Petty warfare (German: Kleiner Krieg; French: Petite guerre; Russian: малая война, romanized: malaya voyna) is a form of irregular warfare where small units attack the enemy's support operation to ensure that the main force enjoys favorable conditions for decisive battles. Petty warfare can be used in both ground and naval combat.[1] The term first appeared during the 18th century and was subsequently developed by Russian and Soviet tacticians.
The term "petty warfare" (German: "Kleinkrieg" or "kleiner Krieg"), was first adopted in the early modern period by German people, and was later on used in 18th- and 19th-century Russian literature to refer to a particular form of warfare in which small units, avoiding collisions with larger military forces, attack communication and small fortified posts, enemy convoys, armories, etc.
Petty warfare is similar to the later Spanish term guerrilla (literally, "little war") but differs by using solely special military forces; guerrilla warfare includes armed civilians and the irregular military. During the Napoleonic Wars, when the use of civilians in military actions became widespread, the term “little war” or petty warfare in Germany was superseded by “people’s war” concept (German: volkskrieg).
It was common for 19th-century writers to write about a people’s war against Napoleon to describe the events that took place in Russia. In the early 19th century, a number of books on the theory of petty warfare were published in Russia and were later included as part of officer examinations.
The term “little war” was created at the time of a cumbersome system of arsenal supply during the early modern period, when the main means of transport were horses and carts.
The Seven Years' War was full of examples of how supply troubles often arose by the capture of transports and the destruction of stores. Such attacks led to the breakdown of planned large-scale military operations. For example, a new expedition of Russian troops to Berlin in late 1761 failed after Prussian Lieutenant General von Platen on September 15, 1761 captured a Russian convoy of 5,000 wagons and burned a number of stores that had been prepared for the expedition. Similarly around the same time, a Prussian garrison surrendered because Serbian hussars under the command of Peter Tekeli intercepted their convoy that went from Stettin to Kolberg (now Poland), which was full of gunpowder stocks and bombs.
The development of theories of guerrilla and petty warfare continued in the 1920s and 1930s in the USSR. In 1931, M. A. Drobov wrote a book, "Petty warfare: partisan and sabotage," which summarized the views of military-political leadership in the USSR on the methods of petty warfare. “Petty warfare. Organization and combat tactics of small units” book is the most recent literature in Russian dated 1998.[2][3]
Ground petty warfare includes reconnaissance, sabotage, guerrilla, and terrorism used by small combat groups.[4][5] Such combat groups are usually part of special purpose units and militia.[6][7]
During the early modern period, the main petty warfare forces on ground were regular and irregular parts of light cavalry. In Austria, they were Croatian and Pandurs, and in Russia, they were Cossacks, Kalmyks and Bashkirs. King Frederick II of Prussia considered those ground forces to be one of the main advantages of Russian army during the early modern period.