In a modern sense, 'enemy lines' and 'friendly lines' really refer to the space that is generally understood to be under the control of one or another side - but not a particular group of troops standing in a long line like we saw in Europe a hundred years ago, no. In reality, these areas are influenced by cities, towns, villages, outposts, and (importantly) roads. Man, I was left behind enemy lines last night.

They had an influential supporter in Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who famously ordered them to ‘set Europe ablaze’. This would include sabotage, subversion and even assassination behind enemy lines. This map shows a bunch of random 'lines' and territories, but there most certainly aren't troops butting up against each other. When your friends leave you at the bar alone, and you proceed to black out and make bad decisions. The primary mission of the SOE was to aid resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Europe by any means possible. In modern warfare due to the higher manoeuvrability and increased force projection (you can put a company wherever you want within 500 miles, pretty easily) you don't have physical lines, but a force can exert control over a space within a theatre of operations which would generally be considered to be their 'lines' when referring to this phrase.Ī good example is the IS insurgency. It took a long time to move armies and build trenches, so there was a big correlation between territorial and physical lines. In the World Wars (in particular WWI) this meant very defined physical lines of troops that extended across continents. Well that's the thing - your 'lines' are really only what you can effectively control.

Behind enemy lines meaning