did not take place before the end of summer 1944. They committed every kind of subhuman atrocity. but they killed on the spot any captured SS men.119 The Germans also lost 270 tanks. while Bor said ten thousand Germans were killed. and the AK would thereby lose many of its members. AK members treated captured soldiers of the regular German army as prisoners of war. including two thousand women. Seeing no hope of outside help reaching Warsaw. commander of the AK in the city.118 Third. while the Nazis bombed and burned and killed. He even refused to allow Allied pilots who had dropped supplies into Warsaw to land within Russian
. The AK suffered twenty-two thousand casualties. claimed twenty thousand German casualties. General Bor. men who had been livingfor years in a psychotic. the Soviet armies halted their advance within binocular range of Warsaw. by 1944 the AK had an “overwhelming impatience to fight. the Poles believed they had to do something to avoid being portrayed as German collaborators by the Soviets. the AK leadership wished to prevent the destruction of Warsaw’s population and structures when a general German retreat should become necessary. marched out of Warsaw as German prisoners. and seven thousand missing. But motivations for the AK rising certainly included the following: First.”117 Second. and would soon roll across Poland’s borders. Fifteen thousand AK. highly vulnerable in narrow streets to young men and women with homemade gasoline bombs (“Molotov cocktails”). Fifth. satanic Nazi world. During the nine weeks of the rising. Soviet armies were


advancing rapidly across White Russia.48
RESISTING REBELLION
troops were brought into the city. gave himself up on October 5. nine thousand wounded. Why Did the AK Rise?—The source of the AK’s rising is a very complicated question.116 On October 2 the Germans agreed to treat surrendering Warsaw AK members as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. Perhaps a quarter of a million civilians perished in the city. The German commander in Warsaw. Fourth. One who was not there cannot hope to understand fully the pressures felt by those in charge of the AK. Stalin repeatedly rebuffed pleas from his Western allies to relieve the dying city. the Germans would have time to send ample reinforcements into the city.

After six indescribably horrible years.120 for two hundred thousand men.”121 As therefusal. British flights to Warsaw from bases in Italy were soon halted.

and Sudan). especially those in rural communities. at home and abroad.50
RESISTING REBELLION
CHAPTER 3
RELIGION AND INSURGENCY IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES
While it would be difficult to identify a guerrilla insurgency driven exclusively by religious issues. an insurgency in defense of religion will be resolute and protracted. Kashmir. The present chapter shows as well the undeveloped and self-destructive counterinsurgency methods of the armies of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Sinkiang. the result of conflicts in Afghanistan. The most famous of these. Tibet. Tibet. The enormities committed by
50
.
THE VENDÉE
As the Revolutionary regime in Paris entered its most radical phase in the early 1790s. and three against a foreign occupation (in Spain. In our own time. Mexico. But five of the


six insurgencies analyzed in this chapter and the following one were non-Islamic: in France. Spain. and may have the most serious consequences for the regime that provokes it. For countless millions of human beings. Three of these insurgencies arose against a domestic regime (in the Vendée. especially on their religious practices. Kosovo. Mexico. insurgencies broke out in several areas of France. it is undeniable that a number of insurgencies have had their primary genesis in a reaction to perceived outrages against religious institutions and sentiments. religious insurgency is widely and understandably associated with Islam. driven to desperation by a full-scale assault on their way of life. Mindanao. and elsewhere. Consequently. in the province of La Vendée.”1 There and in other areas2 rural folk rose up. Palestine. and Afghanistan).much closer to the People so freely apostrophized by the Third Estate than the lawyers.12 Women on their way to religious services were beaten on the streets “before the eyes of the jeering
.6 Indeed.” That is. successor to the Constituent Assembly. This marked the end of national unity and the beginning of civil war. imprisoned or exiled recalcitrant priests. In many areas of rural France. Although there was the usual diplomatic delay.”9 because “it brought wide popular support to its adversaries.” refusing the oath. make these Vendean events all too familiar to present-day observers. functionaries and professional men who made up that body.”5 In March 1791 Pope Pius VI condemned the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. 1790. even when they are opposed to the discipline or dogma of


exemption from this very draft.14 In June 1792 local authorities began the illegal deportation of all clergy who refused the oath. supporting a population of eight hundred thousand in an area half the size of Connecticut. full of grain and beef and sturdy houses. so it seemed.52
RESISTING REBELLION
National Guards.25 These bourgeois had always looked upon the
. it chose to suppress and eventually obliterate the Vendée.24 Regime militia units. composed largely of republican refugees from inflamed areas of the Vendée. of surrounding peasant communities and the Church upon which loyalties had focused.”20 The Vendean peasantry rose up against the draft from reluctance to be sent far away from their home districts. The regime struck Sunday from the calendar and forbade the erection of crosses on graves. the peasants-only draftwas “the spark in the building stuffed with combustibles. nearly all the churches in the Vendée were declared closed. Having turned all Europe against itself.21 Coming on top of the assault on their priests.”13 Nonjuring priests risked harsh penalties for ministering secretly to their flocks. townsmen who had done consistently well out of the Revolution at the expense.”22 And so. and friends were manifestly unjust. one of the most prosperous regions in the country. in the spring of 1793. the same people who had bought up the best Church lands when they had come on the market. extensive areas of western France erupted in revolt. 1793. It thus provided “the sine qua non of any peasant rebellion: an overwhelming conviction that the government.15 On March 3. “A Movement


fought for local goals. it did not give them a strategic vision. Spain. Between 60. a Vendean force of ten thousand took the sizable town of Cholet. The Regime Responds At war with England.000 persons. Most Vendeans were armed with farm tools. and Prussia.”32 Here the Vendeans had an advantage: “A patriot gained so little by dying for the republic. the government dispatched inadequate numbers of ill-trained troops. the Revolutionary regime did not at first appreciate the magnitude of the revolt.Religion and Insurgency in the 18th and 19th Centuries
53
peasants “not as potential partners to be won over but as potential enemies to be controlled. As late as the end of July only 80. When appeals by republican officials in the region could no longer be ignored.34 They receivedno arms from abroad. They obtained some real weapons from the republican troops. the phrase “and Royal” came later. The republicans now encountered an ideological fervor equal to their own.36 This was a major error.000 republican troops had reached the area. through combat or purchase.28 the longer the rebellion went on. whilst a Vendean braved death for his God and his King. the more certain that hostility toward the republican authorities would turn into support for monarchical restoration.37 Sometimes
. including thousands of women. Austria. This localism was to prove their main weakness. and the more violent the republican response to it. eventually took part in the rising. and the physical and moral initiative of the individual fighter. the sense of conviction. because it gave the Vendeans time to


organize. But in March 1793.000 and 120.31 “The insurrection was the first instance of that modern type of war in which both sides stress the ideological involvement of their troops and use tactics that attempt to exploit the enthusiasm. “a movement purely democratic in its origin.”33 Religious exaltation gave the peasants courage and a cause. or from their own forges. Although at its core a religious revolt. other towns fell to them the same month without a fight.

In contrast the Vendeans combined the skill of the American Indian. Such propaganda was ineffective.39 Also inadequate were the army’s tactics. and imprisoned some of its best officers because they had previously held commissions in the royal army. who carried at most a gun and some ammunition. could move much morequickly than the pursuing republican troops heavily burdened with weapons and ammunition. an invading force of twenty thousand republican troops encountered thirty thousand insurgents. to see to their families and farms. that is what makes the Vendeans fearsome enemies. By late May. the fury of the Scots Highlander. thickets.”43 In April 1793.54
RESISTING REBELLION
the Vendeans would assemble a force of 100. bearing the face of the boy King Louis XVII (who would die in a republican prison). And political interference from Paris played its predictable role: to ensure the fidelity of republican officers fighting in the Vendée. and the zeal of the Cromwellian Ironside. the National Convention sent civil commissioners to oversee military operations.40 They fired at their antagonists from behind trees. and houses.” the Vendeans maneuvered and struck


forces in the affected areas. especially among the followers of Charette. at the
. the insurgents were organizing a government and issuing their own currency. These peasant guerrillas. Operating on interior lines and unburdened by a heavy logistical “tail. That same month the Paris regime informed the Vendean rebels that they were being misled by priests who had sold themselves for English gold.44 Victory of the Regime But the Vendean forces had their serious shortcomings. principally indiscipline. such fidelity to their promises that it could take the place of discipline.

1793. an insurgent force of forty thousand attacked Saumur. The Vendeans gave up their attack on Nantes on June 29. Years later Napoleon said that after the capture of Saumur. if they had had an educated military leader. in partbeaten at Cholet.55 Yet on November 21–22. woods. in one of the largest encounters of the entire uprising. Thus the Vendeans. the massacre at Savenay brought instead the “most abominable” period of the Vendean struggle. “the death of a man is quickly forgotten. farms. children. on October 17. but the memory of a
. where perhaps they might receive succor from England.”64 As one republican official stated.

”71 and the Convention adopted a true “policy of extermination. hacking them with sabres to conserve ammunition. Old men. Many were simply buried alive in the “unconscionable slaughters of the winter of the Year II. women.77 During the first months of 1794 republican troops received orders to kill anybody. it addressed the Army of the West: “Soldiers of liberty! The brigands of the


by the government. Thousands of Vendeans took advantage of this amnesty. or spoke against the draft. including women.68 The Convention had decreed the death penalty for all rebels—meaning anybody of either sex who bore arms.69 The Convention also ordained (contrary to its own statutes) that all captured Vendeans could be executed without trial. along with their children. Not only legitimate prisoners but even mere suspects were shot out of hand. then were shot beside them. 1793.67 But these “infernal columns” were more than incendiaries and animal-killers.Religion and Insurgency in the 18th and 19th Centuries
57
house set afire remains with people for years.81 Now they would pay the price for daring to attract such attention to themselves. and children were forced to dig mass pits.78 Distinctions between combatants and noncombatantswere erased.70 The Vendée became “a revolutionary police state.”72 On October 1.85 Putting all humanitarian considerations aside for the moment (if
.84 Others wrote of the bodies of young girls.83 One republican officer wrote to his sister that he had seen soldiers rape women by the roadside and then shoot them or stab them to death. Thousands died in this manner. naked. 1794.66 Perhaps one million cattle were also slaughtered or burned by the regime forces.76 During early 1794 the Republic promised pardon to all rebels who would surrender. hanging from the branches of trees.

94 At the end of 1794. committed war crimes. . were thus executed. So out of control had many regime units become that they ravaged not only the rebellious districts but also those in the


hands of the loyalists.90 Later.92 plans were adopted for poisoning wells and spreading infection. Upon capturing them a subsequent time. . as well as they could. were loaded onto boats. All this burning and raping and killing undermined the discipline and morale of the republican troops. usually the older ones who could not or would not escape. The Paris regime was responsible for
. along with its women and children . in the full light of day. which supplied grain to several departments and meat to Paris and horses for the army. Generally.97 But rebel wrongdoing is quite beside the point: it is inadmissible to equate rebel and governmental acts of criminality in order to excuse or lessen the guilt of the latter. all suspicious persons.86 Another negative consequenceand Fraternity? A Republican Dictatorship In the 1790s it was not at all difficult or expensive for politicians to produce a mob in Paris, shouting revolutionary slogans and ready for sanguinary deeds. But Paris was not France. Outside of the large cities where it drew its mass support, the Revolution, especially in its Robespierrean phase, was decidedly a minority movement, with relatively little strength in most rural areas.100 Voting was by spoken word, in public, and exercised by less than half of the quite restricted pool of eligibles.101 Nevertheless, the radical minority was able to maintain its grip on power because of its superior organization, because its many opponents did not coordinate their rebellions against Paris, but most of all, because of its alliance with the army. Many


army officers benefited directly and dramatically from the changes the Revolution had imposed. France was in effect a military dictatorship long before Napoleon. The events in the Vendée therefore confront us with “a central truth of the French revolution: its dependence on organized killings to accomplish political ends. [Its] power to command allegiance depended, from the very beginning, on the spectacle of death.”102 Most of the people executed by the Revolution were simple peasants and the urban poor, obscure, helpless, and forgotten.103 Almost every section of the country witnessed mass executions of civilians, sometimes by cannon fire. Resistance to the Revolution was “endemic throughout the south.”104 By 1795, “an enormous proportion of the population in the south and west supported movements which demanded nothing less than a returnParis also revised its military approach to the Vendée. In August 1794 General Louis-Lazare Hoche, twenty-six years old, son of a groom in the royal stables, received command of the Army of Cherbourg and other forces. Hoche and his masters in Paris agreed that they must settle affairs in the Vendée first.108 Hoche’s pacification plan included preventing foreign assistance from reaching the rebels, cutting communications between the Vendée and Brittany, and covering the Vendée itself with constant patrols.109 Hoche built numerous strongpoints all around the northern and eastern boundaries of the Vendée. Heavy patrols constantly moved back and forth between these posts, so that no large groups of guerrillas could pass near them. To the west of this line he deployed powerful mobile columns, attempting thereby to force


the rebel units either to disperse or to come up against the line of strongpoints and their patrols.110 He chose a certain area demarcated by strongpoints and then inundated that area with troops, thus forcing any rebels in that sector to move westward, ever closer to the imprisoning sea. Hoche gradually pushed his line of fortified posts deeper and deeper into the Vendée, continuously reducing the territory in which the rebels could roam. He was thus developing a variant of the clear-and-hold strategy that would become famous later in Malaya and Algeria. By making his columns support one another he deprived the rebels of the advantages of their mobility and knowledge of the territory. Confronted by overwhelming numbers of effectively deployed troops, hemmed into a small and constantlydiminishing area with no place to hide or run, the Vendean rebels were doomed.

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At the same time Hoche proceeded systematically to disarm the entire Vendean population. Officers would estimate the male population of a given parish, and set a quota of one musket for every four males. Then they would seize hostages and cattle, to be held until the requisite number of muskets had been handed in.111 In addition to these military measures, Hoche emphasized the importance of political considerations in ending the Vendean insurgency. As early as October 1793, before he arrived to command in the West, he had written that “the enemy was not the Vendée . . . the only enemy was England.”112 This interesting view would


of confiscated property, and indemnity for victims of the worst outrages.118 Most of the fighting in the Vendée then came to a close. Hoche’s campaign succeeded primarily because he had sufficient troops to carry out his policy of gradual occupation of every square mile of Vendean territory. But peace was also attained because the surviving inhabitants of the countryside were physically and morally ex-

62

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hausted, and because the regime was finally willing to compromise with the religious sentiments of the people.119 The Aftermath The conflict, and the manner in which it was waged, was quite unnecessary: Hoche showed this by conceding the Vendeans’ main demands. Yet the suppression of the Vendée resulted in “the total economic devastation of the region.”120 Over ten thousand houses had been burned downand four-fifths of the male population killed or chased out. The war reduced the permanent population of the Vendée by one-third.121 “Historians agree that this insanity cost the lives of one hundred and fifty thousand victims.”122 More French died in the Vendée than in Napoleon’s Russian campaign.123 Indeed, in relation to the total population of the time, the number of Frenchmen, soldiers and civilians, killed as a result of the Revolution—before the Napoleonic wars began—represents a greater loss than France suffered during all of World War I.124 (The equivalent figure in the United States in the year 2000 would be twenty times the total American military losses in World War II.)125 And within the lifetime of some of those who had been at Waterloo, the victorious armies of


Prussia would parade down the Champs Élysées. The French army learned little from the Vendean experience. It would behave the same way in Spain. Command of French artillery in the Vendée had been offered to the young Bonaparte. His refusal was good for his historical reputation, but he missed the chance to learn some lessons about guerrilla warfare that might have influenced his policy in Spain, and thus have changed the destiny of France.126 Reflection The Vendean insurgents had important sources of strength. They drew inspiration from both religious fervor and a deep sense of injustice. The regime’s brutal methods further alienated the population.127 But they carried serious burdens as well. They lacked proper terrain for guerrilla war, the support of regular military units,128 and most of all,help from outside. However brave and exasperated, the plain people of the Vendée possessed neither strategic vision nor political coherence. Nevertheless, in the end, the Vendée had its revenge. When Bonaparte, heir and embodiment of the Revolution, escaped his Elban exile, the Vendeans (and many others) rose up once more. The thirty thousand troops Napoleon sent to suppress the Vendean rebellion might

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have made all the difference between victory and defeat at Waterloo, where on the climactic day Bonaparte commanded but seventy-two thousand soldiers.129

SPAIN
In October 1805, Nelson’s victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar sank Napoleon’s plans for an invasion of England.130 Consequently, Napoleon instead decided to bring the British to their knees with a Europe-wide economic blockade.


As part of this grand enterprise, in May 1808 Napoleon invaded Spain; forcing its king to abdicate, he put his brother Joseph on the throne. Possession of Spain would shut out English goods, and also (presumably) bring Napoleon control of Spain’s vast overseas empire and respectable fleet. Thus Trafalgar was one of the most important battles in world history. In its absence, it is hard to see how there would have been an occupation of Spain, a Peninsular War, a Duke of Wellington—or a Waterloo. In 1808 France was a country of thirty million people, with the most puissant armies in Europe. Spain counted only eleven million, and had long ceased to be a power of the first rank. These undeniable facts, plus years of battlefield success, allowedNapoleon to underestimate most gravely the difficulty of the Spanish undertaking,131 a fateful error similar to the one he had already committed in Haiti132 and would commit in Russia. From the start, things in Spain went badly. In July 1808, at Bailén, a French army of twenty thousand capitulated to the army of the Spanish national resistance government centered in Cádiz. This French force had been considerably harried by guerrillas, partly because it had earlier plundered the Cathedral of Córdoba. Two weeks after Bailén, the future Duke of Wellington landed in Portugal with a small professional British army and took command of all Portuguese forces. Throughout the war, the Royal Navy carried supplies to the Anglo-Portuguese forces, protected the flow of assistance to the Cádiz government from Latin


America, and carried weapons to the ever more numerous Spanish guerrillas, who were rendering vital assistance to Wellington.133 In the early days, the French concentrated on defeating the regular forces of the Cádiz government, thus giving the guerrillas the chance to organize themselves. As a consequence, the French could devote full attention neither to Wellington’s British and Portuguese regulars nor to the Spanish guerrillas.134

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In these circumstances, the best strategy for the French would have been to win over key strata of the Spanish population, or at least reduce the number of their enemies. Actually, notable elements of the Spanish elite and middle class were not unhappy to see a Napoleonic regime in Madrid. These “Afrancesados” hoped that French control would help to modernize a Spain that haddescended to the status of a second-class power, at best. To them, the French seemed invincible; and besides, King Joseph Bonaparte was relatively enlightened and obviously well-meaning. Beyond these elite groups, the French might have tried to attract those elements of the popular classes who had reason to be dissatisfied with the status quo, and they would have been many. But the French did not pursue a policy of attraction. On the contrary, their behavior in Spain was egregious. The depredations and atrocities of the Napoleonic troops made ready recruits for the Cádiz forces and most of all for the guerrillas—a story to be repeated again and again in the annals of insurgency. Everywhere the French raped women of all conditions, including minors, nuns, and expectant mothers.135 They


pillaged and burned whole cities. They made little effort to distinguish the peaceful from the resistant. Most disastrously for themselves, they looted and gutted cathedrals and churches, murdered priests, and committed public sacrilege of the grossest sort. When Saragossa fell after a heroic resistance, the French made a point of desecrating the city’s churches. Spain had sixty thousand parish priests and many thousands more in religious orders. “It was they, in close touch with the people . . . who instilled the spirit of revolt.”136 Under the leadership of their priests, great numbers of humble folk, who might otherwise have remained passive, took up arms against the French, in a popular resistance movement that took on the aspects of a holy war.137 Thus, “the war in Spain [became]the most cruel, the most pitiless, the most desperate of all wars.”138 Guerrillas frequently mutilated their French prisoners; once they actually boiled a general in a cauldron. Imperial soldiers who found themselves cut off or surrounded often committed suicide rather than fall into guerrilla hands.139 The Spanish insurgency was thus a grisly harbinger of modern wars of national liberation. Defeat of the French The guerrillas concentrated on disrupting Imperial supplies and communications. Spain is the size of Austria, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands combined, or of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea com-

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bined. The distance from Paris to Cádiz is greater than that from Chicago to Austin. Indeed Paris is closer to Warsaw than to Cádiz. Numerous mountain chains and rivers


cross the country from east to west—major obstacles to any invading force. And the Napoleonic armies of course had no aircraft, no telephones, not even a telegraph. Hence messengers with the most urgent dispatches would take two weeks to travel from Paris to Madrid, if they arrived at all, across a barren landscape with a hostile population and ubiquitous guerrillas. Sometimes a French commander in one region of Spain would have no idea, literally for weeks, of what was going on in other areas of the peninsula. (Even before the guerrilla insurgency had really gotten started, none of the pleas for help from the commander of the ill-fated army at Bailén had reached Madrid.) When campaigning in Belgium and Italy and the Rhineland, the victorious French had “livedcourse these usually failed, and the guerrillas quickly returned to the swept areas.

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As for the French numerical advantage, it soon showed itself to be a fatal illusion. To fight Wellington, the guerrillas, and the forces of the Cádiz government successfully, the French would have needed 825,000 troops. Such a figure would have been impossible to reach, even if all Napoleonic forces in Europe, including Polish and Italian allies, could by some miracle (or insanity) have been concentrated in Spain. And of course the Russian adventure soon drew away thousands of soldiers. The quarter-million Imperial troops south of the Pyrenees were quite inadequate for controlling the guerrillas, containing Wellington, and conquering Cádiz, but they were more than adequate to account for Napoleonic defeats elsewhere in Europe. “The trained


Century

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CHAPTER 4

RELIGION AND INSURGENCY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The twentieth century witnessed religious insurgencies as violent as those of the preceding century, and in the case of Afghanistan, as consequential internationally as the anti-Napoleonic revolt in Spain.

AFGHANISTAN
For generations, Afghanistan ranked as one of the most remote and obscure places on earth. Yet the religiously inspired uprising that swept across that country beginning in 1979 is probably the best-known guerrilla insurgency of the last quarter of the twentieth century. Because several chapters of this book discuss key aspects of that conflict, only the outlines of the religious basis of the war are presented here. The Communist Party of Afghanistan, the PDPA, came into existence in 1965. It always remained an exiguous minority, beset by bloody factional divisions. In 1978, afterin a country with perhaps 320,000 mullahs, naturally called forth a widespread popular rebellion, in fact “the largest single national rising in the twentieth century.”3
67

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In March 1979, anti-regime riots rocked the streets of Herat. The PDPA reprisals, including aerial bombings, killed between three thousand and five thousand inhabitants of that city. Revolt swept over the country, and soon most provinces were in the hands of the insurgents. To prevent the fall of the PDPA regime, the Soviet army invaded in December 1979. The entrance of Soviet troops enflamed rather than quenched the rebellion. In the eyes of most of the Mujahideen guerrillas, the conflict became a defense of religion against foreign atheists. To the Kremlin’s incredulous dismay, the resistance stalemated the Soviet forces, the first clear reversal


battle in the Afghan mountains found their echo in the shouts of freedom on the Berlin Wall.5 And even with all this, the world had not heard the last of Afghanistan. The religiously generated insurgencies considered below are not nearly so well known as the Afghan case, even though they all produced major conflict in their respective countries, and one of them— the Sudanese—still continues after more than forty years.

MEXICO
The Cristero rebellion—“the last insurrection of the masses” in Mexico6—was one of the largest insurgencies in the Western Hemisphere. Yet few Americans have ever heard of it. As the foremost student of that conflict observed, “history has failed the Cristeros.”7 The Cristero movement, called by Mexicans La Cristiada, fought against religious persecution by the regime in Mexico City. AlthoughMexico has an overwhelmingly Catholic population, the Church there

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suffered considerable tribulation for more than a century. After independence from Spain, “the definition of the proper role of the Church became the critical issue; the history of Mexico from 1821 to 1872 could be written in terms of the search for that definition.”8 Power in Mexico has often been in the hands of men implacably hostile to religion, a condition facilitated by the political ineptitude of many Mexican Church leaders. The civil war called the War of the Reform was “essentially a religious conflict.”9 Benito Juárez and his followers seized the Church’s property and persecuted both clergy and laymen. Confiscations of Church lands led to great profits for speculators but little benefit for


peasants. In reaction to Juárez, many Church leaders joined with the Conservative Party in supporting the reign of the French-imposed Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg. The withdrawal of French backing for Maximilian and the return to power of Juárez exposed the Church to new attacks.10 After the fall of the dictator-president Díaz in 1911,11 prominent Catholic leaders supported the regime of General Victoriano Huerta. The price for this miscalculation was physical outrages against clergy and property, including open murder. (The Huerta regime would almost certainly have survived and established a semblance of order in Mexico, thus saving hundreds of thousands of lives, except for the opposition of President Woodrow Wilson.)12 The State The post-Huerta regime “had come to power through military force. It maintained itself by authoritarian means, withoutand Calles, hungry to take office themselves, revolted, and Carranza was murdered. At the end of his term in 1924, Obregón imposed his minister of the interior, the arch-anticatholic Plutarco Calles, as the next president of Mexico. In his earlier life Calles had been fired as a schoolteacher in Hermosillo and later suffered dismissal as treasurer of a municipality in Sonora because of shortfalls in funds with which he had been entrusted. He gathered more experience as a bartender and hotel manager. As governor of Sonora (Obregón’s bailiwick) under Carranza, Calles expelled all priests from that state. Most of the revolutionary leaders who had opposed both Díaz and Huerta were of northern origin.22 They were men of means who had been deprived of what they saw as their


share of the political spoils. Many led or joined the revolution for personal or political gain: revolution was the only way to make room at the top or the middle for new men. During the succession of civil wars that wracked Mexico after 1910, officers quickly improved their rank by switching again and again from one side to another. As the years of fighting went on, the leaders of the different revolutionary currents enriched themselves. “Palatial homes, fine estates, prosperous ranches, flourishing businesses—these were the fruits of revolution.”23 More importantly, the revolutionary men of the North “were the enemies of the Indian, of the peasant, of the priest of that Old Mexico which they never understood because they never belonged to it.” They “hated the Old Mexico anddespised its traditions, looking down on both its customs and its faith.”24 Their soldiers sacked cities, raped women, looted churches, burned libraries, massacred peasants, broke strikes, shot priests (including foreign nationals), and extorted money from everyone.25

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Mexico on the Eve In the 1920s, the great majority of devout Catholics were either peasants or upper- and upper-middle-class women. Mexican women did not have the vote, and peasants, mostly Indian, did not normally challenge governmental authority, that is, the army and police. (Thus the 1926 Cristero rising would be a big surprise to leaders of both Church and state.) There was a severe shortage of clergy, especially in the rural areas. Many of the Mexican bishops were men of learning and probity. But they, like


the city priests, the canon lawyers, and Catholic intellectual and political lay leaders in Mexico City (not to speak of Vatican City) lived in a world so completely removed from that of the devout peasants who would make up the rank and file of the Cristero rebellion that they might have come from a different century or even a different planet.26 (The peasant army of Emiliano Zapata, perhaps the most authentically popular movement of the entire revolutionary period, never attacked the Church per se.)27 Under Calles, clashes between government forces and Catholic citizens became more violent. In July 1925 police and troops fired on worshippers in and around churches in the city of Guadalajara, inflicting perhaps six hundred casualties.28 Police in other cities often fired into crowds ofwomen inside or in front of churches, causing many deaths.29 Regime goons assaulted members of Catholic labor unions. In February 1926, Archbishop Mora y del Rio was arrested for critical remarks regarding the constitution in a newspaper interview. President Calles used this incident to launch a determined assault against the Church.30 Neither Carranza nor Obregón had enforced the antireligious clauses of the 1917 constitution with any vigor. But in June 1926 Calles, employing “utterly ruthless and vindictive methods,”31 decreed the activation of the antireligious articles in the constitution (though his manner of handing down decrees often violated that very constitution). The regime confiscated what Church property had not already been nationalized. Eager for the “progressive deChristianization” of Mexico,32 the regime expelled all foreign-born priests. It closed down all


In many areas of the country religious practices were illegal even in private homes. border.) In protest. the Mexican Church was on the road to physical disappearance. some priests were trained in secret.37 No one was permitted to remain or become a member of a monastic order.”35 Any cleric who criticized the regime or the authorities could be jailed for five years. because of the insurgents’ need for munitions from the United States. fighting between armed Catholics and regime troops broke out in various places. The Cristeros In August 1926. Calles began expelling foreign-born nuns.40 Most of the rebels used as a battle cry “Viva Cristo Rey!” (Long Live Christ the King!). forbidden to open seminaries to train new ones. Deprived of priests from abroad. Vera Cruz.72
RESISTING REBELLION
teachersthe secret backbone of the movement. The rebels operated predominantly in the mountainous areas of western Mexico. Lacking in munitions.Religion and Insurgency in the 20th Century
73
Juáristas.”44 Estimates of the number of Cristero fighters vary widely. and regional. But even in open terrain unsuitable for guerrillas. intelligence.46 And at the same time. they often engaged in hand-tohand combat. and they were often accompanied by their entire families. Carrancistas. They blew up bridges and attacked baggage trains and supply columns in the mountainous areas that were their strongholds and refuges. Some Cristero units shot their prisoners. dedicated to a righteous cause. and carried food. supplied money. sometimes they allowed common soldiers to go free. But the Cristeros had no such leader.45 These brigades enrolled thousands of members. The Cristeros had


to obtain adequate ammunition. some of them “found martyrdom for the cause glorious. provided to them by the villagers of the western states. Lack of ammunition was the principal weakness of the Cristeros: it was the main cause of the failure of their attack on Guadalajara in March 1929. the bishops would not condemn the rebellion. Enrique Gorostieta. or achievement of surprise. But in June 1929 regime agents murdered Gorostieta during a parley in which his safety had been guaranteed. even if it were available. and that in turn would require the open support of the Mexican bishops. and thus their forces suffered far fewer casualties than the regime troops did. another quite vital element was lacking to the Cristeros. As a collegial body. the Cristeros would makemany grenades from one unexploded bomb dropped by an army aircraft. they would need the backing of the large majority of devout Catholics.47 Gorostieta advised Cristero commanders never to fight unless they were sure of victory because of superiority of numbers. they sometimes captured ammunition from enemy troops. This was not forthcoming. his loss was of course a grave blow to Cristero morale. but neither would they urge Catholics to embrace it.50 Some bishops forbade Catholics under their jurisdiction to join the Cristeros. Some of the bishops were philosophical pacifists.48 By 1928 the Cristeros had learned how to maneuver in large numbers. But there was never nearly enough. exhaustion of the enemy. Working with what little they had. Most Cristero leaders instinctively knew all this. or purchased it


from regime generals. without money—which could come only from rich Catholics. and the root of their tactic of charging well-armed enemies in order to engage in close combat.”51 Others believed that violence would be fruitless or even bring about
. and thus in the end they could not win. very few of whom assisted them. Although the rebels had plenty of food. Many of the bishops opposed the rebellion because they were hopeful that persecution would abate in a second Obregón administration. or soon learned it. became commander of the Cristeros in Jalisco. The Cristero failure to win a quick victory further undermined support for them.49 In all the civil wars and rebellions that followed the Revolution of 1910. tactics were less important than logistics.74
RESISTING REBELLION
tary military training andsought to portray the rebels as backward rural fanatics. And so it remained. while the army was conducting itself as a sort of recruiting agency for the rebels. Meanwhile. against fifty thousand Cristeros. army units would come into a disaffected area. the Cristeros.

60 was confronted by dangers from every quarter. in combination with the Cristeros. several Obregónist generals. of Sorts By the end of 1927 the regime was clearly unable to bring the western states under its control. Moreover. President Portes Gil was not a fierce Church-hater like Calles. a sine qua non of rebel victory. the conciliatory Arch-
. Obregón wanted the religious question settled. he would undoubtedly raise a revolt and cooperate with the Cristeros. to offer financial assistance. and unknown numbers of civilians. including several who


had been on the winning side in previous struggles. was clearly not imminent. the disinclination of Catholics in the U. appeared to believe that President Calles had been involved in the deed. on the death of the Archbishop of Mexico City. would have smashed the Calles establishment. Calles’s handpicked successor. By then the war had cost the lives of sixty thousand soldiers and forty thousand Cristeros. the rebels’ continuing inability to obtain sufficient quantities of ammunition. an open endorsement of the Cristeros by the Mexican bishops. following his inevitable “defeat” at the polls. Moreover.61 The rebels had also largely given up any hope of either U. and prominent Catholics’ public support for the Mexican government in its disputes with the U. Former President Obregón was declared to havebeen elected president again on July 1.76
RESISTING REBELLION
A Peace. President Calles issued a violent statement accusing the clergy of engineering the killing. were plotting to take advantage of the Cristero revolt.S.S. after the violent deaths of the opposition candidates. but in the midst of peace talks on July 17.S.59 It was also devouring great chunks of the national budget. Provisional President Emilio Portes Gil. The rebellion’s effectiveness was becoming increasingly hampered by the improved efficiency of army operations. In addition. 1928.S. intervention or successful anti-Calles revolts within the army. 1928. the somewhat more lenient treatment accorded to surrendered Cristeros. infuriated by their leader’s assassination. And in March 1929 a new military rebellion was offering cooperation to the Cristeros. a twenty-six-year-old art teacher named José de Leon Toral fatally


Catholic community. the numbers apprehended and killed may have reached five thousand. He opposed efforts to seek intervention by the U. the criticisms and fears expressed by the Cristeros soon seemed more than justified. Portes Gil acknowledged the right of bishops to appoint priests.S. Predictably. the Vatican. and especially guerrilla war. As it turned out.64 On June 21. Pope Pius XI believed that passive resistance was the Christian tradition. and Ambassador Morrow. Still. many Cristeros expressed great bitterness. Despite President Portes Gil’s promise of amnesty. and of Catholic citizens to petition for redress of grievances. that war.S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow was able to bring President Calles and Mexican Catholic leaders into contact. emerged as leader of the Mexican episcopate. not mere verbal promises by a Calles regime politico.was openly celebrated in Mexico City for the first time in three years. 1929. Vatican ambassador to Mexico. thousands of their comrades had suffered death to obtain real constitutional changes. what then? What inappropriate responsibilities for governing Mexico would fall upon the Church? The Pope’s formula for peace in Mexico excluded armed revolt.

the governor had the churches stripped of all objects of value.73 In Vera Cruz.76 And Archbishop Ruiz y Flores. and churches were burned. members of the clergy were informed that there was no religious persecution. was deported.72 Political opponents of the Tabasco governor were shot down in the streets of his capital.77 Pius XI decried the persecution of Mexican Catholics but counseled nonviolence. despite constitutional guarantees of the free practice of religion. the consciences of the


young.69 In that same year in all Mexico there were only 322 priests functioning legally. a fight broke out in the Chamber of Deputies between supporters of President Cárdenas and former president Calles. despite being a Mexican citizen. The conflict went on. two deputies were killed and several wounded. this move clearly aimed at the extinction of the priesthood and ultimately of the Church. killing and wounding many. and a group of paramilitaries from Tabasco fired pistols at civilians coming out of a church in the Coyoacan district of Mexico City. police shot women and priests in the streets. In July 1934 former president Calles announced that “we must enter into and take possession of the minds of the children.70 The Mexican hierarchy allowed Catholics to fulfill theirSunday obligation on any day of the week.74 Violence permeated even the inner sancta of the national regime: on September 11. For good measure. because he “owed allegiance to a foreign sovereign.78
RESISTING REBELLION
ops publicly disowned. because they do belong
.67 In half of the states no priests at all were permitted. police carried off religious images from private homes. By 1934 thirteen states had closed almost all the churches within them. and compelled unwilling citizens to participate in the destruction of church buildings.68 A constitutional amendment in November 1934 forbade the existence of seminaries for training new priests. Since no foreign priests were permitted in the country. the pope. removed crosses from graveyards. The governor of Vera Cruz state expelled 187 of its 200 priests. because even the vast


concerning nationalization of the petroleum industry.S. Then in May 1937 the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the law permitting only one priest in the entire state of Chihuahua (for over six hundred thousand inhabitants) was too arbitrary. when President Cárdenas’s chosen successor.Religion and Insurgency in the 20th Century
79
and should belong to the Revolution.S.” In 1946. and [Fascist] Italy. And when in February 1937 a fourteen-year-old girl in Vera Cruz state was shot dead during a police raid on a private house where Mass was being celebrated. violations of its own constitution and laws. every presidential election was followed (or preceded) by rebellion on the part of those who claimed. had been a protégé of Calles. were on the horizon. For decades after 1910. it was his “firm intentionof achieving the spiritual liberation of the people” from Catholicism. Besides. he did not wish to see another Cristero rebellion. that the ruling clique made elections a total mockery. the constitutional article requiring antireligious education was repealed. financial corruption. The average peon ate measurably less in 1936 than in 1896.”81 President Lázaro Cárdenas. General Ávila Camacho. in March 1936 Cárdenas proclaimed that “the government shall not incur the error of previous administrations by treating the religious question as the pre-eminent problem that subordinates other aspects of the program of the Revolution. now an enemy of Cárdenas. and the low real wage paid to him in 1910 would have looked magnificent in 1934.”84 Most of the clergy supported President Cárdenas in his explosive controversy with the U. and the


in one of the most protracted and strenuous guerrilla wars in Asian history. and Indian aspirations. mainly poor peasants in the western states. and consequently could not obtain direct foreign assistance or even purchase foreign ammunition. Indus. Against these obstacles. Ultimately. the Cristeros received the active support of only a minority of Catholics. Chinese. larger in area than Spain. The numerical ratio of the army to the rebels was wholly insufficient. the Mexican bishops declined to support the Cristeros collegially. notably the Himalayas to the south and west. most of the railways. But the Calles regime had control of the big cities. That conflict also contributed to a military confrontation between China and India. and Brahmaputra—have their sources within its borders. against an enemy like the Cristeros withdefeat the Cristeros. This was a recipe for stalemate. Mekong. what prevented a Cristero victory was the lack of both sufficient arms and the unambiguous endorsement of the episcopate. the convergence zone of Russian. Rich Mexican Catholics. it needed the endorsement of the bishops. The Plateau of Tibet. its predatory tactics toward civilians were self-destructive.87
. the political unreliability of many of its officers was notorious. is surrounded by forbidding mountains. twelve thousand feet high. as well as the all-important recognition of the U. and Portugal combined.

before the Chinese invasion there were three hundred thousand monks of various grades. was traditionally selected from Tibet. thirty thousand Chinese troops crossed the borders of Kham. conquering horsemen had several times swept eastward deep into China. the Tibet-Nepal War of 1857. had


society. Manchu Chinese influence was minuscule[. awaited events with foreboding. The Invasion The 1949 Maoist victory heralded a new era. both temporal and spiritual. and not only for China. out of Tibet. the isolated Tibetans. his reincarnated successor was traditionally discovered among the country’s humblest classes. a claim the Tibetans explicitly repudiated. For the first time in a century Beijing had a government both willing and able to impose control over far-flung regions like Tibet. not China. Burma. As the victory of the Communists in China approached. like the Manchu empire before it.] the Tibet-Dogra war of 1841.91 Beijing informed the government in Lhasa
. In midApril 1950. the Nyarong War of 1862–1865 and the British invasion of Tibet in 1903–1904 were fought and settled without Chinese assistance. TheTibetans once ruled a great empire stretching from Siberia to India and from Afghanistan to Burma. Upon the death of a Dalai Lama.Religion and Insurgency in the 20th Century
81
Tibet’s population in 1950 was perhaps three million. had about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Nevertheless. in eastern Tibet. one-quarter of the entire male population. Parts of Kashmir. the Grand Lama of Urga. and Sinkiang still employ the Tibetan tongue. Since the fourteenth century. the capital.88 On the contrary. Spoken Tibetan is not like Chinese. in the form of Lamaist Buddhism. and its script derives from India.89 “By the mid-nineteenth century if not earlier.

giving Tibetan land to these immigrants and Chinese officials. the Tibetans found sympathy only from El Salvador and Ireland. The U. then sent them to their homes. transition to


three hundred thousand Chinese troops in Tibet. collectivization represented increased Chinese control of Tibetan society. and had been fighting both the Pakistanis in Kashmir and internal Communist-inspired uprisings.100 Tibetan schoolchildren now received instruction only in Chinese. and imposing higher taxes on the population.94 Newly independent India did not oppose Chinese occupation of Tibet: the British-trained Indian army had been badly shaken by partition. in
.97 But after receiving Chinese promises of respect for Tibetan culture he returned. urging his people to submit. Chinese troops had received instruction not to mistreat Tibetan civilians.92 Within two weeks the Chinese invaders had captured most of the members of this army. while they brought in more troops and built access roads and fortifications. 1950. with Chinese control over Tibetan defenses as well asdiplomatic and trade relations with foreign states.93 Throughout the first half of the twentieth century Tibetans had relied on support from British India against Chinese encroachment.99 Once their projects and troop movements were well under way the Chinese felt strong enough to crush any Tibetan resistance.N. The Chinese at first showed restraint. To the Tibetans. ninety thousand Communist Chinese soldiers invaded eastern Tibet from the east and north. bringing with them venereal diseases hitherto unknown in that isolated country. But by 1950 the British were gone from India. on October 5.” which included moving in large numbers of Chinese immigrants. In 1955 they began imposing “reforms. provoking revolts there. In the face of Tibetan reluctance to accede to these demands.95 Appealing to the U.

106 Chinese brutality toward Tibetans


also reflected “primal fears in the [Chinese Communist Party] of territorial dismemberment of China and [Western] exploitation of national separatist movements. or destroyed scores of monasteries. the Dalai Lama accepted an invitation to visit Nepal and
. but a major guerrilla rebellion broke out in the eastern regions of the country (Kham and Amdo) by the turn of 1955–1956. and the most shocking brutalities. compulsory marriages. which in turn produced more recruits for the guerrillas. the Chinese moved ferociously against it.109 The Khamba guerrillas formed the Tibetan Resistance Army (the PTTM). guerrillas attacked his escort. many lamas were beaten to death. Beginning in the mid-1950s. manuscripts. By mid-1956 the revolt in Kham had acquired a permanent character. and the destruction of monasteries.”107 It was the territory and resources oflion on a triangular banner. In July 1956 Chinese Vice-Premier Marshal Chen Yi went to eastern Tibet to see what the trouble was. they looted. forced labor.”102 Under Chinese occupation Tibetan culture suffered brutal public ridicule. while other thousands fled to central Tibet carrying tales of the executions of lamas. Tens of thousands of guerrillas were in the mountains. Fresh from their “victory” in Korea.103 The International Commission of Jurists104 issued a press statement in 1959 condemning Chinese massacres of Tibetan civilians. Inner Mongolia.Religion and Insurgency in the 20th Century
83
which environmental and demographic factors had long ago produced “an ideology of individualism unique among the usually densely populated societies of Asia. not the friendship—or even the presence—of the peoples of those regions.110 In 1956.

the Tibetans seemed doomed to


quick annihilation. outclassed in training and equipment. where he requested asylum. Nehru himself pointed out that the growing numbers of Tibetan refugees in India were mainly from the humble classes.116 The Chinese air force attacked the rebels not only with bombs but also with napalm and gas. Most of the guerrillas were Khamba tribesmen of eastern Tibet. The Chinese informed the world that the uprising was the work of a decadent religious aristocracy that sought to maintain its grip on the enslaved Tibetan people. animated by religious conviction. Yet the guerrillas were not without advantages.84
RESISTING REBELLION
then crossed into India. Four times the size of Italy. who would not wish the outside world to view such a sizeable rebellion and hence might make concessions.112 In 1958 various guerrilla groupsformed the National Volunteer Defense Army (NVDA). and or-
.”117 They had never before been bombed. Chinese Foreign Minister Chou En-Lai promised the Dalai Lama a new policy of moderation in Tibet and urged him to return home. The Tibetans of Kham and Amdo provinces were familiar since childhood with guns. and Chinese propaganda indirectly admitted the popular character of the resistance. with headquarters in Lhoka province on the Indian frontier. ten times the size of Pennsylvania. Their wounds could quickly become gangrenous.000 Chinese troops in eastern Tibet trying to suppress the revolt.111 The absence of any outside help for the Tibetans. isolating the Chinese garrison in the capital). Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru also wished the Dalai Lama to leave his country. the overwhelming power of the Chinese.


merely an episode.129 The Dalai Lama has ever since lived in exile.121 And not the least of the guerrillas’ advantages was their Buddhist belief in reincarnation. Litang.128 This escape from Tibet.126 Then on March 18.130
. From there they crossed the border into Bhutan and then decided to go on to India. (The Khamba guerrillas. believing him to be inside. “occupied in an all-out war of extermination in East Tibet. rose in revolt. costing the Communist regime fifty times as much to feed a Chinese soldier in Tibet as in Beijing. The Chinese invaders in their turn confronted many serious difficulties.”124 During 1956–1958 alone. with at least two hundred thousand Chinese troops in the country (and between thirty thousand and fifty thousand in Lhasa alone) was a remarkable achievement.The Dalai Lama fled under NVDA protection to their stronghold in Lhoka province. For allies. they had their excellent horses and fierce mastiffs. In 1956 Khamba bands wiped out Chinese garrisons in Chamdo. But in fact they seem to have had only between two hundred thousand and three hundred thousand. And the guerrillas found a sanctuary in the Tibetanspeaking border districts of Nepal (which the Chinese sometimes violated). And the army had to bring food in from Sinkiang to Lhasa by truck convoys that took sixteen days. and their implacable hatred of the Chinese. rarely took prisoners and often killed their own wounded to prevent them from falling into Chinese hands. In July 1958 Beijing withdrew its invitation to Nehru to visit Tibet.”119 They were used to a


spartan life and had no real supply problems. devoid of medical facilities of any kind and constantly on the move. Chinese soldiers became exhausted after only short marches. not a finale. Chinese troops tried to kill the Dalai Lama by shelling the Norbulinka Palace.Religion and Insurgency in the 20th Century
85
ganized into kinship units. living on mare’s milk and hiding from Chinese aircraft in caves. their knowledge of mountain warfare. forty thousand Chinese died in eastern Tibet. fearing large anti-Chinese demonstrations in Lhasa. 1959.122 By 1957 perhaps eighty thousand guerrillas were in the field.

133 By 1961–1962 the Chinese held the Tibetan population centers. In 1962 Chou En-lai publicly accused India of helping to foment the Tibetan revolt. The only reliable link between Lhasa and Beijing was by air.134 Atgood relations with Communist China.137 The results were a rapid and resounding humiliation for the Indian army and for Nehru himself. India turned for support to the British and the Americans. across territory claimed by India. who received CIA training under supervision of the Indian army. having learned in 1962 of the new invasion road in Aksai Chin. precipitated by the Chinese invasion of Tibet. widened the Sino-Soviet split. and of the military posts along it. blasted the superficial diplomatic friendship be-
. Furthermore.135 And it was no longer possible to deny that Chinese occupation of Tibet and the consequent revolt had “converted India’s peaceful border with Tibet into a hostile frontier with China.131 He failed to see at first the strategic implications for India of China’s massive occupation


reactionary. had neglected to modernize the army.Religion and Insurgency in the 20th Century
87
tween Beijing and New Delhi. Tibetans were now required to cut their hair short in the Chinese style. Melvin Goldstein contends that much of the blame for the destruction of Tibet as a polity and as a culture must fall upon the leaders of Tibet itself. and moved India closer to the U. 93. And many of the remaining religious buildings and monuments in the country were looted and destroyed. Mao Tse-tung’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution reached Tibet. 73. “the old Tibet was gone.000 died in prison and labor camps.146 In the 1990s.2 million Tibetans (mainly between 1950 and 1965). exactly.

Muslim northern Sudan. The Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.88
RESISTING REBELLION
officers into theeffective help. along with the overwhelming numbers and grim determination of the Chinese.”148
SUDAN
For the past half century. And “Chinese rule in Tibet was responsible for destroying much. Tibet received utterly inadequate amounts of assistance from the outside world. southern Sudan. The conflict has become one of the bloodiest and most protracted of the twentieth century. high on this list was the denigration of Chinese sovereign rights in border areas. The new Communist regime in Beijing was determined to set right what it perceived as a long list of historical wrongs. a region of about 250.”147 This stark judgment needs some shading.

For generations. the British contemplated erecting southern Sudan as a barrier against Muslim penetration of central Africa. Arabize. 1955–1972 As Anglo-Egyptian Sudan approached independence.151 In the late nineteenth


century. A military regime soon took power in Khartoum and “adopted a policy of unabashed Islamization and Arabization in the south. Arab slavers carried out destructive raids in southern Sudan. abolished the Sunday holiday. Arabs traditionally looked upon black Sudanese as racial inferiors. The breakup of Sudan along religious/ethnic lines could thus reverberate throughout world politics. In contrast.”154 The government closed southern missionary schools. Many southerners. served as prime minister during 1967–1969 and 1986–1989. although its southern boundaries with Uganda and Ethiopia were not settled until 1913. The regime of the Mahdi (1881–1898) legalized slavery and attempted to force Islam on the blacks. and expelled hundreds of Catholic and Protestant missionaries. Opposition to Anglo-Egyptian efforts to suppress the slave trade had been a major focus of Mahdism. intendinginstead to make Islam the religion and Arabic the language of a centralized state.Religion and Insurgency in the 20th Century
89
With an area of one million square miles. slave-raiding Mahdist state left important residues in present-day Sudan: the greatgrandson of the Mahdi. The first anti-Islamist guerrillas called themselves the Land Free-
. Thirteen hundred miles from north to south.152 After the final defeat of the Mahdist state. Thus. Islam did not come to Sudan until a thousand years after adherents of that faith had conquered Egypt. The First Sudan War. Sudan is the biggest country on the African continent. Sudan links the Middle East with the heart of Africa. Sudan became an AngloEgyptian condominium. which came in 1956. their self-consciousness long sharpened by northern efforts to enslave. five times the


size of Spain. Protest was met with violent assertions of government authority. southerners wanted protection for English and Christianity in their own region.153 Thus rebellion broke out even before independence. and Islamize them. one Sadiq al-Mahdi. ten times that of Wyoming. perceived that a benevolent British rule was about to be replaced by a malevolent Arab rule. The predatory. and the Mahdist movement still possesses a private militia. an overwhelmingly northern constitutional commission rejected federalism. Sudan is marginal in more than one way to the Islamic world.

In the first days of the rebellion. Thus. receiving Soviet instructors and arms. so the northern army became dependent on inadequate air transport. when the guerrillas appealed to the U. nevertheless.155 After 1965. (The United States during the 1960s was of courseincreasingly enmeshed in Vietnam. equipment. he promised regional autonomy and better treatment of civilians by the army. and to the Organization of African Unity to investigate government atrocities.N. Still. But by far the principal factor operating in favor of the guerrillas was the weakness of the regime’s armed forces. due in part to the weaknesses of the Khartoum army. discipline. On the contrary. and the fighting went on.90
RESISTING REBELLION
dom Army and also Anya-Nya (“snake venom”). only a tenth of whom possessed firearms. son of Anglican mission teachers. there were no secondary schools in the south. Anya-Nya mistreated civilians. their Soviet instructors
. In May 1969. Before 1949. Rival guerrilla groups and self-proclaimed “southern governments” sprang up. Born in Equatoria province in 1931. the guerrillas were able to get some


good weapons from outside Sudan. By 1971.) But the guerrilla movement benefited from the eventual emergence of Joseph Lagu. having no doctrine of organizing the civil population to support the guerrillas. They built small base camps deep in the forests or in border regions. Lagu received an army commission in 1960. The period 1955–1963 was mainly one of guerrilla survival. The consequent absence of a large southern educated class meant a lack of good political leadership and of effective spokesmen to arouse interest abroad. Lagu had imposed his leadership over almost all of the southern fighting groups. seized power. they received no response. Numeiry built up his armed forces (to thirty-six thousand). Anya-Nya mined the few roads and bridges. and coordination remained poor. especially from defeated rebels inZaire. commander of the Khartoum garrison. thanks in part to his ability to procure arms from Israel. Declaring that a military solution to the rebellion in the south was impossible. By the end of 1968 the guerrillas numbered perhaps ten thousand. Colonel Gafaar Numeiry. Three years later he joined AnyaNya and was made a colonel. which may have enrolled twentyfive thousand men. Later most of these groups gathered together in the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM). By the end of 1964 Anya-Nya counted perhaps five thousand fighters. mainly based on those tribal divisions that have permitted the conquest and exploitation of the southerners for centuries. which had little or no counterinsurgency training.

.”160
. and sanctuary in Ethiopia. The Israelis helped the guerrillas in both conflicts. a ceasefire came into


effect mainly through the efforts of the World Council of Churches and Emperor Haile Selassie. Joseph Lagu received command of all Sudanese government troops in the south. that led to the resumption of hostilities in 1983 by the leadership of the [SPLM]. In March 1972. and trained some of them in Uganda. reinforcing the hostility of most southerners to the Khartoum regime. Col. In May 1983 the 103d Battalion under Lt. and incorporation of thousands of guerrillas into the national army.Religion and Insurgency in the 20th Century
91
inculcated the doctrine of the Big War.159 This unit and other groups. the Khartoum regime promised amnesty for insurgents. Northern soldiers looked upon assignment to duty in the south as punishment. Over time foreign governments interested themselves in the long conflict: Khartoumreceived help at various points not only from the USSR but also from Iran. War would almost certainly have begun again eventually. . The Conflict Renewed.156 Its numbers were always too small (never more than forty thousand) to control a huge territory with primitive communications. The Khartoum regime made no distinction between loyal southern army units and groups of bandits or antiKhartoum guerrillas who were operating in the south in the early 1980s. in retaliation for Khartoum’s assistance to Eritrean rebels. even whole villages. China. schools. clinics. proclaimed in Ethiopia in July 1983. According to the so-called Addis Ababa Agreement. John Garang mutinied and crossed the border into Ethiopia. Northern troops routinely burned missions. the regime tried to disarm and move them into the north. The dictator General


territory of the south including the three southern provincial capitals. Numeiry was ousted in a coup in 1985. fueled by Chinese arms and Iranian gold. which had to be supplied very expensively by air. The operation ended in July with the capture of the key town of Torit.161 At the same time the fall of the Mengistu dictatorship in Ethiopia ended the SPLA sanctuary there. In these circumstances Khartoum planned a final offensive. with the rebels retreating in the face of overwhelming regime power. By 1991 the rebels were besieging the main regime garrison at Juba. although fierce guerrilla fighting continued. when those desiring an independent south broke away from the leadership of John Garang. Meanwhile Khartoum failed to devise any sort of political program to weaken theinsurgents. Eventually several of these militia groups proved quite effective in combating the SPLA units. Since most of the fighting was now being done by troops from the north.
. who advocated not secession but federalism. the establishment of local militias was the only option for the Khartoum regime.162 The offensive opened in March 1992. Civilian sympathy often came to SPLA if only because of the reprehensible behavior of regime troops. Proclaiming holy war against the southern rebels. Because conscription would have been unacceptable in the north. It captured a dozen towns held by rebels.92
RESISTING REBELLION
The regime responded with a conventional military offensive. The early tactics of the SPLA were to attack small police and army outposts while consolidating its hold in south-central Sudan and working out supply lines


from Ethiopia. The regime therefore resorted to the formation of local militias. handicapped as it was with an army that was too small. plus much of the Ethiopian border (in contrast. a major blow. but this merely forced their defenders back into the impenetrable forests. developed inside SPLM. Partly in consequence of all this. SPLA leaders proved immune to bribes. In December 1991 Iranian president Rafsanjani visited Khartoum after declaring the regime’s efforts in the south to be a jihad. which had first been used in the mid-1960s to fight the Anya-Nya. regime units suffered many northern casualties—a very important development as Khartoum was not accustomed to losses of this kind. partly tribal-based. the regime drove four hundred thousand southern refugees out of Khartoum into the desert. theold Anya-Nya had never held an important town). But in that same year a split. By 1989 SPLA had moved to conventional war. and their military successes humiliated the regime.

the civil service. By the mid-1990s the conflict had cost at least one million lives and generated another one and a half million refugees. The Mexican.Religion and Insurgency in the 20th Century
93
The regime purged the judiciary. and the teaching profession of non-Muslims.164 The war helped produce one of the worst famines in African history. it can expect determined. the Vendean and Spanish guerrillas fatally undermined the Napoleonic Empire.166
. Perhaps a religiously motivated insurgency presents the gravest challenge of all. Many years ago C. With its inadequate material resources. Khartoum would have been hard pressed to cope with such a


resistance. over a vast area of very difficult terrain.165
SUMMARY
The essentiality of religion in the lives of millions of people around the globe means that when a regime outrages religious sensibilities. but the outrages against civilians committed by its troops in the southern areas undercut the possibility of playing on traditional tribal rivalries and guaranteed that the fighting would be protracted and bitter.

Angola. It is very important. the American War of Independence was only one more episode in a global contest with the British that stretched from the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–1697) to Waterloo (1815). the British and the French governments each sent notable assistance to rebels against the other power. even insurgencies that originated in the most arcane local circumstances became entangled in the schemata ofnever be lacking foreigners to assist them. Western and/or Soviet intervention. Indeed in the French view.
THE IMPORTANCE OF OUTSIDE HELP
The presence or absence of outside help for an insurgency can be decisive. lessons derived from insurgencies during the Cold War are of little relevance to the twenty-first century. El Salvador. among others. however. isolating the civilian population from the guerrillas. The counterinsurgent equivalent of this is twofold: first. from the American War of Independence to the anti-Bonapartist struggle in Spain.

Or consider the victory of Benito Juárez over the short-lived.7 All this is to say that.Foreign Involvement with Insurgency
95
ern war in much the same hard way the U.3 Eritrea. French-backed empire in Mexico. South Africa. as well as in French Indochina. although he was undeniably attractive as a human


being. despite favorable topography.S. and includes his failures to build a true indigenous army. foreign assistance to the insurgents poured in. whereas in Spain. Similarly. South Vietnam. Help for Juárez flowed abundantly across the U. or a peninsula. it contains a good deal of truth. and El Salvador. Meanwhile.4 Sudan. border. South Vietnam. the catalog of Maximilian’s political ineptitude is impressive. geography facilitated cutting off the insurgents from effective external aid. learned them in Viet Nam.S. like the Philippines. the geographical location of an insurgency can profoundly influence its outcome. insurgents received outside help that was undoubtedly a necessary condition for their success. The thirty-year war in Vietnam clearly illustrates that sometimes geography is destiny. and the brutality and inadequate numbers of the Axis invaders. and (to ahad South Vietnam been an archipelago. Because outside assistance is so vital. Afghanistan. Malaya. and hold the support of the initially enthusiastic Catholic hierarchy.6 In subsequent years. but they were not a match for the French forces supporting Maximilian of Habsburg. and then played a key role in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Cambodia. Under these circumstances. On the other hand. In the Philippines. like South Korea. a regional tradition of guerrilla warfare. Juárez and his followers were certainly tenacious. con-
. it would probably be in existence today. French Indochina.

and even decisive. see below). All were eventually defeated. the Malayan Communists. the Algerian FLN (National Liberation Front. They include the Vendeans. Napoleon III lost interest in his transoceanic imperial project and left Maximilian to his perhaps undeserved


claim to want. or diminish supplies coming into a country to help insurgents. fundamentally. which the media often portray as their stronghold. from their base. to little avail. have fought the Spanish. assistance to South Vietnam resulted in the defeat of the guerrilla insurgents there. but were ultimately unsuccessful. the Americans. in the defeat of guerrilla insurgencies in those countries. assisted the regime in Khartoum against southern rebels. and to the Kabul regime in Afghanistan after 1979. a city inconceivably remote. Since the 1930s. South Vietnam later succumbed to a conventional invasion from North Vietnam. along with Iran. Indeed the evidence suggests that outside aid actually hurt the guerrillas in Greece.
PREVENTING OUTSIDE HELP
Counterinsurgent forces have employed several means to deter. another primary
. cut off.12 And even on thehave been able to achieve their principal aims even if they had been able to obtain outside help. massive American financial assistance to the French in Indochina did not prevent France from ultimately abandoning that region. no matter what its political orientation. Despite massive Soviet aid to both Ethiopia against the Eritrean insurgency after 1974. the Muslims are but a minority of the population. No Philippine government. and Libya. The Soviet Union.S. aid to the governments of the Philippines and Greece was an important element.

success before them) should have believed that. a tower every third of a mile. Air Force.D.
FRENCH STRONGPOINTS IN VIETNAM
The conflict between the French and the Communist-led Viet Minh was for years a small-scale affair because the latter faced many difficulties in obtaining modern weapons


in quantity.17 Other instances of fortified lines will receive examination below. along with naval airpower. This also has met with quite limited success. the kings of England wished to incorporate Wales into their domains. strong forts—which greatly aided in subduing the warlike and stubborn Welsh who had waged guerrilla war against them for two hundred years. and twelve feet high in many places. it is a touching testimony to military faith in technology14 that both the Americans and later the Soviets (with the example of the relative lack of U. many today would agree with the judgment that “it is extremely difficult—if not impossible—to use modern weapons technology to cut off a guerrilla force from food and other basic supplies. By A.S.98
RESISTING REBELLION
method has been interdiction of supplySon. only to be cut to pieces by the swarming Viet Minh.20 Of course. along with large quantities of gasoline and medicine. thirty-five hundred French Moroccan troops headed north out of Lang Son to meet and escort the column coming down from Cao Bang. In October 1950 the French Command in Hanoi made the fateful decision to abandon Cao Bang. and even dangerous. with excellent natural and man-made defenses. eightyfive miles away down Colonial Route 4.”19 The withdrawal of the French from the northern border passes meant that the Viet Minh now had unrestricted access to Communist Chinese supplies. headed south toward the supposed safety of the city of Lang Son. one of their most valuable weapons. According to Bernard Fall.

The program soon became quite extensive. Though very


effective. the British blockhouse lines were not impenetrable. eight thousand blockhouses extended for thirty-seven hundred miles.23 The original purpose of blockhouse cordons was to keep the enemy out. bloodiest and most humiliating” of Britain’s wars between 1815 and 1914. manned by fifty thousand white troops and sixteen thousand Africans. later they turned into an offensive means to hem him in. as the Boers turned to guerrilla warfare. costliest. or had been depleted of ammunition. Armored patrol trains both protected and were protected by the blockhouses. “[These drives] present perhaps the most remarkable feature of that long drawn-out campaign against the Boer guerrillas. South Africa The conflict in South Africa of 1899–1902.”25 (During the conflict in East
. On more than one occasion the great guerrilla chieftain Christiaan De Wetcut the wires between blockhouses at night and led his men through without a shot being fired. usually called the Boer War. By May 1902. in January 1901. one man on horseback every ten yards— often rode from blockhouse line to blockhouse line. Each blockhouse was connected to its neighbors by telephone wire. “the blockhead system. became “the greatest nineteenth-century partisan war”21 as well as the “longest. the Boers possessed few field guns. Besides. as the typical earth-and-iron blockhouse cost only £16 to construct. By the time the blockhouse program neared completion. His great mounted drives—fifty miles across. cannon hampered their mobility. During the course of the war. (De Wet called the blockhouse lines.22 During that conflict.100
RESISTING REBELLION
blockhouse line.”)24 In these circumstances British commander Lord Kitchener began the


campaign to flush the guerrillas out of hiding. two did not have as their principal purpose the closing off of outside assistance to guerrillas. Nonetheless it became obvious to later counterinsurgents that blockhouse lines can be very effective for achieving that end. Of the three instances of that tactic examined here. between the blockhouses also stretched barbed wire and trip-wires rigged with pebble-filled tin cans. or from a blockhouse line to a railroad patrolled by armored trains. the British began to erect blockhouses to defend railroad lines. most of their artillery had been lost or captured. inaccurately but forgivably.

since the guerrillas rarely had artillery.26 The Nationalist forces erected thousands of small forts. The whole system involved eighty thousand troops.Foreign Involvement with Insurgency
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Timor in the 1990s. barbed wire. theservices of black and Boer soldiers and scouts. In Vietnam. extending for hundreds of miles along the Tunisian border. Attempts to break through the electrified fence set off signals at monitoring stations. complete with trenches. The last Boer guerrillas surrendered in 1902. but not in Algeria. and the nonexistence of British airpower. with minefields on both sides and watchtowers at regular intervals. civilian sympathy. mainly as a protection against small arms fire and grenades. These blockhouses both protected the Nationalist troops and reduced Communist mobility. On the Algerian side the French built a constantly patrolled road protected by barbed wire. China During the mid-1930s. as well as from great numbers of troops. A Notable Algerian Adaptation The French developed a variant of the blockhouse tactic during the Algerian


less importantly.”30 The “Anaconda Plan was strategically sound. The effectiveness of the Union blockade also made it obvious.29 Scott aimed at exhausting the seceded states rather than subjugating them. that if the defeated Confederates turned to
. the Huks. aircraft. naval interdiction of vital supplies has at other times seriously undermined the efforts of guerrillas. Clearly. Such a strategy would have both been far less expensive in blood and treasure. perhaps most famously in the case of the British navy during the Spanish rising against Napoleon.”28 But perhaps the American Civil War offers the most striking illustration of the power of naval interdiction. “events proved the old veteran [Scott] to have been right.102
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French responded almost immediately with artillery. It would also have made postwar reconciliation easier. The Unioneffect in carrying gold and guns to guerrillas. the Boers.
ISOLATING GUERRILLAS BY SEAPOWER
A variation on blockhouse systems and the Morice Line is using seapower to interdict supplies to guerrillas. radar. Basil Liddell Hart wrote that the British blockade of Germany during World War I was “clearly the decisive agency in the struggle. and shutting off the Confederacy’s contact with Europe through an effective coastal blockade. conquering and holding the Mississippi River.

element of insurgent success. British Malaya. notable successes at impeding external aid. fortified lines. in both conventional conflicts and insurgencies. ground patrols. Napoleonic Spain. some insurgencies are beset by so many strategic disadvantages that probably no amount of outside help. the Philippines. The profound impact of the Union blockade on the outcome of the Civil War has received


relatively little attention.S. First.”35 Harold and Margaret Sprout: Victory closely depended upon “that blockade which relentlessly sapped the military strength and morale of the Confederacy.Foreign Involvement with Insurgency
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guerrilla war. Nevertheless. the ships of the blockading squadrons. of the Cold War. Sherman and Grant. French Indochina. Fourth.”38
SUMMARY
An inventory of valid principles regarding foreign intervention in insurgencies across regions and time periods would include the following points. and air interdiction. not so much in the hammer blows of Thomas. Third. Merton Coulter: “Without a doubt the blockade was one of the outstanding causes of the strangulation and ultimate collapse of the Confederacy. Fifth. but not invariably a sufficient.”36 And Allan Nevins: Life in the blockading squadrons was monotonous and confining. South Africa. would be decisive. include the U. methods forBritish concentration camps than all the fighting men on both sides in the
. significant guerrilla insurgencies arose in three widely separated localities: South Africa. turning the women and children onto the open veld. many thousands. By early summer British forces had beaten the Boer armies and occupied Johannesburg and Pretoria. guerrilla phase. In the waning years of the nineteenth century. from South Africa to South Vietnam. Instead the war entered a new. however.000 Boer and African civilians were inmates of some fifty camps at one time or another. Resettlement has always been controversial. Both its exponents and its critics include distinguished and knowledgeable students and practitioners of counterinsurgency.000 and 154. In South Africa The war between the British Empire and the Boer Republics of Transvaal and the Orange


Free State began as a conventional war in October 1899. the Philippines. and will remain so. But the defeat of the Boer armies and the occupation of their capitals did not bring peace. and very often burned the farms of neutral or surrendered Boers.106
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RESETTLEMENT
From Manchuria to Mexico. The first camps were to protect Boers and native Africans who had accepted British rule and taken an oath of neutrality. counterinsurgent forces have employed some form of resettlement in order to move rural populations away from guerrilla areas. These “concentration camps” were intended to serve several purposes. civilians were brought into the camps against their will. mainly women and children. and Cuba. between 120.

and of those available many spoke only English. along with their truly ghastly “home remedies. noof sanitation.S. forces began in February 1899.Establishing Civilian Security
107
course of the entire war. mainly of the Tagalog ethnic group. they carried off supplies. however. The latter had proclaimed himself provisional president of a Philippine Republic. and the latter turned to guerrilla tactics. who had lived their entire lives on the spacious veld. had no concept of the hygienic necessities of camp life. leader of the opposition Liberal party. and the death rates plummeted.11 In the Philippines Fighting between the Spanish and the Americans in the Philippines had not yet been concluded when tensions developed between U.S. And—incredibly—by the conclusion of this long and often bitter struggle. Henry Campbell-Bannerman. rule. declared that British forces in South Africa were employing “methods of barbarism.S. for the latter would have been an


from typhoid. Nevertheless. The last of these (as it turned out) began in 1895. it was clear that the Americans would not pull out and that Aguinaldo’s forces could not possibly win. his forces herded hundreds of thousands of peasants into camps where great numbers perished. animals. These policies made many recruits for the insurgents and turned even conservative Cuban opinion against Spain. The inhabitants of a given area were informed that they must bring their families. (At the same time. the concentration of civilians and the regulation of food were highly effective against the guerrillas. despite all their attendant problems.S.
. especially in those areas where the remaining guerrillas seemed determined to fight on even without hope of success. British efforts to concentrate the Boer population produced amuch greater loss of life. Relocation followed a pattern. and moveable possessions to a designated town by a particular date.)12 Still. foodstuffs. a veteran of campaigns against guerrillas in the Philippines. The food-denial campaign led inevitably to plans to relocate the rural population. mainly from preventable epidemics. several serious revolts aiming at independence wracked the island. The U. Accompanying the resettlement were the deliberate devastation of the countryside and the slaughter of animals. In the waning decades of the nineteenth century. Strict controls were imposed on food shipments between towns.S. After that date. American commanders in the islands soon grasped that the most effective way to defeat the guerrillas was to disrupt their food supplies.

This consisted of three major elements: (1) clearing the Malayan peninsula of guerrillas methodically.


Insurgent leaders in flight from the army or the police often found refuge among these displaced people. after their crops and animals had been seized and their houses looted. and Asia. by 1954. Africa. and rice convoys went heavily guarded. a particular center of Cristero support.15 In Malaya In 1950 Malaya’s military chief. began to put into action what became known as the Briggs Plan.S. Storekeepers were obliged to puncture cans of food upon sale. and (3) resettling the numerous Chinese squatters. The untold suffering of the persons affected increased the numbers and the determination of the Cristeros. battleship Maine. draining away the water in which the guerrillas had formerly been swimming.000 Chinese squatters had been placed in new communities.Establishing Civilian Security
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public opinion for intervention. The enterprise stoodMao on his head. Resettlement was the major component of a general food denial program: controls were placed on all food bought and sold. one district at a time. General Sir Harold Briggs. Almost one million villagers were forced from their homes. bringing the Cristero message and organization with them. 570. Various epidemics of course followed upon these mass removals. (2) uprooting the guerrilla infrastructure in the cleared areas. especially in western states. who relied more and more on extortion from local peasants. The process began in April 1927 in Jalisco state. the principal source of food for the guerrillas. Simply getting enough food to stay alive became the primary concern of the guerrillas. into secure villages. The regime fought the insurgency through population removal. Meanwhile peasant refugees


flooded into Leon. In Mexico Mexico’s Cristero rebellion had its roots in religious persecution and electoral corruption. Guadalajara.
. and other cities. which became inevitable after the explosion that sank the U. Techniques of relocation ranged from simple expulsion to elaborate efforts to establish entirely new communities. This last element became the centerpiece of the entire counterinsurgency. Relocation of civilians continued to be a notable aspect of counterinsurgency strategy into the twentieth century in Latin America. where they received title to land. The presumably emptied rural areas then became free-fire zones. from south to north.

and this figure does not include Muslim auxiliaries. They consistently violated a most fundamental principle of effective counterinsurgency: Never abandon a village after letting civilians rally to your standard. Nevertheless. In addition. the Malayan experienceand un-
. The third pillar was population resettlement. Sweden. Britain. In addition. But a successful French counterinsurgency effort eventually emerged. the Algerian guerrillas could count on help from friendly states on the eastern and western borders. In Algeria The problems of counterinsurgency in French Algeria were incomparably more massive than in British Malaya. Norway. Algeria is eighteen times the size of Malaya. Early French counterinsurgency tactics in Algeria were poor: enter a village. Two million Arabs eventually moved. the equivalent of one soldier for every 23 inhabitants of Algeria. or were moved. In the 1950s Algeria had a population of about ten million. Nevertheless.

The army also increased the number of its Muslim auxiliary troops to over 150. the basic assumption behind the program was that the only important


threat came from outside the fortified hamlet.19 In Manchuria Victory in the war with Russia (1904–1905) had established Japanese influence in southern Manchuria.18 Most decidedly. These sentiments lit the fuse for the army mutiny of 1958 that brought the turbulent Fourth Republic to an inglorious end.20 In South Vietnam The so-called strategic hamlets were the centerpiece of counterinsurgency in South Vietnam during the early 1960s. which it named Manchukuo. many of whom were not even French. the French army strove to convert hostile or indifferent Muslim peasants into acquiescent French subjects. even employment. setting up a puppet state. The hamlets served their principal purpose of isolating the guerrillas from civilians fairly successfully. the Japanese began a program of regrouping rural civilians into protected hamlets. and enlisting so manyMuslims in the armed forces. Guerrilla resistance was fairly widespread from the beginning. the strategic hamlet program collapsed after 1963 for several reasons.21 Inside. Nevertheless. In 1931 Japan invaded and occupied the region.000. the army in Algeria rejected any idea that its main objective was to protect the privileges of the European colons. deepened the commitment of many French officers to victory in the war and the permanence of French control over Algeria.Establishing Civilian Security
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dertook to provide them with law and order. In 1933. taking on responsibility for the care of so many civilians. the harshly administered program caused much suffering among the affected civilian population. a lightly armed band of local militia would hold off any attacking guerrillas until help arrived in the form of the army


or provincial militia. First. By 1937 they had set up about ten thousand of these hamlets. little attention was paid to the threat from inside via the Viet Cong infrastructure—whose
. containing a population of five and a half million persons. Predictably. On the whole. and drove many into the arms of the guerrillas. schooling. The plan called for creating physical security and social improvement for the peasantry by erecting elementary fortifications around a hamlet (a subsection of a village). While based on a fundamentally sound concept. medical care. Japanese Manchuria became both a protection for Japanese-occupied Korea and a staging area for invasion of China proper.

Ngo Dinh Nhu.23 Fourth. was himself a Communist. thus inviting instead of deterring attack. the director of the program under the president’s brother.28In Portuguese Africa During the 1960s. the inhabitants were also required to dig ditches and undergo rudimentary military training without compensation. 1963. While the original concept called for fortifying and defending an existing hamlet. Portugal faced guerrilla insurgencies in her sprawling and relatively underpopulated African possessions. or there had been no radio to begin with.112
RESISTING REBELLION
members provided intelligence to the guerrillas outside and sometimes assassinated prominent anticommunist villagers. the strategic hamlet program was not without its good effects. the assassination of President Diem brought to power a military regime uninterested in carrying on the effort. (a week before Diem’s murder). many aspects of the program alienated the peasantry. and Indonesia. and so on. and it could have been much more successful had it received more attention.22 Third. the


South Vietnamese erected twelve thousand in two years. and time. money. China. the Communists devoted a great deal of effort against it. Sixth. the British built five hundred defended villages in three years. or the designated relief force had no means of transportation. Second. instead of fortifying hamlets in relatively controlled areas and then moving outward—a variant of the classic clear-and-hold strategy—the government would often locate a strategic hamlet in a dangerous area. the South Vietnamese Army disliked the strategic hamlets. On October 23.24 Fifth. While in their Malayan counterinsurgency. Often the promised social services for the fortified hamlet never materialized. viewing them as a drain of resources away from the army. the program extended too rapidly. Secretary McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor told President Kennedy that “weinexpensive. First. properly trained and equipped militias possess advantages over regular troops in terms of population defense. like their predecessors the British and the French.29 Not unexpectedly.32 The Malayan Home Guard eventually mobilized 250. militias release regular government troops for more direct action against the guerrillas. Success depended on thorough planning. and Peru. and knowledgeable people. Another has been local self-defense through reliance on militia or territorial forces. had both success and failure in the application of this concept. become in effect bound to the government.
LOCAL SELF-DEFENSE: TERRITORIAL FORCES AND MILITIA
Local militia or rural self-defense forces are often a major component of even poorly conceived counterinsurgency efforts. During the Napoleonic occupation of Spain. .) Resettlement became a key piece of that strategy: in Angola alone. Consequently the Portuguese.


their “resettlement concept was sound in theory but so often went wrong in execution. on the middle classes.31 In contrast. while protecting village officials from assassination. local forces tend to be more conservative in their use of firepower. civilians mobilized for local self-defense. low-technology strategy against the various rebel groups. the Portuguese eventually regrouped more than one million persons. Such organizations can perform several very important functions. Third. These ingredients were not always present. . very few
. militia systems enjoyed notable success in Malaya. a profoundly important political consideration. including many Chinese. Second. the French tried to construct civic militias based. was much smaller than its trans-Pyrenean counterpart. however. (See the discussion of their counterinsurgency concepts in chapter 16.000 members. as in France.Establishing Civilian Security
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Out of necessity. aswell as in the Philippines against the New People’s Army. along with their family members. Thailand. And they are of course intimately familiar with the local inhabitants and terrain. a major concern in South Vietnam and Peru.”30 Relocating the population has been one major arm of counterinsurgency campaigns. In addition. they separate rural civilians from the guerrillas. the Spanish middle class. French arrogance toward their Spanish supporters and widespread atrocities all but destroyed the usefulness of any militias that came into existence.

37 The guerrillas were asphyxiated under a mobilized population. Regional Forces could be used anywhere in their province (a typical southern province was twelve hundred square miles in area.40
. along with perhaps 20. (True enough. recruited from militia and former regular army troops. Members of the Popular