Mountain Warfare Strategy -Few Cases

Today I would like to discuss few Classic Mountain Warfare Strategy cases from around the Globe and the important lessons of innovative Strategy techniques and their benefits when deployed to secure Victory in the Mountain Warfare.

Battle of Kargill - During Kargill war the Pakistani army  sent few terrorists to conquer  few posts on India which were on the top of the mountain and very difficult to reach and it was very near to the Pakistan border and India cannot send Airforce and attack it as it would mean war with Pakistan as we have entered their territory and the supply chain of  food and weapons were also on the Pakistani side so it cannot be disrupted and the terrorists starved to death.The Missiles could not reach this place as the accuracy was a problem and most of the places where not reachable to missiles and it was difficult to bomb them too.The Artillery was also not able to reach to the top and harm the intruders.So a lot of men have to sacrifice their lives to gain hold of these occupied positions as the terrorists has a strategic advantage of being on the top of the mountain and when the Large artillery were deployed and infantry and mountain warfare specialists like Gurkha,Rajput,Punjab regiments were sent the victory was scored but at a huge cost.

Battle of  Sinhagad- Shivaji wanted to capture Kondhad and Tanaji went to pursue this goal. Upon reaching Kondhana, Tanaji and his detachment of 300 troops were said to have scaled the fort from the western side on a dark night with the help of a domesticated bengal monitor lizard (ghorpad) nicknamed Yashwanti to which they were said to have tied ropes and sent crawling up top to the precipice of the fort. After two failed attempts, Tanaji and his men successfully scaled the steep hill fortress. ^[1]

Once inside and after opening the Kalyan Darwaza, Tanaji, his men and another detachment of 500 troops headed by Suryaji (his younger brother) attacked the army holding down the fort. The fort was controlled by Udaybhan Rathod, a rajput officer appointed by Jai Singh I.

A fierce combat took place between the forces of Tanaji and Udaybhan. Tanaji fought like a brave lion. During the battle, Tanaji broke his shield but he continued fighting by tying his upper garment over his defending hand in order to ward off Udaybhan's blows. The fort was eventually conquered but in the process, Tanaji was gravely wounded and gave up his life fighting on the battlefield.

Upon hearing the demise of Tanaji, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was struck with grief and expressed his sorrow by uttering,

"Gad ala, pan sinha gela" ("The Fort is captured, but the Lion is dead")

Eventually, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj renamed the fort of Kondhana to Sinhagad in memory of the great warrior who gave up his life in order to recapture it.

Victory over Assassinid Empire-The Assasins - The Assasins in Middle East used to live in a hill which is impregnable and they were undefeated by most emperors and rulers.Omar Khayyum a very famous poet and also a Strategist planned a very ingenious method of using metallurgy and strategy to capture the fort.Omar thoroughly studied the fort and its nearby surroundings and knew that there was petrol flowing in the mountain on which the fort is built and he thought if was can explode the mountain and dig it to the place where the petrol river has started he can set fire to the entire mountain and thus the fort and he knew he should be the first to reach to the petrol rive origin place and he was successful and thus destroyed the Assassins and their fort.

Extract from Wikipedia explaining the details/Background of Assassins

"They call him Shaykh-al-Hashishim. He is their Elder, and upon his command all of the men of the mountain come out or go in ... they are believers of the word of their elder and everyone everywhere fears them, because they even kill kings."

—Benjamin of Tudela

Remains of the Alamut castle in Qazvin, Iran

In pursuit of their religious and political goals, the Ismailis adopted various military strategies popular in the Middle Ages. One such method was that of assassination, the selective elimination of prominent rival figures. The murders of political adversaries were usually carried out in public spaces, creating resounding intimidation for other possible enemies.^[16]Throughout history, many groups have resorted to assassination as a means of achieving political ends. In the Ismaili context, these assignments were performed by fida'is (devotees) of the Ismaili mission. The assassinations were committed against those whose elimination would most greatly reduce aggression against the Ismailis and, in particular, against those who had perpetrated massacres against the community. A single assassination was usually employed in contrast with the widespread bloodshed which generally resulted from factional combat. Hashashin are also said to be adept in furusiyya, or the Islamic warrior code, where they are trained in combat, disguises, and equestrianism.^{[citation needed]} Codes of conduct are followed, and the hashashin are taught in the art of war, linguistics, and strategies. Hashashin never allowed their women to be at their fortresses during military campaigns, both for protection and secrecy. This is a tradition first made by Hassan when he sent his wife and daughters to Girdkuh when a famine was created during the Seljuk siege of Alamut.^[17] For about two centuries, the hashashin specialized in assassinating their religious and political enemies.^[18]

Rashid ad-Din Sinan the Grand Master of the Assassins at Masyafsuccessfully kept Saladin off his territory.

The first instance of murder in the effort to establish a Nizari Ismaili state in Persia is widely considered to be the killing of Seljuq vizier, Nizam al-Mulk.^[19] Carried out by a man dressed as a Sufi whose identity remains unclear, the vizier's murder in a Seljuq court is distinctive of exactly the type of visibility for which missions of the fida'is have been significantly exaggerated.^[20]While the Seljuqs and Crusaders both employed murder as a military means of disposing of factional enemies, during the Alamut period almost any murder of political significance in the Islamic lands was attributed to the Ismailis.^[21] So inflated had this association grown that, in the work of orientalist scholars such as Bernard Lewis, the Ismailis were equated with the politically active fida'is and thus were regarded as a radical and heretical sect known as the Assassins.^[22]

The military approach of the Nizari Ismaili state was largely a defensive one, with strategically chosen sites that appeared to avoid confrontation wherever possible without the loss of life.^[23]But the defining characteristic of the Nizari Ismaili state was that it was scattered geographically throughout Persia and Syria. The Alamut castle therefore was only one of a nexus of strongholds throughout the regions where Ismailis could retreat to safety if necessary. West of Alamut in the Shahrud Valley, the major fortress of Lamasar served as just one example of such a retreat. In the context of their political uprising, the various spaces of Ismaili military presence took on the name dar al-hijra (دار الهجرة; land of migration, place of refuge). The notion of the dar al-hijra originates from the time of Muhammad, who migrated with his followers from alleged persecution to a safe haven in Yathrib (Medina).^[24] In this way, the Fatimids found their dar al-hijra in North Africa. From 1101 to 1118, attacks and sieges were made on the fortresses, conducted by combined forces of Seljuk, Berkyaruq, and Sanjar. Although with the cost of lives and the capture and execution of assassin dai Ahmad ibn Hattash, the hashashin managed to hold their ground and repel the attacks until the Mongol invasion.^[25] Likewise, during the revolt against the Seljuqs, several fortresses served as spaces of refuge for the Ismailis.

Assassination[edit]

14th-century painting of the successful assassination of Nizam al-Mulk, vizier of the Seljuq Empire, by an Assassin. It is often considered their most significant assassination.

At their peak, many of the assassinations of the day were often attributed to the hashashin. Even though the Crusaders and the other factions employed personal assassins, the fact that the hashashin performed their assassinations in full view of the public, often in broad daylight, gave them the reputation assigned to them.^[26]

Psychological warfare, and attacking the enemy's psyche was another often employed tactic of the hashashin, who would sometimes attempt to draw their opponents into submission rather than risk killing them.^[1]

During the Seljuk invasion after the death of Muhammad Tapar, a new Seljuk sultan emerged with the coronation of Tapar's son Sanjar. When Sanjar rebuffed the hashashin ambassadors who were sent by Hassan for peace negotiations, Hassan sent his hashashin to the sultan. Sanjar woke up one morning with a dagger stuck in the ground beside his bed. Alarmed, he kept the matter a secret. A messenger from Hassan arrived and stated, "Did I not wish the sultan well that the dagger which was struck in the hard ground would have been planted on your soft breast". For the next several decades there ensued a ceasefire between the Nizaris and the Seljuk. Sanjar himself pensioned the hashashin on taxes collected from the lands they owned, gave them grants and licenses, and even allowed them to collect tolls from travelers.