Free Insurgents, Raiders, and Bandits by John Arquilla Page A

recognition of the potent direct and indirect effects achieved by the insurgents, historians and strategists have ever since associated the modern concept of guerrilla warfare with this campaign. And it has turned into a mode of conflict that has manifested itself with increasing frequency in the ensuing two centuries, becoming since 1945 the world’s most prevalent form of organized violence.
    Beyond conjuring up an evocative image, the term “guerrilla” also offers a tacit homage to these early Spanish insurgents. It needs to be kept in mind, for the leading early historians of the war in Spain—and a few contemporary ones—have tended to downplay the contributions of the guerrillas to the British victory over the French. 1 To admit the insurgents’ important role in the outcome of the Peninsular War could be seen as somehow diminishing the Duke of Wellington’s own accomplishments, which even the French preferred to emphasize over their defeat at the hands of a largely peasant revolt. But, the modern historical consensus has come around to acknowledging that, working hand in hand—much like Greene’s regulars and the southern rebel partisans did during the American Revolution—the two types of forces carved out a signal victory together. The military historian David Chandler has perhaps said it most succinctly: “Between them, the Spanish guerrillas and British redcoats were to make life intolerable for the French occupation forces.” 2
    If the French were ultimately put on the run in Spain, this happened only after several years of hard, brutal fighting. The initial success of Spanish resistance against the small first wave French expeditionary force in 1808, led by Napoleon’s subordinates, was soon followed by the appearance of the Emperor himself, who would swiftly defeat three separate opposing field armies and drive British expeditionary forces to a harried evacuation by sea. After these successes early in 1809, Bonaparte left Spain, never to return. Perhaps he had been let down because the Spanish riches he thought were there to be easily plundered proved illusory. Or maybe he was distracted by the resurgence of Austrian armed resistance to his empire and its continental system of attritional economic warfare against Britain. Then, by the time he had dealt with Vienna, the rumblings of a coming conflict with the Russians may have deafened him to his generals’ pleas for help on the peninsula.
    Whatever his disappointments or distractions might have been, Napoleon nevertheless chose commanders to remain in charge in Spain who were drawn from among his very best, including Marshals Soult, Victor, Ney, and Masséna. They would give respectable accounts of themselves in their pitched battles with Wellington, sometimes forcing him to retreat. And even against the guerrillas, they learned on the job some of the skills we have come to associate with counterinsurgency today: winning over the hearts and minds of the populace; creating smaller, more mobile forces; and even coopting some elements of the occupied population to fight against their own countrymen.
    In winning over the Spanish people, the French skillfully cultivated many local grandees by ensuring that their fortunes and prerogatives would remain intact. Abuses of power by Roman Catholic Church officials were publicized and punished, appealing to many—from commoners to aristocrats—who had come to resent Rome’s heavy hand in Spanish society. The French occupiers also touted a host of social reforms aimed at awakening a desire for “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” not unlike those set loose by their own revolution.
    Further, some French generals showed a great sensitivity to the need to reduce the long shadow cast by military occupation—especially in the form of rape and pillage by their own soldiers—by trying to respect the personal security and property of the Spanish people. The French military’s awareness of the value of