Perrett - Desert Warfare: From Its Roman Origins to the Gulf Conflict

By the same author:

A History of Blitzkreig

Knights of the Black Cross Hitlers Panzerwaffe and its Leaders

Soviet Armour Since 1945

Tank Tracks to Rangoon

The Czars British Squadron

Weapons of the Falklands Conflict

First published in 1988 by Patrick Stephens Limited
and reprinted in this format in 2015 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
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Copyright Bryan Perrett 1988, 2015

ISBN: 978 1 47384 745 3
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C ONTENTS

F OREWORD

by
Field Marshal Lord Carver GCB CBE DSO MC

T.E. Lawrence did as much as, perhaps more than, most to create a mystique about desert warfare. To the quotation from Francis Bacon, He who commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much or as little of the war as he will, Lawrence added, He who commands the desert is equally fortunate. Bryan Perretts book provides examples, culled from different periods, but concentrating on the twentieth century, which illustrate both the validity and the exceptions to that generalization.

There is no special characteristic of warfare in a desert which makes it possible to limit ones commitment to a degree of ones own choice. Both sides in the conflict must accept the limit. Lawrences statement was true of all types of guerilla warfare waged against an opponent who has fixed assets to defend, as the Turks had in Lawrences target, the railway to Medina. That is also true of a naval guerre de course waged against a power who is dependent on the sea for his supplies. The other ways in which desert warfare resembles war at sea are that the forces employed cannot draw their supplies from their surroundings they must return to base or somehow be supplied from it; that superior mobility confers a great advantage, while the nature of the surface over which the campaign is fought provides few, if any, natural features to aid the defence; and that, resulting from both those factors, one has to be prepared to meet attack from all directions.

Bryan Perretts accounts of different compaigns, some well-known, some rescued from near oblivion, show that these factors operated in the days when armies consisted of collections of men and animals, but were still valid when the internal-combustion engine revolutionized desert warfare in the form of mechanical vehicles, wheeled or tracked, and aircraft. Essential to their efficient operation was the use of radio for communication. The desert warrior is no longer dependent on the hazards of water supply and on guides to navigate him over the trackless wastes. The limits which the nature of the terrain formerly imposed have almost entirely been removed, and huge mechanized armies can now fight each other in the desert without restraint. If one has to fight wars, there is something to be said for choosing a battleground where there are no, or only very few, inhabitants.

I NTRODUCTION

The Nature of Desert Warfare

We are told by geologists that if the earth were the size of an orange the comparative thickness of its crust would be that of a postage stamp. Two-thirds of that crust are covered by water and for millions of years its land mass has been in a state of permanent movement, rising, falling and separating to form the continents as we know them today. In this way ancient sea beds have been forced to the surface and large areas which were once clothed with primeval forest have been drowned by the seas compensating advance. Volcanic activity and the movement of the polar ice caps have also influenced the basic structure of the earths crust.

Roughly one-fifth of the earths land mass consists of deserts, which are defined by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as being any large, extremely dry area of land with fairly sparse vegetation. Depending upon where they are situated, such areas are denied rainfall either by the presence of towering mountain ranges, or because equatorial rain forests have already absorbed the available precipitation, or simply because they do not lie in the path of the prevailing rainfall pattern. These conditions have led to the creation of deserts in the western areas of the North and South American continents, in Southern Africa, in Central Asia and Australia, but most notably of all in the so-called Dry Belt stretching across North Africa and into Arabia between 15 and 20north.

Rainfall in these areas averages about three inches per year. It is possible for several years to pass without any rain falling, yet monsoon conditions can also result in sudden torrential storms, causing flash floods to sweep down the wadis. The rain causes the desert to bloom briefly and replenishes the slender resources of oases, wells and underground cisterns, but water is rarely present in such quantities as to satisfy more than the needs of the few indigenous inhabitants. In wadi beds and known areas of regular rainfall it is possible to locate brackish water sources by digging. The desert contains large areas of hard level going, most consisting of scrub plain, but there are also many topographical features which inhibit movement including soft sand seas, shifting dunes, deep wadis, treacherous salt flats, boulder fields and ancient sea cliffs which have become escarpments.

In high summer, noon temperatures exceeding 130 distort local vision with a shimmering heat haze yet simultaneously induce mirages which project distant scenes with startling clarity. Winds are light but thermal currents raise slender columns known as dust devils which turn slowly in eerie silence before collapsing. In winter the climate is mild during the day but after sunset the temperature plummets and before dawn has reached a point well below zero. Winter, too, is the season of dust storms when howling winds fill the air with sharp flying sand that penetrates the eyes, nose, mouth, garments and every crack and crevice of equipment no matter what precautions are taken. Some of these storms are of such severity that they block the light of the sun for hours at a time. In such an environment, where distances are vast and the means of survival scarce, it was natural that the Bedouin should describe their habitat as a fortress to he who knows it and the grave of him who does not. If the former is today less true than of yore, the latter is unlikely to lose its validity.