The term ‘guerrilla warfare’ also came to denote a particular array of military tactics including night raids, hit-and-run attacks, strategic withdrawals and ambushes. Subsequently, writers such as Callwell used the term to refer to partisan units fighting alongside regular troops, and categorized any conflict featuring non-regular belligerents as a ‘small war’. Initially, it described the Spanish partidas (irregulars) who fought the French occupation between 1808-1814. The term ‘guerrilla’ has, historically, had different meanings. Yet it achieved greater maturation in a wider number of contexts following the 1930s. This approach was actively attempted with varying degrees of success in certain pre-20 th Century cases of guerrilla warfare. It will be shown that whilst Great War doctrine predominated military thought before the 1930s/1940s, many theorists of guerrilla warfare perceived the potential to subvert the political order using both guerrilla tactics and political, social and economic efforts. This essay outlines evolutionary trends in revolutionary thought and practice since the 18 th Century.
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