Week 11: Wednesday, April 5
This 1885 painting by Charles Edwin Fripp (1854-1906) depicts British forces about to be engulfed by a wave of Zulu warriors at Isandhlwana (1879). Between the First Afghan War (1839-1842) and the Boer War (1899-1902), Isandhlwana was the greatest colonial defeat suffered by British arms. Badly deployed by their commanding officer, six companies from the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 24 Regiment of Foot, along with about 800 African auxiliaries from the Natal Native Contingent (a total of about 1,400 men) were totally overwhelmed by roughly 20,000 Zulus. Only about 60 British soldiers escaped the massacre—the rest were killed.
ANNOUNCEMENT: As mentioned before, I will be showing Breaker Morant on Tuesday, April 4, at 7:30 PM in Gadbois 4. It's a good movie with some fighting, some explosions, and other things I dare not mention for fear of giving the end away. It's also a part of this class. Be there.
When you do today's textbook reading, please skip pages 451-459 and 468-473. The excerpt from Churchill's River War is optional, but it is very illuminating in illustrating the difficulties of employing the railroad in fighting a colonial war. T.E. Lawrence's "Science of Guerrilla Warfare" is also optional. Lawrence's piece does a good job of showing the practical difficulties associated with fighting a guerrilla war, but it does require some knowledge of the Arab uprising during World War I. Callwell, however, is not optional.
1) What were the pre-requisites of successful guerrilla warfare? On the other hand, what was the great drawback of waging guerrilla war?
2) Why was the road to Westernization hard?
3) Why were the Japanese so successful at Westernizing their armed forces?4) Provide an example of a state that found Westernizing its armed forces problematic. Why did this state ultimately fail?
5) What are the three types of war that Callwell discusses? How are they different? Which is the easiest to fight? Why?
6) According to Callwell, what disadvantages did a European army face when fighting a small war? What problems did civilization impose on civilized armies? What seemed to have been the weakness of civilized armies in general?
7) What was the solution to guerrilla warfare, according to Callwell? And yet, how could guerrilla warfare quickly and easily get out of hand? Why was it more likely to get out of hand in a small war against semi-civilized people?
Other Questions
1) What appear to have been the only two successful ways for the non-Western world to adapt to the challenge posed by European armies?
2) What seems to have been Callwell's most important message in the first section? Why would it be difficult to follow Callwell's advice? What must Europeans do when fighting these peoples and their great variety?
3) According to Callwell, why was it so much easier to fight Europeans than to fight small wars against non-European peoples?
4) According to Callwell, why were machine guns of limited use in small wars?
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Copyrighted by Hugh Dubrulle, 2006.