Forget Afghanistan—What was the most brutal guerrilla warfare campaign of all time?

The author of a new “epic history of guerrilla warfare” says Haiti’s independence struggle might hold the distinction as the most brutal guerrilla war of all time.

“There have been many brutal campaigns, but it is hard to top Haiti’s struggle for independence from France from 1791 to 1804,” Max Boot, whose “Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present” just hit book stores, told The Daily Caller.

“It began with a slave revolt. French colonists later testified to a litany of horrors allegedly committed by slaves seeking liberation. … In trying to put down the revolt, French troops were just as inhumane and vicious. … By some estimates the Haitian War of Independence claimed the lives of 200,000 blacks and mulattos, 25,000 white colonists, 50,000 French soldiers, and 15,000 British soldiers.”

“As one scholar notes,” he added, “‘Six times as many Haitians as Americans died during their respective wars for independence,’ even though the population of Haiti was one-fourth that of the North American colonies.”

Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has followed America’s current campaign against guerrillas in Afghanistan closely. He said keeping just…

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Source: Daily Caller