Partisans are popular breed in last 100 years. Although initially appearing in WW1 they made their reputation in WW2 in France and especially Russia and Yugoslavia. Later incarnations occurred in suicide bombers in Iraq etc.
Lets look closer at ww2 era. France declared war on Germany. Germany, in response, attacked and successfully occupied France. Partisans had the opportunity to fight (and loose) in French Army. But they decided instead to sneak attack unarmed German rear services and destroy infrastructure hurting thereby the German struggle for survival.
In Russia same happened, they could have fought (and lost) with Red Army. But they cowardly decided to attack German rear-guard. Forgotten soldier by Guy Sayer, among many other accounts, describes war crimes against German soldiers usually including body mutilations - and regularly provoking response by SS against local population harboring partisans. Strangely enough, they are not condemned for this illegal, immoral and criminal behavior and are recognized by victors as - freedom fighters to be celebrated eternally - without any staint. From the eyes of common Landser they represented ferocious and cowardly danger which lurked from the shadows. Since no Geneva conventions applied in Russia its hard to asses but Wehrmacht (not SS) usually abstained from war crimes.
In Iraq, however, when victorious USA attacked Iraq (which previously DID NOT declare war on USA) partisans are no longer freedom fighters. No, they became…INSURGENTS and TERRORISTS striped of any rights what so ever.
Or to give another -more direct example- partisans fighting in Russia were freedom fighters (despite fighting for communist regime) but those fighting in Vietnam/North Korea are communist bastards and evil doers :)
Is this another example of Allied hypocracy or my feet stink ?
The “German struggle for survival?” “F” their struggle for survival. What about the struggle for survival of the Russians under their occupation? “Sneak attack?” You mean like the ones on Poland and the Soviet Union? Sneak attack is often otherwise known as “ambush” in actual military parlance not used by ignorant Neonazi trolls…
In Russia same happened, they could have fought (and lost) with Red Army. But they cowardly decided to attack German rear-guard. Forgotten soldier by Guy Sayer, among many other accounts, describes war crimes against German soldiers usually including body mutilations - and regularly provoking response by SS against local population harboring partisans. Strangely enough, they are not condemned for this illegal, immoral and criminal behavior and are recognized by victors as - freedom fighters to be celebrated eternally - without any staint. From the eyes of common Landser they represented ferocious and cowardly danger which lurked from the shadows. Since no Geneva conventions applied in Russia its hard to asses but Wehrmacht (not SS) usually abstained from war crimes.
Really? What about the “war-crimes” of the Einsatzgruppen who just seemed to murder Jews and Soviets for fun? Since when did the Wehrmacht/SS follow the Geneva Convention when they knowingly would have to starve the Soviet population and POW’s to achieve any sort of victory?
In Iraq, however, when victorious USA attacked Iraq (which previously DID NOT declare war on USA) partisans are no longer freedom fighters. No, they became…INSURGENTS and TERRORISTS striped of any rights what so ever.
The U.S. also dealt with the “insurgents”, at least the secular Baathist Sunnis during the “Surge” and won them over to the govt’s side…
Or to give another -more direct example- partisans fighting in Russia were freedom fighters (despite fighting for communist regime) but those fighting in Vietnam/North Korea are communist bastards and evil doers :)
Is this another example of Allied hypocracy or my feet stink ?
Um, no. Not really. Because the Allies weren’t busy massacring everyone and putting Jews, Gypsies, communists, socialist, anti-Nazi Germans, etc., into gas chambers or throwing them into mass pits to be gunned down.
BTW, your troll sucks. D+, slacker. I’m pretty sure your feet stink, as does your bullshit moral false equivalency and revisionism…
Some of us seem to live in a strange world. Irregular forces of various sorts, including “franc tireurs” have been a feature of warfare for a very long time. The saying, “All’s fair in love and war” has quite a lot to be said for it. We owe the controversy over whether partisan warfare is legimitate to a very large extent to Karl von Clausewitz. As an idealistic young Prussian officer, he enlisted (against his government’s wishes) with the Russians to fight Napoleon’s 1812 invasion, and witnessed the second half of the 1812/1813 campaign, which largely involved Kutuzov’s main Russian army shadowing the Grand Armée to keep it on the ravaged course of its original invasion, constantly harassed by Cossacks and light Russian cavalry. The experience of Cossack warfare had a lasting influence on Clausewitz, who imported his bias against irregular warfare into his very influential future literary and educational work. This strain of Clausewitz goes a long way to explaining the German attitude to “franc tireurs” in the Franco-Prussian War and in the two World Wars.
Another factor was the development of international law defining concepts like “legitimate combattant”. While well-intentioned, this set a barrier between regular combattants and partisans/irrregulars. A nice idea - but quite unrealistic in the context of struggles for national survival, a characteristic of 20th century wars in particular.
As regards the examples cited, some French, and later Italian resistants had actually taken the field with their nations’ armies, and resorted to partisan activities when this formal type of resistance to invaders was no longer practical. The same was true to a much greater extent of Soviet partisans; many Red Army soldiers were left behind by the German Blitzkrieg, and chose partisan resistance as a preferable course to surrender. This seems neither cowardly, nor irrational, to me. In fact, it seems patriotic in the best sense.
Final comment. I think it was Max Hastings who quoted an SAS veteran who had witnessed his assigned French Resistance unit of over 100 persons and several of his British comrades killed in an anti-Maquis operation by German occupation troops in the South of France. The SAS man opined that we should forget about international laws trying to regulate irregular warfare - or even war crimes - because such phenomena are inevitable in war, have always been around, and must be accepted as a reality of warfare. The really important thing was to work to prevent war. I really think he had a point. Best regards, JR.
The actions of irregular forces in the countries you mention do not all have the same things in common, nor do their predecessors.
Yes, those French bastards just woke up one morning and, having nothing better to do than irritate Belgium by encouraging Germany to march through and lay waste to it again on the way to Paris, thought: Let’s declare war on poor old Germany, the most docile and inoffensive nation in Europe. Why, Germany hasn’t invaded many countries in the last 25 years, and hardly any recently apart from Czechoslovakia and Poland , so let’s fire up a major European war by declaring war on Germany, because we really want to lose the flower of our youth for the second time in 25 years, just for the hell of it.
Whatever you’re smoking, it’s not helping your thought processes.
Many partisans probably did. So what?
Many partisans didn’t fight in the French Army. So what?
Ever heard of a thing called patriotism?
Oh, those dastardly French, attacking (allegedly) unarmed German rear services.
Couple of problems there, old sport.
One, an army of occupation does not have rear services. You’re confusing it with an army in the field.
Two, French partisans attacking (even unarmed) German occupation soldiers falls a long way short of Germans engaged in various activities against unarmed civilians in the East and in German death camps.
Your perspective seems dangerously skewed in favour of the Nazis, and blind to their crimes. Which, as a moderator, troubles me.
Geography, among many things, clearly isn’t your strong point.
Look at a map of France.
That is where the French live (and mercifully for the rest of us, rarely choose to leave).
Now, think this through on destroying infrastructure.
Francois is French
Francois is a partisan in WWII
Francois lives in France in WWII
Francois engages in partisan activity in France in WWII
Francois does this by actions such as blowing up railway lines
The railway lines are in France, where Francois lives
The railway lines belonged to France before the war
The Germans did not buy the railway lines or otherwise acquire them by legitimate means
Whose infrastructure did Francois destroy?
Now, think this through on the German “struggle for survival”:
Given that Hitler was the best thing that had ever happened to Germany in the 20th century up to 1939, turning its economy around and raising the living standards of its people, where was the struggle for survival that required Germany to acquire railway lines in France and be upset when the French blew them up, and German soldiers with them?
My comments on France apply equally.
Well, only if they escaped the massacres of the Einsatzgruppen.
And were brave enough to come up against superior and more brutal forces, which is something the Einsatzgruppen never did in murdering civilians.
You have a disturbingly strange view of cowardice. And history.
You certainly got that arse about.
Has it occurred to you that the German invader was the aggressor, and that its actions in ridding the world of Eastern untermensch in pursuit of lebensraum provoked the bravest of the survivors to resist?
A few points, Sunshine.
First, Heer, not Werhrmacht. That alone displays your deplorable lack of knowledge.
Second, you need to brush up on, or more probably have your first contact with, Geneva Conventions relating to non-combatants, treatment of civilians, and which nations as distinct from partisans were signatories to and bound by it.
As if it mattered to the Einsatzgruppen, anyway.
Again, as with much of your post, these assertions trouble me as a moderator.
I was and remain opposed to the wholly unjustifiable invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US and my country among others, as I do to Germany’s invasions and occupations of various countries, the inhabitants of which and in the East in particular were treated vastly more harshly than were the inhabitants of Iraq by the invader (unlike the brutal treatment they got under Saddam). Unless I missed the bit in Wikileaks where the US and its allies ran death camps exterminating millions in Iraq and had Einsatzgruppen wiping out countless more in the field.
And how is this different to the German response?
Oh, yes, the invaders in Iraq didn’t follow the Germany policy in Italy, Yugoslavia and elsewhere of executing ten or more civilians out of hand for each of their soldiers killed.
Do you really think that there would have been any outcry, or even interest, in Germany 1939-45 if something equivalent to the, compared with what the Germans routinely did on a very large scale in the East, quite minor issue of prisoners being mistreated in Abu Ghraib became public knowledge?
The outrage in the governments and civilian populations of the Western nations which invaded Iraq when the Abu Ghraib abuses became public is exactly the opposite of the Nazi regime, starting with such odious things as propaganda relegating Jews and disabled people to the status of vermin and worthy of extermination.
You really need to think things through a lot more before you post.
And why wouldn’t Russians fighting German invaders in Russia be freedom fighters, any less than the same applied in France, Italy and Yugoslavia, among other places?
As for Vietnam, the USSR (not Russia) steadfastly maintained at the time that it had no troops in Vietnam, although subsequently the intelligence was confirmed that they had some specialist units in North Vietnam, notably anti-aircraft units, where they were perfectly entitled to be as guests of the North Vietnam government, as were the foreign units in the south as guests of the South’s government.
As to the rest of the Vietnam war, you seem to be under the misapprehension that those fighting the ARVN and the other forces (mainly American, South Korean, Australian and New Zealander) invited by the government of South Vietnam were partisan forces.
Again, you are quite wrong.
The Viet Cong or VC were the partisan force, but the North Vietnam Army as it was commonly called (or more accurately in translation the Peoples’ Army of North Vietnam or PAVN) was a regular force engaged in major actions against ARVN and US units, and occasionally others.
As for communist bastards in Vietnam, you should inform yourself on how the VC compelled local communities to provide support and shelter to them, starting with such brutal tactics as torturing and executing the village headman’s children in front of him. These were not the tactics of the volunteer partisans in France in WWII.
It’s long past time to wash your feet and change your socks.
[b][u]Mod comment: I sense trolling in your post but, as is my generous nature, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Stupidity and ignorance generally won’t get you banned here, but pushing a patently sympathetic pro-Nazi line will.
Whereas the 'Rules’of warfare go aways back,
… to delineating between ‘civilised’& ‘barbarian’ combatants in ancient times…
The current rules were codified during the U.S./C.S.A stoush of the 1860s [anyone seen ‘Outlaw Josey Wales’].
Provision for summary sanctions against irregulars, & reprisals were laid down. [& later used against native tribes too.]
Churchill, being an inveterate war-monger, wanted to ‘set Europe ablaze’ by instigating sabotage…
… in the sure knowledge that nasty [but legal] responses would inevitably occur…
Stalin like-wise had those of his subject under German authority…
… on warning of treason unless showing active [& risky] ‘partisan’ action…
Even the initial USAAF attempts to bomb Japan utilizing China brought savage reprisals…
… against the airmen & Chinese civilians alike…
& the Waffen SS - when captured - found themselves open to ‘legal’ summary ‘execution’
for being classed as ‘criminal brigands’…by the US… as well as Stalin’s mob…
& of course the Taliban laugh at/despise the current western values today…
Um, how was Churchill a “war monger?” I’ve heard many legitimate criticisms of him and I’m hardly a Churchill fanboi. But I don’t know if “war monger” would be in any way be a coherent charge and defies all logic. Doesn’t one have to actually start a war to be a “war monger?” His “set Europe ablaze” comment was more than just sabotage, it encompassed the use of special operations forces conducting strikes in order to tie-down the maximum number of German occupation troops in the West. Certainly they were aware that “nasty responses” would occur. But I was wondering on what legal basis the German SS operated when it, say, wiped out an entire Czech village in retaliation for the (very legal) assassination of Reinhard Heydrich?
It just seems like you’re giving the Nazis a bit of a pass here…
Do you have any specific incidents for this? Seems like a rather broad generalization that might sort of be, well, bullshit. How many of these “criminal brigands” were summarily executed by U.S. troops. This no doubt happened to an extent in the East. But when three-fifths of all Soviet POWs taken by the Germans died, we might have to put that in perspective…
They may have been first codified during the ACW, but were revised many times since. The most pertinent in this case being the 1929 variant, which contained the following paragraph:
Churchill was an odd fish in that respect - personally he went out of his way to get involved up close and personal in just about any war going, but at the same time I can’t think of a single occasion where he did anything to actually provoke one.
So far as knowing about the German responses, he authorised the operations he did in the knowledge that both legal and illegal responses would occur (the shooting of hostages, for instance, does not and did not have any place in the laws of war and hence can only be described as murder - yet the Germans did so regularly).
You won’t find me saying many nice things about Stalin, but the Partisans were clearly acting within the laws and customs of war, and are specifically to be treated as PoWs under the Third Geneva Convention. Not that this means much - the horrendous level of abuse the Germans subjected Soviet PoWs to means being a PoW was a very dubious benefit.
So because our enemy uses illegal means (“frightfulness”, to use a term from the time) we should just stop fighting them? That’s a sure-fire way to guarantee that said illegal means will be used more frequently in future. Rather, the way it was done in the end is absolutely correct - win the war, then track down, try and execute those responsible for the war crimes.
No summary executions carried out by US troops were treated as legal. I’m only aware of a very small number (after the liberation of Dachau, and after US PoWs had been found murdered in the Ardennes) - and in both cases this was the Chain of Command losing control over a small number of troops who have discovered an atrocity apparently carried out by identified individuals. Similar cases happened with the Red Army - the SS were identified in the mind of the common soldiers with the huge number of war crimes they had discovered when recapturing their country, and a desire for revenge overwhelmed the discipline imposed on them from above.
A significant number of SS men (and a few women) were executed after what were probably the fairest trials they could have been given. These (Höss for instance) generally richly deserve exactly what happened to them.
Many of the Taliban would have an arguable case for being legal combatants, but for the fact that the overwhelming majority of those they kill are Afghan civilians. They hence fail the proportionality tests.
Churchill, for all his many military and micro-strategic faults which must be balanced against his overall macro-strategic success in resisting and defeating the Nazis (but not the Japanese, which was a war of minor interest to him in comparison with the main game in Europe), was never a warmonger.
Hitler was a warmonger.
Hirohito and Tojo and their IJA / IJN cabal were warmongers.
Mussolini was a warmonger, albeit not a very good one when his consistent failures are compared with Hitler’s and Hirohito’s early successes.
Churchill was a resolute, aggressive, and effective responder to these warmongers.
Churchill was, effectively, the little bloke who stood up to the bigger bullies, and defeated them.
Churchill was also in varying degrees impulsive, erratic, incompetent, and incapable of admitting his own many mistakes, which deficiencies were consistently exceeded among senior figures in the Western Allies in WWII only by Douglas MacArthur.
But, for all his faults, Churchill’s courage and resolution in the face of looming defeat met Edmund Burke’s criteria for exemplary performance of public duty, steadfastly leading the only nation to stand against the Nazis for the first two years of WWII:
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man means well to his country; it is not enough that in his single person he never did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be prejudicial to the interests of his country. This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires, that what is right should not only be made known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated.
Emphasis added http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Burke/brkSWv1c1a.html
Which is what Churchill did, which is more than many in leading positions in Britain would have done if given a free hand 1940-41.
One absolutely critical difference between Churchill and MacArthur. Churchill had Alanbrooke, and (usually) listened to him. The net result was that Britain had (generally) excellent grand strategy during the war. MacArthur really didn’t have anybody to stand up to him whom he would actually listen to.
But as I suspect I’ve posted before, Brooke once accurately observed something along the lines “God knows where we’d be without Churchill, but God knows where we’ll go with him.”
The differences are that:
While both Churchill and MacArthur routinely got rid of people who opposed them, Churchill generally only got rid of people who opposed his strategic objectives or otherwise failed, in his not always clear view, on objective standards in major operations (e.g Auchinleck, which was probably unfair, as later events demonstrated). MacArthur got rid of people who just looked like they opposed or obstructed his remorseless and misleading program of farcical self-promotion.
Churchill had the power to devise grand strategy for his nation. Fortunately, MacArthur didn’t, or the whole of the American attack on Japan would have been wasted on a relatively unimportant thrust to re-take the Philippines to satisfy MacArthur’s vainglory and which was the worst way to reduce Japan compared with the central Pacific thrust outside MacArthur’s command which was the primary engine of land based attacks which achieved victory. Not that MacArthur’s thrust was unimportant in drawing out and defeating the last of the IJN, but that wasn’t his intention but merely a by-product of his land-based advance to redeem his sorry reputation.
:mrgreen:)