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The war, as you know, is a difficult, expensive and dangerous affair. The result may not be the same as expected. So what should a governor of a certain country do, which is very, very, very difficult to live in another country, but he does not want to run too much risk? Hybrid war is the answer to this dilemma!
Your soldiers in the barracks, the fleet – in the ports. Everything is calm and peaceful, but at the same time, some people still unknown, but well-armed and unmarked people ruin the life of your opponent and his citizens, and you claim that it has absolutely nothing to do with you.
Why not blink with the eye?
The idea of this kind of military action was born in Western Europe, and not at all yesterday.
With the development of the navigation fleet and, consequently, the army -Small forces, many monarchs had an idea – why not an exchange when he managed to steal the French, l & # 39; Spanish, Dutch, etc., that he shares the prey with the King or Queen
Official Flight
Piracy is not a new thing, in this case even the Philistines were engaged. But pirates were always and everywhere considered mere thieves, who were sent to the gallows, while others could not.
However, in 1243, King Henry III of England began issuing official licenses for this flight. There were several conditions:
- Provide the ship, command, weapons
- Attack only ships – military and civilian – some enemy countries, others do not touch
- Share prey with monarch (king, queen or issued a license, received 10% at half of the flight – the rest was shared between the owners of the ships, the captain and the team)
So privateers appeared. That is to say, a rather formal hybrid war
For the sake of the homeland and for the purse
The flight license was called the English letter mark or course letter in French (hence the word corsair). In Russian, this document is called a "brand certificate".
Although privateers do much the same as ordinary pirates, pirates were and remained thieves, and privateers were respected people who were able to combine their services.
It should be noted here that, for the purposes of this article, all persons licensed to loot certain foreign ships will be called privateers, although strictly speaking privateers at that time were not than French. but with a trademark certificate, which operated mainly in the Mediterranean and fought against Berber pirates and their support entities in North Africa, and the French navies who operated from Brittany, Dunkirk and other similar places.
The English called their private corsairs, the Dutch were buccaneers, there were many names, but all were engaged in the flight with the blessing of some power.
Not for the timid
The corsair's golden age (like piracy) came in the 17th – 18th century, when all the British, the Dutch, the French and even the Faroe Islands tried, d & # 39; First, to master the Spanish galleons that led the gold from the American colonies to Spain, and on the other hand, to take control of the Spanish territories in the Western Hemisphere. Well, attack each other according to who was considered an enemy.
Guns, boardings, galleons, caravels, bricks – the Atlantic Ocean was then not for the faint-hearted.
Many corsairs differed little from practice in pirates practice. In order to increase the profitability of the company, some have received private certificates from several countries, often fighting with each other. The essential was not to forget what document to show.
The Atlantic Ocean turned out to be small for them, and they quickly spread to the Indian where the British East India Company gave them the mark certificates
. mainly in Madagascar, but have been exploited in Bombay and in other British ports in India.
The East India Company often had tense, even openly hostile relations with the Padishah of the Mughal Empire, and privateers were not ashamed to plunder the Indians. ships going to Jeddah on the Arabian Peninsula, which were transported by pilgrims. In those days, the pilgrims carried with them all their treasures, so that with them, it is certain that nothing has happened. Pbaded by Portuguese and Dutch ships were also a lucrative prey.
Many privateers, despite a dubious way of winning, have become national heroes at home, and their adventures are praised to this day.
Here are some of the most famous: Sir Francis Drake . The first Englishman who went around the world. He was particularly hostile to the Spaniards and became famous, pillaging their ships and their cities. I brought tons of Peruvian money to England, taken from Spanish galleons. Spain considered him an ordinary pirate, but in England he was considered a hero and generously shared his prey with Queen Elizabeth I.
Drake also brought potatoes to England and Northern Europe . which was demolished by the Nazis in the 1930s.
Towards the end of his career, he received chivalry and even took politics.
Sir Henry Morgan . One of the most successful British privateers. He was based in Jamaica and attacked Spanish ships and Caribbean cities.
He was able to cross the Isthmus of Panama on foot and capture the Panama City on the Pacific coast, where the main gold and silver warehouse was sent from Peru to Spain [19659007] Spain repeatedly asked London to try him for piracy, but he had a private certificate, and instead of trial he became the vice governor of Jamaica and one of the richer from the British Empire
. The Turkish captain, who started his career with ordinary hacking. He soon received a letter from the emir of Tunisia, allowing him to steal enemy ships and harbors, in exchange for which he was to give 20% of the captured Amir.
At one point, Barbarossa even became an emir of Algeria
. attacks throughout the Mediterranean. Killed in battle with the Spaniards
Many other corsairs do not end well – either they were captured by enemies and hanged or killed without leaving traces in the story.
But from the point of view of the authorities of the practical era, because all the risk, both physical and political, was transferred to citizens who did not know what was happening somewhere in the world. foreign.
A double-edged sword
This continued until the early nineteenth century. But by that time, many countries had realized that although corsair and similar hybrid wars – one thing, of course, useful, at the same time it was a double-edged sword. The Corsairs were, with a few exceptions, unreliable, worried, first, theirs and, second, their own careers.
State affairs cared less about them, therefore, there were often serious diplomatic problems, since corsairs like pirates, they attacked those who seized them, they ignored the unfortunate fact that a peace treaty was concluded between the two countries and continued to attack the former enemies of the state – and the diplomatic services had to deal with all this. 19659004] As a result, many countries have often tried to abolish this practice – but only if the others do the same. France and England regularly – from 1324 – announced the abolition of the corsair, but in the next 500 years, during the following war, the privateers' certificates spread
Crimean War [19659006] We had to wait until the end of the Crimean War. In 1856, seven powers signed the Paris Declaration, abandoning the privateer. Then 45 more states joined the declaration, as a result of which this way of making a living has been illegal (with few exceptions) virtually everywhere in the world.
An exception was, for example, Bolivia which in 1878 began issuing trademark certificates during the war with Chile, since it did not have its own navy.
Nevertheless, similar hybrid wars and legalized piracy were in practice abolished.
What's Next?
But as always in life, not everything is so
Spain and the United States are two important countries from the point of view of navigation – the Paris Declaration n & # 39; 39 has not been signed yet.
Both countries follow all the principles of the declaration and never violate it.
The first article, subtitle of the 8th Constitution of the United States, clearly states that the Congress has the right to "declare war, issue privateer's certificates and establish rules on military extraction" . and as a result, if America wants to formally join all the international corsair bans, it will have to change its own constitution.
Washington has not resorted to hybrid military measures since 1815, but who can predict the future? What other Drake and Barbarosses will go off at their own peril?
And who else decides to look into the military precinct and go to war where they were not expected?
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