Little war

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In the early modern period and in the 19th century, the specific (combat) actions of light troops ( light infantry , light cavalry ) are called small wars (also small wars or partisans war , French petite guerre , Russian малая / маленькая война ). The "little war" included:

  • the security war ( field guards , cordons , defensive posts , patrols , avant-garde , barrier guard)
  • the maintenance of communications between the army units ( relay , couriers)
  • the war of recognition (intelligence service)
  • Protective battles (protection of transports, magazines and depots ; guarding the foraging and construction; raids on enemy transports, magazines, depots) and escorting prisoners of war
  • the outpost war or the detachment war (defense of individual objects such as bridges, dams, fords, etc .; raids , hiding places and ambushes)

Small war and "great war"

The tasks of the small war were solved by the use of specially trained regular (hussars, hunters) and irregular (e.g. free corps) troops. The irregular troops were preferably recruited in regions whose inhabitants were reputed to have the necessary warlike qualities and toughness (Cossacks, Kalmyks in Russia, "Croats" (border guards) in Austria, Zouaves from Algeria in France). In contrast to the “great war”, which was waged by the larger numbers of troops (armies, corps), in small wars small numbers of units were usually used. Your performance was seen as an auxiliary contribution to ensuring the combat strength of the armies in the "great" war.

The fighting in the small war differed from the battles and skirmishes of the "great war" by a high degree of spontaneity. The typical forms of combat were, on the one hand, an attack on the offensive and, on the other hand, a spontaneous short defensive battle on the defensive, which was usually only started when the escape routes were cut off by the enemy. Since the light troops often operated deep in the enemy rear, both soldiers and officers in small wars were expected to have special individual characteristics such as quick reaction, presence of mind, perseverance, flexibility and independent action.

As heroes of the minor war, a.o. acted during the Seven Years' War . a. Zieten (Prussia), Hadik and Laudon (Austria), Tottleben , Berg and Kosakenoberst Krasnoschtschekow (Russia). The Hessian military police captain and later General Johann von Ewald processed in his volume About the Little War as one of the first the experiences in the command of combat outside the command of the line infantry in the American War of Independence .

Guerrilla warfare and guerrilla warfare

The fighting style of the light troops in the small war had a lot in common with the guerrilla tactics. The word “guerrilla” is also translated as “the little war”. Nevertheless, the two terms are not identical.

  • The “small war” was understood in modern times as part of the “great war”. The little war began and ended with the great war. A guerrilla war that would become independent was inconceivable for the military theorists of that time. “With the troops of the little war […] everything is tactical, nothing strategic. They're only there for the sake of it all; where the whole ceases to be, its existence also ends. A big war without a small one is conceivable, a small war without a big one never, ”writes Karl von Decker, author of the book“ The small war in the spirit of modern warfare ”(Berlin 1826).
  • The term "minor war" only referred to military operations. The participation of civilians in armed conflicts was considered unlawful (banditry) in the imagination of the early modern era, the age of professional armies. When it became a widespread phenomenon during the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century, new terms arose to describe it: “the people's war” and the “guerrilla war”. In the parlance of that time it was common, e.g. B. to talk about the people's war or the guerrilla war of the Greek population in the Ottoman Empire , but never about the guerrilla war of the hussars. The hussars had to wage a “guerrilla war”.

Small war: examples during the Seven Years' War

Examples of successful operations were:

As these examples show, the successful operations of small wars could in some cases have a significant impact on the course of the war. After losing all of his supplies at Domstadtl , Frederick II was forced to abandon the siege of Olomouc and to evacuate Moravia.

See also

Web links

literature

Older representations

  • General Graf von Bismark : Field service = instruction for riflemen and Reuters, in CFMüller's Hofbuchhandlung, Karlsruhe 1821. [1]
  • Heinrich von Brandt : The little war in its various relationships , published by Friedrich August Herbig, Berlin 1850
  • C (arl) Decker : Views on Warfare in the Spirit of Time. Edited from the French Rogniat and from lectures given to the officers of the General Staff in Berlin in the winter of 1816/17 , Ernst Siegfried Mittler, Berlin 1817. Digitalized version of the 1828 edition under the title The Little War in the Spirit of Modern Warfare. Or: Treatise on the use and use of all three weapons in the minor war ( digital copy )
  • Johann von Ewald : Treatise on the Little War , 1785
  • Lieutenant Colonel Franz von Erlach : The wars of freedom of small peoples against large armies , Haller'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Bern 1867
  • Thomas Auguste le Roy de Grandmaison: La petite querre, ou traite du service des troupes legeres en campagne , o. O., published in 1756

Representations of the 20th and 21st centuries

  • Arthur Ehrhardt : Kleinkrieg: Historical experiences and future possibilities , Voggenreiter-Verlag, 3rd edition Potsdam 1944 (first edition 1935)
  • Werner Hahlweg : Typology of the modern small war (= Institute for European History , lectures 46). F. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1967.
  • Siegfried Fiedler: Tactics and Strategy of the Cabinet Wars 1650-1792. Bechtermünz, Augsburg 2002, ISBN 3-8289-0521-8
  • Charles D. Melson (ed.): Small war. The German experience with guerrilla warfare, from Clausewitz to Hitler , Havertown, PA (Casemate) 2016. ISBN 9781612003566
  • Martin Rink : From “party goer” to partisan. The conception of the little war in Prussia 1740–1813 (= European university publications / 3). Peter Lang, Frankfurt / M., Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-631-35109-7 .
  • Martin Rink: Small war - guerrilla - raid: The wars of the French "empire" 1808 to 1848 , in: Tanja Bührer / Christian Stachelbeck / Dierk Walter (eds.): Imperial wars from 1500 to today. Structures, actors, learning processes , Paderborn etc. a. 2011, pp. 383-400. ISBN 978-3-506-77337-1
  • Martin Rink: Little War . In: Encyclopedia of Modern Times . Edited by Friedrich Jaeger on behalf of the Institute for Cultural Studies (Essen) , Vol. 6, Stuttgart, Weimar 2008, Sp. 777.
  • Sandrine Picaud-Monnerat, La petite guerre au XVIIIe siècle , Paris, éditions Economica, 2010. ISBN 978-271785829-7
  • Auguste Ségur-Cabanac : Small war. Fight without fronts , Vienna 1970
  • Michael D. Gambone: Small wars. Low-intensity threats and the American response since Vietnam , Knoxville, TN (University of Tennessee Press) 2012. ISBN 978-1-572-33914-9
  • Edwin Herbert: Small wars and skirmishes 1902-18. Early twentieth-century colonial campaigns in Africa, Asia, and the Americas , Nottingham (Foundry Books) 2003. ISBN 1-901543-05-6
  • Beatrice Heuser (ed.): Small wars and insurgencies in theory and practice, 1500-1850 , London / New York 2016. ISBN 978-1-138-94167-0
  • Dieter Farwick : Small wars, the underestimated form of war. Why the future of war belongs to the guerrillas, partisans and hackers , Bad Schussenried (Gerhard Hess Verlag) o. J. (2016). ISBN 3-87336-586-3 . ISBN 978-3-87336-586-5