and antitank weapons from most

Afghan Army units and often concealed war plans until operations

commenced. At the same time, the DRA regime compensated for

defections by resorting to sweeps of neighborhoods in Kabul or whole

villages in the hinterland to impress eligible young men into military

service.25 According to retired general Alexander Lebed, such recruits

normally “turned out to be extremely unreliable.”26 Or as one Western

commentator, Oliver Roy, put it, “The army grew on paper but shrank

on the ground.”27

Neither the government nor the army was able to demonstrate its

effectiveness to the population. Moreover, in many regions, the

Mujahideen operated a “parallel government” that executed such

functions as tax collection and formed militias virtually without

interference from Kabul. Under such circumstances, the DRA could

hardly make a strong case for legitimacy.

To be sure, the Soviets employed a variety of means to change this

situation. Even before the replacement of Karmal, the Afghan

government enthusiastically announced the opening of its National

Reconciliation Campaign, which was purported to broaden the popular

base of the regime by including alienated populations in assemblies and

other organizations. In addition, the regime sought to depict itself as a

friend and sponsor of Islam through the funding of religious schools,

radio programs, and so on. None of this made much difference,

however. As one Soviet veteran of Afghanistan observed, “We didn’t

see any friendly Afghans anywhere .... When the propagandists would

go out to solicit support for Soviet rule, so to speak, they would take

along a company of men and tanks.”28

In the meantime, the Soviets sought to promote the army by helping

it prove itself in combat. Especially in the later years of the war, the

Soviet Army made an effort to put the more reliable Afghan military

units in a position to succeed during operations in disputed valleys and

near besieged government outposts. This attempt, in some measure,

resembled the efforts of the United States to facilitate the success of the

Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the early 1970s. In each case,

lavish official praise concealed a serious problem beneath the surface.

Success in operations enjoying the full support of an outside

superpower scarcely was a reliable indicator of what would happen

when the client army had to depend on its own initiative and resources.

To be fair, the Afghan Army improved (almost as much, perhaps, as its

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South Vietnamese counterpart), but it was never up to the challenges to

come. In any event, no Afghan Army could be stronger than the popular

base that supported it.

The final Soviet objective, the retrieval of at least a modest but stable

level of support for the client regime, was virtually unachievable from

the start. First, given the nature of Afghan culture, there necessarily

existed an inverse relationship between the magnitude of the Soviet

presence and the perceived legitimacy of the DRA. Second, the very

population group upon whom the Soviets most depended for support

was culturally estranged from the vast masses of Afghans, irrespective

of their region or ethnicity.

Largely Soviet-educated, this small social stratum consisted

principally of government bureaucrats, teachers, students, and

technical specialists who, Marxist or not, aimed to modernize their

country. Unfortunately, their world view, typically communicated in

radical terminology about the working class, capitalism, revolution,

and so forth, had almost nothing in common with the perceptions and

convictions of their traditional brethren. Scripted in such alien

language, the message they carried had virtually no appeal for the

average Afghan.29 In the words of Russian observer Gennady

Bocharov, “To the peasants the revolutionary government was as

remote and incomprehensible as a government on another planet.”30

Accordingly, numerous Soviet-sponsored attempts to enlist popular

support foundered. In 1981, the government announced formation of

the National Fatherland Front, conceived as a coalition reaching out

beyond the ranks of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan to

village and tribal leaders. By 1986, official claims asserted a total

membership of over a million, although the support was entirely

illusory and its impact minimal. Other visible attempts to mobilize

support entailed land reform, construction projects, literacy campaigns,

and the promotion of greater civil equality for women. None of these

initiatives, not even land reform, achieved much progress. Failure to

resuscitate the Afghan economy, an important component for

improving popular perceptions of the regime, also hampered the

Soviets. In fact, the war—as evidenced by the effects of massive

bombing—crippled development prospects by exacerbating

agricultural shortages and driving up prices.31 As asserted in a

retrospective analysis by General Gareev, deputy chief of the Main

Operations Directorate of the Soviet Army and later the General Staff,

reform imposed from above had little prospect of success. Rather, he

argued, support should have been built from below, beginning with the

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Moslem clergy, who numbered perhaps 40,000 and wielded

tremendous influence.32 Still other measures that produced meager

results included proclamations of amnesty for deserting soldiers and

well-publicized agreements of cooperation with Islamic institutions.

Ultimately, with no end to the war in sight, the Soviet Union began

the systematic, phased withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan in

1988. This decision, which marked a major policy reversal, became

both possible and necessary as a result of the selection of Mikhail

Gorbachev as general secretary of the Communist Party in 1985.

Because his own prestige was not tied to the former Afghan policy,

Gorbachev was able to orchestrate a gradual shift of the official Soviet

position with minimal loss of face. In addition, Gorbachev recognized

that the war was increasingly unpopular as well as economically

burdensome on the home front and was a serious impediment to pursuit

of his new policy of accommodation with the United States.

Meanwhile, the fact that the DRA did not collapse immediately

thereafter marginally camouflaged the Soviet defeat.

In the end, the Soviets failed to accomplish any of their principal

objectives for defeating the irregular enemy in Afghanistan. This was

due to the strength, motivation, and resilience of the resistance as well

as to the fact that the Soviets began the war without a coherent strategy

and, even later, did not link their assorted efforts in such a way as to

establish a basic unity of purpose. A most glaring example of this

failure to forge an integrated strategy is the way in which highly

destructive, firepower-intensive military operations undermined

political campaigns aimed at winning the active support (or at least

neutrality) of the population.

Had Soviet strategy been better conceived, there might have been at

least some prospect for success. As Gareev wrote after the war, the

Soviet General Staff had informed the Ministry of Defense in

December 1979 that it would take from thirty to thirty-five divisions to

stabilize Afghanistan.33 Given the actual course of events there, this

estimate is reasonable. Thus, the inability or unwillingness of the

Soviets to mass the forces necessary to succeed invites an examination

of its causes.

The foremost factor limiting the concentration of Soviet forces in

Afghanistan was apparently political and, to a degree, self-imposed.

When the Afghan War is viewed within the context of the Cold War, of

which it became an undeniable part, it is apparent that the vast majority

of the Soviet Army was committed to other theaters, especially Europe,

where it stood toe to toe with the armies of NATO. For example, by an

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official Pentagon estimate of 1989, the Soviets maintained sixty-eight

divisions between their western territories and the NATO frontier.34

These forces represented not only the mass of the Soviet Army but also

its best-trained and best-equipped formations. Moreover, this

commitment to Europe must be measured both in terms of divisions and

economic costs. As became apparent shortly after the Afghan War and

the dissolution of the Soviet Union that followed, the Soviet economy

was under increasing strain during the 1980s. To sustain large forces in

Europe, the Soviet Union had to abstain from making great

commitments elsewhere.

The Soviet leadership gradually became cognizant of the diplomatic

capital that might have to be spent to expand their effort in Afghanistan.

Once the diplomatic costs were realistically assessed—and they were

perhaps most severe in the Third World where the Soviets had made

great strides in gaining influence during the preceding two

decades—the Soviets sought to contain the damage to their foreign

policy. As a result, they limited their troop commitment to Afghanistan

and were cured of any temptations they might otherwise have felt to

launch a major assault against Mujahideen training camps and

sanctuaries in Pakistan or Iran.

Yet another practical constraint was the undeveloped character of

the Afghan theater. Afghanistan’s minimal road network could

scarcely accommodate the traffic necessary to sustain the 110,000-man

force sent there in the first place. Furthermore, according to 40th Army

commander Lieutenant General Boris Gromov, from 30 to 35 percent

of that force was tied down defending those same lines of

communication, guarding convoys, and carrying out other security

missions.35 Even the relatively close proximity of Soviet air bases in

Central Asia, which facilitated airlift, could not fundamentally alter the

logistical equation. So dependent were the Soviets on the few available

routes that the Mujahideen were afforded spectacular opportunities to

ambush Soviet columns and keep the invaders off balance.36 Most

vulnerable of all was the Salaang highway, which threaded its way

through narrow mountain defiles and a lengthy tunnel to connect Kabul

with Termez on the Soviet border. Concern over the security of the

Salaang highway was a major reason for the conduct of repeated

offensives into the nearby Panjshir Valley, the stronghold of guerrilla

leader Ahmad Shah Masoud. Ultimately, Masoud, like most other

resistance leaders, withstood Soviet pressure and remained to fight over

the future direction of Afghanistan in the wake of the departure of

Soviet forces in 1988.37

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When examined in light of the analytical model of fortified

compound war, four critical aspects of the war come into sharp relief.

First, for the many reasons considered above, Soviet and DRA

government forces were unable to defeat the irregular force in

Afghanistan, the Mujahideen. Numerous, agile, and fiercely

determined, the Mujahideen constituted a formidable opponent.

Nevertheless, their success was not inevitable and might not have been

achieved but for the influence of other critical, complementary factors.

The classic complementary relationship in compound war is the dual

action of irregular and regular forces. However, the regular

counterpart to the Mujahideen is not to be found in the Afghan

theater.38 In this instance, it must be sought elsewhere. If one considers

the impact of NATO conventional forces in Europe, the relevance of

the compound war model is affirmed. Faced with a powerful regular

adversary to its west, the Soviet Union could not assume the burden of

an unlimited commitment to the war in Afghanistan. In practical terms,

the Soviets could never mass the forces necessary to control the

countryside and seal the Afghan frontiers.

This inability proved debilitating, in turn, because of the compound

effect produced by safe havens in Iran and Pakistan. A consequence of

diplomatic as well as military factors, the existence of a sanctuary freed

the Mujahideen from the possibility of the relentless military pressure

that might otherwise, in time, have broken their strength. It also

provided recourse for the populace, in general, to escape the combat

zone and wait out the struggle.

Support from major power allies manifested itself in other crucial

ways as well. Access to foreign technology and training helped to

diminish important Soviet combat advantages. In addition, allies

provided the resistance significant economic, political, and moral

support.

In sum, the analytical framework of fortified compound war

facilitates a clearer understanding of the outcome in Afghanistan.

Facing the classic dilemma posed by an elusive, motivated, irregular

enemy that enjoyed indirect support from an ally possessing a powerful

regular force, the Soviets were unable to concentrate their effort.

Moreover, unable to close with an enemy that possessed the advantage

of a nearby sanctuary—guaranteed by powerful and influential

allies—Soviet forces faced a grim, demoralizing, and protracted

conflict with little prospect of success.

302
Notes

1. Gerard Chaliand, Report from Afghanistan (New York: Penguin Books, 1982),

49-51. This general outlook was especially strong among those who believed

that the United States would have prevailed in Vietnam had its military power

not been constrained by political considerations and subsequently by dissent at

home. The author was living in Moscow at the time and offers the personal

observation that few natives other than Soviet dissidents were inclined to draw

comparisons between Vietnam and Afghanistan.

2. Anthony Arnold, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective (Stanford,

CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986), 97.

3. Edward Girardet, Afghanistan: The Soviet War(New York: St. Martin’s Press,

1985), 23.

4. S. Kusherev, “After Afghanistan,” Komsomol’skaia Pravda, 21 December

1989, as translated in JPRS-UMA-90-006, 20 March 1990, 21-22.

5. Makhmut Akhmetovich Gareev, Moia posledniaia voina (Afganistan bez

sovetskikh voisk) (Moscow: INSAN, 1996), 58; Stephen J. Blank, Operational

and Strategic Lessons of the War in Afghanistan, 1979-90 (Carlisle Barracks,

PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1991), 29; See also

Robert F. Baumann, Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus,

Central Asia, and Afghanistan (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute,

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1993).

6. Artyom Borovik, The Hidden War, a Russian Journalist’s Account of the Soviet

War in Afghanistan (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990), 8-9.

7. Girardet, Afghanistan, 76.

8. Ibid., 79; Girardet, “How Stubborn Tribesmen Nibble Russians to Death,” US

News and World Report, 12 July 1982, 25-26.

9. Girardet, “How Stubborn Tribesmen,” 25-26.

10. Graham Turbiville, “Ambush! The Road War in Afghanistan,” Army (January

1988): 32-42.

11. Gareev, Moia posledniaia voina, 27.

12. Borovik, The Hidden War, 9.

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13. Scott McMichael, “Soviet Counter-Insurgency Doctrine—An Ideological

Blind Spot,” Jane’s Soviet Intelligence Review (October 1990): 23-25;

McMichael, “Soviet Tactical Performance and Adaptation in Afghanistan,”

Journal of Soviet Military Studies 3, no. 1 (1990): 73-79.

14. Gareev, Moia posledniaia voina, 47.

15. Nasrulah Safi, “Soviet Military Tactics in Afghanistan,” Central Asian Survey

5, no. 2 (1986): 103-10; Gennadii Bocharov, Byl I vide l . . . Afganistan 1986/87

god (Moscow: Politizdat, 1987), 23; V. Sosnitskii, “Desantniki v atake,”

Voennyi vestnik, 10 (1985): 29-30; Les Grau, The Bear Went Over the

Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: National

Defense University, 1996), 201-04; V. G. Safronov, “Kak eto bylo,”

Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, no. 5 (1990): 11-15.

16. See Baumann, Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars, 135-38.

17. Leo J. Daugherty III, “The Afghan War III: The Bear and the Scimitar: Soviet

Central Asians and the War in Afghanistan,” The Journal of Slavic Military

Studies 8, no. 1 (March 1995): 87-88; Borovik, The Hidden War, 13-14, 175-77;

Blank, Operational and Strategic Lessons, 46-47.

18. Gareev, Moia posledniaia voina, 53. The author puts the average Soviet

strength in Afghanistan at 108,800, including 73,000 combat soldiers.

19. Safronov, “Kak eto bylo,” 69; Borovik, Afganistan: Eshche raz pro voine

(Moscow: Ogonek, 1990), 149.

20. Gareev, Moia posledniaia voina, 55-56; Aleksandr Maiorov, Pravda of

afganskoi voine (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Prava Cheloveka, 1996), 28-29.

21. Louis Dupree, “Afghanistan in 1982: Still No Solution,” Central Asian Survey

23, no. 2 (1983): 135; “Afganistan in 1983: Still No Solution,” Central Asian

Survey 24, no. 2 (1984): 235-36.

22. Roy, “What Is Afghanistan Really Like?” Dissent (Winter 1981): 54.

23. Josef Bodansky, “SAMS in Afghanistan: Assessing the Impact,” Jane’s

Defense Weekly, 25 July 1987, 150-54; Aaron Karp, “Blowpipes and Stingers

in Afghanistan: One Year Later,” Armed Forces Journal International

(September 1987): 37-38; John Cushman, “Helping to Change the Course of a

War,” The New York Times, 17 January 1988; David Isby, “Afghanistan in

1982: the War Continues,” International Defense Review (November 1982):

1524.

304
24. Gareev, Moia posledniaia voina, 57.

25. Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine, 61.

26. Aleksandr Lebed, Za derzhavu obidno . . . (Moscow: moskovskaia pravda,

1995), 91; Mark Urban, “A More Competent Afghan Army?” Jane’s Defense

Weekly, 23 November 1985, 1147-51; Girardet, Afghanistan: The Soviet War,

136-37.

27. Roy, “What Is Afghanistan Really Like?” 54.

28. Borovik, The Hidden War, 174.

29. Roy, “What Is Afghanistan Really Like?” 50-51.

30. Gennady Bocharov, Russian Roulette: Afghanistan Through Russian Eyes,

Alyona Kojevnikov, trans. (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 57.

31. Gareev, Moia posledniaia voina, 22; Maiorov,Pravda ob afganiskoi voine, 36.

32. Edward Girardet, “Occupational Hazards of a Soviet Occupation,” The

Christian Science Monitor, 2 July 1982.

33. Gareev, Moia posledniaia voina, 46.

34. Soviet Military Power: Prospects for Change 1989 (Washington D.C.:

Department of Defense, 1989), 95.

35. Boris Gromov, “Zashchishchali, obuchali, stroili,” Voenno-istoricheskii

zhurnal, no. 3 (1989), 11-15.

36. Graham Turbiville, “Ambush! The Road War in Afghanistan,” Army (January

1988): 38-42.

37. In September 2001, two days before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade

Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, Masoud was the

target of an assassination attempt. Severely wounded in the attack, he died of

his wounds within days.

38. See also Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin, Afghanistan the Bear Trap: The

Defeat of a Superpower(Havertown, Pa: Casemate, 2001), 224. As the authors

point out, the Pakistani intelligence or ISI recognized the hazards of

undertaking a conventional campaign with guerrilla forces and never

encouraged the Mujahideen to do so. The Pakistanis did, however, provide

tactical training (and sometimes direct assistance) on everything from

mountain warfare to the employment of tanks. Training typically occurred near

305
Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan. The author bases these

observations in part on an interview with Major Gulraiz Khan of Pakistan in

May 2002.

306
Conclusion

Robert F. Baumann

Like any other device for interpreting complex historical events, the

concept of compound war as introduced in this volume must be

understood both for what it is and what it is not. Judiciously employed,

compound war and its more robust fortified variant constitute a

practical theoretical framework for grappling with the historical

dynamics of war and strategy. As demonstrated in the preceding case

studies, it is a new construct superimposed upon the past that describes

an important pattern in the conduct of many wars and, moreover, offers

a useful lens through which to scrutinize the means employed and ends

achieved. In light of its relevance to students of warfare, it is useful to

explore briefly the limits of compound and fortified compound war.

This can be accomplished, first, by looking at the way the concept can

be applied and, second, by sharpening the distinction between

compound war and other terms of discussion about the nature of war

such as guerrilla war and coalition war. Several critical observations

about the place of compound war within the framework of war and

strategy as a whole naturally flow from this analysis.

As a concept, compound war can be regarded as both Jominian and

Clausewitzian. From the former perspective, it offers the pragmatic

observation that the simultaneous employment by a given power (or

coalition) of regular and irregular forces is frequently more effective

than the use of either kind singly. In this regard, the complementary use

of different types of force is central. Thus, compound war poses a

strategic challenge to an adversary that is distinct from the simple

addition of like forces whether the result of alliance or other means. In

other words, doubling the conventional or unconventional forces alone

would not in many cases prove as effective, although it is self-evident

that additional forces virtually always enhance combat power to some

extent.1

By denying an adversary a single focal point against which to apply

its power, compound war strategy tends both to diffuse and confuse the

enemy’s efforts. Therefore, it may be seen not only to increase the

strength of the side employing it but also to diminish in a real way the

power of the opposing side. In addition, if this compound approach is

reinforced by the material or financial backing of a powerful ally or the

availability of diplomatic or geographical safe haven (or both), its

307
impact multiplies and ideally will render one’s main force invulnerable.

The broad significance of these elementary propositions is well

established in the cases explored in this volume. Thus, employed in the

Jominian fashion as a practitioner’s tool, compound war can provide a

framework to assist the analyst of war to better understand certain

strategic situations and logical courses of action that may flow from

them. Put more simply, it offers a likely menu of options and risks

under specific circumstances.

Yet, as Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz frequently cautioned,

little in warfare is as simple as it at first seems; neither, he asserts, is

warfare reducible to a set of rules.2 Accordingly, an important feature

of the analytical framework of compound war is that although it

informs and illuminates, this volume makes no claim that it is a

quantitative or predictive model—at least not in terms of the scientific

experimental method. Despite its utility in defining a historically

significant pattern of warfare, it does not function well as a rigid

template. Rather, it must be understood as a flexible framework that

comfortably incorporates innumerable additional variables such as

geography, social forces, culture, intensity of motivation, and the role

of personalities which shape both the course and outcomes of events.

Having considered the application of fortified compound war, it is

instructive to consider the range of its relevance. In light of the almost

infinite variety of war in history, it is no surprise that compound war

strategy occasionally has occurred as an inadvertent consequence of

time, space, and geography as they shape the process of military

decision making. To invoke Clausewitz yet again, the role of chance is

no less in compound war than in any other form of conflict and

ultimately the effects of strategy count more than the intent behind

them. For instance, in assessing Russia’s defensive campaign against

the Napoleonic invasion of 1812 (yet another case that featured both

regular and irregular warfare), Clausewitz concluded that the

extemporaneous strategy of Barclay de Tolly and Kutuzov—which

exhibited limited aspects of compound war—would have been no more

brilliant or successful had it been part of a grand design.3 Yet, as the

product of an extended sequence of separate operational decisions

based upon evolving circumstances, it could easily appear after the fact

to have been a work of genius. Consider the circumstances at the time.

Facing a superior force in the Grand Armee, the Russians made a

sequence of decisions to retreat. Though not part of a master

plan—sustained retreat as a strategy would have been politically

unacceptable—it nevertheless was an application of the traditional

308
stratagem of relinquishing space to gain time, or delay engagement

until a more propitious moment. This was possible, however, because

Imperial Russia enjoyed the de facto military sanctuary afforded by its

vast territorial expanses that no invader could hope to conquer in full.

In the later states of strategic withdrawal and then during the pursuit of

the French Army back to the frontier, the Russians increasingly

practiced irregular warfare. Without risking destruction of their own

army, they employed angry peasants and irregular cavalry to harass and

isolate their enemy. In the end, the Grand Armee essentially withered

away. Thus it happens that compound war theory imposes no

requirement that it be employed as a conscious design, although one

might logically expect that it could be used to greatest effect by

strategists fully aware of the implications of means and ends.

As the case studies in this volume suggest, compound war also

allows for some of its most important effects to be achieved by indirect

or surrogate means. In its standard application, such as against the

French occupation of Spain, the intervention of British regulars was

instrumental in foiling French efforts to extinguish guerrilla resistance

by disallowing the dispersal of French forces necessary to fight an

effective anti-guerrilla war. What is striking, however, is that regular

and guerrilla forces in combination achieved what conventional

coalition armies had as yet failed to achieve: the defeat of a French

army. However, other cases reveal that in some circumstances the same

advantage can be obtained by means short of direct conventional

military engagement. For example, as the cases of Ireland or

Afghanistan suggest, the potential—as opposed to actual—application

of force by an external power can be sufficient to constrain the efforts of

a given belligerent. In such a manner, neither the British nor the Soviets

could apply their full might in the conflicts in question because of the

existence of other, more pressing political or military concerns. The

British could never afford to direct their focus away from the

requirement to garrison their empire, nor could the Soviets ignore the

“main threat” posed by force of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

in Europe. Therefore, the effect of an active, conventional ally in

support of guerrilla resistance was largely achieved without the direct

intervention of any other power in the conflict.

This brings us to the consideration of conceptual boundaries. As

thoughtful skeptics would be quick to note, the admission of such

slightly deviant cases poses some risk to the integrity of the concept of

compound war itself. After all, the further one searches, the more one is

likely to find exotic scenarios that somehow mirror the effects of

309
compound war strategy. Furthermore, if broadly enough interpreted,

the umbrella of compound war might eventually harbor beneath it a

myriad of conflicts that while deviating far from the original template

are vaguely suggestive of the means and effects of compound war.

After all, World War II, seen by many as representing the acme of

conventional warfare, embraced pockets of guerrilla activity that

doubtless played some role in the eventual outcome. Guerrilla warfare

in Yugoslavia and the Philippines certainly had profound regional

implications. Fortification can be found as well if one examines the war

broadly enough. The United States and the deepest recesses of the

Soviet Union even served as strategic sanctuaries of allied power

beyond the reach of axis might. Consequently, the question logically

arises as to whether a theoretical framework that can be applied ad

infinitum does not become so distorted and blurred as to be eviscerated

of real meaning. If virtually any conflict can somehow be construed to

reveal the relevance of the concept, does not the very idea of evaporate

as a discrete and legitimate category?

With regard to the present collection of case studies, several of the

authors test the limits of compound war without deforming the theory

beyond recognition. In the case of the Anglo-Irish war, whether or not

one concludes that the means employed were strictly representative of

compound war, the effects achieved were essentially similar. In other

words, even if compound war effects were accomplished by other

means, the compound logic of their consequences is what matters in

this instance. Even in the case of the American war with the Indians of

the Great Plains, discussion of the potential as opposed to actual

employment of a compound strategy makes the historically valid point

that strategic options often go unused. In fact, by testing the concept in

a variety of settings, the cases herein effectively explore important

ways in which compound war strategy can manifest itself. The

conclusion that this framework assists in the interpretation of such a

variety of cases strongly suggests its value as an analytical category in

the study of warfare.

In light of the heterogeneous nature of the conflicts discussed in this

volume, it is important to affirm certain regularities that prevail among

them. First and foremost among these is the simultaneous employment

of conventional and unconventional means. Each case we have

examined posed the fundamental problem facing the weaker power in

warfare: how to resist by military means without bringing about its own

destruction. The most common solution was to employ guerrilla

warfare in one form or another. As Walter Lacquere observes in

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Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study, such changing of

the rules of conflict is a natural response of those who are not equipped

to meet a conventional foe on equal terms.4 Thus, it is apparent that

guerrilla warfare, though a precondition of compound war, is not in

itself compound war.

Absent the effects of compound war, simple guerrilla wars or wars

fought by coalition partners are not notably more successful than other

forms of war. A guerrilla campaign waged without the benefit of

conventional support or geographical sanctuary can be defeated by a

power possessing superior resources and sufficient resolve to use them.

A case in point is the American subjugation of the so-called Philippine

Insurrection from 1899 to 1903. Confined by island geography and

isolated from outside assistance, the nationalist guerrillas could only

survive by holding territory and winning popular support but failed in

both endeavors. The United States was able to focus its military

campaign on neutralizing the guerrillas while it mounted a civil effort to

win over the populace or at least separate it physically from the

guerrillas.

Other cases not included in this study tend to confirm the lessons of

the Philippines. For example, the Russian subjugation of mountaineer

resistance in the Caucasus revealed the potency of superior resources if

a smaller guerrilla force lacks either a major, conventional ally or

permanent sanctuary. There, rugged terrain most unfavorable to the

employment of conventional tactics and logistics coupled with the

galvanizing effect of charismatic leadership enabled the guerrillas to

prolong the struggle for half a century.5 Still, in the end, the focused

resources and combat power of the Russian Empire prevailed. The

overriding strength of a strong conventional army facing a guerrilla

threat is that its ability to mass combat power at any given place and

time permits it to seize terrain almost at will. If it is able to employ

trained conventional regiments in sufficient numbers and supply them,

it simply cannot be dislodged except through the application of other

forms of pressure—economic, diplomatic, or political.

In general, however, compound war and especially fortified

compound war reverse the odds of success. The Spanish resistance

against Napoleonic France offers a superb illustration of this assertion,

as does the Chinese Civil War. In neither instance could the

conventional power continuously dominate the terrain thanks to the

mounting of a combined conventional and unconventional effort.

Conventional armies, for all their might, have vulnerabilities; the

greatest in compound war settings is the insecurity of supply and lines

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of communications. Guerrilla forces with the active support of the

populace can exploit this weakness and compel a powerful

conventional foe to relinquish territory that it is strong enough to

conquer but not defend.

Ultimately, compound war enjoys limited conceptual overlap with

guerrilla war but demands that the latter operate in a multi-dimensional

context. The same is true of coalition war. Compound war typically,

though not always, entails alliance relationships. Yet, it is not the

addition of an ally but the addition of a complementary type of force

that is the defining quality of compound war. In most cases examined in

this volume, the ally has contributed to compound war by lending a

conventional force in support of a local guerrilla force. This compels

the outside conventional opponent to wage two different wars

simultaneously, each requiring differing strategies, tactics,

organization and so forth. As always, the specific forms of struggle are

a function of the peculiar conditions of any given war.

One fascinating case is the history of Anglo-French competition in

North America during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth

centuries. Both sides made use of conventional units and irregular

Indian allies, demonstrating that compound war need not be the domain

of a single side alone. The British prevailed in the end because of

superior wealth and numbers. Of course, warfare in the Americas

transcended European perspectives.

For example, in the so-called French and Indian War, the guerrilla

strategy employed by Native American allies of the French was not so

much a choice as a matter of cultural convention. By virtue of their

environment and traditions, the indigenous tribes of the northeastern

quarter of the future United States were masters of individual combat in

the vast, untamed forests that were a predominant geographical feature

of the region. This conferred on them enormous tactical advantages

although it left them strategically weak.

Conversely, there are cases in which leaders have made the choice to

fight a compound war out of necessity and thereby contradicted the

conventional wisdom of their own military culture. In the case of the

American Revolutionary War, guerrilla tactics were employed to good

effect by such leaders as Nathanael Greene, who despite his training as

a conventional soldier, exhibited a natural talent for unconventional

war. To be sure, the American side also employed forces whose true

nature was neither guerrilla nor conventional. In practice, most colonial

militias occupied a rough middle ground between conventional and

unconventional forces, a fact that drove George Washington nearly to

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despair. Fortunately, in addition to his small Continental Army,

Washington had the conventional might of France on his side.

Moreover, given the severe logistical and maneuver constraints facing

British forces in North America, the militias often enjoyed advantages

common to guerrillas such as superior knowledge of the terrain, the

ability to sustain themselves among a friendly populace in the

countryside, and a practical edge in mobility off of the main roads.

If, as demonstrated in the aforementioned cases, some form of

guerrilla warfare is the fundamental common element of compound

war strategy, its indispensable complement is the employment—or

potential employment—of conventional force in sufficient strength as

to deny the enemy a consistent and coherent anti-guerrilla strategy. The

complementary relationship between conventional and unconventional

forces shields both from destruction. If this combination is further

bolstered by the presence of safe havens and a major ally, the apparently

weaker power might well in reality be the stronger (virtually

indestructible) as long as it is waging a fundamentally defensive war.

As illustrated in the cases in this volume, sanctuary can be the result of

geography, as in the remote Appalachian interior of North America in

George Washington’s struggle versus the British, or the product of

diplomatic frontiers, as in the case of America’s war in Vietnam.

Occasionally, it is a function of both, as in Afghanistan where the

Mujahideen enjoyed limited sanctuary in the deep, mountainous

recesses of their own country, as well as diplomatic safe haven in

Pakistan and Iran.

In none of the cases contained in this study did the conventional

allies of the guerrilla forces assume the principal burden of waging the

war. Rather, each judiciously applied limited power to maximum

effect, seeking strategic advantage while limiting its own liability in the

event of failure. The French in their support of the American

Revolution and the British in support of Spanish guerrillas committed

only sufficient forces or materiel to affect the balance of power in what

was viewed as a merely regional and subordinate theater of a broader

conflict. Moreover, they did so not to bring about the complete defeat

of a peer power but merely to exploit a limited strategic opportunity.

Indeed, the advantages to a major conventional power of combating a

peer adversary by supporting a third party engaged in a guerrilla

struggle could well be the subject of a study in their own right. This

suggests perhaps a corollary principle to compound war. A

conventional power that realizes potential advantage by forming a

compound relationship with another power often does so as a result of

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having been victimized by the same strategy as employed by an

adversary. History offers ample cases in which a defeated power is later

able to turn the tables.

Accordingly, cases in which a power defeated by a compound war

strategy will use the same to achieve a future success can be found in the

late Twentieth Century as well. Without directly intervening, the

Soviet Union rendered effective material aid to North Vietnam and the

Viet Cong guerrillas to defeat American policy in Indochina. In return,

the United States equipped and funded the Afghan guerrillas who

thwarted Soviet efforts to maintain a stable client regime on their

southern frontier in Central Asia. In both instances, the victorious

(ostensibly weaker) side prevailed not by directly driving out their

enemy by military means but by prolonging a stalemate until their great

power opponent found continuation impractical.

As the cases in this volume suggest, compound war strategy offers

many routes to victory and thus must be construed as applying to a

broad range of wars. Compound warfare itself perhaps belongs to an

even larger strategic category concerning the application of multiple

and distinct kinds of forces towards a common purpose. The

employment of multiple methods in combination is nearly as old as

warfare itself and is a proven approach. In broad historical context, this

has been especially true at the tactical level whether we speak of pike

and musket, infantry and cavalry, or artillery and armor. The larger

point is that the same principle applies at the operational and strategic

levels. The history of modern warfare has demonstrated the

complementary effect of air and ground forces, surface and sub-surface

fleets, and information warfare and precision guided munitions. The

intent over time has always been essentially the same: to create or

discover, and then exploit, an enemy deficiency by presenting

problems for which he has no solution.

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Notes

1. I owe this insight in large measure to a conversation with my colleague Curt

King in July 2000.

2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (New

York: Alfred Knopf, 1993), 97.

3. Clausewitz, 744.

4. Walter Lacquer, Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study (New

Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publications, 1998), 69-79, 382-409.

5. Robert F. Baumann, Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus,

Central Asia, and Afghanistan, Leavenworth Paper Number 20 (Ft.

Leavenworth, Ks.: Combat Studies Institute, 1993), 1-48.

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About the Contributors

Robert F. Baumann has taught at the U.S. Army Command and

General Staff College since 1984. He graduated from Dartmouth

College in 1974 with a B.A. in Russian and earned his Ph.D. from Yale

University in 1982. In 1979-1980 he was a graduate exchange student

at Moscow University with grant support from the Fulbright-Hays

Program and the International Research and Exchanges Board.

Baumann is the author of Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the

Caucasus, Central Asia and Afghanistan, published by the Combat

Studies Institute in 1993 and co-author of Invasion, Intervention,

Intervasion: A Concise History of the U.S. Army in Operation Uphold

Democracy, published by the Combat Studies Institute in 1998. A

recent recipient of a grant from the United States Institute of Peace,

Baumann is also co-author of a forthcoming book and writer-producer

of a documentary film on the U.S. and multinational peacekeeping

mission in Bosnia. He has also written extensively on the history of the

Bashkirs and served as a Visiting Professor of History briefly at the

Bashkir State University in Ufa in the fall of 1992.

Gary J. Bjorge is a historian with the Combat Studies Institute,

U.S.Army Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth,

Kansas. A graduate of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, he

earned three M.A. degrees and a Ph.D. degree from the University of

Wisconsin—Madison. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy with

tours of duty in Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam. He is the author of

Merrill’s Marauders: Combined Operations in Northern Burma in

1944 and numerous articles and reviews on military history topics,

many relating to China. His translations of Chinese short stories have

appeared in several anthologies of modern Chinese literature.

Randall N. Briggs has served in a variety of line and staff positions,

retiring as a major in 1999. He led two infantry platoons and

commanded an Air Cavalry platoon and an Attack Helicopter troop. He

served as Squadron S2 and S3, Battalion XO, Assistant Brigade S3, and

on the C3 staff of the ROK/US Combined Forces Command. He taught

Geography at the U.S. Military Academy and History at the U.S. Army

Command and General Staff College. He is a past member of the

Association of American Geographers, and presented a paper on

Operation URGENT FURY at the AAG’s 1996 annual meeting. He

received his B.A. from Methodist College, Fayetteville, North

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Carolina, and received his M.A. from Vermont College of Norwich

University, Montpelier, Vermont. His M.A. thesis was “Operation

TORCH: A Paradigm of American Strategy in World War II.” He

created the maps for the book Warmaking and American Democracy by

Dr. Michael D. Pearlman and contributed to The Historical Dictionary

of the U.S. Army edited by Dr. Jerold E. Brown.

John T. Broom, Ph.D., holds degrees from the University of

Minnesota, B.A. 1976, Norwich University, M.A. 1989, and Union

Graduate School, Ph.D. 1993. His principal areas of scholarship are in

European and American military and diplomatic history, especially

focusing on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. John is a

former soldier and is currently an Adjunct Professor of History at

several institutions in the Kansas City area. He has published numerous

reviews and articles on military history.

Jerold E. Brown earned his B.A. and M.A. at Purdue University,

West Lafayette, Indiana, and his Ph.D. from Duke University, Durham,

North Carolina. He served as an instructor of history at Duke

University from 1976 to 1978 and as Chairman of the Social Sciences

Department at Midway College, Midway, Kentucky, from 1978 to

1984. Dr. Brown came to the U.S. Army Command and General Staff

College, Fort Leavenworth Kansas, in 1984 and is currently Associate

Professor of History and Fellow of the Combat Studies Institute. He

teaches Evolution of Modern Warfare and is the Institute’s expert on

irregular warfare. Dr. Brown has written and edited several books on

military planning, and published frequently in military and historical

journals, including The Historical Dictionary of the United States Army

published by Greenwood Press in 2001.

Thomas M. Huber holds a master’s degree in history from the

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a Ph.D. in history from the

University of Chicago. As a veteran faculty member of the Combat

Studies Institute, he has specialized principally in Napoleonic Warfare

and military thought. His recent publications include Density of War:

The Interplay of Siege, Maneuver and Guerrilla Warfare from

Lexington and Concord to “Olympic” and “Coronet” (forthcoming).

Jerry D. Morelock, Colonel, U.S. Army, Ph.D., became the

Executive Director of the Winston Churchill Memorial and Library at

Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri in July 2000. Dr. Morelock

graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1969 and served in a

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variety of command and staff assignments in combat and peacetime

during his 30-year military career. Highlights of that career included

service at West Point, tours of duty in Europe and Asia, Director of the

Combat Studies Institute, the Army Staff College’s history department,

and assignments in the Pentagon on the U.S. Army staff and the Joint

Chiefs of Staff. He was the first Chief of the Russia and Republics

policy branch on the Joint Staff where he worked for Chairmen of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Generals Colin Powell and John Shalikashvili.

Colonel Morelock retired from active duty in 1999. His degrees

include: Bachelor of Science (USMA); Master of Science (Purdue

University); Master of Military Art and Science (USACGSC); and

Ph.D. (University of Kansas). He has written and published

extensively on a number of historical topics, and his books include:

Generals of the Ardennes: American Leadership in the Battle of the

Bulge; The Army Times Book of Great Land Battles from the Civil War

to the Gulf War; and World War II: Variants and Visions, edited by

Tom Kelly.

Michael D. Pearlman has been at the Combat Studies Institute since

1989. He has a graduate degree in history from the University of

Chicago and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and has taught at the

Universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. His second book,

Warmaking and American Democracy, won the Henry Adams Prize

from the society for History in the Federal Government as the best

monograph published in 1999. He is now completing a 400-page study

of the conflict between President Harry Truman and General Douglas

MacArthur in the Korean War.

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