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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2781 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 12, 2025

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This isn't direct evidence but the IRA were definitely aware of the propaganda potential of reprisals from government forces. From the Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army - Notes on Guerrilla Warfare 1956 version:

The strategy of guerrilla warfare is to build up resistance centres throughout the occupied area and confine the enemy to the larger towns by restricting his movements and communications. In time the resistance centres are knitted together into one liberated area. After that the job is to drive him out of his supposedly safe base: and thus out of the country.
The essence of all strategy is to bring, by the use of surprise and mobility-or a combination of both-the greatest possible strength to bear at a chosen time and place. It must be ensured that the enemy does not-or is not able to-assemble Mi* strength at that point. This holds true also of guerrilla warfare. But it involves clever manoeuvre and here the skill of the commander, the organisation of his forces and his mobility, play an important role.
The guerrilla attempts to do three things:

(1) Drain the enemy's manpower and resources.
(2) Lead the resistance of the people to enemy occupation.
(3) Break down the enemy's administration.

He achieves the first by the very fact of his existence and his constant harassment of the enemy. He remembers that his own task is not to hold ground but to ensure that in time the enemy will not hold any either.
He achieves the second by remembering that the people will bear the brunt of the enemy's reprisal tactics and by inspiring them with aims of the movement. In this way they will be made tenacious and strong for in the long run it is the people who can stop the enemy: by their backing of the national movement.
And he achieves three when the enemy imposes martial law and thus recognises he can no longer rule that area in the old way. In effect he is recognising that the people no longer want him.

*Typo in the original PDF document.

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