n Moscow and instead of his opponent's rapier saw a cudgel
raised above his head, he did not cease to complain to Kutuzov and to
the Emperor Alexander that the war was being carried on contrary to all
the rules--as if there were any rules for killing people. In spite of
the complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of the rules, in
spite of the fact that to some highly placed Russians it seemed rather
disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en
quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit
thrust en prime, and so on--the cudgel of the people's war was lifted
with all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting
anyone's tastes or rules and regardless of anything else, it rose and
fell with stupid simplicity, but consistently, and belabored the French
till the whole invasion had perished.

And it is well for a people who do not--as the French did in
1813--salute according to all the rules of art, and, presenting the hilt
of their rapier gracefully and politely, hand it to their magnanimous
conqueror, but at the moment of trial, without asking what rules others
have adopted in similar cases, simply and easily pick up the first
cudgel that comes to hand and strike with it till the feeling of
resentment and revenge in their soul yields to a feeling of contempt and
compassion.

CHAPTER II

One of the most obvious and advantageous departures from the so-called
laws of war is the action of scattered groups against men pressed
together in a mass. Such action always occurs in wars that take on a
national character. In such actions, instead of two crowds opposing
each other, the men disperse, attack singly, run away when attacked by
stronger forces, but again attack when opportunity offers. This was done
by the guerrillas in Spain, by the mountain tribes in the Caucasus, and
by the Russians in 1812.

People have called this kind of war "guerrilla warfare" and assume that
by so calling it they have explained its meaning. But such a war does
not fit in under any rule and is directly opposed to a well-known rule
of tactics which is accepted as infallible. That rule says that an
attacker should concentrate his forces in order to be stronger than his
opponent at the moment of conflict.

Guerrilla war (always successful, as history shows) directly infringes
that rule.

This contradiction arises from the fact that military science assumes
the stren