The European Frontier Partisans

Captain Schwertfeger asked me the other day if I have set aside or abandoned the Ranger Project (Spirited For That Work). No, by Crom! I allowed myself to run down a sidetrail into the Mexican Revolution this summer because of the 100-year-anniversary of the Villa hit. And, yes, I’m now casting for Apache sign in the Sierra Madre. But the Ranger iron will be back in the fire in earnest come the turning of the leaves.

The iron hasn’t been out of the fire entirely anyway — my nightstand book is The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607-1814 by John Grenier. The thesis is that, formal doctrine aside, America’s foundational way of war is the Ranging Way of War. Frontier Partisan warfare. Obviously, this thesis resonates with me like a well-struck gong on the range.

The 18th Century was an era of “limited war.” Doctrine and moral principle — developed in the shadow of the horrific religious warfare of the 16th and 17th centuries — held that armies should not prey upon civilian populations, and that warfare should be conducted formally, by disciplined armies in linear formations on open battlefields. Grenier cites the 1745 Battle of Fontenoy in modern Belgium as a classic example of 18th Century battle.

We tend to think of 18th Century irregular or partisan warfare as developing out of North American conditions. The French developed le petite guerre in concert with their native allies, and the British didn’t get it until American Rangers led the way (see what I did there?) That’s true, but incomplete. The British Army did actively reject le petite guerre through the middle of the 18th Century. They truly believed that disciplined regulars would always defeat irregular forces. General Edward Braddock’s famous response to Benjamin Franklin’s warnings about warfare in the American backcountry was representative:

“Savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the king’s regular and disciplined troops, Sir, it is impossible they should make an impression.”

That did not work out so well. A small force of French regulars, and woodsrunners and militia along with their Indian allies slaughtered Braddock’s command in the woods as they approached Fort Duquesne at the Forks of the Ohio in 1755. Braddock himself was gutshot and died shortly after the Battle of the Monongahela. In his death agonies, he said:

“We shall better know how to deal with them another time.”

It would actually be several years before the British Army began to see that irregular warfare required irregular warriors.

But Grenier points out that things were very different on the Continent — especially in the Balkans and Eastern and Central Europe.

The marchlands of Eastern and Central Europe that separated the Austrian, Russian, and Ottoman Empires were home to traditions of irregular war dating back centuries. 

On the wide open plains of Poland between the Austrian and Russian Empires, Polish soldiers developed a tradition of petit guerre that confounded Western soldiers. Even a commander as astute and skilled as [French Marshal] Saxe found confronting the Polish irregulars [in the 1740s War of Austrian Succession] perplexing. Saxe knew that the Poles ‘made war in such a vague and irregular manner, that, if an enemy makes a point of pursuing them, he will thereby be presently rendered incapable of opposing their continual inroads.’ Like the rangers and Indians of North America after 1675, the Poles, Saxe continued, would march unseen “thirty, and sometimes forty miles a day in large bodies,’ fall upon isolated outposts and destroy them, and then escape unharmed into the countryside like phanto

A Western European observer described an attack by Hungarian huzsars that sounds almost identical to 19th Century descriptions of Comanche warfare.

“…They lay themselves so flat on the necks of their horses that it is hardly possible to discover their force; but being within pistol-shot of the enemy, they raise themselves with such surprising quickness, and fall on with such vivacity, that it is very difficult for troops to preserve their order. When a retreat is necessary, their horses have so much fire, and are so indefatigable, their equipage so light, and themselves such excellent horsemen, that no cavalry can pretend to follow them.”

That there is some Continuity & Persistence.

Partisan warfare was often savage, and violated the 18th century principle of eschewing attacks on civilians. Villages were burned, crops destroyed, prisoners murdered, women raped. The Ottoman Empire’s irregulars, called bashi-bazouks, raided in advance of invading columns and terrorized populations in the Balkans for four centuries.

Austrian adventurer Baron Franz von der Trenck raised a Pandur force made up mostly of Croatian frontiersmen who kicked all kinds of ass in the constant warfare of the 1740s — and also had a reputation for being brutal to civilians. They participated in the capture of many towns and villages, and once the looted a Prussian war chest for a rich haul, including the belongings of Frederick the Great. A biographer described Trenck’s life as “a symphony of violence and death.”

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The European states tried — with some success — to rationalize and discipline irregular operations. The Grenz and the Pandurs of the Hapsburg empire were supposed to be protectors of the frontiers and not mere freebooters (Von der Trenck’s force was a problem in that regard). The German states developed rifle-armed Jäger  troops — recruited from hunters and foresters of the German principalities — to serve as light infantry and a more formalized and disciplined form of partisan.

Grenier makes note of French publications, including a 1759 pamphlet titled Le Partisan, or The Art of Making War in Detachment, that sought to build a doctrine of partisan warfare. It describes the ideal partisan in ways that strongly presage modern special operations personnel.

[Author, French officer] Jeney stresses that partisans must be the best soldiers from the regular army; their officers had to exemplify professional knowledge of war and leadership skills. The ideal partisan officer must possess coup d’oeil ( an intuitive grasp of military matters, including strategy, tactics, and leadership), an ‘intrepid heart against all appearances of danger,’ self-assurance, robust and indefatigable health, and the confidence of his men. When brought together, the best soldiers and best officers could then accomplish the demanding tasks of petite guerre. For their bravery and skill, Jeney promised, they would attain the highest place of honor and glory in the army.

Jeney saw 18th century operators working behind enemy lines, disrupting communications and logistics, attacking outposts and rendering armies in the field insecure.

Grenier’s sidetrail into 18th Century European partisan warfare yields up some valuable reminders. One being that frontier conditions persisted in Europe far longer than superficial conceptions would have it. That was especially true in southeastern Europe, where a long frontier with the Ottoman Empire persisted for centuries. The country in Eastern and Central Europe — hell, in France, too, think Gevaudan — was still wild in places, conducive to raiding and “disappearing like phantoms.” Another reminder is that similar solutions to challenges can arise independently in different areas. The Ranging Way of War wasn’t “invented” in one place — it grew organically out of particular conditions and demands of warfare.

And… Continuity & Persistence is a thing.