The Pylos campaign of 425 in some ways is analogous to the long-range patrols of Major General Orde Wingate, whose much-celebrated Chindits in 1943–44 conducted hair-raising raids deep behind Japanese lines in Burma to disrupt supplies and communications, but in the process suffered terrible losses without systematically thwarting the main enemy forces. The Athenian maverick general Demosthenes was an archetypical Wingate himself; in 425 he landed in the southwestern Peloponnese at the small harbor of Pylos. Almost immediately he constructed a small fortification to serve as a base to harass
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