guerrilla warfare, also spelled guerilla warfareRPG-7 [Credit: © Ali Jasim—Reuters/Corbis]RPG-7© Ali Jasim—Reuters/Corbistype of warfare fought by irregulars in fast-moving, small-scale actions against orthodox military and police forces and, on occasion, against rival insurgent forces, either independently or in conjunction with a larger political-military strategy. The word guerrilla (the diminutive of Spanish guerra, “war”) stems from the duke of Wellington’s campaigns during the Peninsular War (1808–14), in which Spanish and Portuguese irregulars, or guerrilleros, helped drive the French from the Iberian Peninsula. Over the centuries the practitioners of guerrilla warfare have been called rebels, irregulars, insurgents, partisans, and mercenaries. Frustrated military commanders have consistently damned them as barbarians, savages, terrorists, brigands, outlaws, and bandits.

The French military writer Henri, baron de Jomini (1779–1869), classified the operations of guerrilla fighters as “national war.” The Prussian general and theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) reluctantly admitted their existence by picturing partisans as “a kind of nebulous vapoury essence.” Later writers called their operations “small wars.” During the Cold War (1945–91), Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s term revolutionary warfare became a staple, as did insurgency, rebellion, insurrection, people’s war, and war of national liberation.

Regardless of terminology, the importance of guerrilla warfare has varied considerably throughout history. Traditionally, it has been a weapon of protest employed to rectify real or imagined wrongs levied on a people either by a ruling government or by a foreign invader. As such, it has scored remarkable successes and has suffered disastrous defeats.

The role of guerrilla warfare considerably expanded during World War II, when Josip Broz Tito’s communist Partisans tied down and frequently clashed with the German army in Yugoslavia and when other groups, both communist and noncommunist, fought against the German and Japanese enemies. During the prolonged Cold War period, numerous guerrilla forces of varying political beliefs were showered with money, modern weapons, and equipment from assorted benefactors. The stew of animosities was further seasoned by ethnic and religious rivalries, a factor that helps to explain why guerrilla warfare continues to be fought in a large number of countries today. In some instances it has assumed a universal character under the banner of religious fundamentalism. The most prominent practitioner of this type is the Muslim group al-Qaeda, which has attracted religious fanatics from various countries to carry out vicious terrorist attacks, the most famous being the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. Still another major change has been the transition of some guerrilla groups, notably in Colombia, Peru, Northern Ireland, and Spain, into criminal terrorism on behalf of drug barons and other Mafia-style overlords.


Early history

Epiktetos: Greek red-figure pottery [Credit: Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum]Epiktetos: Greek red-figure potteryCourtesy of the trustees of the British MuseumIn 512 bc the Persian warrior-king Darius I, who ruled the largest empire and commanded the best army in the world, bowed to the hit-and-run tactics of the nomadic Scythians and left them to their lands beyond the Danube. The Macedonian king Alexander the Great (356–323 bc) also fought serious guerrilla opposition, which he overcame by modifying his tactics and by winning important tribes to his side. In 218 bc the Carthaginian general Hannibal faced considerable guerrilla opposition in crossing the Alps into Italy; he was later brought to bay by the delaying military tactics of the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus, from whom the term Fabian tactics is derived and who earned the surname Cunctator (meaning “Delayer”). The Romans themselves fought against guerrillas in their conquest of Spain for more than 200 years before the foundation of the empire.

armour: Mongol warriors [Credit: Courtesy of the Edinburgh University Library, Scotland]armour: Mongol warriorsCourtesy of the Edinburgh University Library, ScotlandGuerrilla and quasi-guerrilla operations were employed in an aggressive role in ensuing centuries by such predatory barbarians as the Goths and the Huns, who forced the Roman Empire onto the defensive; the Magyars, who conquered Hungary; the hordes of northern barbarians who attacked the Byzantine Empire for more than 500 years; the Vikings, who overran Ireland, England, and France; and the Mongols, who conquered China and terrified central Europe. In the 12th century the Crusader invasion of Syria was at times stymied by the guerrilla tactics of the Seljuq Turks, a frustration shared by the Normans in their conquest of Ireland (1169–75). A century later, Kublai Khan’s army of Mongols was driven from the area of Vietnam by Tran Hung Dao, who had trained his army to fight guerrilla warfare. King Edward I of England struggled through long, hard, and expensive campaigns to subdue Welsh guerrillas; that he failed to conquer Scotland was largely due to the brilliant guerrilla operations of Robert the Bruce (Robert I). Bertrand du Guesclin, a Breton guerrilla leader in the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), all but pushed the English from France by using Fabian tactics of harassment, surprise, ambush, sudden assault, and slow siege.

Origins of modern guerrilla warfare

“Zaporozhian Cossacks” [Credit: Novosti Press Agency]“Zaporozhian Cossacks”Novosti Press AgencyGuerrilla warfare in time became a useful adjunct to larger political and military strategies—a role in which it complemented orthodox military operations both inside enemy territory and in areas seized and occupied by an enemy. Early examples of this role occurred in the first two Silesian Wars (1740–45) and in the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), when Hungarian, Croatian, and Serbian irregulars (called Grenzerer, “border people”), fighting in conjunction with the Austrian army, several times forced Frederick the Great (Frederick II) of Prussia to retreat from Bohemia and Moravia after suffering heavy losses. Toward the end of the U.S. War of Independence (1775–83), a ragtag band of South Carolina irregulars under Francis Marion relied heavily on terrorist tactics to drive the British general Lord Cornwallis from the Carolinas to defeat at Yorktown, Virginia. Wellington’s operations in Spain were frequently supported by effectively commanded regional bands of guerrillas—perhaps 30,000 in all—who made life miserable for the French invaders by blocking roads, intercepting couriers, and at times even waging conventional war. In 1812, in the long retreat from Moscow, the armies of Napoleon I suffered thousands of casualties inflicted by bands of Russian peasants working with mounted Cossacks.

“Comanche Mounted War Party” [Credit: Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (formerly National Museum of American Art), Washington, D.C., gift of Mrs. Sarah Harrison]“Comanche Mounted War Party”Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (formerly National Museum of American Art), Washington, D.C., gift of Mrs. Sarah HarrisonGuerrilla wars flourished in the following two centuries as native irregulars in India, Algeria, Morocco, Burma (Myanmar), New Zealand, and the Balkans tried, usually in vain, to prevent colonization by the great powers. Indian tribes in North America stubbornly fought the opening of the West; Cuban guerrillas fought the Spanish; and Filipino guerrillas fought the Spanish and Americans. In the South African War 90,000 Boer commandos held off a large British army for two years before succumbing.

Mexican Revolution: Villa [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]Mexican Revolution: VillaEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.As these bloody campaigns continued, political motivations became more and more important. The Taiping Rebellion (1850–64) in China, a peasant uprising against the Qing dynasty, killed an estimated 20 million Chinese before it was suppressed. During the American Civil War mounted guerrillas from both sides raided far behind enemy lines, often looting and pillaging randomly. (See John Singleton Mosby; William C. Quantrill.) Mexican peasants, fighting under such leaders as Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, used guerrilla warfare to achieve a specific political goal in the Mexican Revolution (1910–20). Arab tribesmen under Fayṣal I employed the brilliant guerrilla strategies and tactics of British officer T.E. Lawrence in their campaign to liberate their lands from the Ottoman Empire in World War I. In 1916 the Easter Rising in Ireland led to a ferocious guerrilla war fought by the Irish Republican Army (IRA)—a war that ceased only with the uneasy peace and partition of Ireland in 1921. In 1927 communist leader Mao Zedong raised the flag of a rural rebellion that continued for 22 years. This experience resulted in a codified theory of protracted revolutionary war, Mao’s On Guerrilla Warfare (1937), which was later called “the most radical, violent and extensive theory of war ever put into effect.”

What made you want to look up guerrilla warfare?
(Please limit to 900 characters)
Please select the sections you want to print
Select All
MLA style:
"guerrilla warfare". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
APA style:
guerrilla warfare. (2015). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from
Harvard style:
guerrilla warfare. 2015. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 30 July, 2015, from
Chicago Manual of Style:
Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "guerrilla warfare", accessed July 30, 2015,


We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles.
guerrilla warfare
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Harvard
  • Chicago
You have successfully emailed this.
Error when sending the email. Try again later.

Or click Continue to submit anonymously: