Best Insurgent Leader

[NousDefionsDoc]

I have Hoyt's, I will start on the other one soon.

Excellent book.

[Cincinnatus]

I just read "Mimi and Toutou's Great Adventure", which could have been subtitled "Anatomy of a Clusterf#ck." It tells the story of an inept British officer taking two launches cross country to use on Lake Tangnayika to disrupt the Kaiser's forces. As TV Guide would say "zany hijinks ensue." Von Lettow-Vorbeck figures in the story.

Did anyone mention Joseph of the Nez Perce in the previous pages?

[Airbornelawyer]

Originally Posted by mugwump

Smuts, the English general tasked with hunting him down, clearly admired Von Lettow and only achieved partial success when he copied Von Lettow's tactics and use of African levies.

Smuts is turning over in his grave, now.

Jan Smuts was not English. He was an Afrikaner and fought on the Boer side in the Anglo-Boer War. I have no doubt Smuts admired Lettow-Vorbeck, but that was at least in part because Lettow-Vorbeck was copying the guerrilla warfare tactics of Smuts and other Boers that gave us the word commando.

[mugwump]

Yikes, I shouldn't work from memory -- it ain't what it used to be.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Originally Posted by Airbornelawyer

Smuts is turning over in his grave, now.

Jan Smuts was not English. He was an Afrikaner and fought on the Boer side in the Anglo-Boer War. I have no doubt Smuts admired Lettow-Vorbeck, but that was at least in part because Lettow-Vorbeck was copying the guerrilla warfare tactics of Smuts and other Boers that gave us the word commando.

According to Hoyt, Smuts was in denial and lied to the english powers that be. And he never turned Letto's tactics against him. Apparently part of the problem was the Afrikaaner's racism and refusal to use African soldiers in any sort of significant role because they were Black. Same with Van Deventer to a lesser degree.

[MtnGoat]

Originally Posted by mugwump

Great book. Von Lettow on his bicycle doing recce, good stuff. A kindred spirit to the QPs -- he treated his native levies with utmost respect and they returned it in spades -- as opposed to the Brits with their Sepoy Indians. He tied up, what, 250,000 men at one point with a force of 8,000?

True story: Germany awarded Von Lettow's native soldiers a pension in the 1980s? Records were destroyed, so they had a German SGM hand a broomstick to these, by now very elderly, former soldiers. If they could complete the German drill with arms to his commands (which hadn't changed in 70 years, go figure) they were awarded the pension. Apparently scores were found.

Added

MtnGoat: this is really good too: The Great War in Africa, 1914-1918 by Byron Farwell. Interesting counterpoint to Guerilla because it's written from the British perspective. Von Lettow comes off just as heroic a figure in British eyes. Smuts, the English general tasked with hunting him down, clearly admired Von Lettow and only achieved partial success when he copied Von Lettow's tactics and use of African levies.

RL and NDD Thanks for the reply's

mugwump - Great info and thanks for the recommendation on the Great War of Africa. I'm starting Guerilla This weekend. Thanks again. Why no Book Review??? No post????

Like the story on the elderly, former soldiers that could complete the German drill with arms to his commands. We remember the little things we do in our life (military lives that is). Just like the Legion's house in South France.

Thanks

[504PIR]

Let me throw a few names into the fray:

Francis Marion, AKA "The Swamp Fox" lead a very successful campaign in the Carolinas, tying down British forces in our Revolution.

Col. Mosby for his "partisan" operations against the Union Army, but since the CSA lost can't say he was the "Best". But he was very good at what he did.

[The Reaper]

The strategic outcome does not render the quality of service performed greater or lesser.

Mosby accomplished incredible feats, tying down terns of thousands of Federal troops in security ops with his few dozen men.

IMHO, the best insurgent leader ever based on scale and results would be Mao Tse Tung.

TR

[Airbornelawyer]

Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc

According to Hoyt, Smuts was in denial and lied to the english powers that be. And he never turned Letto's tactics against him. Apparently part of the problem was the Afrikaaner's racism and refusal to use African soldiers in any sort of significant role because they were Black. Same with Van Deventer to a lesser degree.

I realize this is hearsay - you are telling us what Hoyt argued - but I think the Afrikaner racism charge might be a bit of a red herring and a bit of cover for the general racial attitudes that characterized not just the Afrikaners, but the British, Americans and others at the time. Even at the height of apartheid, the South Africans raised black units, especially for countrerinsurgency operations.

In World War One, there was a great demand for native soldiers, especially due to the drain of white soldiers to the battlefields of Europe (and the French used native troops extensively on the Western Front). But overarching all of this, especially for the British of this period (and people like Smuts who were part of the British military system even though they had fought the British a few years prior), was the "theory" of martial races. Certain races were considered to be inherently better soldiers, and corollary, certain races were considered to be bad military material. There were plenty of Africans whom Europeans considered to be of good warrior stock - the Zulu of South Africa, the Gikuyu of Kenya, the Tutsi of the Lakes region, etc. - but the corollary is the kicker. If these were good warrior stock, the Xhosa, Tswana, Luo, Hutu and others were not. Units raised from them were thought to be inferior at the outset. Good officers did not want to be assigned to them, and blamed the units' failings on inferior soldiers rather than inferior leadership. The units' failures became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Racism probably played its role, but laying such racism all at the feet of Afrikaners seems like excuse-making. The British considered - rightly - East Africa to be a bit of a sideshow, and deployed a hodgepodge of second and third-rate units there.

[Cincinnatus]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

IMHO, the best insurgent leader ever based on scale and results would be Mao Tse Tung.

I went back a few posts to find this from NDD, "Take out the Japanese invasion and put a competent leader in Kai-shek's position and how good is Mao?" Since you guys are so often in agreement, I wonder if either of you would care to elaborate on Mao as an insurgent leader. Other than "Stillwell in China" I've read little on this theater and period of history and am always looking to learn.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Agreed AL, even Lettow understood it was a side-show., His sole aim was to draw as many assets as possible from Phrance and tie them down in Africa. However I won't accept that as a reason for his success. Most of his German "troops" were retired, stranded there by events or of some other calling. His used a naval ship's crew to great success. While his enemy fielded if not first rate troops - at least troops. Lettow was outnumbered and out gunned at every turn. His supply lines were cut after the first year, his civilian leadership wanted to surrender and he had no direct comms with his higher.

English military arrogance was indeed cited, as was racism beyond that of the Afrikaaners. There were other problems as well, apparently Van Deventer had to use a terp to stalk to the englishmen on his staff. Still no excuse. Lettow ran them ragged.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Originally Posted by Cincinnatus

I went back a few posts to find this from NDD, "Take out the Japanese invasion and put a competent leader in Kai-shek's position and how good is Mao?" Since you guys are so often in agreement, I wonder if either of you would care to elaborate on Mao as an insurgent leader. Other than "Stillwell in China" I've read little on this theater and period of history and am always looking to learn.

Read The Reaper's conditions in the post where he named Mao. With those conditions, I fully agree with him.

[Airbornelawyer]

Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc

Agreed AL, even Lettow understood it was a side-show., His sole aim was to draw as many assets as possible from Phrance and tie them down in Africa. However I won't accept that as a reason for his success. Most of his German "troops" were retired, stranded there by events or of some other calling. His used a naval ship's crew to great success. While his enemy fielded if not first rate troops - at least troops. Lettow was outnumbered and out gunned at every turn. His supply lines were cut after the first year, his civilian leadership wanted to surrender and he had no direct comms with his higher.

English military arrogance was indeed cited, as was racism beyond that of the Afrikaaners. There were other problems as well, apparently Van Deventer had to use a terp to stalk to the englishmen on his staff. Still no excuse. Lettow ran them ragged.

I am not sure of the level of experience of the British or South Africans (South Africa had been relatively quiet after 1902), but many of the Germans under Lettow-Vorbeck were experienced and decorated veterans of Germany's colonial wars, especially the Herero War in German South-West Africa (now Namibia). These included v. Lettow-Vorbeck himself, Captains von Grawert, Baumstark, Fischer, Styr, Schulz, Willmann, Schön, Tafel, Gräff, Braunschweig, Bock von Wülfingen, Wintgens and Freiherr von Hammerstein-Gesmold, Lieutenants Falkenstein, Busse and von Linde-Suden, and a number of NCOs whose names don't appear on the German Army rank lists. Fischer, Bock von Wülfingen, Freiherr von Hammerstein-Gesmold, Falkenstein and Busse were all killed, along with a number of other Schutztruppe officers.

The Schutztruppe in German South-West Africa was even more seasoned with experience veterans, including Major Viktor Franke, probably the most highly decorated soldier in the German Army before World War One. However, the terrain and relations with the local population did not favor the Germans there, and the colony fell more quickly.

[NousDefionsDoc]

I don't have the books here with me, I'll get back to this after I get back out to The Farm.

[huntcg]

I've missed a few posts in this thread, but has anyone mentioned/remembered George Rogers Clark. His taking of Fort Vincennes was brilliant. Also, Spartacus did lead a very successful albeit shortlived campaign against the Romans.

(I am a little biased, Clark operated in my home state and county.)