Rediscovering Irregular Warfare: Colin Gubbins and the Origins of Britain's Special Operations ExecutiveBritain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE), which conducted sabotage campaigns and supported resistance movements in Axis-occupied Europe and in Asia, is often described as Winston Churchill’s brainchild. But as A. R. B. Linderman reveals in this engrossing history, the real genius behind Britain’s clandestine warriors was Colin Gubbins, a British officer who forged the SOE by drawing on lessons learned in irregular conflicts around the world. Following Gubbins through operations he studied and participated in, Linderman maps the evolution of the SOE from its origins to its doctrine to its becoming a critical institution. Part biography, part intellectual and organizational history, Rediscovering Irregular Warfare is the first book to explore the origins of a substantial force in the Allies’ victory in World War II. Although popular history holds that Britain entered World War II with no prior knowledge of or experience with underground warfare, Rediscovering Irregular Warfare tells us otherwise. Linderman finds ample precedent in the clearly documented work of Gubbins and his fellow clandestine organizers. He traces Gubbins’s career from 1914 through World War I and such irregular conflicts as the Allied intervention in Russia, the Irish Revolution, and conflicts in British India. To these firsthand experiences, Gubbins added the insights of colleagues who had served with him and in Iraq, as well as what he learned from the Second Anglo-Boer War, the Arab Revolt led by T. E. Lawrence, the German guerrilla war in East Africa, the revolt in Palestine between the world wars, the Spanish Civil War, and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The two booklets that Gubbins wrote based on his accumulated knowledge offered the first synthesis of British unconventional warfare doctrine: practical guides that emphasized the centrality of local populations; the collection, protection, and use of intelligence; the necessity of cooperating with conventional forces; and the use of speed, surprise, and escape in ambush operations. In 1940, when Gubbins joined the newly created SOE, the experience and know-how codified in his guides formed the basis of Britain’s approach to irregular warfare. The history of the SOE’s doctrinal origins is Colin Gubbins’s story. By telling that story, Rediscovering Irregular Warfare amplifies and clarifies our understanding of the Second World War—and of doctrines of unconventional warfare in the twentieth century. |
What people are saying - Write a review
From Simon Anglim's review in The British Journal of Military History, vol. 2, no. 3 (2016).
"Much has been written recently on something called ‘hybrid warfare’. While there is
no one agreed definition, the current storm of books, articles and blog pieces
claiming authority on the subject concur broadly that it is a novel, 21st-century
concept centring on using local malcontents, organised covertly by secret services
into plausibly deniable paramilitary formations supported by agents and special forces, propaganda and diplomatic pressure to achieve strategic aims in lieu of overt military force.
The authors of such pieces really could do with reading some more history, perhaps
starting with Rediscovering Irregular Warfare, as these methods are not only far from
new, but, ironically, have been forgotten and then rediscovered at least once before.
ARB Linderman’s impressive new book describes such a process in painstaking detail,its main – and very important – contribution to knowledge being in its tracing of the evolution of Special Operations Executive’s (SOE) concepts and doctrine for
paramilitary support of resistance movements in Axis-occupied territory in the
Second World War, when it was adopted by the British government as one of the
few means of striking back at Nazi Germany, post-Dunkirk. The front cover of the
book is dominated by a much-reprinted portrait photo of SOE’s most famous
Director, Major General Sir Colin Gubbins, and this is entirely appropriate, as
Gubbins was the main driving force behind this process and the book is as much
about the evolution of his ideas as it is on the doctrine he promulgated.
Linderman traces this process in meticulous detail, leaning heavily on Gubbins’ own
papers in the Imperial War Museum, others in the British and US national archives,
official histories and manuals as well as a very long list of primary and secondary
works. His key argument is that what Gubbins promulgated through his most famous
authored works, The Art of Guerrilla Warfare and The Partisan Leader’s Handbook, has no one single source, but is a synthesis of Gubbins’ own operational experience
dealing with guerrillas in Russia and Ireland (something hinted at in previous works,
but not covered in detail), his observations of the rise of the Indian National
Congress and Soviet attempts at subversion during his seven years in India from 1923 to 1930, his readings on recent insurgencies (the Boers, Lawrence and von Lettow-Vorbeck seem to have been particularly influential) and on contemporary guerrilla operations in Spain and China and Nazi subversion in Austria and the Sudetenland.
The result was not a formula for ‘revolutionary war’, but for partisan operations as
part of a wider strategy combining overt with covert force. The difference becomes
particularly clear in a short passage comparing Gubbins’ theories of guerrilla warfare
with Mao’s. Gubbins certainly knew about what was happening in China in the 1930s,
but there is no evidence of any influence upon him doctrinally: Gubbins loathed
communism and was concerned with the practicalities of guerrilla warfare, while Mao
sought an all-encompassing theory of ‘people’s war’ rooted in the agitated masses,
and while Mao’s aim was eventually to escalate the guerrilla struggle to conventional
warfare, Gubbins always believed that being too big and too organised was a liability
for resistance forces, who could never take on the Wehrmacht or Imperial Japanese
Army on even terms. Instead, he envisaged small bands of saboteurs, raiders and
ambushers recruited from the local population with Allied personnel attached in to
provide logistical and staff support, liaison with friendly regular forces in theatre and,
although not stated explicitly, a degree of conformity with Allied strategic aims.
There is much interesting material on how these personnel were organised and
trained (William Fairbairn at last gets his fair measure of credit, although Michael
Calvert perhaps
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Rediscovering Irregular Warfare: Colin Gubbins and the Origins of Britain's ... A. R. B. Linderman No preview available - 2016 |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Rediscovering Irregular Warfare: Colin Gubbins and the Origins of Britain's Special Operations Executive Volume 52 of Campaigns and Commanders Series |
| Author | A. R. B. Linderman |
| Publisher | University of Oklahoma Press, 2016 |
| ISBN | 0806155191, 9780806155197 |
| Length | 288 pages |
| Subjects | › › › Biography & Autobiography / Military History / Europe / Great Britain / General History / Military / Strategy History / Wars & Conflicts / World War II / General |
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