A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity.
The initial concept[when?] of partisan warfare involved the use of troops raised from the local population in a war zone (or in some cases regular forces) who would operate behind enemy lines to disrupt communications, seize posts or villages as forward-operating bases, ambush convoys, impose war taxes or contributions, raid logistical stockpiles, and compel enemy forces to disperse and protect their base of operations.[citation needed]
George Satterfield has analysed the "partisan warfare" (French: petite guerre, lit.'little war') in the Netherlands campaigns of 1673-1678 during the Franco-Dutch War of 1672-1678.[1] Some of the practices of ninjas in feudal Japan resembled irregular partisan warfare.
De Jeney, a Hungarian military officer who served in the Prussian Army as captain of military engineers during the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763, produced one of the first manuals of partisan tactics in the 18th century: The Partisan, or the Art of Making War in Detachment... (English translation published in London in 1760.)[2]Johann von Ewald described techniques of partisan warfare in detail in his Abhandlung über den kleinen Krieg ("Treatise on little war", Cramer: Cassel, 1785).[3][4]
One of the most important episodes of resistance by Italian armed forces after the armistice was the battle of Piombino, Tuscany.[5] On 10 September 1943, during Operation Achse, a small German flotilla, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Karl-Wolf Albrand, tried to enter the harbour of Piombino but was denied access by the port authorities.[5]
Eventually, after a drawn-out period of combat, the Italian partisans achieved victory. This was assisted by the fall of the Third Reich, which effectively nullified the attacks from German occupation, the ensuing uprising in April 1945 which pushed out all remaining German forces, the fall of Genoa and Milan on the 26 April, that of Turin two days after. That same day, Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian partisan Walter Audisio.
The order to organize partisan groups was issued by the Marshal of Poland Rydz-Śmigły on 16 September 1939. The first sabotage groups were created in Warsaw on 18 September 1939. Each battalion was to choose 3 soldiers who were to sabotage the enemy's war effort behind the front lines. The sabotage groups were organized before Rydz-Śmigły's order was received.
The situation amongst the Polish partisans and the situation of the Polish partisans were both complicated. The founding organizations that led to the creation of the Home Army or Armia Krajowa, also known as AK, were themselves organized in 1939. Home Army was the largest Polish partisan organization; moreover, organizations such as peasant Bataliony Chłopskie, created primarily for self—defence against the Nazi German abuse, or the armed wing of the Polish Socialist Party and most of the nationalist National Armed Forces did subordinate themselves, before the end of the World War II, to the very Home Army. The communist Gwardia Ludowa remained indifferent and even hostile towards the Home Army, and of two Jewish organizations, the Jewish Military Union did cooperate with the Home Army, when the leftist and pro-Soviet Jewish Combat Organization did not.
The Polish partisans faced many enemies. The main enemies were the Nazi Germans, Ukrainian nationalists, Lithuanian Nazi collaborators, and even the Soviets. In spite of the ideological enmity, the Home Army did launch a massive sabotage campaign after the Germans began Operation Barbarossa. Amongst other acts of sabotage, the Polish partisans damaged nearly 7,000 locomotives, over 19,000 railway cars, over 4,000 German military vehicles and built-in faults into 92,000 artillery projectiles as well as 4710 built-in faults into aircraft engines, just to mention a few and just in between 1941 and 1944.
In Ukraine and southeastern Poland, the Poles fought against the Ukrainian nationalists and UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) to protect the ethnic Poles from mass murder visited upon them during the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. They were aided, until after the war was over, by the Soviet partisans. At least 60,000 Poles lost their lives, the majority of them civilians, men, women, and children. Some of the victims were Poles of Jewish descent who had escaped from the ghetto or death camp. The majority of the Polish partisans in Ukraine assisted the invading Soviet Army. Few of them were mistreated or killed by the Soviets or the Polish communists.
In Lithuania and Belarus, after a period of initial cooperation, the Poles defended themselves against the Soviet partisans as well as fought against the Lithuanian Nazi collaborators. The Poles failed to defeat the Soviet Partisans, but did achieve a decisive victory against the Lithuanian Nazi collaborators, Battle of Murowana Oszmianka. Afterwards, about half of the Polish partisans in Lithuania assisted the invading Soviet Army, and many ended up mistreated and even killed by the Soviets and the Polish communists.
Hungarian
Hundreds of Hungarians fought in the Slovak National Uprising notably in the Nógrádi and Petőfi groups (after Petőfi Sándor, Hungarian poet from the Hungarian War of Independence). They also appeared in significant numbers in 20 other units, but unfortunately this did not have an effect on the Kassa declaration (Kassai nyilatkozat). Many activists fought abroad like Kilián György activist and soldier in Poland or Szalvai Mihály politician, who fought in Moscow and Yugoslavia. Many have been martyrs in the French Resistance like Elek Tamás and Botzor József. The Sovereignty movement took over multiple newspapers including the Népszava, the Magyar Nemzet, and the Szabad Szó, to propagate anti-fascist and anti-german sentiment. Their main goal being to break away from the Axis powers. Most of these groups were decentralised, multiple paramilitary groups worked in Budapest in parallel. The most famous of which operated in Angyalföld, under Gidófalvy Lajos, who died a heroic death while trying to prevent the blowing up of the Elizabeth Bridge. They forged papers, protected the Ferdinánd-bridge, took over vehicles, weapons and multiple factories[8].
The OUN's stated immediate goal was the re-establishment of a united, independent national state on Ukrainian ethnic territory. Violence was accepted as a political tool against foreign as well as domestic enemies of their cause, which was to be achieved by a national revolution led by a dictatorship that would drive out the occupying powers and set up a government representing all regions and social groups.[10] The organization began as a resistance group and developed into a guerrilla army.[11]
During its existence, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army fought against the Poles and the Soviets as their primary opponents, although the organization also rarely fought against the Germans starting in February 1943. From late spring 1944, the UPA and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B (OUN-B)—faced with Soviet advances—also cooperated in many instances with German forces and Soviet forces against the invading Germans, Soviets, and Poles in the hope of creating an independent Fascist Ukrainian state.[12] The UPA committed ethnic cleansing of the Polish population of Volhynia and East Galicia.[13][14][15][16][17]
Soviet
Soviet partisans during World War II, especially those active in Belarus, effectively harassed German troops and significantly hampered their operations in the region. As a result, Soviet authority was re-established deep inside the German-held territories. In some areas partisan collective farms raised crops and livestock to produce food. However this was not usually the case and partisans also requisitioned supplies from the local populace, sometimes involuntarily.
According to many anti Soviet accounts, Soviet partisans in Finland were known to have attacked villages and indiscriminately targeted the populace, killing entire families. The war crimes committed in Finland by Soviet partisans were investigated by the National Bureau since 1999. However, Russia refused access to Soviet archives and the investigation ended in 2003. Partisan warfare was routinely distorted in the Soviet Union. According to historian Veikko Erkkilä the Russian attitude towards civilian atrocities has been marred by the Great Patriotic War propaganda.[18] In East Karelia, most partisans attacked Finnish military supply and communication targets, but inside Finland proper, almost two-thirds of the attacks targeted civilians,[19] killing 200 and injuring 50, mostly women, children and elderly.[20][21][22]
By the middle of 1943 partisan resistance to the Germans and their allies had grown from the dimensions of a mere nuisance to those of a major factor in the general situation. In many parts of occupied Europe, the enemy was suffering losses at the hands of partisans that he could ill afford. Nowhere were these losses heavier than in Yugoslavia.[26]
By late 1944, the total forces of the Partisans numbered 650,000 men and women organized in four field armies and 52 divisions, which engaged in conventional warfare.[27] By April 1945, the Partisans numbered over 800,000.
Shortly before the end of the war, in March 1945, all resistance forces were reorganized into the regular armed force of Yugoslavia and renamed the Yugoslav Army. It would keep this name until 1951, when it was renamed Yugoslav People's Army.
Postwar Yugoslavia was one of only two European countries that were largely liberated by its own forces during World War II. [citation needed] It received significant assistance from the Soviet Union during the liberation of Serbia, and substantial assistance from the Balkan Air Force from mid-1944, but only limited assistance, mainly from the British, prior to 1944. At the end of the war, no foreign troops were stationed on its soil. Partly as a result, the country found itself halfway between the two camps at the onset of the Cold War.
Among the three Baltic countries, the resistance was best organized in Lithuania, where guerrilla units controlled whole regions of the countryside until 1949. Their armaments included Czech Skoda guns, Russian Maxim heavy machine guns, assorted mortars and a wide variety of mainly German and Soviet light machine guns and submachine guns.[28] When not in direct battles with the Red Army or special NKVD units, they significantly delayed the consolidation of Soviet rule through ambush, sabotage, assassination of local Communist activists and officials, freeing imprisoned guerrillas, and printing underground newspapers.[29]
On 1 July 1944, Lithuanian Freedom Army (Lithuanian: Lietuvos laisvės armija, LLA) declared a state of war against the Soviet Union and ordered all its able members to mobilize into platoons, stationed in forests and not leave Lithuania. The departments were replaced by two sectors – operational, called Vanagai (Hawks or Falcons; abbreviated VS), and organizational (abbreviated OS). Vanagai, commanded by Albinas Karalius (codename Varenis), were the armed fighters while the organizational sector was tasked with passive resistance, including supply of food, information, and transport to Vanagai. In the middle of 1944, the Lithuanian Freedom Army had 10,000 members.[30] The Soviets killed 659 and arrested 753 members of the Lithuanian Freedom Army by 26 January 1945. Founder Kazys Veverskis was killed in December 1944, the headquarters were liquidated in December 1945. This represented the failure of highly centralized resistance, as the organization was too dependent on Veverskis and other top commanders. In 1946 remaining leaders and fighters of LLA started to merge with Lithuanian partisans. In 1949 all members of presidium of Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters - captain Jonas Žemaitis-Tylius, Petras Bartkus-Žadgaila, Bronius Liesys-Naktis ir Juozas Šibaila-Merainis came from LLA.[31]
Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Vyriausiasis Lietuvos išlaisvinimo komitetas, VLIK), was created on 25 November 1943. VLIK published underground newspapers and agitated for resistance against the Nazis. The Gestapo arrested the most influential members in 1944. After the reoccupation of Lithuania by the Soviets, VLIK moved to the West set its goal to maintain non-recognition of Lithuania's occupation and dissemination of information from behind the Iron Curtain – including the information provided by the Lithuanian partisans.
Former members of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, Lithuanian Freedom Army, Lithuanian Armed Forces, Lithuanian Riflemen's Union formed the basis of Lithuanian partisans. Farmers, Lithuanian officials, students, teachers, and even pupils joined the partisan movement. The movement was actively supported by the society and the Catholic church. It is estimated that by the end of 1945, 30,000 armed people stayed in forests in Lithuania.
The partisans were well-armed. During the 1945-1951 Soviet repressive structures seized from partisans 31 mortars, 2,921 machine guns, 6,304 assault rifles, 22,962 rifles, 8,155 pistols, 15,264 grenades, 2,596 mines, and 3,779,133 cartridges. The partisans usually replenished their arsenal by killing istrebiteli, members of Soviet secret police forces or by purchasing ammunition from Red Army soldiers.[32] Every partisan had binoculars and few grenades. One grenade was usually saved to blow themselves and their faces to avoid being taken as prisoners, since the physical tortures of Soviet MGB/NKVD were very brutal and cruel, and be recognised, to prevent their relatives from suffering.
Captured Lithuanian Forest Brothers themselves often faced torture and summary execution while their relatives faced deportation to Siberia (cf. quotation). Reprisals against anti-Soviet farms and villages were harsh. The NKVD units, named People's Defense Platoons (known by the Lithuanians as pl.stribai, from the Russian: izstrebiteli – destroyers, i.e., the destruction battalions), used shock tactics such as displaying executed partisans' corpses in village courtyards to discourage further resistance.[28][33]
The right eye is covered with haematoma, on the eyelid there are six stab wounds made, judging by their diameter, by a thin wire or nail going deep into the eyeball. Multiple haematomas in the area of the stomach, a cut wound on a finger of the right hand. The genitalia reveal the following: a large tear wound on the right side of the scrotum and a wound on the left side, both testicles and spermatic ducts are missing.[34]
Pranas Končius (code name Adomas) was the last Lithuanian anti-Soviet resistance fighter, killed in action by Soviet forces on 6 July 1965 (some sources indicate he shot himself in order to avoid capture on 13 July). He was awarded the Cross of Vytis posthumously in 2000.
Benediktas Mikulis, one of the last known partisans to remain in the forest, emerged in 1971. He was arrested in the 1980s and spent several years in prison.
The Home Army was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej established in the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasions in September 1939. Over the next two years, the Home Army absorbed most of the other Polish partisans and underground forces. Its allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile in London, and it constituted the armed wing of what came to be known as the Polish Underground State. Estimates of the Home Army's 1944 strength range between 200,000 and 600,000. The latter number made the Home Army not only Poland's largest underground resistance movement but, along with Soviet and Yugoslav partisans, one of Europe's largest World War II underground movements.
A resistance movement is an organized group of people that tries to resist the government or an occupying power, causing disruption and unrest in civil order and stability. Such a movement may seek to achieve its goals through either the use of nonviolent resistance, or the use of force, whether armed or unarmed. In many cases, as for example in the United States during the American Revolution, or in Norway in the Second World War, a resistance movement may employ both violent and non-violent methods, usually operating under different organizations and acting in different phases or geographical areas within a country.
The history of Poland from 1939 to 1945 encompasses primarily the period from the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to the end of World War II. Following the German–Soviet non-aggression pact, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on 1 September 1939 and by the Soviet Union on 17 September. The campaigns ended in early October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland. After the Axis attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, the entirety of Poland was occupied by Germany, which proceeded to advance its racial and genocidal policies across Poland.
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists on October 14, 1942. During World War II, it was engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and both the Polish Underground State and Communist Poland.
The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists was a Ukrainian nationalist organisation established in 1929 in Vienna, uniting the Ukrainian Military Organization with smaller, mainly youth, radical nationalist right-wing groups. The OUN was the largest and one of the most important far-right Ukrainian organizations operating in the interwar period on the territory of the Second Polish Republic.
Soviet partisans were members of resistance movements that fought a guerrilla war against Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Soviet-occupied territories of interwar Poland in 1941–45 and eastern Finland. The activity emerged after Nazi Germany's Operation Barbarossa was launched from mid-1941 on. It was coordinated and controlled by the Soviet government and modeled on that of the Red Army.
During World War II, resistance movements operated in German-occupied Europe by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation to propaganda, hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns. In many countries, resistance movements were sometimes also referred to as The Underground.
The Holy Cross Mountains Brigade was a controversial tactical unit of the Polish National Armed Forces established on 11 August 1944. It did not obey orders to merge with the Home Army in 1944 and was a part of the Military Organization Lizard Union faction, related to the National Radical Camp political party. Its soldiers fought simultaneously with the Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the Polish communist underground, though it sometimes collaborated with the Nazis to further its anti-communist, anti-Jewish and totalitarian goals.
The Belarusian resistance during World War II opposed Nazi Germany from 1941 until 1944. Belarus was one of the Soviet republics occupied during Operation Barbarossa. The term Belarusian partisans may refer to Soviet-formed irregular military groups fighting Germany, but has also been used to refer to the disparate independent groups who also fought as guerrillas at the time, including Jewish groups, Polish groups, and nationalist Belarusian forces opposed to Germany.
In Poland, the resistance movement during World War II was led by the Home Army. The Polish resistance is notable among others for disrupting German supply lines to the Eastern Front, and providing intelligence reports to the British intelligence agencies. It was a part of the Polish Underground State.
Poland was invaded and annexed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the invasion of Poland in 1939. In the pre-war Polish territories annexed by the Soviets the first Soviet partisan groups were formed in 1941, soon after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Those groups fought against the Germans, but conflicts with Polish partisans were also common.
Aleksander Krzyżanowskinom de guerre "Wilk" was an artillery colonel of the Polish Army, officer of the Service for Poland's Victory, Union of Armed Struggle, commander of the Vilnius District of the Home Army, political prisoner of the Stalinist period. In 1994 he was posthumously promoted to the rank of brigade general.
During World War II, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union (1940–1941), Nazi Germany (1941–1944), and the Soviet Union again in 1944. Resistance during this period took many forms. Significant parts of the resistance were formed by Polish and Soviet forces, some of which fought with Lithuanian collaborators. This article presents a summary of the organizations, persons and actions involved. Lithuania was de facto independent from June 24, 1941, until June 30, 1941, when Nazi Germany took full control of the area.
Jewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.
The Bulgarian Resistance was part of the anti-Axis resistance during World War II. It consisted of armed and unarmed actions of resistance groups against the Wehrmacht forces in Bulgaria and the Tsardom of Bulgaria authorities. It was mainly communist and pro-Soviet Union. Participants in the armed resistance were called partizanin and yatak.
Lithuanian partisans were partisans who waged guerrilla warfare in Lithuania against the Soviet Union in 1944–1953. Similar anti-Soviet resistance groups, also known as Forest Brothers and cursed soldiers, fought against Soviet rule in Estonia, Latvia and Poland. An estimated total of 30,000 Lithuanian partisans and their supporters were killed. The Lithuanian partisan war lasted almost for a decade, thus becoming one of the longest partisan wars in Europe.
Axis forces were involved in counter-insurgency operations against the various resistance movements during World War II.
Anti-communist insurgencies continued in Central and Eastern Europe after the end of World War II. They were suppressed by the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Prominent movements include:
The Anti-Soviet resistance by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, was a guerrilla war waged by Ukrainian nationalist partisan formations against the Soviet Union in the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR and southwestern regions of the Byelorussian SSR, during and after World War II.
References
↑ Satterfield, George (January 2003). Princes, posts and partisans: the army of Louis XIV and partisan warfare in the Netherlands (1673-1678). Volume 18 of History of Warfare Series, ISSN 1385-7827. Leiden: Brill (published 2003). pp.2–4. ISBN9789004131767. Retrieved 5 October 2021. [...] this study concentrates [...] on the French conduct of 'petite guerre' or partisan warfare. [...] In a general sense, partisan warfare consisted of almost every military action besides those of armies when deployed for siege or battle.
↑ de Jeney, L. M. [Lewis Michael]: The Partisan, or the Art of Making War in Detachment..."translated from the French of Mr. de Jeney, by an Officer of the Army" [Thomas Ellis]. London: 1760. from French edition in Hag, 1757 see Mihály Lajos Jeney
↑ Українська Повстанська Армія – Історія нескорених, Lviv, 2007 p.28 (in Ukrainian)
↑ Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Chapter 4 pp. 193–199 Chapter 5
↑ Aleksander V. Prusin. Ethnic Cleansing: Poles from Western Ukraine. In: Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen. Immigration and asylum: from 1900 to the present. Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. 2005. pp. 204-205.
↑ Timothy Snyder. The reconstruction of nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999. Yale University Press. 2003. pp. 169–170, 176
↑ Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe. "The Ukrainian National Revolution" of 1941. Discourse and Practice of a Fascist Movement. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. Vol. 12/No. 1 (Winter 2011). p. 83.
↑ Hannikainen, Lauri (1992). Implementing Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts: The Case of Finland. Dordrecht: Martinuss Nijoff Publishers. ISBN0-7923-1611-8.
↑ Martikainen, Tyyne (2002). Partisaanisodan siviiliuhrit. PS-Paino Värisuora Oy. ISBN952-91-4327-3.
↑ Dundovich, E., Gori, F. and Guercett, E. Reflections on the gulag. With a documentary appendix on the Italian victims of repression in the USSR, Feltrinelli Editore IT, 2003. ISBN88-07-99058-X
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