GUERRILLA WARFARE by Ernesto Che Guevara

Author:Ernesto Che Guevara [Guevara, Ernesto Che]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-05-17T02:10:30+00:00

CHE GUEVARA : GUERRILLA WARFARE – CHAPTER II

who have not fled must go to buy their basic foods at establishments located outside the zones of guerrilla action. Should these persons leave the region at critical moments, such as those we are now describing, this would constitute a serious danger on account of the information that they could eventually supply to the enemy army. The policy of complete isolation must serve as the strategic principle of the guerrilla army in these cases.

The defenses and the whole defensive apparatus should be arranged in such a manner that the enemy vanguard will always fall into an ambush. It is very important as a psychological factor that the man in the vanguard will die without escape in every battle, because this produces within the enemy army a growing consciousness of this danger, until the moment arrives when nobody wants to be in the vanguard; and it is obvious that a column with no vanguard cannot move, since somebody has to assume that responsibility. Also encirclements can be carried out if these are expedient; or diversionary maneuvers such as flank attacks; or the enemy can simply be detained frontally. In every case, places which are susceptible of being utilized by the enemy for flank attacks should be fortified.

We are now assuming that more men and arms are available than in the combats described hitherto. It is evident that the blockade of all possible roads converging into a zone, which may be very numerous, requires a large personnel. The various kinds of traps and attacks against armored vehicles will be increased here, in order to give the greatest security possible to the systems of fixed trenches which can be located by the enemy. In general in this type of fight the order is to defend the positions unto death if necessary; and it is essential to assure the maximum possibilities of survival to every defender.

The more a trench is hidden from distant view, the better; above all, it is important to give it a cover so that mortar fire will be ineffective. Mortars of 60.1 or 85 millimeters, the usual campaign caliber's, cannot penetrate a good roof made with simple materials from the region.

This may be made from a base of wood, earth, and rocks covered with some camouflage material. An exit for escape in an extremity must always be constructed, so that the defender may get away with less danger.

The sketch [above, See Picture 2-4 ed.] shows the form in which these defenses were constructed in the Sierra Maestra. They were sufficient to protect us from mortar fire.

This outline clearly indicates that fixed lines of fire do not exist. The lines of fire are something more or less theoretical; they are established at certain critical moments, but they are extremely elastic and permeable on both sides.

What does exist is a wide no man's land. But the characteristics of no man's land in guerrilla warfare are that it is inhabited by a civil population, and that

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