141-494: Counterinsurgency ( COIN , or NATO spelling counter-insurgency ) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces ". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionaries" and can be considered war by a state against a non-state adversary . Insurgency and counterinsurgency campaigns have been waged since ancient history . However, modern thinking on counterinsurgency
282-652: A troop , group , unit , column , band , or force . Irregulars are soldiers or warriors that are members of these organizations, or are members of special military units that employ irregular military tactics. This also applies to irregular infantry and irregular cavalry units. Irregular warfare is warfare employing the tactics commonly used by irregular military organizations. This involves avoiding large-scale combat, and focusing on small, stealthy, hit-and-run engagements. The words "regular" and "irregular" have been used to describe combat forces for hundreds of years, usually with little ambiguity. The requirements of
423-742: A Muslim, played a notable role in the revolt as an engineering and artillery officer with the Arab Northern Army. The British government in Egypt sent a young officer, Captain T. E. Lawrence , to work with the Hashemite forces in the Hejaz in October 1916. The British historian David Murphy wrote that though Lawrence was just one out of many British and French officers serving in Arabia, historians often write as though it
564-527: A campaign was in progress, or only when the fighting entered their home region. During the Battle of Aqaba , for instance, while the initial Arab force numbered only a few hundred, over a thousand more from local tribes joined them for the final assault on Aqaba . Estimates of Faisal's effective forces vary, but through most of 1918 at least, they may have numbered as high as 30,000 men. The Hashemite Army comprised two distinctive forces: tribal irregulars who waged
705-462: A counterinsurgent needs to choose two goals out of three. Relying on economic theory , this is what Zambernardi labels the "impossible trilemma" of counterinsurgency. Specifically, the impossible trilemma suggests that it is impossible to simultaneously achieve: 1) force protection, 2) distinction between enemy combatants and non-combatants, and 3) the physical elimination of insurgents. According to Zambernardi, in pursuing any two of these three goals,
846-403: A degree that victory is easy or assured for the regular forces. However, in many modern rebellions, one does not see rebel fighters working in conjunction with regular forces. Rather, they are home-grown militias or imported fighters who have no unified goals or objectives save to expel the occupier. According to Liddell Hart, there are few effective counter-measures to this strategy. So long as
987-429: A government's chain of command cause the regular army to be very well defined, and anybody fighting outside it, other than official paramilitary forces, are irregular. In case the legitimacy of the army or its opponents is questioned, some legal definitions have been created. In international humanitarian law , the term "irregular forces" refers to a category of combatants that consists of individuals forming part of
1128-412: A grand scale, there is no one to carry out guerilla missions but regulars." He also emphasizes the importance for the use of regular units permanently attached to guerilla warfare activities, stating that they can play key roles in severing enemy supply routes. While the morale, training and equipment of the individual irregular soldier can vary from very poor to excellent, irregulars are usually lacking
1269-573: A greater use of Arabic in education and changes in peacetime conscription in the Ottoman Empire to allow Arab conscripts local service in the Ottoman army. The Young Turk Revolution began on 3 July 1908 and quickly spread throughout the empire. As a result, Sultan Abdul Hamid II was forced to announce the restoration of the 1876 constitution and the reconvening of the Ottoman parliament . The period
1410-622: A guerrilla war against the Ottoman Empire and the Sharifian Army , which was recruited from Ottoman Arab POWs and fought in conventional battles. Hashemite forces were initially poorly equipped, but later received significant supplies of weapons, most notably rifles and machine guns from Britain and France . In the early days of the revolt, Faisal's forces were largely made up of Bedouins and other nomadic desert tribes, who were only loosely allied, loyal more to their respective tribes than
1551-680: A joint action with the Arab irregulars and forces under Auda Abu Tayi , until then, in the employ of the Ottomans, against the port city of Aqaba . This is now known as the Battle of Aqaba . Aqaba was the only remaining Ottoman port on the Red Sea and threatened the right flank of Britain 's Egyptian Expeditionary Force defending Egypt , and preparing to advance into Sanjak Maan of the Syria Vilayet . Capture of Aqaba would aid transfer of British supplies to
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#17328511760101692-535: A large Ottoman force at the Battle of Tafilah, inflicting over 1,000 Ottoman casualties for the loss of a mere forty men. In March 1918 the Arab Northern Army consisted of In April 1918, Ja'far al-Askari and Nuri as-Said led the Arab Regular Army in a frontal attack on the well-defended Ottoman railway station at Ma'an , which after some initial successes was fought off with heavy losses to both sides. However,
1833-517: A march of 700 miles (1,100 km) in 44 days. For the final Allied offensive intended to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, Allenby asked that Emir Faisal and his Arab Northern Army launch a series of attacks on the main Turkish forces from the east, which was intended to both tie down Ottoman troops and force Turkish commanders to worry about their security of their flanks in the Levant . Supporting
1974-509: A modernisation. It preached a message that was a mixture of pan-Islamism , Ottomanism , and pan-Turkism , which was adjusted as the conditions warranted. At heart, the CUP were Turkish nationalists who wanted to see the Turks as the dominant group within the Ottoman Empire, which antagonised Arab leaders and prompted them to think in similarly nationalistic terms. Arab members of the parliament supported
2115-427: A peasant guerilla force which in time transformed itself into a large regular force. This transformation was foreseen in the doctrine of " people's war ", in which irregular forces were seen as being able to engage the enemy and to win the support of the populace but as being incapable of taking and holding ground against regular military forces. Modern conflicts in post-invasion Iraq , the renewed Taliban insurgency in
2256-530: A prime example the French occupation of Spain during the Napoleonic wars . Whenever Spanish forces managed to constitute themselves into a regular fighting force, the superior French forces beat them every time. However, once dispersed and decentralized, the irregular nature of the rebel campaigns proved a decisive counter to French superiority on the battlefield. Napoleon 's army had no means of effectively combating
2397-445: A reason for the insurgents to continue until victory. Trường Chinh , second in command to Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam , wrote in his Primer for Revolt : The guiding principle of the strategy for our whole resistance must be to prolong the war. To protract the war is the key to victory. Why must the war be protracted? ... If we throw the whole of our forces into a few battles to try to decide the outcome, we shall certainly be defeated and
2538-451: A siege. With the Egyptian artillery support, Abdullah took Ta'if on 22 September 1916. French and British naval forces cleared the Red Sea of Ottoman gunboats early in the war. The port of Jeddah was attacked by 3,500 Arabs on 10 June 1916 with the assistance of bombardment by British warships and seaplanes. The seaplane carrier HMS Ben-my-Chree , provided crucial air support to
2679-510: A state must forgo some portion of the third objective. In particular, a state can protect its armed forces while destroying insurgents, but only by indiscriminately killing civilians as the Ottomans , Italians , and Nazis did in the Balkans, Libya, and Eastern Europe. It can choose to protect civilians along with its own armed forces instead, avoiding so-called collateral damage, but only by abandoning
2820-588: A successful counterinsurgency: In "The Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency", Dr. David Kilcullen , the Chief Strategist of the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism of the U.S. State Department in 2006, described a framework for interagency cooperation in counterinsurgency operations. His pillars – Security, Political and Economic – support the overarching goal of Control, but are based on Information: This
2961-595: A system of wells approximately 100 miles (160 km) apart. In late 1916, the Allies started the formation of the Regular Arab Army, also known as the Sharifian Army , raised from Ottoman Arab POWs. The soldiers of the Regular Army wore British-style uniforms with the keffiyahs and, unlike the tribal guerrillas, fought full-time and in conventional battles. Some of the more notable former Ottoman officers to fight in
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#17328511760103102-403: A unit recruited from the people" were all examples of ways in which regular military units could be involved in irregular warfare. Mao argues that regular army units temporarily detailed for irregular warfare are essential because "First, in mobile-warfare situations, the coordination of guerilla activities with regular operations is necessary. Second, until guerilla hostilities can be developed on
3243-519: Is a sociological phenomenon that constrains the habits of a military (in this case, the Nigerian military) to the long-established, yet increasingly ineffective, ideology of the offensive in irregular warfare. As Omeni writes, Whereas the Nigerian military's performance against militias in the Niger Delta already suggested the military had a poor grasp of the threat of insurgent warfare; it was further along
3384-490: Is any non-standard military component that is distinct from a country's national armed forces. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used. An irregular military organization is one which is not part of the regular army organization. Without standard military unit organization , various more general names are often used; such organizations may be called
3525-401: Is because perception is crucial in developing control and influence over population groups. Substantive security, political and economic measures are critical but to be effective they must rest upon, and integrate with a broader information strategy. Every action in counterinsurgency sends a message; the purpose of the information campaign is to consolidate and unify this message. ... Importantly,
3666-650: Is known as the Second Constitutional Era . In the 1908 elections, the Young Turks' Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) managed to gain the upper hand against the Liberal Union , led by Sultanzade Sabahaddin . The new parliament had 142 Turks , 60 Arabs , 25 Albanians , 23 Greeks , 12 Armenians (including four Dashnaks and two Hunchaks ), five Jews , four Bulgarians , three Serbs and one Vlach . The CUP now gave more emphasis to centralisation and
3807-399: Is not primarily military, but a combination of military, political and social actions under the strong control of a single authority. Galula proposes four "laws" for counterinsurgency: Galula contends that: A victory [in a counterinsurgency] is not the destruction in a given area of the insurgent's forces and his political organization. ... A victory is that plus the permanent isolation of
3948-405: Is throw overboard 99 percent of the literature on counterinsurgency, counter guerrilla, counterterrorism, and the like. Since most of it was written by the losing side, it is of little value. In examining why so many counterinsurgencies by powerful militaries fail against weaker enemies, Van Creveld identifies a key dynamic that he illustrates by the metaphor of killing a child. Regardless of whether
4089-446: Is to be used to refer to a specific group. Using one term over another can strongly imply strong support or opposition for the cause. It is possible for a military to cross the line between regular and irregular. Isolated regular army units that are forced to operate without regular support for long periods of time can degrade into irregulars. As an irregular military becomes more successful, it may transition away from irregular, even to
4230-706: The 2001 war in Afghanistan , the Darfur conflict , the rebellion in the North of Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army , and the Second Chechen War are fought almost entirely by irregular forces on one or both sides. The CIA 's Special Activities Center (SAC) is the premiere American paramilitary clandestine unit for creating or combating irregular military forces. SAD paramilitary officers created and led successful units from
4371-551: The British Army . Prior to 1857 Britain's East India Company maintained large numbers of cavalry and infantry regiments officially designated as "irregulars", although they were permanently established units. The end of Muslim rule saw a large number of unemployed Indian Muslim horsemen, who were employed in the army of the EIC . British officers such as Skinner , Gardner and Hearsay had become leaders of irregular cavalry that preserved
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4512-610: The CIA 's Special Activities Center . However at times, such as out of desperation, conventional militaries will resort to guerilla tactics, usually to buy breathing space and time for themselves by tying up enemy forces to threaten their line of communications and rear areas, such as the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry and the Chindits . Although they are part of a regular army, United States Special Forces are trained in missions such as implementing irregular military tactics . However, outside
4653-601: The Confederate States of America . One could attribute the disastrous defeat of the Romans at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest to the lack of supporting irregular forces; only a few squadrons of irregular light cavalry accompanied the invasion of Germany when normally the number of foederati and auxiliaries would equal the regular legions. During this campaign the majority of locally recruited irregulars defected to
4794-835: The Great Arab Revolt ( الثورة العربية الكبرى al-Thawra al-'Arabiyya al-Kubrā ), was an armed uprising by the Hashemite -led Arabs of the Hejaz against the Ottoman Empire amidst the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I . On the basis of the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence , exchanged between Henry McMahon of the United Kingdom and Hussein bin Ali of the Kingdom of Hejaz ,
4935-858: The Hmong tribe during the Laotian Civil War in the 1960s and 1970s. They also organized and led the Mujaheddin as an irregular force against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, as well as the Northern Alliance as an irregular insurgency force against the Taliban with US Army Special Forces during the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and organized and led the Kurdish Peshmerga with US Army Special Forces as an irregular counter-insurgency force against
5076-805: The Imperial Camel Corps served with the Arabs for a time. The French military mission of 1,100 officers under Brémond established good relations with Hussein and especially with his sons, the Emirs Ali and Abdullah , and for this reason, most of the French effort went into assisting the Arab Southern Army commanded by the Emir Ali that was laying siege to Medina and the Eastern Army commanded by Abdullah that had
5217-575: The OSS operators of World War II, which were tasked with inspiring, training, arming and leading resistance movements in German-occupied Europe and Japanese occupied Asia. In Finland, well-trained light infantry Sissi troops use irregular tactics such as reconnaissance, sabotage and guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. The founder of the People's Republic of China , Mao Zedong actively advocated for
5358-538: The Peninsular War led by Spaniards against the French invaders in 1808 provided the first modern example of guerrilla warfare . Indeed, the term of guerrilla itself was coined during this time. As the Industrial Revolution dried up the traditional source of irregulars, nations were forced take over the duties of the irregulars using specially trained regular army units. Examples are the light infantry in
5499-510: The Royal Air Force , of the well-defended Hejaz railway station at Mudawwara. They captured 120 prisoners and two guns, suffering 17 casualties in the operation. Buxton's two companies of Imperial Camel Corps Brigade continued on towards Amman , where they hoped to destroy the main bridge. 20 miles (32 km) from the city they were attacked by aircraft, forcing them to withdraw eventually back to Beersheba where they arrived on 6 September;
5640-507: The Suez Canal and conquering Damascus , allowing the British to undertake offensive operations with a lower risk of counter-attack. This was the British justification for supporting the revolt, a textbook example of asymmetric warfare that has been studied time and again by military leaders and historians alike. The Ottoman Empire took part in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I , under
5781-879: The Three Kingdoms period, the American Revolution , the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War , the Franco-Prussian War , the Russian Civil War , the Second Boer War , Liberation war of Bangladesh, Vietnam War , the Syrian Civil War and especially the Eastern Front of World War II where hundreds of thousands of partisans fought on both sides. The Chinese People's Liberation Army began as
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5922-609: The US Department of State as the Policy Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, Salam al-Zaubai . In his book, When Bad States Win: Rethinking Counterinsurgency Strategy , he found little evidence to support the ‘hearts and minds’ approach to counterinsurgency. “There is little robust generalizable evidence that population-centric approaches are effective,” he argued. Irregular military Irregular military
6063-518: The University of Michigan . Berman, Shapiro, and Felter have outlined the modern information-centric model. In this framework, the critical determinant of counterinsurgent success is information about insurgents provided to counterinsurgents, such as insurgent locations, plans, and targets. Information can be acquired from civilian sources (human intelligence, HUMINT ), or through signals intelligence ( SIGINT ). Dr. Jeffrey Treistman previously served with
6204-600: The countercoup of 1909 , which aimed to dismantle the constitutional system and to restore the absolute monarchy of Sultan Abdul Hamid II . The dethroned sultan attempted to restore the Ottoman Caliphate by putting an end to the secular policies of the Young Turks. He was driven away to exile in Selanik by the 31 March Incident , in which the Young Turks defeated the countercoup. He was eventually replaced by his brother Mehmed V . In 1913, intellectuals and politicians from
6345-466: The "how" and "what", but it is more common to focus on the "why" as just about all irregular units were created to provide a tactical advantage to an existing military, whether it was privateer forces harassing shipping lanes against assorted New World colonies on behalf of their European contractors, or Auxiliaries, levies, civilian and other standing irregular troops that are used as more expendable supplements to assist costly trained soldiers. Bypassing
6486-488: The Arab forces involved in the revolt numbered around 5,000 soldiers. This number probably applies to the Arab regulars who fought during the Sinai and Palestine campaign with Edmund Allenby's Egyptian Expeditionary Force , and not the irregular forces under the direction of T. E. Lawrence and Faisal . On a few occasions, particularly during the final campaign into Syria , this number grew significantly. The Arab Bureau of
6627-518: The Arab revolt. Lawrence and Auda left Wedj on 9 May 1917 with a party of 40 men, to recruit a mobile force from the Howeitat , a tribe located in the area. On 6 July, after an overland attack, Aqaba fell to those Arab forces with only a handful of casualties. Lawrence then rode 150 miles to Suez to arrange Royal Navy delivery of food and supplies for the 2,500 Arabs and 700 Ottoman prisoners in Aqaba. Soon
6768-631: The Arab-majority Ottoman territories of the Middle East were broken up into a number of League of Nations mandates , jointly controlled by the British and the French. Amidst the partition of the Ottoman Empire , the defeated Ottomans' mainland in Anatolia came under a joint military occupation by the victorious Allies . This was gradually broken by the Turkish War of Independence , which established
6909-420: The Arabs launched a highly successful campaign against the Hejaz railway, capturing military supplies, destroying trains and tracks, and tying down thousands of Ottoman troops. Though the attacks were mixed in success, they achieved their primary goal of tying down Ottoman troops and cutting off Medina. In January 1918, in one of the largest set-piece battles of the Revolt, Arab forces, including Lawrence, defeated
7050-497: The Arabs not to drive the Ottomans out of Medina . Instead, the Arabs attacked the Hejaz railway on many occasions. This tied up more Ottoman troops, who were forced to protect the railway and repair the constant damage. On 1 December 1916, Fakhri Pasha began an offensive with three brigades out of Medina , with the aim of taking the port of Yanbu . At first, Fakhri's troops defeated the Hashemite forces in several engagements, and seemed set to take Yanbu. On 11–12 December 1916, it
7191-567: The Arabs of Hejaz, "guarantee the independence, rights and privileges of the Sharifate against all foreign external aggression, in particular that of the Ottomans." The Sharif indicated that he could not break with the Ottomans immediately, and it did not happen till the following year. From 14 July 1915, to 10 March 1916, ten letters, five from each side, were exchanged between Sir Henry McMahon and Sherif Hussein . Hussein's letter of 18 February 1916 appealed to McMahon for £50,000 in gold, plus weapons, ammunition, and food. Faisal claimed that he
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#17328511760107332-427: The British Empire in Cairo believed that the revolt would draw the support of all Arabs throughout the Ottoman Empire and Arab lands. Faisal and Sharif Hussein reportedly expected to be joined by 100,000 Arab troops. The large desertions predicted British Arab Bureau never materialized, as the majority of Arab officers remained loyal to the Ottomans until the end. Many Arabs joined the Revolt sporadically, often as
7473-425: The British, who provided much needed artillery support, and took Mecca on 9 July 1916. Indiscriminate Ottoman artillery fire, which did much damage to Mecca, turned out to be a potent propaganda weapon for the Hashemites, who portrayed the Ottomans as desecrating Islam's most holy city. Also on 10 June, another of Hussein's sons, the Emir Abdullah , attacked Ta'if , which after an initial repulse, settled down into
7614-403: The Germanic tribesmen led by the former auxiliary officer Arminius . During the decline of the Roman Empire , irregulars made up an ever-increasing proportion of the Roman military. At the end of the Western Empire, there was little difference between the Roman military and the barbarians across the borders. Following Napoleon 's modernisation of warfare with the invention of conscription ,
7755-424: The Hashemite forces. The Ottoman garrison surrendered on 16 June. By the end of September 1916, the Sharifian Army had taken the coastal cities of Rabigh , Yanbu , al Qunfudhah , and 6,000 Ottoman prisoners with the assistance of the Royal Navy . The capture of the Red Sea ports allowed the British to send over a force of 700 Ottoman Arab POWs, who primarily came from what is now Iraq, who had decided to join
7896-440: The Hejaz railway. At first, guerrilla forces commanded by officers from the Regular Army such as al-Misri, and by British officers such as Newcombe, Lieutenant Hornby and Major Herbert Garland focused their efforts on blowing up unguarded sections of the Hejaz railway. Garland was the inventor of the so-called "Garland mine", which was used with much destructive force on the Hejaz railway. In February 1917, Garland succeeded for
8037-431: The Hejaz railway. On 11 May Arab regulars captured Jerdun and 140 prisoners. Five weeks later, on 24 July Nos. 5 and 7 Companies of the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade commanded by Major R. V. Buxton , marched from the Suez Canal to arrive at Aqaba on 30 July, to attack the Mudawwara Station. A particularly notable attack of Hedgehog was the storming on 8 August 1918, by the Imperial Camel Corps , closely supported by
8178-422: The Hejaz, that did much damage to the Hashemite forces. However, the Ottoman failure to take Yanbu in December 1916 led to the increased strengthening of the Hashemite forces, and led to the Ottoman forces to go on the defensive. Lawrence later claimed that the failure of the offensive against Yanbu was the turning point that ensured the ultimate defeat of the Ottomans in the Hejaz . In 1917, Lawrence arranged
8319-399: The Kurdish Sunni Islamist group Ansar al-Islam at the Iraq-Iran border and as an irregular force against Saddam Hussein during the war in Iraq in 2003. Irregular civilian volunteers also played a large role in the Battle of Kyiv during the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Arab Revolt The Arab Revolt ( Arabic : الثورة العربية al-Thawra al-'Arabiyya ), also known as
8460-404: The Mashriq met in Paris at the First Arab Congress . They produced a set of demands for greater autonomy and equality within the Ottoman Empire, including for elementary and secondary education in Arab lands to be delivered in Arabic, for peacetime Arab conscripts to the Ottoman army to serve near their home region and for at least three Arab ministers in the Ottoman cabinet. It is estimated that
8601-424: The Nigerian Army has struggled in COIN due to capabilities shortcomings, holds some merit. However, a full-spectrum analysis of the Nigeria case suggests that this popular dominant narrative scarcely scratches the surface of the true COIN challenge. This population-centered challenge, moreover, is one that militaries across the world continue to contend with. And in attempting to solve the COIN puzzle, state forces over
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#17328511760108742-478: The Ottoman forces was they were at the end of a long and tenuous supply line in the form of the Hejaz railway, and because of their logistical weaknesses, were often forced to fight on the defensive. Ottoman offensives against the Hashemite forces more often faltered due to supply problems than to the actions of the enemy. The main contribution of the Arab Revolt to the war was to pin down tens of thousands of Ottoman troops who otherwise might have been used to attack
8883-422: The Ottoman military presence from much of the Hejaz and Transjordan . By 1918, the rebels had captured Damascus and proclaimed the Arab Kingdom of Syria , a short-lived monarchy that was led by Hussein's son Faisal I . Having covertly signed the Sykes–Picot Agreement with the French Third Republic , the British reneged on their promise to support the Arabs' establishment of a singular Arab state. Instead,
9024-413: The Revolt were Nuri as-Said , Ja'far al-Askari and 'Aziz 'Ali al-Misri . The year 1917 began well for the Hashemites, when the Emir Abdullah and his Arab Eastern Army ambushed an Ottoman convoy led by Ashraf Bey in the desert, and captured £20,000 worth of gold coins that were intended to bribe the Bedouin into loyalty to the Sultan . Starting in early 1917, the Hashemite guerrillas began attacking
9165-425: The Sharifian Army succeeded in cutting off and thus neutralizing the Ottoman position at Ma'an, who held out until late September 1918. The British refused several requests from al-Askari to use mustard gas on the Ottoman garrison at Ma'an. In the spring of 1918, Operation Hedgehog, a concerted attempt to sever and destroy the Hejaz railway, was launched. In May 1918, Hedgehog led to the destruction of 25 bridges of
9306-408: The Turkish forces off. In both the preceding cases, the insurgents and rebel fighters were working in conjunction with or in a manner complementary to regular forces. Such was also the case with the French Resistance during World War II and the National Liberation Front during the Vietnam War . The strategy in these cases is for the irregular combatant to weaken and destabilize the enemy to such
9447-432: The United States, the term special forces does not generally imply a force that is trained to fight as guerillas and insurgents. Originally, the United States Special Forces were created to serve as a cadre around which stay-behind resistance forces could be built in the event of a communist victory in Europe or elsewhere. The United States Special Forces and the CIA's Special Activities Center can trace their lineage to
9588-435: The Western front-lines of the war, and thus only a handful of deserters actually joined the Arab forces until later in the campaign. By the beginning of the First World War, Arab conscripts constituted about 30% of the wartime Ottoman military of 3 million, serving in all ranks, from the lowest to the highest, and forming a crucial component of the Ottoman Army . Ottoman troops in the Hejaz numbered 20,000 men by 1917. At
9729-470: The armed forces of a party to an armed conflict, international or domestic, but not belonging to that party's regular forces and operating inside or outside of their own territory, even if the territory is under occupation. The Third Geneva Convention of 1949 uses "regular armed forces " as a critical distinction. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a non-governmental organization primarily responsible for and most closely associated with
9870-423: The basic training of irregulars. The regulars would only provide the core military in the major battles; irregulars would provide all other combat duties. Notable examples of regulars relying on irregulars include Bashi-bazouk units in the Ottoman Empire , auxiliary cohorts of Germanic peoples in the Roman Empire , Cossacks in the Russian Empire , and Native American forces in the American frontier of
10011-407: The child started the fight or how well armed the child is, an adult in a fight with a child will feel that he is acting unjustly if he harms the child and foolish if the child harms him; he will, therefore, wonder if the fight is necessary. Van Creveld argues that "by definition, a strong counterinsurgent who uses his strength to kill the members of a small, weak organization of insurgents – let alone
10152-427: The city was co-occupied by a large Anglo-French flotilla, including warships and sea planes, which helped the Arabs secure their hold on Aqaba. Even as the Hashemite armies advanced, they still encountered sometimes fierce opposition from local residents. In July 1917, residents of the town of Karak fought against the Hashemite forces and turned them back. Later in 1917, British intelligence reports suggested that most of
10293-487: The city, killing between 10-25,000 people, including many women and children. Asked by reporters what had happened, Hafez al-Assad exaggerated the damage and deaths, promoted the commanders who carried out the attacks, and razed Hama's well-known great mosque, replacing it with a parking lot. With the Muslim Brotherhood scattered, the population was so cowed that it would be years before opposition groups dared to disobey
10434-427: The civilian population by which it is surrounded, and which may lend it support – will commit crimes in an unjust cause," while "a child who is in a serious fight with an adult is justified in using every and any means available – not because he or she is right, but because he or she has no choice". Every act of insurgency becomes, from the perspective of the counterinsurgent, a reason to end the conflict, while also being
10575-400: The count of enemy troops, making the odds seem much worse than they were. This may be accidental; counts of friendly troops often came from official regular army rolls that exclude unofficial forces, while enemy strength often came from visual estimates, where the distinction between regular and irregular were lost. If irregular forces overwhelm regulars, records of the defeat are often lost in
10716-525: The decades have tried a range of tactics. Starting in the early 2000s, micro-level data has transformed the analysis of effective counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. Leading this work is the "information-centric" group of theorists and researchers, led by the work of the Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC) group at Princeton University , and the Conflict and Peace, Research and Development (CPRD) group at
10857-596: The drafting and successful completion of the Third Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War ("GPW"). The ICRC provided commentary saying that "regular armed forces" satisfy four Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907) (Hague IV) conditions. In other words, "regular forces" must satisfy the following criteria: By extension, combat forces that do not satisfy these criteria are termed "irregular forces". The term "irregular military" describes
10998-451: The dynamics of revolutionary warfare. Counter-insurgency focuses on bridging these gaps. Insurgents take advantage of social issues known as gaps. When the gaps are wide, they create a sea of discontent, creating the environment in which the insurgent can operate. In The Insurgent Archipelago , John Mackinlay puts forward the concept of an evolution of the insurgency from the Maoist paradigm of
11139-614: The emirs ʻAli and Faisal , began the revolt by attacking the Ottoman garrison in Medina , but were defeated by an aggressive Turkish defence, led by Fakhri Pasha. The revolt proper began on 10 June 1916, when Hussein ordered his supporters to attack the Ottoman garrison in Mecca. In the Battle of Mecca , there ensued over a month of bloody street fighting between the out-numbered, but far better armed Ottoman troops and Hussein's tribesmen. Hashemite forces in Mecca were joined by Egyptian troops sent by
11280-443: The enemy will win. On the other hand, if while fighting we maintain our forces, expand them, train our army and people, learn military tactics … and at the same time wear down the enemy forces, we shall weary and discourage them in such a way that, strong as they are, they will become weak and will meet defeat instead of victory. Van Creveld thus identifies "time" as the key factor in counterinsurgency. In an attempt to find lessons from
11421-824: The exception of imperial possessions and interests in Kuwait , Aden , and the Syrian coast. He decided to join the Allied camp immediately, because of rumours that he would soon be deposed as Sharif of Mecca by the Ottoman government in favor of Sharif Ali Haidar , leader of the rival Zaʻid family. The much-publicized executions of the Arab nationalist leaders in Damascus led Hussein to fear for his life if he were deposed in favour of Ali Haidar. Hussein had about 50,000 men under arms, but fewer than 10,000 had rifles. On 5 June 1916, two of Hussein's sons,
11562-486: The fault of its governors." Consequently, he advocated clemency towards the population and good governance, to seek the people's "heart and love". Liddell Hart attributed the failure of counterinsurgencies to various causes. First, as pointed out in the Insurgency addendum to the second version of his book Strategy: The Indirect Approach , a popular insurgency has an inherent advantage over any occupying force. He showed as
11703-513: The few cases of successful counterinsurgency, of which he lists two clear cases: the British efforts during The Troubles of Northern Ireland and the 1982 Hama massacre carried out by the Syrian government to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood , he asserts that the "core of the difficulty is neither military nor political, but moral" and outlines two distinct methods. The first method relies on superb intelligence, provided by those who know
11844-578: The first time in destroying a moving locomotive with a mine of his own design. In February 1917, around Medina , Captain Muhammad Ould Ali Raho of the French Military Mission carried out his first railway demolition attack. Captain Raho emerged as one of the leading destroyers of the Hejaz railway. In March 1917, Lawrence led his first attack on the Hejaz railway. Typical of such attacks was
11985-639: The golden age of insurgency to the global insurgency of the start of the 21st century. He defines this distinction as "Maoist" and "post-Maoist" insurgency. The third Marques of Santa Cruz de Marcenado (1684–1732) is probably the earliest author who dealt systematically in his writings with counterinsurgency. In his Reflexiones Militares , published between 1726 and 1730, he discussed how to spot early signs of an incipient insurgency, prevent insurgencies, and counter them, if they could not be warded off. Strikingly, Santa Cruz recognized that insurgencies are usually due to real grievances: "A state rarely rises up without
12126-403: The government. Thus the essence of counterinsurgency warfare is summed up by Galula as "Build (or rebuild) a political machine from the population upward." Robert Grainger Ker Thompson wrote Defeating Communist Insurgency in 1966, wherein he argued that a successful counterinsurgency effort must be proactive in seizing the initiative from insurgents. Thompson outlines five basic principles for
12267-440: The grassroots. The counterinsurgent reaches a position of strength when his power is embedded in a political organization issuing from, and firmly supported by, the population. With his four principles in mind, Galula goes on to describe a general military and political strategy to put them into operation in an area that is under full insurgent control: In a Selected Area 1. Concentrate enough armed forces to destroy or to expel
12408-586: The higher-level organizational training and equipment that is part of regular army. This usually makes irregulars ineffective in direct, main-line combat, the typical focus of more standard armed forces. Other things being equal, major battles between regulars and irregulars heavily favor the regulars. However, irregulars can excel at many other combat duties besides main-line combat, such as scouting , skirmishing , harassing , pursuing, rear-guard actions, cutting supply, sabotage , raids , ambushes and underground resistance . Experienced irregulars often surpass
12549-442: The information campaign has to be conducted at a global, regional and local level — because modern insurgents draw upon global networks of sympathy, support, funding and recruitment. Kilcullen considers the three pillars to be of equal importance because unless they are developed in parallel, the campaign becomes unbalanced: too much economic assistance with inadequate security, for example, simply creates an array of soft targets for
12690-452: The institution of COIN within militaries and their tendency to reject the innovation and adaptation often necessary to defeat insurgency. These three features, furthermore, influence and can undermine the operational tactics and concepts adopted against insurgents. The COIN challenge, therefore, is not just operational; it also is cultural and institutional before ever it reflects on the battlefield. According to Omeni, institutional isomorphism
12831-478: The insurgency maintains popular support, it will retain all of its strategic advantages of mobility, invisibility, and legitimacy in its own eyes and the eyes of the people. So long as this is the situation, an insurgency essentially cannot be defeated by regular forces. David Galula gained his practical experience in counterinsurgency as a French Army officer in the Algerian War . His theory of counterinsurgency
12972-456: The insurgent from the population, isolation not enforced upon the population, but maintained by and with the population. ... In conventional warfare, strength is assessed according to military or other tangible criteria, such as the number of divisions, the position they hold, the industrial resources, etc. In revolutionary warfare, strength must be assessed by the extent of support from the population as measured in terms of political organization at
13113-470: The insurgents. Similarly, too much security assistance without political consensus or governance simply creates more capable armed groups. In developing each pillar, we measure progress by gauging effectiveness (capability and capacity) and legitimacy (the degree to which the population accepts that government actions are in its interest). The overall goal, according to this model, "is not to reduce violence to zero or to kill every insurgent, but rather to return
13254-409: The legitimate military and taking up arms is an extreme measure. The motivation for doing so is often used as the basis of the primary label for any irregular military. Different terms come into and out of fashion, based on political and emotional associations that develop. Here is a list of such terms, which is organized more or less from oldest to latest: Intense debates can build up over which term
13395-451: The line, as the military struggled against Boko Haram's threat, that the extent of this weakness was exposed. At best, the utility of force, for the Nigerian military, had become but a temporary solution against the threat of insurgent warfare. At worst, the existing model has been perpetuated at such high cost, that urgent revisionist thinking around the idea of counterinsurgency within the military institution may now be required. Additionally,
13536-531: The main body of armed insurgents. 2. Detach for the area sufficient troops to oppose an insurgent come back in strength, install these troops in the hamlets, villages, and towns where the population lives. 3. Establish contact with the population, control its movements in order to cut off its links with the guerrillas. 4. Destroy the local insurgent political organization. 5. Set up, by means of elections, new provisional local authorities. 6. Test those authorities by assigning them various concrete tasks. Replace
13677-495: The margins of the theoretical debate – even though Africa today is faced with a number of deadly insurgencies. In Counter-insurgency in Nigeria , Omeni, a Nigerian academic, discusses the interactions between certain features away from the battlefield, which account for battlefield performance against insurgent warfare. Specifically, Omeni argues that the trio of historical experience, organisational culture (OC) and doctrine, help explain
13818-418: The military's decisive civil war victory, the pivot in Nigeria's strategic culture towards a regional role, and the institutional delegitimization brought about by decades of coups and political meddling, meant that much time went by without substantive revisionism to the military's thinking around its internal function. Change moreover, where it occurred, was institutionally isomorphic and not as far removed from
13959-588: The military's own origins as the intervening decades may have suggested. Further, the infantry-centric nature of the Nigerian Army 's battalions, traceable back to the Nigerian Civil War back in the 1960s, is reflected in the kinetic nature of the Army's contemporary COIN approach. This approach has failed to defeat Boko Haram in the way many expected. Certainly, therefore, the popular argument today, which holds that
14100-428: The natural and artificial environment of the conflict as well as the insurgents. Once such superior intelligence is gained, the counterinsurgents must be trained to a point of high professionalism and discipline such that they will exercise discrimination and restraint. Through such discrimination and restraint, the counterinsurgents do not alienate members of the populace besides those already fighting them, while delaying
14241-586: The new Indian Army that was organized following the great Indian Rebellion of 1857. Before 1867, military units in Canada consisted of British units of volunteers. During French rule, small local volunteer militia units or colonial militias were used to provide defence needs. During British control of various local militias, the Provincial Marine were used to support British regular forces in Canada. Use of large irregular forces featured heavily in wars such as
14382-686: The north on 23 January 1917. Wejh surrendered within 36 hours, and the Ottomans abandoned their advance toward Mecca in favor of a defensive position in Medina, with small detachments scattered along the Hejaz railway. The Arab force had increased to about 70,000 men, armed with 28,000 rifles and deployed in three main groups. Ali's force threatened Medina, Abdullah operated from Wadi Ais harassing Ottoman communications and capturing their supplies, and Faisal based his force at Wejh. Camel-mounted Arab raiding parties had an effective radius of 1,000 miles (1,600 km), carrying their own food and taking water from
14523-401: The objective of destroying the insurgents. Finally, a state can discriminate between combatants and non-combatants while killing insurgents, but only by increasing the risks for its own troops, because often insurgents will hide behind civilians, or appear to be civilians. So a country must choose two out of three goals and develop a strategy that can successfully accomplish them while sacrificing
14664-458: The one commanded by Newcombe and Joyce, who on the night of 6/7 July 1917, planted over 500 charges on the Hejaz railway, which all went off at about 2 am. In a raid in August 1917, Captain Raho led a force of Bedouin in destroying 5 kilometers of the Hejaz railway and four bridges. In March 1917, an Ottoman force joined by tribesmen from Jabal Shammar led by Ibn Rashid carried out a sweep of
14805-649: The outbreak of the revolt in June 1916, the VII Corps of the Fourth Army was stationed in the Hejaz. It was joined by the 58th Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Ali Necib Pasha, the 1st Kuvvie- Mürettebe (Provisional Force) led by General Mehmed Cemal Pasha, which had the responsibility of safeguarding the Hejaz railway and the Hejaz Expeditionary Force ( Turkish : Hicaz Kuvve-i Seferiyesi ), which
14946-499: The overall cause. The Bedouin would not fight unless paid in advance with gold coin. By the end of 1916, the French had spent 1.25 million gold francs in subsidizing the revolt. By September 1918, the British were spending £ 220,000/month to subsidize the revolt. Faisal had hoped that he could convince Arab troops serving in the Ottoman Army to mutiny and join his cause, but the Ottoman government sent most of its Arab troops to
15087-470: The overall system to normality — noting that 'normality' in one society may look different from normality in another. In each case, we seek not only to establish control, but also to consolidate that control and then transfer it to permanent, effective, and legitimate institutions." Military historian Martin van Creveld , noting that almost all attempts to deal with insurgency have ended in failure, advises: The first, and absolutely indispensable, thing to do
15228-553: The people as the fish swims in the sea. –Aphorism based on the writing of Mao Zedong Counterinsurgency is normally conducted as a combination of conventional military operations and other means, such as demoralization in the form of propaganda , Psy-ops , and assassinations . Counter-insurgency operations include many different facets: military , paramilitary , political , economic , psychological , and civic actions taken to defeat insurgency . To understand counterinsurgency, one must understand insurgency to comprehend
15369-457: The point of becoming the new regular army if it wins. Most conventional military officers and militaries are wary of using irregular military forces and see them as unreliable, of doubtful military usefulness, and prone to committing atrocities leading to retaliation in kind. Usually, such forces are raised outside the regular military like the British SOE during World War II and, more recently,
15510-456: The present-day Republic of Turkey . The rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire dates from at least 1821. Arab nationalism has its roots in the Mashriq , the Arab lands east of Egypt , particularly in countries of the Levant . The political orientation of Arab nationalists before World War I was generally moderate. Their demands were of a reformist nature and generally limited to autonomy,
15651-497: The rebellion against the ruling Turks was officially initiated at Mecca on 10 June 1916. The primary goal of the Arab rebels was to establish an independent and unified Arab state stretching from Aleppo to Aden , which the British government had promised to recognize. The Sharifian Army , led by Hussein and the Hashemites with backing from the British military's Egyptian Expeditionary Force , successfully fought and expelled
15792-561: The rebels, and in the end, their strength and morale were so sapped that when Wellington was finally able to challenge French forces in the field, the French had almost no choice but to abandon the situation. Counterinsurgency efforts may be successful, especially when the insurgents are unpopular. The Philippine–American War , the Shining Path in Peru, and the Malayan Emergency have been
15933-590: The regime again and, van Creveld argues, the massacre most likely saved the regime and prevented a bloody civil war . Van Creveld condenses al-Assad's strategy into five rules while noting that they could easily have been written by Niccolò Machiavelli : In "Counterinsurgency's Impossible Trilemma", Dr. Lorenzo Zambernardi, an Italian academic now working in the United States, clarifies the tradeoffs involved in counterinsurgency operations. He argues that counterinsurgency involves three main goals, but in real practice,
16074-455: The regular army in these functions. By avoiding formal battles, irregulars have sometimes harassed high quality armies to destruction. The total effect of irregulars is often underestimated. Since the military actions of irregulars are often small and unofficial, they are underreported or even overlooked. Even when engaged by regular armies, some military histories exclude all irregulars when counting friendly troops, but include irregulars in
16215-485: The responsibility of protecting Ali's eastern flank from Ibn Rashid. Medina was never taken by the Hashemite forces, and the Ottoman commander, Fakhri Pasha, only surrendered Medina when ordered to by the Turkish government on 9 January 1919. The total number of Ottoman troops bottled up in Medina by the time of the surrender were 456 officers and 9,364 soldiers. Under the direction of Lawrence, Wilson, and other officers,
16356-535: The resulting chaos. By definition, "irregular" is understood in contrast to "regular armies", which grew slowly from personal bodyguards or elite militia. In Ancient warfare , most civilized nations relied heavily on irregulars to augment their small regular army. Even in advanced civilizations, the irregulars commonly outnumbered the regular army. Sometimes entire tribal armies of irregulars were brought in from internal native or neighboring cultures, especially ones that still had an active hunting tradition to provide
16497-464: The revolt led by Nuri al-Saʻid and a number of Muslim troops from French North Africa . Fifteen thousand well-armed Ottoman troops remained in the Hejaz. A direct attack on Medina in October resulted in a bloody repulse of the Arab forces. In June 1916, the British sent out a number of officials to assist the revolt in the Hejaz , most notably Colonel Cyril Wilson , Colonel Pierce C. Joyce, and Lt-Colonel Stewart Francis Newcombe . Herbert Garland
16638-424: The revolt was convincing the Arab leaders, Faisal and Abdullah , to co-ordinate their actions in support of British strategy. Lawrence developed a close relationship with Faisal, whose Arab Northern Army was to become the main beneficiary of British aid. By contrast, Lawrence's relations with Abdullah were not good, so Abdullah's Arab Eastern Army received considerably less in way of British aid. Lawrence persuaded
16779-530: The second method exemplified by the Hama massacre . In 1982, the regime of Syrian president Hafez al-Assad was on the point of being overwhelmed by the countrywide insurgency of the Muslim Brotherhood . Al-Assad sent a Syrian Army division under his brother Rifaat to the city of Hama , known to be the center of the resistance. Following a counterattack by the Brotherhood, Rifaat used his heavy artillery to demolish
16920-620: The sites of failed insurgencies. Hart also points to the experiences of T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt during World War I as another example of the power of the rebel/insurgent. Though the Ottomans often had advantages in manpower of more than 100 to 1, the Arabs ' ability to materialize out of the desert, strike, and disappear again often left the Turks reeling and paralyzed, creating an opportunity for regular British forces to sweep in and finish
17061-407: The softs and the incompetents, give full support to the active leaders. Organize self-defense units. 7. Group and educate the leaders in a national political movement. 8. Win over or suppress the last insurgent remnants. According to Galula, some of these steps can be skipped in areas that are only partially under insurgent control, and most of them are unnecessary in areas already controlled by
17202-664: The struggle in Northern Ireland had cost the United Kingdom three thousand fatal casualties. Of the three thousand, about seventeen hundred were civilians...of the remaining, a thousand were British soldiers. No more than three hundred were terrorists, a ratio of three to one. If the prerequisites for the first method – excellent intelligence, superbly trained and disciplined soldiers and police, and an iron will to avoid being provoked into lashing out – are lacking, van Creveld posits that counterinsurgents who still want to win must use
17343-722: The success of Lawrence's occupation of Aqaba , covering the "tribal elements ranging between the Hejaz Railway and the Nefud , particularly about the Howeitat group." It was this information, Hogarth emphasized, which "Lawrence, relying on her reports, made signal use of in the Arab campaigns of 1917 and 1918." Lawrence obtained assistance from the Royal Navy to turn back an Ottoman attack on Yenbu in December 1916. Lawrence's major contribution to
17484-658: The support of both the Ottoman Aviation Squadrons , air squadrons from Germany and the Ottoman Gendarmerie or zaptı . The Ottomans relied upon the support of Emir Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Rashid of the Emirate of Jabal Shammar , whose tribesmen dominated what is now northern Saudi Arabia , and tied down both the Hashemites and Saʻudi forces with the threat of their raiding attacks. The great weakness of
17625-699: The terms of the Ottoman–German Alliance . Many Arab nationalist figures in Damascus and Beirut were arrested, then tortured. The flag of the resistance was designed by Sir Mark Sykes , in an effort to create a feeling of "Arab-ness", in order to fuel the revolt. When Herbert Kitchener was Consul-General in Egypt , contacts between Abdullah and Kitchener culminated in a telegram of 1 November 1914 from Kitchener, recently appointed as Secretary of War, to Hussein, wherein Britain would, in exchange for support from
17766-461: The third objective. Zambernardi's theory posits that to protect populations, which is necessary to defeat insurgencies and to physically destroy an insurgency, the counterinsurgent's military forces must be sacrificed, risking the loss of domestic political support. Another writer who explores a trio of features relevant to understanding counterinsurgency is Akali Omeni. Within the contemporary context, COIN warfare by African militaries tends to be at
17907-460: The time when the counterinsurgents become disgusted by their own actions and demoralized. General Patrick Walters, the British commander of troops in Northern Ireland, explicitly stated that his objective was not to kill as many terrorists as possible but to ensure that as few people on both sides were killed. In the vast majority of counterinsurgencies, the "forces of order" kill far more people than they lose. In contrast and using very rough figures,
18048-529: The traditions of Mughal cavalry, which had a political purpose because it absorbed pockets of cavalrymen who might otherwise become disaffected plunderers. These were less formally drilled and had fewer British officers (sometimes only three or four per regiment) than the "regular" sepoys in British service. This system enabled the Indian officers to achieve greater responsibility than their counterparts in regular regiments. Promotion for both Indian and British officers
18189-518: The train of General Mehmed Cemal Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman VII Corps. Allenby's victories led directly to the British capture of Jerusalem just before Christmas 1917. By the time of Aqaba 's capture, many other officers joined Faisal's campaign. A large number of British officers and advisors, led by Lt. Col.s Stewart F. Newcombe and Cyril E. Wilson, arrived to provide the Arabs rifles, explosives, mortars, and machine guns. Artillery
18330-545: The tribes in the region east of the Jordan River were "firmly in the Ottoman camp." The tribes feared repressions and losing the money they had received from the Ottomans for their loyalty. Later in 1917, the Hashemite warriors made a series of small raids on Ottoman positions in support of British General Allenby 's winter attack on the Gaza – Bersheeba defensive line, which led to the Battle of Beersheba . Typical of such raids
18471-404: The use of irregular military tactics by regular military units. In his book On Guerrilla Warfare , Mao described seven types of Guerilla units, and argues that "regular army units temporarily detailed for the purpose (of guerilla warfare)," "regular army units permanently detailed (for the purpose of guerilla warfare)," and bands of guerillas created "through a combination of a regular army unit and
18612-566: Was Lawrence alone who represented the Allied cause in Arabia. David Hogarth credited Gertrude Bell for much of the success of the Arab Revolt. She had travelled extensively in the Middle East since 1888, after graduating from Oxford with a First in Modern History. Bell met Sheikh Harb of the Howeitat in January 1914 and thus was able to provide a "mass of information" which was crucial to
18753-687: Was also involved. In addition, a French military mission commanded by Colonel Édouard Brémond was sent out. The French enjoyed an advantage over the British in that they included a number of Muslim officers, such as Captain Muhammand Ould Ali Raho, Claude Prost, and Laurent Depui. The latter two converted to Islam during their time in Arabia . Captain Rosario Pisani of the French Army , though not
18894-482: Was awaiting the arrival of 'not less than 100,000 people' for the planned revolt. McMahon's reply of 10 March 1916 confirmed British agreement to the requests and concluded the correspondence. Hussein, who until then had officially been on the Ottoman side, was now convinced that his assistance to the Triple Entente would be rewarded by an Arab empire, encompassing the entire span between Egypt and Qajar Iran , with
19035-459: Was developed during decolonization . During insurgency and counterinsurgency, the distinction between civilians and combatants is often blurred. Counterinsurgency may involve attempting to win the hearts and minds of populations supporting the insurgency. Alternatively, it may be waged in an attempt to intimidate or eliminate civilian populations suspected of loyalty to the insurgency through indiscriminate violence. The guerrilla must swim in
19176-540: Was fire and air support from the five ships of the Royal Navy Red Sea Patrol that defeated the Ottoman attempts to take Yanbu, with heavy losses. Fakhri then turned his forces south to take Rabegh , but owing to the guerrilla attacks on his flanks and supply lines, air attacks from the newly established Royal Flying Corps base at Yanbu, and the over-extension of his supply lines, he was forced to turn back on 18 January 1917, to Medina. The coastal city of Wejh
19317-457: Was for efficiency and energy, rather than by seniority as elsewhere in the EIC's armies. In irregular cavalry the Indian troopers provided their horses under the silladar system. The result was a loose collection of regiments which in general were more effective in the field than their regular counterparts. These irregular units were also cheaper to raise and maintain and as a result many survived into
19458-526: Was one led by Lawrence in September 1917, that saw Lawrence destroy a Turkish rail convoy by blowing up the bridge it was crossing at Mudawwara and then ambushing the Turkish repair party. In November 1917, as aid to Allenby's offensive, Lawrence launched a deep-raiding party into the Yarmouk River valley, which failed to destroy the railway bridge at Tel ash-Shehab , but succeeded in ambushing and destroying
19599-575: Was only sporadically supplied due to a general shortage, though Faisal would have several batteries of mountain guns under French Captain Pisani and his Algerians for the Megiddo Campaign. Egyptian and Indian troops also served with the Revolt, primarily as machine gunners and specialist troops, a number of armoured cars were allocated for use. The Royal Flying Corps often supported the Arab operations, and
19740-476: Was to be the base for attacks on the Hejaz railway. On 3 January 1917, Faisal began an advance northward along the Red Sea coast with 5,100 camel riders, 5,300 men on foot, four Krupp mountain guns, ten machine guns , and 380 baggage camels. The Royal Navy resupplied Faisal from the sea during his march on Wejh. While the 800-man Ottoman garrison prepared for an attack from the south, a landing party of 400 Arabs and 200 Royal Navy bluejackets attacked Wejh from
19881-500: Was under the command of General Fakhri Pasha . In face of increasing attacks on the Hejaz railway, the 2nd Kuvve i Mürettebe was created by 1917. The Ottoman force included a number of Arab units who stayed loyal to the Sultan-Caliph and fought well against the Allies. The Ottoman troops enjoyed an advantage over the Hashemite troops at first, in that they were well supplied with modern German weapons. The Ottoman forces had
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