Insurgents, Raiders, and Bandits (49 page)

8. Francis Russell,
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS
(New York: American Heritage, 1962), 46.

9. Anderson,
CRUCIBLE OF WAR
, 241.

10. Cited in Parkman,
MONTCALM AND WOLFE
, 300.

11. Anderson,
CRUCIBLE OF WAR
, 410.

12. Cited in John R. Cuneo,
ROBERT ROGERS OF THE RANGERS
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), 53.

13. Another reason why the French alliances with the Native American tribes had begun to falter was that the hundreds of hostages taken by the Indians at the time of the Fort William Henry massacre brought smallpox into the villages of their captors, decimating many settlements and curtailing the general appetite for plunder.

14. See Rogers,
JOURNALS
, 125–26, for a remarkably dispassionate account of what had to have been a searing experience.

15. On both these points, see Anderson,
CRUCIBLE OF WAR
, 542–43.

16. From a letter written by Washington to the president of Congress, June 27, 1776.

17. See John F. Ross,
WAR ON THE RUN: THE EPIC STORY OF ROBERT ROGERS AND THE CONQUEST OF AMERICA’S FIRST FRONTIER
(New York: Bantam, 2009), 436–41.

18. The great account of irregular warfare in the northern theater of operations is Howard Swiggett’s
WAR OUT OF NIAGARA: WALTER BUTLER AND THE TORY RANGERS
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1933).

19. R. E. Dupuy and T. N. Dupuy,
THE COMPACT HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
(New York: Hawthorn, 1963), 463.

3. FIGHTING QUAKER: NATHANAEL GREENE

1. Russell Weigley, “American Strategy from Its Beginnings through the First World War,” in
MAKERS OF MODERN STRATEGY
, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 1986), 410.

2. Mark Mayo Boatner III,
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
(New York: D. McKay, 1966), 981.

3. Alfred Thayer Mahan,
THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, 1660–1783
, 7th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1894), 376.

4. See Hank Messick,
KING’S MOUNTAIN: THE EPIC OF THE BLUE RIDGE “MOUNTAIN MEN” IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1976).

5. Cited in Terry Golway,
WASHINGTON’S GENERAL: NATHANAEL GREENE AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
(New York: Holt, 2005), 232.

6. Theodore Ropp,
WAR IN THE MODERN WORLD
(London: Macmillan, 1962), 91.

7. Theodore Thayer, “Nathanael Greene: Revolutionary War Strategist,” in
GEORGE WASHINGTON’S GENERALS
, ed. G. Billias (New York: Morrow, 1962), 131. Emphasis added.

8. Derek Leebaert,
TO DARE AND TO CONQUER: SPECIAL OPERATIONS AND THE DESTINY OF NATIONS, FROM ACHILLES TO AL QAEDA
(New York: Little, Brown, 2006), 295.

9. Russell Weigley,
THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR: A HISTORY OF UNITED STATES MILITARY STRATEGY AND POLICY
(New York: Macmillan, 1973), 27.

10. Not to be confused with Charles Lee, mentioned earlier in the chapter.

11. Cited in Bruce Catton,
THE CIVIL WAR
(New York: American Heritage, 1961), 177.

12. Cited in Dupuy,
COMPACT HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
(New York: Hawthorn, 1963), 400.

13. Thomas Fleming,
LIBERTY! THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
(New York: Viking, 1997), 323.

14. Weigley,
AMERICAN WAY OF WAR
, 36.

15. Charles Francis Adams,
THE WORKS OF JOHN ADAMS
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1852), 7:487.

4. GUERRILLERO: FRANCISCO ESPOZ Y MINA

1. This is certainly the case with the two classic multivolume histories: William Napier’s
HISTORY OF THE WAR IN THE PENINSULA
(London: Folio Society, 1828) and Charles Oman’s,
HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR
(London: Greenhill, 1903–1930). Among modern historians, Charles Esdaile argues in his
THE SPANISH ARMY IN THE PENINSULAR WAR
(Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1988), 141–43, that the guerrillas did more harm than good.

2. David Chandler,
THE CAMPAIGNS OF NAPOLEON
(New York: Macmillan, 1966), 660. For a survey of the studies that downplay the guerrillas’ importance, see J. L. Tone,
THE FATAL KNOT
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 186n9.

3. Lynn Montross,
WAR THROUGH THE AGES
, 3rd ed. (New York: Harper, 1960), 527.

4. His memoirs, however they may be overstated, give a stirring account of the day-to-day course of one of the key insurgent campaigns. See Juan Martín Diez,
MILITARY EXPLOITS
(London: Nabu Press, 1823).

5. Details of this action and Javier’s subsequent moves are described in Tone,
FATAL KNOT
, 77–80.

6. On Mina’s struggles with various competitors for command and his ultimate recognition by the regents, see Tone,
FATAL KNOT
, 101–2.

7. This action is described by Mina himself in his
MEMORIAS
(Madrid, 1962 edition), 36.

8. Cochrane, who would serve as the model for Frederick Marryat’s naval hero in his novel,
MR. MIDSHIPMAN EASY
, would go on later in life to help establish navies in some of the Latin American republics that rebelled against the reimposition of Madrid’s authority, which had been interrupted during the French occupation of Spain.

9. For an account of the importance of irregular warfare techniques to Napoleon’s defeat in Russia, see the next chapter.

10. Elizabeth Longford,
WELLINGTON: THE YEARS OF THE SWORD
(New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 211.

11. This figure comes from Tone,
FATAL KNOT
, 131.

12. See Mark Kurlansky,
THE BASQUE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
(New York: Walker, 1999), 143–44.

5. HUSSAR POET: DENIS DAVYDOV

1. Walter Laqueur,
GUERRILLA: A HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), 110.

2. Georges Lefebvre,
NAPOLEON: FROM 18 BRUMAIRE TO TILSIT, 1799–1807
, trans. Henry F. Stockhold (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 275.

3. The Poles were loyal to Napoleon because he put their country back on Europe’s map after Prussia, Austria, and Russia had partitioned it out of existence in 1795.

4. Carl von Clausewitz,
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812 IN RUSSIA
(London: Greenhill Books, 1992), 192.

5. Denis Davydov,
IN THE SERVICE OF THE TSAR AGAINST NAPOLEON: THE MEMOIRS OF DENIS DAVYDOV, 1806–1814
, trans. Gregory Troubetzkoy (London: Greenhill Books, 1999), 115.

6. Hussars were the least encumbered (or protected) of the types of cavalry of the time, their swiftness and stealth commending them to irregular operations. By way of contrast, cuirassiers wore front and back armor and, with weapons, weighed in at about three hundred pounds on the backs of their horses.

7. Davydov,
IN THE SERVICE OF THE TSAR
, 69.

8. Armand de Caulaincourt,
WITH NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA
, ed. and trans. George Libaire (New York: Morrow, 1935), 46. The long-lost original manuscript was found at the Caulaincourt family château in 1935.

9. Clausewitz,
CAMPAIGN OF 1812 IN RUSSIA
, 187.

10. Cossacks, whose name may go back to an ancient word for “bandit,” were thus quite well suited to working with the hussars.

11. A good summary of Davydov’s outreach to Russian villagers, and his instructions to them, may be found in Laqueur,
GUERRILLA
, 45.

12. Caulaincourt,
WITH NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA
, 148.

13. Davydov,
IN THE SERVICE OF THE TSAR
, 134.

14. Napoleon’s largest intact forces were roughly thirty thousand troops under his subordinate Macdonald—mainly compliant Prussians—who had been besieging Riga on the Baltic coast. But as Macdonald moved to link up with Napoleon, seventeen thousand of the Prussians deserted. Thus there were few relatively fresh forces remaining.

15. Count Philippe-Paul de Ségur,
NAPOLEON’S RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
, trans. J. David Townsend (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), 143.

16. Davydov,
IN THE SERVICE OF THE TSAR
, 155.

17. David Chandler,
THE CAMPAIGNS OF NAPOLEON: THE MIND AND METHOD OF HISTORY’S GREATEST SOLDIER
(New York: Macmillan, 1966), 859–60.

18. Davydov,
IN THE SERVICE OF THE TSAR
, 209–10.

19. See Bernard Pares,
A HISTORY OF RUSSIA
(New York: Knopf, 1948), 316.

6. DESERT MYSTIC: ABD EL-KADER

1. The city would officially be given its modern Turkish name, Istanbul, in 1930.

2. Cited in Edward Behr,
THE ALGERIAN PROBLEM
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1961), 17.

3. Sufism is that branch of Islam that emphasizes the direct experience of the divine by various forms of meditation, contemplation, and, sometimes, repetitive physical movement. This last practice is best known to us through the sword dancing of the so-called Whirling Dervishes.

4. Alexis de Tocqueville, “Second Letter on Algeria” (1837), in
WRITINGS ON EMPIRE AND SLAVERY
, ed. and trans. Jennifer Pitts (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 17.

5. The proclamation is cited in John W. Kiser,
COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF EMIR ABD EL-KADER
(Rhinebeck, N.Y.: Monkfish, 2008), 51.

6. See Behr,
ALGERIAN PROBLEM
, 19, and Kiser,
COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL
, 63.