Urban Guerrilla Warfare

231 Pages·2007·1.11 MB·English

by  Anthony James Joes

URBAN GUERRILLA WARFARE
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URBAN
GUERRILLA
WARFARE
Anthony James Joes
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY
Publication of this volume was made possible in part by
a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Copyright © 2007 by The University Press of Kentucky
The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,
Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.
Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008
www.kentuckypress.com
11 10 09 08 07 1 2 3 4 5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Joes, Anthony James.
Urban guerrilla warfare / Anthony James Joes.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-2437-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8131-2437-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Guerrilla warfare—History—20th century. I. Title.
U240.J584 2007
355.4’25—dc22
2006038457
This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting
the requirements of the American National Standard
for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Member of the Association of
American University Presses
for Chris
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Contents
Introduction 1
1. Warsaw 1944 9
2. Budapest 1956 39
3. Algiers 1957 53
4. São Paulo 1965 –1971 and Montevideo 1963 –1973 69
5. Saigon 1968 91
6. Northern Ireland 1970 –1998 109
7. Grozny 1994 –1996 131
Conclusion: Looking Back and Ahead 151
Notes 165
Selected Bibliography 201
Index 219
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■
Introduction 1
Introduction
More than two millennia ago, Thucydides gave us a description of
urban guerrilla warfare, involving Theban troops who were occupy-
ing the city of Plataea:
The Thebans immediately closed up ranks to repel all attacks on them. Twice
or thrice they beat back their assailants. But the Plataean men shouted and
charged them, the women and slaves screamed and yelled from the houses
and pelted them with stones and tiles; besides, it had been raining hard
all night, and so at last their courage gave way and they turned and fled
through the city. Most of the Theban fugitives were quite ignorant of the
right way out, and this, with the mud and the darkness, and the fact that
their pursuers knew their way about and could easily stop their escape,
1
proved fatal to many.
This description of classical Hellenic combat will reverberate re-
markably through the urban conflicts to be examined in this volume.
A World of Cities
All across the globe, the human race is crowding into cities. Indeed,
“a demographic upheaval of seismic proportions is today transform-
ing almost the entire developing world from a predominantly rural
2
society to an urban one.” After the decline of Rome, it required
fifteen hundred years for a city to reach a population of one million:
that was London. By 1900, perhaps 5 percent of the world’s people
lived in cities of over one hundred thousand inhabitants; by 2000,