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    Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution
    Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution
    Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution
    Ebook197 pages2 hours

    Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution

    By Peter Polack

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    About this ebook

    This concise history of guerilla warfare presents profiles in combat courage from George Washington to Simón Bolívar, Mao Zedong, and beyond.
     
    The concept of guerrilla warfare is centuries old, with Sun Tzu’s writing on the subject dating back to the sixth century BC. One of the earliest recorded examples of guerrilla tactics deployed by a military leader was the campaign of Roman general Fabius Maximus, who took a course of evasion and harassment against Hannibal’s columns.
     
    Guerilla Warfare is a compendium of prominent guerrilla leaders across the globe, from thirteenth-century Scotland’s William Wallace to modern-day Sri Lanka’s Velupillai Prabhakaran. It profiles each leader to analyze their personal history, military tactics, and political strategy. All are home-grown leaders of extended guerrilla campaigns. Many became the first leaders of their liberated countries. Both victories and defeats are included here in an analysis of effective guerrilla tactics as well as counterinsurgency strategies.
     
    Today, the labels of insurgent, freedom fighter, and jihadi are fast replacing guerrilla. The old notion of the guerrilla, associated with fights for independence and the end of colonialization, has dimmed with modern and far-reaching religious insurgencies taking their place. This concise history gives a fascinating overview of a once history-altering form of warfare.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCasemate Publishers
    Release dateDec 19, 2018
    ISBN9781612006765
    Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution

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      Book preview

      Guerrilla Warfare - Peter Polack

      CHAPTER 1

      WILLIAM WALLACE, SCOTLAND

      What was most extraordinary about the guerrilla leader William Wallace was the speed with which a virtual unknown rose up to national leadership and the short time between his first action, the killing of the English sheriff of Lanark in May 1297 and his victory at the battle of Stirling Bridge on 11 September 1297, a mere four months later. Even more compelling was that within a year he had vacated his position as Guardian of Scotland in favour of Robert the Bruce, the future king of Scotland, before disappearing until capture and vile execution on the orders of King Edward I of England in 1305 – in total only eight years between rise and demise.

      Given the extent of time that has passed and the difficulties of early record keeping it is unsurprising that so little is known about the early life of Wallace. Much reliance has been placed by some on the extensive but criticised poem about William Wallace by Scottish poet Blind Harry entitled The Wallace composed in the late 15th century. Bridging the gap between fact and fiction, commonly supported by the Lubeck letter believed to have been sent on his behalf, Wallace came from a recognised family of tenant farmers in Elderslie, Renfrewshire or Ayrshire in central Scotland and is thought to be the son of Alan Wallace. Whatever the historical views, what is clear was that this was a singular man who became not only a Scottish icon but a symbol for freedom fighters worldwide. Perhaps Reverend J. S. Watson said it best:

      If there has been any exaggeration of his merits, in narratives oral or written, in subsequent days, it must still be believed that he would never have become such an object of panegyric among his contemporaries, unless he had signally transcended other men.

      Sometimes it is often best to seek a compromise of more proximate records of history, however limited, with those that revisit research in the modern era.

      The conflict that gave rise to the emergence of William Wallace was a dispute over the throne of Scotland between Baliol and Robert the Bruce that led, after some manoeuvring by King Edward I of England, to war and the submission of Baliol, who had aligned himself with the French. In the end, King Edward, known as Longshanks due to his height, carried away the Scottish throne of stone from Scone and destroyed records pointing to Scottish independence or the inferiority of the English. After Baliol spent a period in the Tower of London he was exiled to France where he died.

      Very often a guerrilla leader will arise in circumstances of political turmoil such as conflict on the succession to a throne, the opposing forces of a civil war on the cusp of independence – such as in China in 1949, Angola in 1975 and the ethnic Balkanisation of Sri Lanka in

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