A map showing railroad traffic disruptions in the area of German Army Group Center in the Soviet Union, August 1943 – public domain image of the Historical Division, United States European Military Command (EUCOM), US Army Center of Military History

(5) UNDERGROUND WAR –

PARTISANS, RESISTANCE & GOVERNMENTS-IN-EXILE

(1931-1945)

Special mention has to go to what might be called the underground war – the war of partisans, resistance movements, and governments-in-exile against the Axis powers occupying their nations, primarily Germany but also Italy and Japan (as well as their lesser Axis partners).

Indeed, it is again Japan that is the reason this entry commences in 1931, with the first aggression by any Axis nation (prior to any of the pacts or treaties comprising the Axis from 1936 onwards) with Japan’s invasion and conquest of Manchuria. That saw numerous Chinese insurgents or resistance movements against Japan, as well as resistance movements within Japan itself – although one might identify dissent or resistance against the Japanese imperial government or military well before that in Japan and Korea.

Likewise, German anti-Nazi resistance movements started with the rise of the regime to power in 1933 (and again arguably before that), as did Italian anti-fascist dissent or resistance with the rise of Mussolini to power from 1922 onwards. Of course, the latter became much more substantial as partisans or armed resistance against the Germans (and the German puppet remnants of Mussolini’s government, including Mussolin himself), from 1943 after Italy surrendered to the Allies and the Germans occupied it.

However, the war of partisans, resistance movements, and governments-in-exile against the European Axis powers by the nations they occupied took definitive shape from the Italian conquest of Abyssinia or Ethiopia in 1935 onwards. The primary dichotomy of these combatants was between the communist-led ones, usually preferred by the Soviets, and the various nationalist ones – often resulting in civil war between them.

Most of the entries in my top ten have significant or substantial partisan warfare or armed resistance movements – most notably the Nazi-Soviet war with the partisans on the Soviet side, the partisans or resistance movements within Poland, and the Yugoslavian civil war and war of national liberation, particularly with Tito’s Partisans.

For the most part, partisans and resistance movements lacked significant or substantial military effect or impact, with the primary exceptions being those with the numbers or even more so the terrain for guerilla warfare – most notably in the Soviet Union and the Balkans, but also in Poland, Italy, and the Maquis in France.

That is not to say that partisans or resistance movements lacked any effect or impact where they did not have any such military effect or impact – one could well compile a top ten of forms of resistance, most notably contributions to Allied intelligence.

Even for those partisans or resistance movements that did have a significant or substantial military effect or impact, only those of two nations were able to liberate their nations largely with their own forces – Yugoslavia and Albania, albeit there were also uprisings and partial or temporary liberations achieved by partisans or resistance movements in Poland, France, Greece and Italy. Of course, Yugoslavia and Albania did have outside help, in the form of Soviet operations in the Balkans as well as Allied air support or supplies. They also had the benefit of a combination of terrain and the relative benevolence of Italian occupation, from which they also gained with the withdrawal or even desertion to them of Italian forces after the Italian surrender in 1943. Even with those advantages, they probably still could not have done so without Germany’s defeat by and need to commit forces elsewhere against the Soviets or western allies.

It is also impressive how many occupied nations maintained governments-in-exile, both in the war in Europe and the war against Japan, on both sides but predominantly on the Allied side and in exile in Britain or with British forces. Some of those, such as the governments-in-exile of Abyssinia and Czechoslovakia, predated the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

And it is also impressive just how many of the Allied governments-in-exile made significant or substantial contributions to the Allied war effort despite, you know, losing their nations to occupation.

The Polish government-in-exile, as we’ve seen, commanded Polish armed forces or underground armies that were the fourth largest Allied armed forces in Europe. While the Norwegian government-in-exile commanded more modest armed forces, the Allies gained the services of its merchant navy, the fourth largest in the world and of substantial importance for the Battle of the Atlantic. The Dutch government-in-exile brought with it the forces it had in the Dutch East Indies or Indonesia. The Belgian government-in-exile brought with it the Belgian Congo – and the uranium from there used for the first atomic bombs.

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)