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Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/197

 Plate VIII. Plate 8. Folk-Lore, vol. 21.jpg CHIESA DEI DECOLLATI.

The Chapel.

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The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War/Chapter 14

=CHAPTER 14: URBAN COMBAT= Urban guerrillas are surrounded by potential informants and government spies. They must frequently move around unarmed and the government can usually react to their actions much faster than they can in the countryside. For this reason, urban guerrilla groups were usually small and fought back with short-duration actions. Many urban guerrillas lived in the countryside or suburbs and only entered the cities for combat.

VIGNETTE 1: KIDNAPING A SOVIET ADVISER

 * by Commander Shahabuddin

(Commander Shahabuddin is from Shewaki Village south of Kabul.)

We were in contact with an Afghan driver from Paktia Province who drove for a civilian Soviet adviser. The adviser worked with the DRA mining industry. We wanted to kidnap the adviser. The driver had trained for a short time in the USSR and so the adviser trusted him. The driver agreed to help us, but we did not trust the driver and asked him to prove his loyalty. He stated "I will bring my family to stay in a Mujahideen-controlled area as proof of my trustworthiness". The driver came to our camp with his wife and family. I sent his family to my village of Shewaki to stay while we captured the adviser.

One day the driver informed us that the adviser's wife was coming from the Soviet Union to join him. The driver would take the adviser to the airport to meet his wife. We gave the driver a small hand-held radio and told him to contact us if there were any changes. We would contact him within twenty minutes of his call. The driver called us one morning. He reported that the adviser's wife was arriving that day and that no one would accompany the adviser to the airport but the driver. We dressed one of our Mujahideen in a DRA military officer's uniform and put him in a car and sent him to wait at the bridge over the Kabul River at the micro rayon in East Kabul. He got out of the car and waited for the Soviet adviser's car. Soon, the Soviet adviser's car arrived. The driver pointed at our Mujahideen and told the adviser "That's my brother. He's going to the airport. Can we give him a ride?" The adviser agreed and they stopped to pick up "the officer". He got into the back seat behind the adviser and pulled out a pistol. He held the pistol to the adviser's back and ordered the driver to drive to Shewaki. Another car, carrying eight of our Mujahideen armed with pistols with silencers, followed the adviser's car. We had no trouble with the checkpoints since the guards saw the DRA officer's uniform, saluted and waved the car and its "security tail" right through.

We took the adviser to Shewaki and burned his car. The government launched a major search effort, so we moved the adviser again to the Abdara Valley. Government helicopters strafed Shewaki after we left and landed search detachments trying to find the adviser. We kept the adviser in the Abdara Valley near the Chakari monument (the Buddhist pinnacle) for two days. Then we moved him to Tezin, near Jalalabad, for a few more days. Finally, we took him across the border to Peshawar, Pakistan, where we turned him over to one of the factions. I do not know what happened to him.

VIGNETTE 2: FOUR URBAN BOMB ATTACKS

 * by Haji Mohammad Yakub

(Haji Mohammad Yakub, whose nickname was Mansur (Victor), was an urban guerrilla inKabul. He belonged to the HIH faction.)

Bombing is a necessary part of being an urban guerrilla. The object is to create fear and take out selected individuals. We got our explosives from Pakistan. Commander Azizuddin and Commander Meskinyar were our contacts in Paghman District who forwarded the explosives and detonators to us. They used elderly people as our go-betweens to carry messages and explosives to us.

[1] In April 1980, we carried out an attack on the Radio Afghanistan building. This housed the central offices for Afghanistan radio and television broadcasting. Soviet advisers worked at the building where they oversaw radio and television broadcasting and edited and cleared the news before broadcast. The Soviets were our targets. We received a bomb from our contacts and gave it to a woman who worked in the radio station. She smuggled it into the station and armed it. The bomb went off at 1000 hours on a workday. The explosion killed two Afghan Party activists and two Soviets. It also wounded a DRA soldier. For some time after the blast, Afghanistan Radio and TV stopped broadcasting. After this, the security procedures for the building were greatly increased and everyone was carefully searched. Our lady contact later managed to get herself transferred to the payroll office of Kabul University.

[2] The communist regime converted Kabul University into a center for communist indoctrination. We decided to target the primary Party Organization at Kabul University in January 1981. Bombing seemed to be our best option. By this time, our lady contact at Radio Afghanistan was working in the payroll office at Kabul University. We gave her two bombs. the planted one in the University Administration building and set the timer for 1100. She set the second in the primary Party Organization building and set that timer for 1145. The theory was that, after the first bomb went off, people would mill around the site and then the key party activists would gather in the primary Party Organization building to discuss the bombing. The second bomb would attack this concentration. Our plan worked as we thought it would. Following the blast in the administration building, the party secretaries of all the various communist organizations gathered in the primary Party Organization building. The blast killed a Soviet adviser and several party secretaries. The bombs killed a total of 10 and wounded an unknown number.

[3] On 6 May 1983, we bombed the Ministry of Interior building in Kabul. We had planted 27 kilograms of explosive in a room on the second floor of the building close to the office of the Minister. The bombs were hidden in four large flower pots that had been there for some time. We had a contact who was a gardener for the Ministry of the Interior. He agreed to smuggle in the explosives, plant the bombs and set them for detonation. We trained him how to do the job. He mixed the explosives with limestone and smuggled them in plastic bags over a period of time. We planned to detonate the bombs during the daytime for maximum casualties. However, our HIH headquarters in Peshawar overruled us and told us to set the bombs off at night. HIH wanted to keep Minister of the Interior Gulab Zoy alive since he was a leading member of the Khalq faction and his survival would insure that the friction between the Khalq and Parchim communist party factions continued.

The gardener set all the time pencils for 2300 hours when he went home at 1600 hours. There was no sense setting different times since the building would virtually be deserted. The time bombs went off ontime and killed four duty officers and damaged the Minister's office.If we had set off the bombs during the day, we would have killed Gulab Zoy, Ghazi (his body guard), Sheruddin (his aide-de-camp) and perhaps a hundred others. The DRA closed roads around the building for 24 hours and conducted an investigation. However, they thought that the blast was connected to some internal quarrel within the communist leadership and never suspected our gardener.

[4] The Soviets lived in the eastern Micro rayon region of Kabul. We decided to attack the Soviets right where they were living. There was a bus stop in the area where the Soviets would wait for their buses to work. We checked the timing of the buses. There was a daily 0745 morning bus that drew the most Soviets. We needed to establish a pattern so that we could leave a bomb without drawing attention. We got a push cart and loaded it with the best fruits and vegetables that we could get. The produce came from Parwan Province. We charged reasonable prices. The Soviets and local people got used to seeing us there and buying from us. We kept this up for several days. At night, we would work on the pushcart. We put in a false bottom in the cart so that we could put our bombs in the bottom of the cart and they would be undetected even if the cart were inspected. We attacked on the 2nd of October 1983. We loaded five bombs into the bottom of the cart. We inserted time pencil fuses in the bombs and set them for 0743. Then we put in the false bottom and loaded the cart with produce. Six Mujahideen carried out the attack. None of us carried weapons. We brought the cart to the bus stop as usual. Thirteen Soviets crowded around it to see what was on sale. We slipped away from the cart and mixed with the local people. The bombs went off at 0743 just before the bus arrived. The blast killed 13, wounded 12 and damaged a nearby store. The DRA searched the crowd but made no arrests from our group.

COMMENTARY
Many people find such bombing attacks morally reprehensible, yet have no qualms when much larger bombs are dropped from aircraft. Neither type of bombing attack is surgical and both types kill innocent bystanders. The only real difference is in the size of the bomb and the means of delivery. The Mujahideen lacked an airforce but retained a limited bombing option. The Soviets had an airforce and conducted large-scale bombing attacks throughout the war.

VIGNETTE 3: INCIDENT AT QALA-E JABAR

 * by Mohammad Humayun Shahin

During Ramadan (June) of 1981, five Mujahideen were assigned to meet with a Soviet soldier in Qala-e Jabar to buy some Kalashnikov magazines from him. Qala-e Jabar is some three kilometers south of the Darulaman Soviet military base. Our group leader was Alozai, whowas known as Sher Khan. Hukum Khan, two others and I made up thegroup. We went to Qala-e Jabar and met with the Soviet soldier. Hesaid that his name was Hasan and he showed us his merchandise. Weagreed to buy the magazines and pulled out a wad of 50 Afghani notesto pay him with. The Soviet soldier was not familiar with the 50Afghani note. He demanded that we pay in 100s. Since we could notspeak Russian, Sher Khan tried to show him that two 50 Afghani notesequaled one 100 Afghani note. He even wrote it on a scrap of paper.The Soviet, however, apparently did not understand and kept demand-ing 100 Afghani notes. We did not have any 100 Afghani notes. As we tried to communicate, the Soviet got louder and louder. Wewere fairly close to the Soviet camp and were beginning to worry thatthis might be a trap. Hukum Khan grabbed the Soviet in a headlock andwrestled him to the ground while Commander Sher Khan stabbed theSoviet to death. Then we grabbed the rifle magazines, plus the Soviet'sAK-74 assault rifle and left the area. COMMENTARY: There was a regular commerce between the Sovietsoldiers and the Afghan populace. Soviet conscripts would sell fuel,ammunition, weapons, batteries and military equipment for hashish,food and Afghan money. They would use the money in the bazaars ofKabul to buy western stereos, music tapes, cigarettes and clothing.Some goods were available in the Soviet PX, but conscripts had littleaccess or cash so they tried to shop locally for items they wanted. Mohammad Humayun Shahin joined the Mujahideen as a high school student and served asa combatant and commander in the HIH urban guerrillas in the southwestern suburbs ofKabul in the Chardehi District. His high school student identification enabled him to movearound Kabul until he graduated in 1981. Then, he was provided with forged documentsshowing that he had completed military service. This enabled him to stay in the city andavoid being press-ganged into the army. His group often conducted combined actions withthe famed Mohseni urban guerrillas. After the collapse of the communist regime, Shahin wasappointed regiment commander under the Islamic government and promoted to BrigadierGeneral. There is no map with this vignette. Page 372 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War

VIGNETTE 4: AFSHAR AMBUSH
by Commander Asil Khan

On 28 May 1982, I led a group of four Mujahideen in an ambush at the very gates of the Soviet garrison in Kabul. At that time, elements of the Soviet 103rd Airborne Division and some other units were based in Darulaman about 10 kilometers southwest of downtown Kabul. The headquarters of the Soviet 40th Army was also located there in the Tajbeg Palace. I was a small unit commander in my father's front. My father is Haji Dawlat and the Front's main base was at Morghgiran, 10kilometers west of Darulaman.

I selected the ambush site after we spent several days in reconnaissance and surveillance of the Soviet traffic around Darulaman.During the reconnaissance, we detected a pattern in Soviet vehicular movement along the road from Kabul to the Soviet headquarters in the Tajbeg palace. Just north of the Soviet Darulaman base is the small village of Afshar. (Map 14-1 - Afshar) It has a typical suburban bazaar with several grocery and fresh fruit stores and stalls.Soviet soldiers frequented this bazaar and would stop their vehicles there to buy cigarettes, food and imported vodka. Afshar looked like a good ambush site. Soviet soldiers felt secure there, there was room enough to set up an ambush, and site entrance and exit were fairly easy. The path to and from the ambush was mostly concealed and we could easily reach Mujahideen bases and safe houses in the Chardehi District using this path.

We spent the day of the ambush in Qala-e Bakhtiar--a village six kilometers to the west of the ambush site. We had four AK-47s and anon-Soviet manufactured light anti-tank grenade launcher. In the early evening, we moved out toward Afshar. It was the Muslim month of Ramadan when Muslims fast during the entire day. Few people were out at sunset since this is the time to break the daily fast. Since our ambush site was in the immediate vicinity of the Soviet base, I decided to conduct a very quick attack on a single Soviet vehicle and to take prisoners if possible.

We moved through a narrow street of Afshar which opened onto the main road north of the Darulaman palace.

Commander Asil Khan was a famed urban guerrilla commander in Kabul. He served the NIFA faction. Page 374 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War

Around 1930 hours, as my leading riflemen reached the street intersection, a Soviet GAZ-66truck approached from the east on its way to the military camp. The truck had five passengers—a driver, a soldier in the right front seat and three soldiers in the back. One of the soldiers had a back-packed radio. I told my anti-tank gunner to fire when the vehicle was in the kill zone. He fired, but he narrowly missed the truck. The truck came to a sudden halt and its occupants jumped out of the vehicle, took up positions and started firing at random.

During the brief fire fight, we killed one Soviet soldier. Two soldiers ran away to the southwest toward their camp. One soldier crawled under the truck near the rear tires. The radio-man rushed into an open grocery store and hid there. One of my Mujahideen was close to the shop behind a concrete electric pylon. I told him to follow the Soviet radio-man into the front of the shop while I went into the shop's back door and introduced myself as a "friend". The Soviet soldier was flustered at first, but when he saw the foreign light anti-tank weapon in the hands of my Mujahideen, he uttered "dushman"[enemy]. He kept quiet as we bound his hands and led him out back.I recalled my team and we quickly left the area. The whole action lasted only a few minutes.

Fearing enemy retaliation, we moved out swiftly in the dark, heading to Qala-e Bakhtiar. From there, we went on to Qala-e Bahadur Khan, Qala-e Jabar Khan and Qala-e Qazi until we reached our Front's base at Morghgiran around 2200 hours. We kept our prisoner there for three days and then transferred him to NIFA headquarters in Peshawar, Pakistan.

COMMENTARY:
Detailed reconnaissance and knowledge of the enemy's movement and security arrangements contributed to a work-able ambush right in the heart of the Soviet garrison area. The Soviets had not posted a vulnerable point adjacent to their garrison--either through overconfidence or negligence on the part of lower-level commanders. Selection of a small group of fighters with an effective mix of weapons, and good selection of the ambush site played a significant role in the action. However, using a non-standard anti-tank weapon probably caused the gunner to miss a large target at close range. One wonders if the gunner had any training or practice with the weapon before he used it. An RPG-7 and an experienced gunner were needed. One wonders why the Soviets stopped their truck in the middle of a kill zone once the Mujahideen rocket missed them. Since the

Chapter 14, Vignette 4 Page 375

Mujahideen rocket missed the vehicle, there was no need for the truck to stop and the soldiers could have escaped through the small-arms fire before the anti-tank gunner had a chance to reload. The Soviets failed to react effectively. Stopping in the kill zone under small-arms fire was a risky and unwise move that cost the Soviets the life of one soldier while another one was captured.

QALA-E •CHITGAR ME •• ALAUDDIN ■ ■ QALA-EWAZIR QALACHAR QALA-Ei PAKHCHAK Sit. wawa - OM /\ . /\ WI ■ QALA-E. • • BAHADURKHAN QALA-EALI MARDA •\1141k" OALA-EBAKHTIAR \'‘JUVENILE • .N. PENITENTIARYAFSHAR DARULAMAN PALACE(MINISTRY OF DEFENSE) TAJBEG PALACE40th ARMY HQALIMARDAN

Map 14-2

0'I KM Page 376 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan. War

VIGNETTE 5 - REMOTE-CONTROL ATTACK ON A CONVOY IN THE SUBURBS
by Mohammad Humayun Shahin There were some 40 guerrillas in my force. We lived inside Kabuland in the suburbs. Most of the men were ethnic Pashtun, but therewere seven Dari speakers from outside Kabul as well. The Pashtuspeakers often mingled with the Kochi nomads who would pitch theirtents and graze their herds on the outskirts of Kabul. The Dari speak-ers posed as dairy product buyers when the DRA checked the area. In October 1982, I was a combatant, not a commander. Ourcommander was Qarar. He led us on a convoy attack against the Kot-e Sangi--Darulaman road near Qala-e Alimardan (Map Alimardan). Itwas a combined action involving HIH forces under Commander Didar,Commander Firoz and Commander Qarar, as well as fighters from theMohseni faction. The combined force numbered 76 men. We expecteda convoy from Darulaman to Kabul the next day. We all moved to thearea at night and surrounded the area. Our mining teams emplacedseven remote-controlled (shartaki) mines Then they camouflagedthem. After positioning two observation posts and designating a deto-nation team, the Mujahideen withdrew. A Mujahideen known as SherBach-e Khala (a Hazara) and I were the detonation team. CommanderQarar was at the Darulaman observation post and another observerwas by the mined area. Sher Bach-e Khala and I spent the night in aclover field some 200 meters from the road. The next morning, Commander Qarar came down the road on hisbicycle. He told us that the Soviet convoy was moving fromDarulaman. We moved into our detonation position. CommanderQarar then moved to the other observation post. He told the observerto take off his turban and wave it when the first two vehicles hadpassed the mined stretch of the road. He would do this since we couldnot see the mined stretch from the detonation position. A momentlater, the convoy reached the site and the observer took off his turban,waved it and moved to a safe spot. We operated the detonator and fourof the seven mines exploded. The explosion destroyed or damaged oneBMP and three trucks. The four-man Mujahideen group safelyescaped from the area. Mohammad Humayun Shahin provided the material for a previous vignette in this chapter. Page 378 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War COMMENTARY: It is always a good idea for a detonation party to be ableto see the target area. Mujahideen communications were often primi-tive and, in this case, depended on one visual signal. The attack, likemost urban attacks, was a quick, single strike followed by an immedi-ate withdrawal. Such harassing attacks seldom had any major impactother than on morale. It was a good idea to have a small detonationgroup, but a 76-man force to secure the area while it was mined seemstoo large. Kabul was under a night-time curfew and a large groupcould be detected by patrols along main roads.

VIGNETTE 6 - ATTACK ON THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE
by Mohammad Humayun Shahin In November 1982, some 60 Mujahideen from HIH and Mohseni'sHarakat-e Islami launched a night attack on the DRA Ministry ofDefense located in the Darulaman Palace (Map 14-3 - Darulaman).The security in the area was very tight and the area between theDarulaman Palace and the Tajbeg Palace (headquarters of the Soviet40th Army) was heavily patrolled. We decided to limit the attack toa short-range RPG attack. The HIH group were armed with AK-47Kalashnikovs, while the Mohseni group had British Sten guns1 andother weapons. The Mohnseni had the RPG-7 we used in the attack.Both sides provided ammunition for the RPG. We assembled in the staging area at Char Qala in the late after-noon. Char Qala is about three kilometers north of the target. Fromthere, we moved south in groups to the intermediate villages ofQala-e Pakhchak and Qala-e Bahadur Khan and Qala-e Bakhtiar.Our attack position was a water mill outside the JuvenilePenitentiary close to the Darulaman Palace. As we moved, wedropped off security elements. Most of the men in the group wereassigned to provide security during movement to and from thetarget area. Security elements were positioned at key locations,which facilitated our infiltration and withdrawal. Once our forwardsecurity elements secured the filing area, the RPG-7 gunner Saadat(from the Mohseni faction) took his position. He was about 250meters from the target. He fired two rockets at the building. Theenemy response was immediate. Guards from around the palacefilled the night with heavy small-arms fire. We did not return theirfire. Instead, we immediately began retracing our steps and pulledout along the route held by our security detail. We then scatteredinto hiding places and safe houses in the villages of Chardehi. Someyears later, a prison inmate who was on the DRA side during thenight attack told a Mujahideen contact that about 20 people werekilled or injured in our attack. Mohammad Humayun Shahin provided the material for the previous vignette. 1 The British Sten gun is a 9mm World War II submachine gun. It has a 32 round maga-zine and a rate of fire of some 540 rounds per minute. CHITGAR "•-■\ QALA-E WAZIFk CHAR (MLA QALA-E/, PAKHCHAKI /QALA-E './ALI MARDAN •■■ •IX • CIALA-E BAHADUR KHAN '`%.• Nr QALA-E BAKHTIAR •\■ JUVENILE •• PENITENTIARY •• ■ "`"1-- AFSHAR"mh. oe DARULAMAN PALACE(MINISTRY OF DEFENSE) TAJBEG PALACE(40th ARMY HQ) •DARULAMAN Map 14-3 1 KM ■ ■ ■ Page 380 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War Chapter 14, Vignette 6 Page 381 COMMENTARY: The Mujahideen urban warfare tactics were low-leveland fairly unsophisticated. Their actions were usually limited to a sin-gle strike followed by an immediate withdrawal to avoid decisiveengagement with a better-armed and supported regular force.Survival dictated the tactics, but their impact was political and psy-chological rather than military. The work and risk that the urbanguerrillas accepted was great and the results were often minimal ornot immediately evident. Mujahideen success in the urban areas was due primarily to thesupport of the population and the lack of DRA/Soviet control outsidethe areas that they physically controlled. The cities were under night-time curfew, but the patrols enforcing the curfew could hardly movesafely off the main city roads. The Mujahideen had great freedom ofaction outside the main thoroughfares and in the suburbs. However,they could not fully exploit this advantage due to insufficient training,poor organizational structure, a lack of modern weapons and equip-ment, an ineffective command and control system and a lack of tacti-cal cohesiveness among the various Mujahideen combatant groups.Lack of communications equipment, particularly in the early days of the war, severely hampered the Mujahideen.

VIGNETTE 7 - ALCOHOL CAN BE DEADLY
by "The Mountain Man" The DRA 8th Infantry Division was garrisoned in Kabul. We had acontact who was an officer in that division. Over the years he providedus with lots of good information. His cooperation put him, and hisfamily, at risk. He wanted to defect to the Mujahideen. We helped engi-neer his defection while hurting the enemy. We told our contact toarrange a party on September 24, 1983. He invited the Political Officerof the 8th Infantry Division with two Soviet advisers who worked withthem to his home in Kot-e Sangi. The three accepted his invitation andarrived at night driving their military jeep. Our officer had plenty ofWestern whiskey and shish kebabs on hand. The Soviets and thePolitical Officer ate and drank and became totally drunk. They passedout. Then our officer summoned us. We came into his house and carriedthe unconscious drunks out to their jeep. We drove them to the villageof Qala-e Qazi located to the southwest of Kabul. Since we were in theirjeep, no one stopped us or challenged us. We took the drunks out andsent the jeep back to the officer. He loaded his family into the jeep andtook his family to Pakistan. Then he joined our cause openly. We carried the drunks to a hideout in the Morghgiran Mountainvillage.2 When the drunks sobered up the next day, we offered them thechance to convert to Islam and to choose a righteous path. The Sovietsbecame very angry and began cursing us and insulting us. They statedthat "There is no way back from the path chosen. Afghanistan will becommunist. We will not accept you or your dirty religion." They refusedto cooperate. We could not get them out of the area without some coop-eration on their part and we could not shoot them because the shotsmight draw attention from nearby security outposts. So, we buriedthem all alive. We kept their clothing and papers which we eventuallysent to HIH headquarters in Peshawar. The next day, the Soviets sur-rounded the area, so we left and went to Parwan and Maidan. While theSoviets were looking for us, they had a clash with Mawlawi Rahmatgul'sforces. After the clash, the Soviets found where we had buried the three.They were all dead and their bodies had turned black. After we interviewed this source, the authors agreed that he should be provided anony-mity. There is no map with this vignette. 2 Morghgiran means "chicken snatcheirs".

VIGNETTE 8 - RAID ON BALAHESSAR FORTRESS
by Commander Shahabuddin A Soviet regiment was garrisoned in the Balahessar Fortress inKabul. In September or October of 1983, we decided to raid a securityoutpost south of Balahessar. This outpost formed part of the securitybelt around the fortress. I had 62 Mujahideen in my group. My arma-ments included eight RPG-7s and two 82mm recoilless rifles. My basewas some ten kilometers south of Kabul at Yakhdara. We planned theraid in our base at Yakhdara, moved in the late afternoon to the villageof Shewaki and waited until dark. We moved out at dark. On theway, there were several regime outposts. I detailed a five-man securi-ty element against each one as we passed it. The main outpost was atAkhozi and others were at Bagh-e Afzal and Qalacha. The securityelements mission was to secure our return trip so that we wouldn't beambushed by the enemy. We reached Balahessar fortress which is surrounded by severalsecurity posts. I retained a 15-man attack group and posted the restof my command as security elements guarding the other outposts. Idivided my attack group into a five-man support group and a 10-manassault group. We crept up to the outpost, climbed the wall, got up onthe roof of the outpost and then attacked it. I led the assault group.We hit the sentry with a RPG and he vaporized. We blew open thedoors with RPG. rockets and opened fire on the soldiers in the court-yard. We killed 12 of the DRA and captured three of their wounded.The rest escaped through a secret covered passage into Balahessarfortress. I had two KIA. One was Zabet Halim.3 We took our deadwith us. We could not carry the wounded prisoners so we left themthere. We captured 16 weapons—Kalashnikovs and machine guns, amortar and a RPG. As we left, there was a commotion in Balahessarand tanks moved out of the fortress in our direction. One tank cameclose to us and we destroyed it with an RPG. The other tanks then quitcoming toward us—they had lost their taste for a fight. We just want-ed to get out of there, so we left for our assembly area. We had a Commander Shahabuddin is from Shewaki Village south of Kabul. There is no map withthis vignette. 3 Zabat Halim was a legendary urban guerrilla who had been an NCO in the Royal AfghanArmy. His death was a blow to the Mujahideen. Page 384 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War designated assembly area and, as we approached it, we were chal-lenged and responded with the password. Once I assembled my entiregroup, we left. My security elements guaranteed a safe return. Thisraid was on the 10th day of the first month of the Islamic Lunarcalendar—the Day of Ashura. This day commemorates the anniver-sary of the massacre of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Husseinand his 72 followers at Karbala in Iraq. It is a day of mourning, reflec-tion and solemn thinking for Shia and others. On this Day of Ashura,we thought of our own dead who died defending truth and righteous-ness. They had died appropriately on the Day of Ashura. COMMENTARY: Many of the urban guerrilla commanders maintainedtheir main operating base within the suburbs or outlying villageswhere it was easier to assemble and train a group of men withoutgovernment observation. The guerrilla commanders maintained a netof informers and supporters who aided their entry and passagethrough the urban area. Still, guerrilla groups operating within anurban area had to secure their route of entry and withdrawal whichtook the bulk of their force.

VIGNETTE 9 - RAID ON THE KABUL METROPOLITAN Bus TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
by Commander Shabuddin The Kabul Metropolitan Bus Transportation Authority is locatedon the eastern side of the city and served as the central bus terminalfor 130 buses. In October 1983, I assembled 120 Mujahideen for theraid at our base at Yakhdara. We had 16 RPG-7s, three mortars,three 82mm recoilless rifles and numerous small arms. I divided theforce into three 20-man teams to attack the Bagrami textile compa-ny, the police station, and our main objective, the city bus trans-portation authority. Sixty men constituted the security elementwhich would secure our route of advance and withdrawal. A primaryconsideration of the urban guerrilla is always covering his route ofretreat. We moved our force from our base and spread out into thesurrounding villages. To preserve mission security, only my subcom-manders and I knew the plan. Once we were in position, the com-manders would brief their men and tell them what to do. The firstgroup went to the textile mill. The second group, reinforced with a82mm recoilless rifle, a mortar and some RPG-7s, set out to attackthe police station at Kart-e Naw. I commanded the main attackagainst the bus authority. As we moved, we posted security elementsoutside all the security outposts in the area. I sent one group ofMujahideen to the Eqbal cinema to attack the security outpost locat-ed there so that they would not interfere with our raid. As ourMujahideen were getting ready to attack the outpost, a roving jeeppatrol came by. They destroyed the jeep with a rocket. The soldiersin the security outpost saw the burning jeep and ran away. TheMujahideen captured three Kalashnikovs at this site. I led my group to the large enclosure of the bus transporta-tion authority. When we got there, I posted a few guards to preventanyone from surprising us. Then we attacked the security detach-ment at the bus park. We killed eight, captured two and torched 127buses in the enclosure. Only three buses escaped destruction. Wealso captured 13-14 Kalashnikovs and 155 bayonets! We withdrewover our escape route to our base camp. I learned that the group Commander Shahabuddin is from Shewaki Village south of Kabul. There is no map withthis vignette. Page 386 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War attacking against the textile mill fired their mortar and heavyweapons and inflicted damage on the building. Kabul was withoutfull bus transportation for a good while. COMMENTARY: The urban guerrilla attacks the credibility of thegovernment by chipping away at morale, attacking notable govern-ment targets and disrupting the daily life of the populace. The busterminal was an optimum target since it clearly demonstrated thereach of the Mujahideen and slowed the life of the capital cityconsiderably.

VIGNETTE 10 - WEAPONS RAID IN CHARIKAR
by Commander Sarshar Charikar, the capital of Parwan Province, has a compact city core,approximately one kilometer by one kilometer, and a large suburb.The northern section of Charikar is called the "new jail" area. Theheadquarters of the DRA militia forces (self-defense units) was in the"new jail" area. Malek Shah was our contact inside that headquarters.In October 1983, he promised to get us inside the militia compoundwhen the commander of the compound was asleep. I brought 65Mujahideen from my base camp for this mission. We were armed withtwo Goryunov heavy machine guns, three PK medium machine guns,four RPG-7s, and Kalashnikov and Enfield rifles. I divided my forceinto three security groups and an assault group. One security groupdeployed near the road northeast of the headquarters, while the otherdeployed to the northwest of the headquarters to cover the other flank.These two security groups protected the assault group. The third secu-rity group secured our withdrawal route north to Ofian-e Sharif. We approached the target in the night at 0200 hours. At 0300hours, we got a flashlight signal from the headquarters. I climbed thewall and the eight other Mujahideen in the assault group followed me.We were all inside the compound and Malek Shah was just starting topoint out the three rooms of the compound building when one of thesleeping militia got up. He saw us and began shouting. We had notime, so we burst into the three rooms firing as we went. I led thegroup into their commander's room. We killed 20 and I lost one KIAand one WIA. We captured 16 Kalashnikovs and I got their comman-der's Makarov pistol. Since all the firing was inside the rooms, muchof the noise was muffled and the other security outposts did not react.Apparently the other security posts did not know that we had takenthis post. We left the post before dawn. We went back to Ofian-eSharif and the following night returned to our base camp in Ghorband. COMMENTARY: The side streets of Charikar are narrow and crooked.Security of the flanks and withdrawal route were always a prime Commander Sarshar was a police officer in Parwan and worked clandestinely with theMujahideen. When his cover was about to be blown, he became a Mujahideen comman-der in Ghorband. He commanded a mobile group in the Ghorband front near Charikar.There is no map with this vignette. Charikar is found on Map sheet 2887. Page 388 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War consideration and took most of the urban fighters personnel. In thisinstance, 87% of the force was used for security. It was probably notexcessive. One wonders about the effectiveness of Charikar's securitysystem when 20 soldiers are killed with automatic weapons at 0300hours in the morning—and nobody notices.

VIGNETTE 11 - NIGHT RAID ON A CITY OUTPOST
by Ghulam Farouq I was a high school student in Kandahar. I used my student iden-tification to move freely around the city to support the Mujahideen. Iwould try to make contacts with DRA soldiers in the governmentoutposts during the day and then the Mujahideen would use thesoldiers' information to attack them at night. One day in January1984, I made contact with a soldier who showed a willingness to coop-erate with the Mujahideen in capturing his outpost. This was theSaray-e Saat-ha security outpost in Kandahar. The post was locatedon the second floor of a building in the Bazaar-e Shah section of thecity. This is across from the road junction of Alizai street and Bazaar-e Shah. The outpost was located there since the Mujahideen usedAlizai street to enter the city and the outpost controlled this path. I took the soldier with me on my bicycle to Chardewal—some sixkilometers south of the city. There, we met with my commander, AliYawar. We all discussed our plan and then I brought the soldier backto the city on my bicycle. That night, our group of 30 Mujahideenassembled. We entered the city on the south side near the Shekarpurgate (Rangrez-ha street). From there, we moved along Sherali Khanstreet near Bazaar-e Herat and from there to Wali Mohammad street.As we moved along this path, we posted security so we could withdrawsafely. We had agreed with my contact that we would arrive at 2200hours. We arrived on time and, as we approached the outpost, wesignaled with a flashlight. Our contact answered our signal. Wecrossed the paved road and posted our men at the gate. There were22 Mujahideen now securing the route and gate. The remaining eightof us entered the gate and climbed to the second floor. Everyoneappeared to be asleep. There was one soldier who just had completedhis turn as sentry and we assumed that he was asleep. He wasn't. Hegrabbed his Kalashnikov and fired at us, killing one The deadMujahideen's brother returned fire, killing the soldier and two of hissleeping comrades. We captured four other DRA soldiers plus nineKalashnikovs and a pistol. My contact deserted to us. Ghulam Farouq was a urban guerrilla in Kandahar. He belonged to the Islamic Movement(HI-- Harakat-I Islami) of Ayatollah Shaikh Asef Muhseni which is a minority Shia Muslimfaction. His nickname is Gulalai. There is no map with this vignette. Page 390 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War The firing alerted DRA forces and it would be hard to leave the citycarrying a body, so we started to take the body to a safe house wherewe could leave it for the night. As we were moving down the street, oneof our four captives escaped. A Mujahideen tried to fire at him, butdiscovered that he was out of ammunition. We knew that the escapedDRA soldier would report our whereabouts to the authorities and,since he escaped near the safe house, we could not now risk leaving thebody there. So we left the body hidden near a bakery. We covered theblood trail with dirt and then withdrew along the same route weentered. We exited the city at 0200 hours. Since the government knew that we had left our dead behind, theyblocked all entrances into the city. We tried to return for our dead thenext night but could not get in. On the third night, we tried a differ-ent route from the north of town through the Chawnay suburbs. Wetraveled from Kalacha-e Mirza to Chawnay. We got into the city andwe went to the bakery. The government had not found the body, so weretrieved it and took it outside of town for a decent burial. The personwho was killed was Hafizullah—a graduate of Kabul university. COM1VIENIARY: Movement through a city is high risk unless the routeis secured. In this case, over two-thirds of the available force securedthe route. This got the force out safely. On the other hand, prisonersecurity was not too good. Prisoners should be bound, gagged androped together in small groups for firm control. If possible, they shouldbe blindfolded so that they remain disoriented and unable to give muchimmediate information should they escape. Finally, a raiding forceshould be kept small, but the correlation of Mujahideen to DRA wasalmost one to one. Surprise gave the Mujahideen an advantage, butthe non-sleeping soldier offset that advantage.

VIGNETTE 12 - RAID ON KANDAHAR COMMUNICATIONS CENTER
by Ghulam Farouq

I continued to use my high school student identification to get around Kandahar. I would deliver messages for the Mujahideen and try to contact DRA soldiers who might give me valuable information or agree to cooperate with the resistance. In August 1984, I again found a DRA soldier who wanted to cooperate. His name was Hanif and he worked in the Kandahar Telephone Exchange Center. He and his friend in the DRA agreed to help us, so I took Hanif to our base south of the city in Chardewal to talk to my commander, Ali Yawar. Yawar said that the exchange was too strong to take in a raid, but Hanif said that he and his friends would help. Several nights later, Ali Yawar assembled 120 Mujahideen for theraid. We used the northern approach from Kalacha-e Mirza Mohammad Khan to Chawnay suburb. From Chawnay, we went to Topkhana—the Shia section of the city. Then we moved down Bala street. Ali Yawar posted about 100 Mujahideen as security along our route. Finally, we arrived at a point directly across from the outpost which guarded the telephone exchange. We gave our flashlight signal and Hanif answered it. Ali Yawar posted additional security and then we crossed the street one at a time. Twelve of us went inside the walled compound. It had a guard house and other buildings. Haniftook us all into the guard house. We sat there while the roving DRA security patrol passed outside. As usual, the security patrol came from the east and passed by the compound. They did not notice anything unusual. Hanif told us to remain quiet since another roving patrol was due from the west. We waited until they passed.There were three other sentries inside the compound that we had to neutralize. Hanif had held a tea break during the three previous nights. After the two roving patrols passed, the sentries would gather individually in the guard house to talk and drink Hanif's tea and eat his cakes. As the first sentry entered the guard house, we overpowered him, bound and gagged him and took him to the outside security group who took him away. In this fashion, we got rid of the three sentries. We spent some 35 minutes in the guard room dodging the patrols Ghulam Farouq contributed to, the previous vignette. There is no map with this vignette.

Page 392 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War

and getting rid of the sentries. We exited the guard room carrying our jerry cans of gasoline. We planned to burn down the telephone exchange and surrounding compound. As we entered the main telephone exchange building, the guard who was sleeping inside woke up.As we were climbing the stairs to the second floor, he took his Kalashnikov and began shooting. He killed Mohammad Nabi from Chardewahl and Sherandam. He wounded Ghulam Reza. Things became very chaotic at that point. We were firing in all directions and other people were firing back. No one knew what was going on. We grabbed nine Kalashnikovs and our dead and wounded and left. In our haste, we did not set anything on fire. We retraced our steps and reached Kalacha-e Mirza Mohammad Khan about 0230 in the morning. The next day, we learned that we killed four DRA soldiers plus some of their relatives who were staying there with them.

COMMENTARY:
The Mujahideen had a good movement plan through the city, but no plan for action once they were inside the compound.Consequently, there was no rehearsal before the raid. The commander left the critical inside plan to the collaborator—which is not always a good idea. In effect, the commander surrendered his command to an outsider at the critical phase of the raid. The raiding force spent 35minutes all together inside the guard house. This is very risky. The concentrated raiding force was very vulnerable in case the collaborator had not really turned. Further, sleepers don't always sleep throughout the night and guard houses get a lot of visitors. The raiders needed a covering force inside the compound. Maybe there was no other way to neutralize the other sentries, but this was high risk to the raiding party. The collaborator should have known about the sentry inside the telephone exchange, but apparently made no plan to silence him before the force entered the building. A raiding force needs to get in and out in a hurry Since the commander had abrogated his command for the critical phase, when things went bad, everyone acted on his own. The Mujahideen evacuation of dead and wounded and their capture of enemy weapons is commendable, but no one took 30 seconds to spill some gasoline and light a match. The main objective was to torch the exchange—and that did not happen.

VIGNETTE 13 - ATTACK ON KHAD HEADQUARTERS
by Mohammad Humayun Shahin On the evening of 13 August 1986, I led a five-man attack on theKHAD headquarters in Kabul. The building of the First Directorate of the KHAD was located near Darulaman at Alla uddin in the south ofKabul. The directorate worked round the clock and was located in awell-protected part of town (Map 14-4 - KHAD). Therefore, we had touse a small group and hit the target and leave. We took an RPG-7grenade launcher and four AK-47s. Our plan was to sneak up on thebuilding at night, fire a rocket at the building and leave. In the groupwere my brother, Nurullah, Mamur Abdul, Shah Mohammad andMohammad Zaher. I had an underground headquarters in Qala-e Chitgar Village,which is located some 2.5 kilometers from the western edge of Kabul.We kept our weapons there. After each mission, we would clean andlubricate our weapons and then wrap them in cotton cloth and thenput them into sealed plastic bags. We would hide the plastic bags insewer pipes and other out-of-the-way, hidden spotg. We prepared forthe mission, took out our weapons and waited for dark. We left Qala-e Chitgar in the late evening. The village is some four kilometers westof the target building. When we reached a concealed area outside theKHAD building, I put my security and RPG gunner in position. Myregular RPG gunner was absent and so I had to assign anotherMujahideen to fire the RPG. Since we were urban guerrillas, wedid not have much opportunity for target practice and the gunnerhad never fired the RPG before. I served as his assistant gunner. Icarried his rockets and helped him load the weapon. From the lightsin the windows, I judged that the second floor was the most crowdedand told him to aim for a second floor window. I did not have any earprotectors for any of us, so I wanted the gunner to keep his mouthopen during the firing to equalize the pressure. In order to do this, Itold him to loudly chant "Allahu Akbar" [God is the greatest] threetimes before firing. My new gunner, who was a Shia, smiled and saidhe would do so but would add "Ya Ali" at the end of the litany.' Mohammad Humayun Shahin contributed to other vignettes in this chapter. 4 "Ya Ali" is a saying commonly chanted by Shia when asking for heavenly help. 1 KMKHAD Map 14-4 0 QAL-EGAR CHAR QA •••111 • QALA-E BAHADUR KHAN■ QALA-E BAKHTIAR Page 394 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War Chapter 14, Vignette 13 Page 395 My gunner aimed, chanted and fired the RPG-7. The rocket flew,but instead of hitting the second floor, it hit the fourth floor. A majorcommotion ensued, but no one fired at us. We immediately left thearea and withdrew to our base. Later on, we were told that more than20 people had been killed or wounded by our attack. COMMENTARY: There are better sites for weapons instruction and qual-ification than in the middle of a mission. In this case, the target waslarge enough that it was difficult to miss. Still, the gunner was off bytwo stories. Training to standard was a constant problem forMujahideen commanders. The best training was conducted in trainingcamps in Pakistan or in mountain bases. Unless urban guerrillas weresent out for training, they had very little live-fire training other thanactual combat. Usually, urban guerrillas would detail a large securityparty to hold the withdrawal route. In this case, the five-man teamrelied on local contacts to watch the area rather than posting routesecurity.

Vignette 14 - Raid on 15 Division Garrison
by Commander Akhtarjhan The DRA 15th Infantry Division was garrisoned in Kandahar city.We had contacts within the division. In the fall of 1987, our contactsinvited us to come and seize the weapons from the division's militarypolice company. We gathered about 100 Mujahideen for the opera-tion. I commanded a group of 15 within the larger group. We crossedthe Argandab River from our base camp at Chaharqulba to BabaWalisaheb and, from there, we went through the suburb of Chawnay.Local guerrillas secured our passage through Chawnay. We finallyreached the division's main garrison. We waited until the moon setaround midnight. The military police company building was at theend of the main compound. We crept to the building and saw that ourcontacts had placed a ladder against the wall for us. Some 50 of ourgroup took up positions outside the compound while our raidinggroup of 50 climbed the ladder up onto the roof of the building. Thenwe climbed down from the roof inside the compound walls. Some of our contacts were on sentry duty, so we had no troubles.Our contacts met us and led us into the barracks building. We assem-bled in a large empty room. Our contacts then took us to differentrooms where the soldiers were sleeping—five or six soldiers per room.Their weapons were stored in the rooms. We took their weapons. Nextto the barracks was a larger arms room. After disarming the sleepingsoldiers, we raided the arms room and took hundreds of weapons. Wethen started carrying all the weapons onto the roof and passing themdown to our fellows outside the compound walls. While we were doingthis, the company political officer got out of bed and saw us. He start-ed to make a noise, so we killed him with some of the bayonets. We fin-ished getting the weapons out and left for our base camp. Our contactsdeserted the DRA and came with us. We had some Arabs who werewith us for jihad credit. They had a video camera and all they wantedto do was to take videos. They were of no value to us. Commander Akhtarjhan was a Jamiat-e-Islami (JIA) commander in Arghandab Districtnorthwest of Kandahar. He was an elementary school student when he joined the jihad atthe age of twelve. At end of the war, he was 25 years old and a commander. He joinedthe Jihad since he had two brothers in the Jihad and they were both killed. He took theirplace as family tradition dictated. He served under Mulla Naqib, the most powerful Jamiatcommander in the area. There is no map with this vignette. Kandahar map sheet is 2180. Chapter 14, Vignette 14 Page 397 COMMENTARY: The Mujahideen penetration of the DRA was essentialfor successful raids like this. Entering a sleeping compound is alwaysa high-risk proposition since someone is always awake, or wakes up,besides the sentries. A secure approach and withdrawal route is essen-tial to urban guerrillas. Having local guerrillas secure the routeallowed the force to bring enough people to carry the weapons withoutworrying about being ambushed on the way out.

CHAPTER COMMENTARY
Urban combat is difficult for the urban guerrilla and the regularforce. Throughout the war, the Soviets and DRA were never able tocompletely control Kandahar and Herat. Finally, the Soviets dealtwith the Herat guerrillas by bombing 75% of the city into rubble. Thatstill failed to stop the urban guerrilla. The DRA had more success incontrolling Kabul—but still were unable to stop the rocket attacks andguerrilla actions. On the other hand, surviving urban guerrillas areharder to find to interview. The urban guerrilla must be anonymousand ruthless to survive. The Soviets and DRA devoted a great deal ofeffort to finding and eliminating the urban guerrilla.


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The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War/Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15: CONCLUSION
"As a nation, we believed that history repeats itself. What happened in the 19th Century to the invading British would also be the fate of the Soviet invaders. Philosophically, the Soviets believed that history is unidirectional, progressive and does not repeat itself. History did repeat itself and we did prevail."
 * General Abdul Rahim Wardak

The Mujahideen understood that guerrilla war is a contest of endurance and national will. Battlefield victory is almost irrelevant, provided that the guerrilla survives to fight the next of a thousand battles before passing the torch to his children. The Mujahideen did not necessarily expect to win this war but fought because it was the right thing to do — it was a religious and national obligation. They accepted an asymmetry of casualties which eventually, but unexpectedly, led to the Soviet withdrawal.

In many respects, the tactics of the Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839-1842, 1878-1880, 1919) still applied. Technology has added rangeand accuracy, but the terrain still dictates tactics and the Mujahideen were quite comfortable applying their time-honored tactics against a modern foe. Much more innovation was required from the Soviet forces. Two modern systems, the helicopter and the antipersonnel mine, created severe tactical problems which were outside the Mujahideen historical experience. Tactical innovation occurs only where tactical innovation is required and the Mujahideen eventually found ways to work around the problem technology. Where innovation was not required, the Mujahideen stayed with the tried and true. Thus the basic Mujahideen ambush and pursuit were little changed from last century whereas their actions against an air assault or a fortified security post were quickly developed out of necessity.

Technology can provide advantages but is not decisive in this type of war. Soviet smart bombs had a decided impact when an appropriate target set could be identified. U.S.-supplied, shoulder-fired Stinger air defense missiles, in the hands of the Mujahideen, created a great deal of consternation and led to a dramatic change in Soviet air tactics. Neither system, however, was a war winner. The Soviet equipment was designed for a different war on different terrain. It failed to function optimally in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan. The Kalashnikov assault rifle was not always better than the World War I-designed British bolt-action Enfield rifle. The Enfield shot further accurately and would penetrate flak jackets designed to stop Kalashnikov bullets. The RPG-7 antitank grenade launcher was the Mujahideen weapon of choice. It is a light-weight technology killer that destroys tanks, armored personnel carriers, trucks and helicopters. The Soviets and DRA tried to stay at least 300 meters away from the Mujahideen — out of Kalashnikov and RPG-7 range. This tactical timidity led to Mujahideen acquisition of crew-served weapons. Over time, heavymachine guns, recoilless rifles, mortars and portable multiple rocketlauncher systems became an essential part of the Mujahideen arsenal which the Mujahideen used to pin their enemy in place in order to get close enough to use their Kalashnikovs and RPGs. Crew-served weapons also limited guerrilla mobility.

Soviet high performance jet fighters and bombers played a significant strategic role, but not a tactically significant one. The Soviets used their air forces to devastate the countryside and force the populace to leave in order to deny food to the Mujahideen. The Soviet air force destroyed farms, crops, animal herds, orchards and irrigation systems and forced millions of people to flee. The Mujahideen were then forced to carry their rations along with the other impedimenta of war. However, the Mujahideen seldom presented a target set that the Soviet air force or artillery could fully exploit to influence the tactical fight.

Technology did serve the Soviets as a force multiplier. Besiegedgarrisons could be maintained indefinitely by aerial resupply. Carpetbombing could stave off immediate disaster. Helicopter medical evacuation could save personnel who could later be returned to duty. Sensors could provide reconnaissance data in isolated areas.

The Mujahideen were nominally divided into seven main factions, but the disunity was much greater. There were factions within the factions. Old disputes and disagreements were not always put aside for the duration of the war. Theie were frequent armed clashes between Mujahideen of different factions. The reputation of certain factions was that they were more interested in fighting other Mujahideen than Soviets. Still, the ISI struggled to coordinate the actions of the various factions into some comprehensive plan. In some combat zones, such as Kandahar, the Mujahideen of different factions cooperated readily despite the politics of their factions.

In the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were controlled by a strict chain of command in a clear hierarchy. This was considered a strength of the communist forces and the United Statesspent a lot of effort trying to find and decapitate the central leadership. The Mujahideen structure would be difficult to fit into a line-and-block chart and there was never a central leadership that was critical to the cause. Yet this inefficient disunity may have been a strength of the Mujahideen. No matter which commanders or leaders were killed, the Mujahideen effort would continue and the Soviets would never be short of enemies.

On the tactical level, the Mujahideen were prepared for a long war. Their goal was to hit, survive and fight again. Thus, the Mujahideen could not exploit success. After a victory, they went home. Group leaders, let alone loose coalitions, could not hold a force together for long after a fight. As was earlier noted by the British fighting the hill tribes, the mountain warriors could not stay together in victory or defeat. Thus, tactical victory could not be converted into operational gain.

Not more than 15% of the Mujahideen tactical leaders were professional military officers. However, the Afghan military officer corps played a major role in stalemating or defeating the Soviet invasion. The most important role of the Afghan military officers who stayed in uniform was their lack of cooperation with the government and their subversion directed against the communist regime and its Soviet backers. In 1978 and 1979, Afghan military officers staged numerous, spontaneous uprisings against the regime in Herat,Paktia, Asmar, Bala-hessar (in Kabul) and many others sites. Many Afghan military officers passed information to the Mujahideen. In the mid-1980s, the entire leadership of the Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, including the head of the directorate (General Khalil — who was later executed by the regime), was arrested for its secret collaboration with the Mujahideen. Most of the serving Afghan officers refused communist party membership. Many of those who were forced to join the party were not loyal to the regime. Many of them secretly carried membership cards in one of the Mujahideen factions. Such lack of cooperation foiled all efforts by the Soviet Union to create a viable, indigenous military power in Afghanistan. Consequently the Soviet Union was forced to use mostly its own soldiers to carry the fight to the Mujahideen.

Afghan military officers who openly joined the Mujahideen faced many obstacles in integrating fully into the resistance hierarchy, based in Pakistan. Some faction leaders saw these former military officers as a challenge to their leadership and their factional interests and tried to sideline the professionals. Factions with a fundamentalist Islamic orientation were generally more opposed to accepting those military officers who had trained in and served under the old regimes. Therefore, many well-trained military officers who could bring effective leadership and organization to the ranks of the resistance forces, were sidelined by the factional politics of the jihad. Nevertheless, the former officers proved to be the most effectivetactical and operational leaders that the Mujahideen had during the long years of war with the Soviet forces.

Initially, the Mujahideen lived in the villages they defended and the villagers provided their food and shelter. Ammunition, weapons and other material came from the local bazaar or from Iran or Pakistan. The Soviets decided to break this link between the populace and the guerrilla by driving the populace out of the countryside. Soviet air and artillery attacked villages, standing crops, orchards,animal herds, granaries, water mills and irrigation systems. Eventually the populace was driven out of many rural areas and the Mujahideen could no longer readily subsist in these areas. With the agricultural system destroyed, the Mujahideen had to transport their own food and forage. The Mujahideen factions responded to this crisis by establishing fixed supply bases within Afghanistan. The larger supply bases were located in the mountains near the Pakistan border. Smaller supply bases were caches hidden outside the townsand villages. The Soviets then concentrated on finding and destroying the large and small supply bases. The Mujahideen dependence on the large fixed supply bases meant that they had to defend them. This provided a viable target set for Soviet air and artillery.

Although weapons and material were furnished free to th eMujahideen in the essential safe haven of Pakistan, there were significant costs to the Mujahideen in getting it to where it was needed. Often, the issued material was not what the commander needed in his area. So the material had to be traded or sold for what he needed. Then, the material had to be transported. Transportation was usually by commercial teamsters using donkeys, mules, camels or pickuptrucks. Commanders and faction leaders who established their own transportation systems discovered that it was cheaper and easier to stay with the established teamsters and muleteers. Once the materials were loaded and in transit, there were still taxes and fees to be paid. Every time the supplies crossed into a different tribe or faction area, there was a tax or tariff — often 10% of the goods. Mujahideen groups located well within Afghanistan were at the end of the pipeline and found that perhaps 40% of their material had gone to other Mujahideen groups between issue and final receipt. Western nations preferred to distribute aid in goods. Mujahideen leaders, particularly in the interior, preferred cash. They could always buy the needed mines, ammunition, food and material in the local bazaar. Saudi Arabia usually provided cash as aid. Often, the Mujahideen needed more material than they were receiving through the factions and raised their own funds to buy it. Gem stones and narcotics, two traditional exports, provided some of these funds. As the Mujahideen acquired more crew-served weapons, the ammunition tonnages required rose dramatically. At the same time, Soviet airstrikes on animal herds and their widespread use of scatterable mines along trails and mountain passes killed many of the transport animals. There was more demand for transport and fewer animals to transport the goods. The United States tried to solve the 'mule-gap" by providing Missouri mules. Unfortunately these required more food, carried less and died more quickly than thelocal variety.

Medical care and medical evacuation was a Mujahideen weakness. There were few Mujahideen doctors, although established Afghan doctors frequently treated Mujahideen casualties at great personal risk. Some Mujahideen groups had a medic who had graduated froma eight-month to a year course in Pakistan or other countries. Most groups were lucky to have a graduate of a six-week first aid course. Some French doctors worked inside Afghanistan while many other western doctors worked in the border areas of Pakistan. If the wounded Mujahideen managed to survive the harrowing trip to Pakistan, he probably survived. However, a seriously wounded Mujahideen inside Afghanistan usually died.

Guerrilla warfare demands quantities of quality light infantry on both sides. The Soviets never fielded enough. The Mujahideen wer enatural light infantry They were hardy, tough, courageous and local. They had high morale, the warrior spirit and excellent tactical intelligence. They were naturals at the ambush and pursuit. They were raised from childhood with weapons, but they lacked unit training and discipline. Training varied from valley to valley and force to force. The Pakistani ISI provided some training courses and the former military officers from the Afghan Army who joined the Mujahideen tried to train the Mujahideen to a standard. Still, the Mujahideen were not trained to a standard and the quality of the individual groups was a function of their leadership.

The Mujahideen had warrior spirit and their focus was on battle, not easy LOC targets. They wanted noise, excitement, personal glory and the spoils of war. The Pakistani ISI cajoled and threatened, but it was difficult to persuade the Mujahideen to attack the lucrative and easy oil pipelines when security outposts were available. The Mujahideen had some distinct tactical faults. If they were in their own area, they tended to ignore local security and could be surprised. They were very predictable in their selection of ambush sites and shelling sites. The Soviets, however, seemed unaware of this predictability. The Mujahideen would habitually reuse the same sites, but there is little evidence of the Soviets exploiting this pattern with aggressive footpatrols, site raids, mining or plotting artillery fire on these sites.

The overall Mujahideen air defense posture was weak. The introduction of the Stinger shoulder-fired air defense missile toward the end of the war helped, but the Soviets countered the new system with a change in tactics. The tactical threat to Mujahideen were Su-25 close air support aircraft, helicopter gunships and helicopter liftships carrying air assault forces. The Mujahideen developed the airdefense ambush as an answer to the threat of these aircraft. There are several variations of the ambush, but basically the Mujahideen would position air defense weapons in optimum firing positions and then bait the ambush to draw aircraft into the kill zone. The most popular firing positions were caves dug into canyon walls where heavy machine guns could fire horizontally across the narrow canyon. The bait would lure the aircraft into the canyon where multiple machine guns would open up on its flight path. Other aircraft would be unable to engage these machine guns since they could not get an approach shot at the caves. The Mujahideen also learned to identify likely helicopter landing zones and mine them. They would position machine guns and RPG-7 gunners around the landing zone. As the helicopter landed, massed RPG and machine gun fire would tear into the aircraft. The Mujahideen also liked to hit aircraft parked on airfields and would stage shelling attacks for the purpose of killing aircraft on the ground. A large percentage of total Mujahideen aircraft kills was from mortar and multiple rocket launcher attackson airfields.

Antipersonnel mines were a major problem for the Mujahideen. The Soviets employed millions of mines in Afghanistan. They surrounded installations, garrisons, security posts and government facilities with minefields. They mined the road banks along critical stretches of road. They dispersed scatterable mines over trails, mountain passes, cropland and grazing pasture. Most of the mines' components were nonmetallic and hard to detect. These antipersonnel mines were designed to maim, not kill. Thus, the mine would rip off a Mujahideen's leg and the Mujahideen's comrades would then have to transport the crippled combatant back to Pakistan. Should he survive the slow, painful trip, he would probably never fight again,but the trip back would involve six or eight Mujahideen who could have been fighting. Mine detectors were in short supply and not too effective against plastic mines. Mujahideen would breach minefields with captured vehicles, flocks of sheep, by firing consecutive recoilless rifles rounds to create a path, or by hurling large rocks across the minefield to create a path. None of these methods were too effective.

Although disinclined to dig in the hard, rocky soil of Afghanistan,the Mujahideen soon learned the value of field fortifications against Soviet artillery, armored vehicles and airstrikes. Field fortifications came to play a dominant role in the war as the Mujahideen learned to build sturdy, redundant, camouflaged bunkers and fighting positions which ensured their survivability. Finally, the Mujahideen were a tactical force with a tactical focus,but, when the occasion demanded, they were capable of operational-level actions. Such actions as operation Gashay, Zhawar II and the defense against Operation Magistral demonstrated this capability. Such actions were usually under the planning or leadership of former officers of the Afghan Army. What the Mujahideen were not capable of was transitioning quickly into a conventional force. After the Soviets withdrew, the Mujahideen tried and failed to take Jalalabad and Kabul by a conventional attack. These efforts ended in disorganized chaos as the DRA found heart and battled on successfully. It would be years before the DRA collapsed and the Mujahideen tried to unite to rebuild Afghanistan.


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 Plate 10. Folk-Lore, vol. 21.jpg SICILLIAN CART WITH PAINTINGS OF DECOLLATI.


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ANCIENT PARISHES OF COUNTY CLARE.


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Works

 * Le Voyage dans la Lune
 * Complete Catalogue of Genuine and Original "Star" Films

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 * Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, 1873
 * Introductory Letter to Morning, Evening, and Midnight Hymns

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 of civil order and monarchical government. At this period the Galla again made an irruption into Gojam.

is now time we should speak of this nation, which has contributed more to weakening and reducing the Abyssinian empire, than all their civil wars, and all the foreign enemies put together. When I spoke of the languages of the several nations in Abyssinia, I took occasion merely to mention the origin of these Galla, and their progress northward, till their first hostile appearance in Abyssinia. I shall now proceed to lay before the reader what further I have collected concerning them. Many of them were in the king's service while I was in Abyssinia; and, from a multitude of conversations I had with all kinds of them, I flatter myself I have gathered the best accounts regarding these tribes.

Galla are a very numerous nation of Shepherds, who probably lived under or beyond the Line. What the cause of their emigration was we do not pretend to say with certainty, but they have, for many years, been in an uniform progress northward. They were at first all infantry, and said the country they came from would not permit horses to breed in it, as is the case in 13° north of the Line round Sennaar. Upon coming northward, and conquering the Abyssinian provinces, and the small Mahometan districts bordering on them, they have acquired a breed of horses which they have multiplied so industriously that they are become a nation of cavalry, and now hold their infantry in very little esteem.


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 than as standing alone in their peculiar studies. One of his first measures, when his accession to the crown of Great Britain had increased his influence in Europe, was to interest himself in behalf of Leibnitz and Muratori in their attempts to draw from the archives of the jealous republic of Venice, materials for their gigantic undertakings in the same line. At Cambridge, again, he appears as purchasing and bestowing on the University the invaluable MS. Collections of Bishop More, which have helped to make the Public Library there one of the most useful and famous historical libraries in Europe. Whatever may have been the king's purpose in these several measures, we may safely, I think, affirm that it was not a mere political or official object which determined him when, in 1724, he wished to confer a mark of favour on Cambridge and to hold out an olive-branch to Oxford, to give to his sister foundations the same character of professorships of Modern History. Leibnitz was the most learned man he had ever seen, and perhaps Leibnitz's learning was most intelligible to George I in the shape of the Annales rerum Brunsvicensium. Nor should I omit to mention what, in the opinion of their most adverse critics, ought to be a redeeming point in the later Hanoverian princes. George II refounded and reformed the Chair which I have the honour to fill; under George III began those long and at last successful investigations into the archives of the kingdom and the treasures of our great public libraries, which are now but beginning to bear a promise of abundant interest: under George IV, as king of Great Britain and Hanover, was begun the great series of Monuments of German History, the editor of which was once wont to call himself Historiographer of the Most Serene Guelfic house, and of which the king of Hanover was a patron to an extent double of that of Prussia, and nearly equal to the patronage of all the rest of the German Courts; a great work which has made Hanover its home, and for the possession of which our Library here is indebted to the munificence of king George V.

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 completion of the design may have been determined by others. It is possible that Walpole or Stanhope may have been the adviser; it is by no means improbable that bishop Robinson, who has been looked upon as the founder of the eighteenth century school of English diplomacy, may have been consulted as to those details of the plan which were intended to afford to the students of the Universities the means of a diplomatic education. I am sorry to say that I have been unable to find any satisfactory evidence on the subject. I have indeed heard it positively affirmed that bishop Robinson drew up the scheme which took effect the year after his- death; and I should have been glad to believe it was so, for bishop Robinson was a benefactor of the Church to which I owe my own education, and the College which has munificently contributed a large portion of the endowment of the professorship. But until more evidence is attainable, I cannot speak with confidence. The influence of either Stanhope or Robinson Would account for the particular intention with which the foundation was completed; whilst that of Walpole, if it were used, would hardly have taken any other than a utilitarian direction. It is to the prominence with which this particular intention is put forward that, in conjunction I think with a general distaste to accept a benefaction from the duke of Brunswick, the ungracious reception which the new foundation met with at Oxford is to be ascribed. For the University not only acknowledged the receipt of the king's letter in a most contemptuous way, forwarding their letter of thanks by a bedell, but when, by due pressure and by the example of Cambridge, compelled to send a formal answer by a deputation to the king, clothed it in such words as showed that the introduction of the new study was looked on as an unwarranted interference with the educational government of the place; clearly it was no part of the intention of Oxford in 1724 to educate able servants for the house of Hanover.

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 Kennett, of Atterbury, Wake, and Gibson, although in these days they are chiefly known, if known at all, as antiquaries or controversialists, mark a period of historical exertion second to none either in the importance of its researches or in the value of their results. Cambridge began the modern study of English History with Parker, Oxford followed up briskly with Savile and Camden, Selden, Gale, Fulman, and Fell; men, who, if they did not pretend to shine as Historians, are entitled to the eternal gratitude of all students, and appreciated at least that true and fundamental canon of composition that the materials for History must be provided before History can be written. From Oxford, or from the studies of Oxford men, proceeded nearly all the great collections of English Historians; and the old school of students was now well represented by Thomas Hearne. But at the time when this professorship was founded this class of men were either withdrawn, like Tanner and Kennett, to other work, or relegated by their own political sympathies and Whig liberality, like Hearne and Baker, to the comparative uselessness of literary retirement. Nor, I think, were the ministers of the crown very careful as to the hands in which they placed the engine of education, from which so much might have been hoped. To speak with the utmost respect of my early predecessors, I do not find that they were men to whom the study of History, either English or foreign, is in any way indebted, until we come down to Dr. Nares at the beginning of the present century. They probably owed their position to their political connexions or to literary eminence of other kinds. It is no wonder that under the circumstances the place of History among the studies of the University became worse rather than better, or, like that of Moral Philosophy, was lost altogether.

Passing on from Dr. Nares, of whom I speak with all gratitude, remembering well, as many of the elders amongst my hearers can doubtless remember likewise, the days when his weighty volumes were almost the only available sources of information for later history: we come to the great name, never to be pronounced without reverence even by his opponents, of the man whose sincerity, energy, and power of training, made


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 him the prime mover of this generation. What Arnold might have done for the study of History in this place, had his time been given to it or been prolonged sufficiently to produce any appreciable effect on it, may be estimated by the effect of his work on other branches and in other places of education. I say it with diffidence, rather because I fear your criticism than because I have any doubt of the truth of the assertion, I believe that the one thing which Arnold wanted to perfect the balance of his admirable judgment, and to direct the current of his overflowing sympathies, was that experience of critical difficulties and moral incompatibilities which becomes practically, to the devoted student of History, a training in itself. Of Dr. Cramer I can say little. He was well furnished as a scholar and a most accomplished man: his contributions to literary history are exceedingly valuable: but his time here was short; he was not a young man when he undertook the office: he had other cares which took him away from Oxford. Most of all perhaps during the time of his holding this office all the thinking men of the University were engrossed in controversies on matters interesting, most interesting to all, in which, however much a historical training might have profited them, it was too late to forge their weapons when they were in the midst of battle. Of the two professors who preceded me, I must not, need not, say much: you are far better able than I am to appreciate their work here: but I may say that none of you can more sincerely than I do admire the learning, acuteness, earnestness and eloquence of Professor Goldwin Smith: learning, acuteness, earnestness, and eloquence never more signally admirable than when employed, as we have so often rejoiced to see them employed, on the behalf of Christian Truth against philosophic sciolism.

The circumstances under which I return to Oxford and begin my work here are, for many reasons, most encouraging; so encouraging as to afford, I think, some grounds of apprehension that the responsibility is heavier than I ought to have undertaken. In no respect does the Oxford I find on my return contrast more favourably with the Oxford I left sixteen years ago. At that time the professorship of Church History


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reader may be surprised at the disproportionate importance given to the name which stands first in the title of this chapter. I put it there as the best way of emphasizing, at the beginning of what we may call the practical part of our history, an elusive and rather strange thing. It can only be described as the strength of the weak kings.

It is sometimes valuable to have enough imagination to unlearn as well as to learn. I would ask the reader to forget his reading and everything that he learnt at school, and consider the English monarchy as it would then appear to him. Let him suppose that his acquaintance with the ancient kings has only come to him as it came to most men in simpler times, from nursery tales, from the names of places, from the dedications of churches and charities, from the tales in the tavern, and the tombs in the churchyard. Let us suppose such a person going upon some open and ordinary English way, such as the Thames valley to Windsor, or visiting some old seats of culture, such as Oxford or Cambridge. Rh


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ST. EDWARD AND THE NORMAN KINGS charity was of the kind that borders on anarchism, and the stories about him recall the Christian fools in the great anarchic novels of Russia. Thus he is reported to have covered the retreat of a common thief upon the naked plea that the thief needed things more than he did. Such a story is in strange contrast to the claims made for other kings, that theft was impossible in their dominions. Yet the two types of king are afterwards praised by the same people; and the really arresting fact is that the incompetent king is praised the more highly of the two. And exactly as in the case of the last Lancastrian, we find that the praise has really a very practical meaning in the long run. When we turn from the destructive to the constructive side of the Middle Ages we find that the village idiot is the inspiration of cities and civic systems. We find his seal upon the sacred foundations of Westminster Abbey. We find the Norman victors in the hour of victory bowing before his very ghost. In the Tapestry of Bayeux, woven by Norman hands to justify the Norman cause and glorify the Norman triumph, nothing is claimed for the Conqueror beyond his conquest and the plain personal tale that excuses it, and the story abruptly ends with the breaking of the Saxon line at Battle. But over the bier of the decrepit zany, who died without striking a blow, over this and this alone, is shown a hand coming out of heaven, and declaring the true approval of the power that rules the world. 45


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A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND The Confessor, therefore, is a paradox in many ways, and in none more than in the false reputation of the "English" of that day. As I have indicated, there is some unreality in talking about the Anglo-Saxon at all. The Anglo-Saxon is a mythical and straddling giant, who has presumably left one footprint in England and the other in Saxony. But there was a community, or rather group of communities, living in Britain before the Conquest under what we call Saxon names, and of a blood probably more Germanic and certainly less French than the same communities after the Conquest. And they have a modern reputation which is exactly the reverse of their real one. The value of the Anglo-Saxon is exaggerated, and yet his virtues are ignored. Our Anglo-Saxon blood is supposed to be the practical part of us; but as a fact the Anglo-Saxons were more hopelessly unpractical than any Celt. Their racial influence is supposed to be healthy, or, what man think the same thing, heathen. But as a fact these "Teutons" were the mystics. The Anglo-Saxons did one thing, and one thing only, thoroughly well, as they were fitted to do it thoroughly well. They christened England. Indeed, they christened it before it was born. The one thing the Angles obviously and certainly could not manage to do was to become English. But they did become Christians, and indeed showed a particular disposition to become monks. Moderns who talk vaguely of them as our hardy ancestors never do justice to the real good they 46


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ST. EDWARD AND THE NORMAN KINGS did us, by thus opening our history, as it were, with the fable of an age of innocence, and beginning all our chronicles, as so many chronicles began, with the golden initial of a saint. By becoming monks they served us in many very valuable and special capacities, but not notably, perhaps, in the capacity of ancestors.

Along the northern coast of France, where the Confessor had passed his early life, lay the lands of one of the most powerful of the French king's vassals, the Duke of Normandy. He and his people, who constitute one of the most picturesque and curious elements in European history, are confused for most of us by irrelevant controversies which would have been entirely unintelligible to them. The worst of these is the inane fiction which gives the name of Norman to the English aristocracy during its great period of the last three hundred years. Tennyson informed a lady of the name of Vere de Vere that simple faith was more valuable than Norman blood. But the historical student who can believe in Lady Clara as the possessor of the Norman blood must be himself a large possessor of the simple faith. As a matter of fact, as we shall see also when we come to the political scheme of the Normans, the notion is the negation of their real importance in history. The fashionable fancy misses what was best in the Normans, exactly as we have found it missing what was best in the Saxons. One does not know whether to thank the Normans more for appearing or for disappearing. Few 47


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A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND philanthropists ever became so rapidly anonymous. It is the great glory of the Norman adventurer that he threw himself heartily into his chance position; and had faith not only in his comrades, but in his subjects, and even in his enemies. He was loyal to the kingdom he had not yet made. Thus the Norman Bruce becomes a Scot; thus the descendant of the Norman Strongbow becomes an Irishman. No men less than Normans can be conceived as remaining as a superior caste until the present time. But this alien and adventurous loyalty in the Norman, which appears in these other national histories, appears most strongly of all in the history we have here to follow. The Duke of Normandy does become a real King of England; his claim through the Confessor, his election by the Council, even his symbolic handfuls of the soil of Sussex, these are not altogether empty forms. And though both phrases would be inaccurate, it is very much nearer the truth to call William the first of the English than to call Harold the last of them.

An indeterminate debate touching the dim races that mixed without record in that dim epoch, has made much of the fact that the Norman edges of France, like the East Anglian edges of England, were deeply penetrated by the Norse invasions of the ninth century; and that the ducal house of Normandy, with what other families we know not, can be traced back to a Scandinavian seed. The unquestionable power of captaincy and creative legislation which belonged 48


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ST. EDWARD AND THE NORMAN KINGS to the Normans, whoever they were, may be connected reasonably enough with some infusion of fresh blood. But if the racial theorists press the point to a comparison of races, it can obviously only be answered by a study of the two types in separation. And it must surely be manifest that more civilizing power has since been shown by the French when untouched by Scandinavian blood than by the Scandinavians when untouched by French blood. As much fighting (and more ruling) was done by the Crusaders who were never Vikings as by the Vikings who were never Crusaders. But in truth there is no need of such invidious analysis; we may willingly allow a real value to the Scandinavian contribution to the French as to the English nationality, so long as we firmly understand the ultimate historic fact that the duchy of Normandy was about as Scandinavian as the town of Norwich. But the debate has another danger, in that it tends to exaggerate even the personal importance of the Norman. Many as were his talents as a master, he is in history the servant of other and wider things. The landing of Lanfranc is perhaps more of a date than the landing of William. And Lanfranc was an Italian—like Julius Caesar. The Norman is not in history a mere wall, the rather brutal boundary of a mere empire. The Norman is a gate. He is like one of those gates which still remain as he made them, with round arch and rude pattern and stout supporting columns; and what entered by that 49


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A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND gate was civilization. William of Falaise has in history a title much higher than that of Duke of Normandy or King of England. He was what Julius Cæsar was, and what St. Augustine was: he was the ambassador of Europe to Britain.

William asserted that the Confessor, in the course of that connection which followed naturally from his Norman education, had promised the English crown to the holder of the Norman dukedom. Whether he did or not we shall probably never know: it is not intrinsically impossible or even improbable. To blame the promise as unpatriotic, even if it was given, is to read duties defined at a much later date into the first feudal chaos; to make such blame positive and personal is like expecting the Ancient Britons to sing "Rule Britannia." William further clinched his case by declaring that Harold, the principal Saxon noble and the most probable Saxon claimant, had, while enjoying the Duke's hospitality after a shipwreck, sworn upon sacred relics not to dispute the Duke's claim. About this episode also we must agree that we do not know; yet we shall be quite out of touch with the time if we say that we do not care. The element of sacrilege in the alleged perjury of Harold probably affected the Pope when he blessed a banner for William's army; but it did not affect the Pope much more than it would have affected the people; and Harold's people quite as much as William's. Harold's people presumably denied the fact; and their denial is 50


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Rh probably the motive of the very marked and almost eager emphasis with which the Bayeux Tapestry asserts and reasserts the reality of the personal betrayal. There is here a rather arresting fact to be noted. A great part of this celebrated pictorial record is not concerned at all with the well-known historical events which we have only to note rapidly here. It does, indeed, dwell a little on the death of Edward; it depicts the difficulties of William's enterprise in the felling of forests for shipbuilding, in the crossing of the Channel, and especially in the charge up the hill at Hastings, in which full justice is done to the destructive resistance of Harold's army. But it was really after Duke William had disembarked and defeated Harold on the Sussex coast, that he did what is historically worthy to be called the Conquest. It is not until these later operations that we have the note of the new and scientific militarism from the Continent. Instead of marching upon London he marched round it; and crossing the Thames at Wallingford cut off the city from the rest of the country and compelled its surrender. He had himself elected king with all the forms that would have accompanied a peaceful succession to the Confessor, and after a brief return to Normandy took up the work of war again to bring all England under his crown. Marching through the snow, he laid waste the northern counties, seized Chester, and made rather than won a kingdom. These things are the foundations of historical England; but of these Rh


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A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND things the pictures woven in honour of his house tell us nothing. The Bayeux. Tapestry may almost be said to stop before the Norman Conquest. But it tells in great detail the tale of some trivial raid into Brittany solely that Harold and William may appear as brothers in arms; and especially that William may be depicted in the very act of giving arms to Harold. And here again there is much more significance than a modern reader may fancy, in its bearing upon the new birth of that time and the ancient symbolism of arms. I have said that Duke William was a vassal of the King of France; and that phrase in its use and abuse is the key to the secular side of this epoch. William was indeed a most mutinous vassal, and a vein of such mutiny runs through his family fortunes: his sons Rufus and Henry I. disturbed him with internal ambitions antagonistic to his own. But it would be a blunder to allow such personal broils to obscure the system, which had indeed existed here before the Conquest, which clarified and confirmed it. That system we call Feudalism.

That Feudalism was the main mark of the Middle Ages is a commonplace of fashionable information; but it is of the sort that seeks the past rather in Wardour Street than Watling Street. For that matter, the very term "mediæval" is used for almost anything from Early English to Early Victorian. An eminent Socialist applied it to our armaments, which is like applying it to our aeroplanes. Similarly the just description 52


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ST. EDWARD AND THE NORMAN KINGS of Feudalism, and of how far it was a part and how far rather an impediment in the main mediæval movement, is confused by current debates about quite modern things—especially that modern thing, the English squirearchy. Feudalism was very nearly the opposite of squirearchy. For it is the whole point of the squire that his ownership is absolute and is pacific. And it is the very definition of Feudalism that it was a tenure, and a tenure by military service. Men paid their rent in steel instead of gold, in spears and arrows against the enemies of their landlord. But even these landlords were not landlords in the modern sense; every one was practically as well as theoretically a tenant of the King; and even he often fell into a feudal inferiority to a Pope or an Emperor. To call it mere tenure by soldiering may seem a simplification; but indeed it is precisely here that it was not so simple as it seems. It is precisely a certain knot or enigma in the nature of Feudalism which makes half the struggle of European history, but especially English history.

There was a certain unique type of state and culture which we call mediæval, for want of a better word, which we see in the Gothic or the great Schoolmen. This thing in itself was above all things logical. Its very cult of authority was a thing of reason, as all men who can reason themselves instantly recognize, even if, like Huxley, they deny its premises or dislike its fruits. Being logical, it was very exact about 53