As the first European colonial power to arrive in Africa and the last to leave,1 Portugal campaigned in Africa almost every year between 1575 and 1930,2 establishing a presence in Guinea, Angola, and Mozambique by the end of the fifteenth century. But Portugal was only gradually able to extend her authority on the coast into the interior in a series of colonial campaigns during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The last significant uprising, in Guinea, was suppressed as late as 1936.3 From 1885 when the Berlin Conference made plain that the British and Germans were looking enviously at the undeveloped and lightly occupied Portuguese enclaves there was a revival of interest in Africa by Portugal in response to the perceived threat from the “new imperialism” and “the scramble for Africa.” The following 30 years saw the gradual subjugation of the hinterland. This conquest was mainly mounted to maintain prestige but also to keep the military busy. It was thus mainly driven by military imperialism rather than commercialism, having a similar dynamic to the French conquest of Algeria, Indochina, and Madagascar.4 Almost every year until 1924 witnessed military expeditions in all three of the Portuguese colonies, employing black troops and exploiting local rivalries.5 More than 99 percent of the “Portuguese” armies were African.6
As the 1960s brought the challenge of a growing nationalism and a demand for decolonization from Portugal’s colonies, Dr. Antonio Salazar and his successor, Marcelo Caetano, both shared the same disastrous flaw—a persistent commitment to maintaining Portugal’s empire in Africa, resisting pressures for independence because they regarded Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique not as colonies, but as “overseas territories,” part of Portugal itself. Caetano declared during the 1930s that “Africa is for us a moral justification and a raison d’être as a power. Without it, we would be a small nation; with it, we are a great country.”7 Again, in a speech in April 1970, he stated that “Africa is more than an area which must be exploited. Without Africa we would be a small nation; with Africa we are a big power.”8 This meant that, although military achievements were able to buy time, which made more permanent and far-reaching changes on the political front possible, if there had been a political will to implement them, these were not forthcoming because the Salazar regime was not prepared either to concede political power or to plan for a smooth devolution. Such concessions, too little and too late, would only be contemplated by Caetano in the early 1970s.9
Many within the officer corps had misgivings about this stubborn commitment to retain Portugal’s colonies. But when in April 1961 General Botelho Moniz (the defense minister), Colonel Almeida Fernandes (the army minister), and Colonel Francisco da Costa Gomes (the army undersecretary) questioned plans for defending the colonies drawn up by General Kaúlza de Arriaga (air force secretary)—General Muniz told Salazar that a sustained campaign against decolonization by the army was “a suicide mission”—Salazar’s response was ruthless, sacking Moniz and Fernandes and transferring Costa Gomes and other dissident officers to sinecure administrative posts. Salazar then assumed responsibility for conducting colonial defense himself and went on television to announce that the Portuguese would remain in Africa “to defend Western and Christian civilisation.”10
The Portuguese approach to counterinsurgency was heavily influenced by the French doctrine of counter-revolutionary war. Some Portuguese officers had been observers attached to the French forces in Algeria.11 In adopting the French counterinsurgency techniques of la guerre révolutionnaire, many Portuguese political and military leaders shared the belief held by many French soldiers at the height of the Cold War that all colonial disturbances were orchestrated from Moscow and Peking, although as the 1960s progressed it became clear that the communist world was too deeply divided to provide a unified strategy and that nationalism was a more important factor in colonial revolts. Increasingly, the officer corps rejected the government’s ideological claims of defending the West, although the Salazar government continued to perceive Portugal as part of a global anticommunist crusade.12 As late as 1973 the right-wing Kaúlza de Arriaga was still a believer in “the Communist Grand Strategy” and “Communist world expansion,” which aimed “to destroy Western civilisation,”13 but General António de Spínola probably spoke for the majority when stating in early 1974 that “we must begin by divesting ourselves of the notion that we are defending the West and the western way of life.”14
Prior to the outbreak of the African wars in 1961, when surprised by a bloody rebellion in Angola, the Portuguese army was an ossified institution, which had not seen active service since World War I, facing a counterinsurgency campaign on three fronts.15 Nevertheless, many officers were aware of the need to modernize rapidly and of the recent experiences of the British in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus and the French in Indochina and Algeria. Believing that the army had to prepare to defeat an insurgency, the Portuguese army general staff began to formulate a counterinsurgency doctrine in anticipation of trouble in the Portuguese colonies in Africa following the emergence of militant nationalism during the 1950s. In 1958–59, Portuguese army officers attended the Intelligence Centre of the British Army at Maresfield Park Camp near Uckfield in Sussex and the French army’s Centre d’Instruction de Pacification et de Contre-Guérilla at Arzew in Oran Province, Algeria, to learn about subversive warfare. Five lectures given by Colonel Hermes de Araújo Oliveira as the professor of geography and military history at the Academia Militar (Military Academy) following a visit to Algeria in 1959 were published as Guerra Revolucionária (Revolutionary War) in Lisbon in 1960 under the patronage of the Ministry of the Army. This provided a valuable explanation of subversive war from the Portuguese perspective. This interest in counterinsurgency culminated in 1963 in the publication of the doctrinal manual, O Exército na Guerra Subversiva (“The Army in Subversive War”), written by Lieutenant-Colonel Artur Henrique Nunes da Silva and his staff in the operations branch of the army general staff. This doctrine was heavily influenced by contemporary British and French experience and in particular by the French doctrine of guerre révolutionnaire.16
Within the restrictive framework of Salazar’s strategy of retaining Portugal’s colonies at all costs, “The Army in Subversive War” provided the tactical doctrine for fighting guerrillas, emphasizing that the key to success was winning the confidence and loyalty of the population and following the British principle of minimum force, which contrasted with the French practice of ratissage (raking over), which terrorized the population, or the American practice of conducting counterinsurgency as an adjunct to conventional war. The traditional five phases of an insurgency evolved by Mao Tse-tung in China and developed by General Vo Nguyen Giap in Vietnam were simplified by the Portuguese into two broader phases: a single clandestine preinsurrection phase and an insurrection phase. The Portuguese sought to win militarily but in a low-key, cost-effective, and inexpensive manner, relying increasingly as the wars progressed on the Africanization of the colonial forces and the employment of elite airborne troops in helicopter assaults to hunt down and defeat the rebels. At a tactical level, the emphasis was on fighting with professional skill in an innovative and irregular fashion, employing light infantry and small units to defeat the insurgent. The army also sought to address the root causes of the insurgency by employing resettlement of the population to separate them from the insurgents and providing social, economic, legal, and administrative services to win the population’s loyalty and support, including the manpower to build schools and wells as well as to teach and supply medical, health, and sanitation facilities. The war against communism was fought on all fronts—political, social, and economic as well as military.17 As Lieutenant-Colonel Hermes de Araújo Oliveira of the army general staff noted: “National mobilisation must not rely exclusively on the armed forces, but absolutely on a country’s every resource.”18
Also adopted from the French was the idea that psychological operations (PSYOPS) could be an important tool in motivating Portuguese soldiers and in winning over the African population to the Portuguese cause, countering the subversion of the insurgents. “The Army in Subversive War” was both comprehensive and impressive in providing an appropriate and timely doctrine for the Portuguese army’s counterinsurgency operations in Africa based on the lessons learnt by the British and French in the past decade. Unlike the French and British in the 1950s, the Portuguese in the 1960s had an established doctrine to guide them, although some difficulties were experienced in implementing that doctrine.19
The “national revolution” was begun on February 4, 1961, by the MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, Popular Movement of the Liberation of Angola) when they launched a series of attacks in the capital, Luanda. Despite tactical failure, this was a psychological success drawing international attention to Angola and an overreaction from the army, local militia, and police, which including summary executions resulting in the deaths of some 3,000 blacks.
On March 15, 1961, the UPA (União das Populações de Angola, Union of the Peoples of Angola) started a rural uprising in northern Angola, which lasted into May, resulting in the massacre of whites, mestizos (mixed races), and blacks. The arrival of some 20,000 reinforcements in July and August allowed the Portuguese to reoccupy northern Angola during the dry winter season, between May 13 and October 7, when General Venáncio Deslandes (the new governor-general) announced that military operations had ceased and that the policing phase had begun. A large number of rebels were killed, but once again Portuguese credibility was damaged by severe white settler reprisals and indiscriminate bombing by the Portuguese air force. Although the Portuguese regained control during this first bruising round, winning on points, the region had become a wasteland, and the revolutionary war had only just commenced, with the rebels employing guerrilla tactics from sanctuaries in the newly independent Congo.20
Having reestablished control in northern Angola during the second half of 1961, the Portuguese security forces concentrated on securing the economically important areas of northern Angola to protect the capital, Luanda, and to gain a breathing space in which to make socioeconomic development possible. As part of this strategy, the local population was resettled in strategic hamlets to isolate the guerrillas from their popular support. From the end of 1961 Portuguese strategy was to intercept and destroy any insurgent infiltration across the Congo border, while using internal security to cut the population off from the guerrillas and employing “pyschosocial action” to regain and retain the loyalty of the indigenous population. As massive reinforcements continued to arrive, the military strength in Angola gradually increased from 40,000 in 1962 to 60,000 in 1967. This latter figure represented 15 to 16 times the number of European troops available in early 1961 and a massive commitment because by 1967 some 75 percent of Portugal’s entire metropolitan army was serving overseas. These troops were supported by 10,000 uniformed policemen, a corps of some 8,000 volunteers, and a black militia.21
In 1962 the Portuguese security forces, mainly army troops, were under the command of the Angolan Military Region (RMA), which had its headquarters in Luanda and was divided into four operational zones (northern, central, southern, and eastern), which in turn controlled sectors that usually corresponded with the administrative districts. This territorial organization was to survive, with minor changes, until 1974. By 1965 the Portuguese seemed to have good reasons for being optimistic, having been successful in reestablishing the situation in northern Angola, helped by serious rifts between the different insurgent movements, the poor leadership and training of the guerrillas, and their lack of popular support.22
But by the end of 1966 there was stalemate in all three Portuguese counterinsurgency campaigns, not just in Angola but also in Guinea and Mozambique, forcing the deployment of 120,000 men, the largest military force in Portugal’s history, which consumed 40 percent of the national budget. Although Guinea was causing concern, the situation in Angola was viewed with optimism as the guerrillas were mostly confined to the Dembos region. However, from 1967 onward, the MPLA opened up a new front in eastern Angola, which posed a serious threat to the densely populated central heartland, and in mid-1970 the Portuguese estimated that insurgents were operating in 40 percent of Angola, an increase of 35 percent since January 1966. Over the next three years (1971–74), however, the efficiency of the security forces and divisions within their leadership turned the tide against the insurgents. A number of improvements were introduced. These included better leadership; enhanced command and control; greater cooperation between civilian and military leaders at all levels; a comprehensive intelligence-gathering system, which was key to successful operations; the increased availability of helicopters; Africanization of the security forces; the resettlement of the population on a large scale in eastern Angola; political liberalization; and ongoing socioeconomic reforms.23
As regards internal security, the security forces were able to confine the areas of guerrilla activity and influence and to gradually regain some control over the local population. In achieving this, a resettlement program employing counterinsurgency lessons learnt in Malaya, the Philippines, and Vietnam played a decisive role in controlling the population, commencing in northern Angola, to the north of the Dembos area, between 1961 and 1964. Reordenamento rural was employed for orderly rural resettlement under the control of civil authorities outside battle zones while specially built strategic hamlets (aldeamentos) provided military control and protection in areas where insurgents were active so as to separate the local population from the guerrillas. The widely dispersed populace was concentrated and, if deemed reliable, armed for self-protection against the guerrillas. The aldeamento system offered the population substantial benefits, notably an improved standard of living, jobs, and security, while giving the security forces control over the local population (and denying its support to the insurgents) and the ability to undertake unrestrained operations against the rebels. However, successful resettlement was dependent on good planning, the availability of finance, and the quality of the personnel and the facilities.24
Without these factors, the movement from poor but traditional settlements caused misery and resentment, providing recruits for the insurgents. In the early stages of the campaign, implementation occurred in a somewhat hasty and haphazard manner and often involved coercive measures by the security forces. Later, the sheer size of the resettlement—approximately 1 million people were relocated—meant that the prerequisites for success were not always achieved, especially when it was extended from the northern region to other parts of the country, where circumstances were less conducive. Thus, aldeamentos became one of the most controversial aspects of the counterinsurgency campaign in Angola. Nevertheless, after a poor beginning, considerable efforts were made to improve living conditions for the population, although the military policy of resettlement to separate the population from the insurgents was often irreconcilable with the key requirement of winning the inhabitants over to the Portuguese cause. General Joaquim da Luz Cunha, the last commander in chief in Angola (1972–74), estimated that by 1972 a mere 5 percent of the population was under insurgent control, 20 percent was contaminated, and 75 percent was free of subversion.25
The operational strategy throughout the 13-year war in Angola was based on the techniques employed by the French in Algeria. A defensive network of mainly conscript units garrisoned well-defined areas while mobile reaction forces made up of elite troops were deployed to undertake offensive search-and-destroy operations against any insurgents who infiltrated these zones. The so-called static units sought to foster the support of the local population, gather intelligence, provide security for the local political-administrative effort, and achieve dominance over their specific sector using mobility and offensive operations. One commander complained in 1963 that the only objective of many garrisons, which were widely dispersed because of insufficient manpower, was to safeguard their continued existence. Other weaknesses also identified included inadequate training, a lack of aggression, poor motivation of some troops, and a shortage of regular cadres to lead them.26
The Portuguese also used “psychosocial action” to maintain the motivation and morale of the security forces and to secure the loyalty and cooperation of the indigenous population, countering the propaganda of the insurgents who promised independence, social advances, and a bright future. The Portuguese promised equality, multiracialism, security, and an improved standard of living. The army provided civic action in support of the civil administration to reinforce the psychological action, notably education, food, medical, religious, and welfare programs. The garrison troops maintained contact with the local community, establishing schools and sports facilities, but these activities again were hampered by a shortage of qualified personnel and adequate funding. In contrast to American policy of free access in Vietnam, Portugal also imposed strict censorship and control over the media in Angola, allowing only small numbers of friendly journalists to enter the war zone. The security police, PIDE, later DGS (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado, International Police for Defense of the State, from 1969 DGS, Direcção Geral de Segurança, General Security Directorate), dealt ruthlessly with any resistance in urban centers, which remained comparatively tranquil and unaffected by urban terrorism.27 This meant also that the army could present itself at home and internationally as untainted by the brutal torture of insurgents, which by alienating public opinion had contributed to the defeat of the French army in Algeria, as the dirty work of interrogation and torture was undertaken by the PIDE.28
In particular, following the British model, a new command and control system of councils attended by key civilian and military personnel was set up at provincial, district, municipal, and rural ward level in 1968 to ensure effective cooperation between the security forces and civil administration and coordination of intelligence, logistics, psychological action, and resources.29 The appointment of General Francisco da Costa Gomes, as commander in chief in Angola in May 1970, altered the circumstances in Angola at a critical time. A close friend and associate of Spínola, who regularly visited his troops, Costa Gomes was not only very intelligent but also politically astute. Two years later when Costa Gomes departed to become chief of the general staff, the crisis had been resolved, allowing some optimism.30
In contrast to the PAIGC (Partido Africano Para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde Islands) and FRELIMO (Frente de Libertacão de Moçambique, Front for the Liberation of Mozambique), the MPLA had lost momentum by 1972, suffering a crisis in leadership and a severe loss in morale, which, with a loss of Soviet support in December 1973, relegated it to sporadic operations and a fight for survival. This allowed the Portuguese to consider transferring forces from Angola to Mozambique, where the security situation was deteriorating rapidly.31 Costa Gomes and General José Manuel de Bethencourt Rodrigues, a former military attaché in London and minister of the army, and one of Portugal’s “most brilliant young tacticians,”32 who had been brought to Angola at Costa Gomes’s request, were the architects of a successful counterinsurgency strategy, aided by increased force levels, better equipment, and more helicopters. Portuguese operations were carried out with greater aggression and panache, employing small groups of black troops to intercept and ambush insurgent infiltration in areas such as the Dembos Forest, which had hitherto been rebel sanctuaries. Annual dry season offensives, notably Operation Siroco from July to October 1970, were deployed against the MPLA infrastructure and their infiltration routes.33
By early 1974 the guerrilla threat had been contained by the successful Portuguese strategy and the war in Angola had swung in Portugal’s favor. The army’s counterinsurgency doctrine, employing lessons from the British and French experience, was broad and effective, although there remained a gap between theory and practice and some administrative and military deficiencies. Yet, the failure to develop a political strategy to meet the aspirations of Africans for independence remained a fatal flaw negating, as in Algeria and Rhodesia, any military success. General Spínola argued correctly that Portugal’s colonial wars could not be won by military means alone and that a political settlement was needed to ensure that the war was concluded successfully.34 The military coup in Portugal in 1974 led to a rapid withdrawal from Angola.35
Full-scale revolutionary war did not erupt in Mozambique until September 1964.36 Initially, the insurgents of FRELIMO were contained by the army in the north away from the main population zones.37 Operating in small groups from Tanzania and using traditional guerrilla hit-and-run tactics, the insurgents of FRELIMO were initially contained by the army in the north in Cabo Delgado and Niassa away from the main population zones and made little headway. But from 1968, following the resolution of its internal divisions and a change of leadership (after the murder of Eduardo Mondlane), FRELIMO was able to infiltrate from bases in Zaire via Zambia, the strategic but neglected province of Tete, which provided a “backdoor” for infiltration of Rhodesia, surprising the Portuguese. Short of equipment, the Portuguese commanded by Brigadier-General António dos Santos were on the defensive, relying on resettlement and military fortifications in the north and only occasionally launched operations against FRELIMO bases and sanctuaries. A change in strategy was made possible only by significant increases in the numbers of Portuguese troops, which expanded from 25,000 in 1964 to 40,000 by the end of 1965 and to some 60,000 by the beginning of 1970.38
Thus, the arrival of General Kaúlza de Arriaga as commander in chief in March 1970 produced a more dynamic counterinsurgency strategy on the pattern already set in Angola and Guinea. This emphasized the offensive, notably search-and-destroy operations to hunt down the guerrillas and destroy their bases, supported by psychological and social reforms to win over the local population.39 A right-wing supporter of Salazar who made his name as a commander in Mozambique and a friend and admirer of General William Westmoreland (commander in chief of U.S. forces in Vietnam) who acquired the nickname of the “Pink Panther,” Kaúlza de Arriaga believed that the war in the forests and bush of Africa could be won through determination and leadership. Some of his tactics copied those of Westmoreland in Vietnam, employing highly mobile troops with air support to kill insurgents.40 A flamboyant and ambitious character, he was conservative in both military affairs and politics,41 declaring with overoptimism reminiscent of Westmoreland that:
In Moçambique itself, the present war cannot now be lost. It is only a question of time before it is finally won. And indeed I foresee this happening within a relatively short space of time. By a successful conclusion to the war I mean as follows: that there will be an immediate detection by our Portuguese forces of an infiltration from across the border, and that the neutralisation or destruction of the infiltrated group will be achieved within a matter of days, or even hours.42
Although Kaúlza de Arriaga was one of Portugal’s most distinguished public figures, having served for seven years as undersecretary of state and then as professor of strategy for Higher Military Studies and as chairman of the Nuclear Energy Board, his tenure as the commander of the Portuguese forces in Mozambique could hardly be regarded as a great success prior to his retirement in 1973. While he prevented FRELIMO from hindering the construction of the Cahora Bassa dam, he was unable to prevent full-scale penetration by insurgents of Tete province. Moreover, establishing his own “personality cult,” he often spoke on the radio and in the press about “the 100 days war,” which inevitably led to another 100 days until the stage was reached in 1973 when very little of what he announced was taken seriously. This affected the army whose morale and performance slumped, and many of the younger conscripts serving in Mozambique became openly skeptical of the High Command during the final 18 months of his tenure. Certainly the level of preparedness and initiative was inferior to that in Guinea where conditions were far more severe than in Mozambique, and Kaúlza de Arriaga’s generalship certainly did not compare to the brilliant tactical leadership of Spínola in Guinea, who was critical of his inept performance. Consequently, there was relief when Kaúlza de Arriaga was replaced in August 1973.43 Kaúlza de Arriaga had well-known political ambitions, and his preoccupation with politics drew criticism from some soldiers.44
Kaúlza de Arriaga launched an ambitious dry season offensive, Operation Gordian Knot, in the north to destroy the FRELIMO infrastructure along the Mozambique–Tanzania border in 1970. This was the largest operation launched in Africa by the Portuguese, employing some 10,000 troops with air and artillery support. Lasting seven months and using modified hammer-and-anvil tactics, the operation failed at great expense to destroy the FRELIMO guerrillas, who escaped or hid among the population,45 or the insurgent capacity for infiltration. Further operations were required in the north, Operations Garrotte and Apio, during 1971.
Large-scale offensives were also mounted in eastern Angola in 1966, 1968, and 1972 during the dry season, which occurred between May and September. The Portuguese asserted that Operation Attila in 1972 removed half of the guerrillas operating in eastern Angola. Increasingly, however, there was an emphasis on the employment of continuous small-unit operations, which were more successful in disrupting insurgent activities than the large-scale operations, which merely disrupted them for a limited period and left the guerrilla infrastructure intact.46
An equally ambitious project was to build a defensive network of aldeamentos along the northern border, creating a cordon sanitaire, which was then extended to other areas of Mozambique. By 1974 almost a million inhabitants had been resettled, but as in Angola the resettlement was handicapped by poor planning and shortages of funds and resources, which provided recruits for the guerrillas.47 Although Kaúlza de Arriaga in one of his many speeches to his soldiers emphasized the importance of resettlement for “convincing the minds and conquering the hearts” of the inhabitants, too often in reality the population was forcibly resettled in response to insurgent infiltration with inadequate preparation. Economic and social development was left to be implemented later, leaving the relocated villagers feeling neglected and disgruntled. Resettlement was far more ambitious and on a much greater scale than attempted by the British in either Malaya or Kenya, and Portugal simply lacked the resources to implement it to the required standard. Nevertheless, resettlement enjoyed some success and was more successful than Diem’s ill-fated strategic hamlets in South Vietnam.48
General Tomas Basto Machado, Kaúlza de Arriaga’s successor, was a quieter, able, and imaginative personality, assuming command in the most trying period of the war when the army’s prestige had been seriously eroded by an increase in the level of rebel infiltration and by allegations of a massacre of some 400 people at the village of Wiriyamu in December 1972. The Portuguese, including Kaúlza de Arriaga, were accused of conducting a counterinsurgency campaign that employed reprisals and torture against suspected rebels or their supporters, forced labor on military projects in war zones, and a scorched-earth policy to deny food and shelter to the insurgents. These lapses undermined the Portuguese strategy of winning “hearts and minds.”49
FRELIMO relied on a strategy of attrition, employing infiltration of the countryside, hit-and-run raids on the security forces, and landmines to wear down the Portuguese forces that could not be defeated on the battlefield,50 but were unable to hold back FRELIMO’s growing strength. The erosion of the situation was such that the army was accused by white settlers, who increasingly clashed with the security forces, of ineffectiveness and an inability to provide them with security against guerrilla attack.51 By 1974 the tempo of the insurgency in Mozambique, especially in the Tete region, which bordered on Rhodesia, had risen to the extent that the insurgents operated in some areas unchallenged by the Portuguese security forces,52 who had lost the strategic initiative.53 FRELIMO’s campaign of terror against the population included 689 assassinations (including the murder of 55 chiefs in Tete Province alone during 1971), over 2,000 woundings, and 6,500 abductions between 1964 and February 1973.54 Nevertheless, the growing problems in Mozambique were not serious enough to suggest that military defeat was imminent in 1974.55
In Guinea, the PAIGC led by Amilcar Cabral began its campaign against the civilian population in the northwest in villages near the Senegal border in July 1961 and a full-scale revolutionary war in March 1962, launching guerrilla attacks and ambushes on Portuguese troops. PAIGC controlled the southern littoral and in 1964 began to move into the north. Between 1965 and 1968 the insurgency extended from the northeast and southwest to the center, and, in 1966, to the eastern Fula heartlands. By 1967, the Portuguese had abandoned the rural areas and were concentrated in the towns where the colonial administration was based. Although the Portuguese held the towns and villages, the PAIGC controlled the countryside, concentrating their efforts on destroying army garrisons and strategic hamlets, which blocked their supply lines and isolated the population from insurgent control.56 By 1968 it was estimated that PAIGC controlled 50 percent of the territory and contested a further 25 percent while the Portuguese controlled only 25 percent.57
The Portuguese had relinquished the initiative to the PAIGC by retreating into outposts, akin to American firebases in Vietnam, after an unsuccessful offensive (Operação Tridente, Operation Trident) to drive the insurgents from the Como Island region, which was adjacent to the rebel sanctuary of Guinea-Conakry, formerly French Guinea, in February 1964.58 After only a few years, the army had its back to the wall and defeat was beginning to look certain. Large-scale sweeps through the swampy terrain, which was intersected by many rivers, by the Portuguese of the type employed by Westmoreland in Vietnam had little effect against the guerrillas who could retreat to sanctuaries in Guinea-Conakry and Senegal. Such operations became symbolic of the failure of conventional methods that failed to provide long-term results in suppressing the insurgency.59
In 1968, after a fact-finding tour in Guinea, Brigadier Spínola reported to the Supreme Defense Council in Lisbon that the campaign in Guinea was lost, criticizing the strategy of the Governor-General Arnaldo Schultz and the army leadership, which had glossed over the magnitude of the reverses that had been sustained. Although a veteran of Angola, the rotund Schultz, a former interior minister and a Salazar loyalist, proved to be lackluster and inept, neglecting the need to win the “hearts and minds” of the population with civic action. Rather than pursuing an all-out conventional war, Spínola’s alternative strategy was a more political approach to win “hearts and minds,” which would gain time to allow a political settlement to be reached with the insurgents, although he did not advocate full independence. Spínola was sent back to Guinea with carte blanche to implement his radical ideas, taking command of the Portuguese troops in Guinea in May 1968.60
Spínola arrived at a time when Portuguese fortunes were at their lowest ebb, replacing General Schultz, who left with Portuguese authority diminishing fast, having predicted when he arrived in 1965 that the war in Guinea would be over within six months. Spínola insisted that he have control of both the civilian and military administration as both governor and commander in chief. Following the example of Templer in Malaya, he established unity of command, which allowed him to minimize the bureaucratic red tape and interdepartmental rivalry, which hitherto had dogged operations in Guinea.61
General António de Spínola, an austere but stylish cavalry officer with panache, who had won international prizes for his horsemanship and with his trademark monocle, brown gloves, and riding whip, a “considerable reputation for eccentricity” and a love of publicity rather like Field Marshal Montgomery, the celebrated British World War II commander, cultivated “an image.” Born on April 11, 1910, to prosperous parents, Spínola’s career was not hindered by his father’s influence as a trusted adviser to Salazar and his own association with the elite corps, the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR, National Republican Guard), concerned with the internal security of the regime. Spínola also served during the Spanish Civil War (attached to Franco’s army) and on the Eastern Front with the German army during World War II. Following the outbreak of the African wars, Spínola served with distinction as commander of cavalry in Angola for three years (1961–64), establishing his reputation in antiguerrilla operations not only as a professional soldier who demanded high standards but also for his toughness, riding on horseback in the jungle and insisting on visiting the front line. In Guinea, Spínola emerged as charismatic, antiestablishment, intolerant of incompetence, reforming, and openly critical of the regime.62 Aware that the campaign in Guinea was futile, Spínola provided Salazar with a metaphor for fighting guerrillas, which became celebrated:
The flea has carried out his mission which was by feeding off you to keep you from sleeping. But you cannot carry out yours, which was to find the flea. Imagine this happening for a whole week; you would die of exhaustion.63
Regardless of his later failings as a politician while serving as president of the Portuguese Republic, Spínola provided inspiring and dynamic leadership during his tenure as commander in Guinea. In four years Spínola was able both to restore the low morale of the troops and to implement an extensive “hearts and minds” strategy employing civic action and the integration of Africans into the government and administration. Traveling around the country by helicopter and jeep, Spínola got to know the local conditions and population, and his troops, who were unaccustomed to seeing their generals, inspiring great loyalty particularly among the officers who were impressed by his ability. He was also a disciplinarian, prepared to make enemies by weeding out officers who were incompetent, unfit, or never seen by their men at the front and to send others into the bush where they were most needed. He built up a battalion of commandos, which was commanded by two white officers but otherwise was led by black officers and NCOs. He also had plans for an eventual Africanization of senior positions and also recruited a militia to provide local security.64
In this manner Spínola reinvigorated the conduct of the campaign, based on “four main essentials,” namely the development of a well coordinated intelligence organization, a “hearts and minds” campaign under the slogan por uma Guiné Melhor (for a Better Guinea) to win the support of the population (by providing homes, roads, schools, teachers, and medical services), an integrated command system, and the realization that counterinsurgency tended to be of long duration.65 He put a new emphasis on employing small, aggressive units based on the bi-grupo (bi-groups) employed by the PAIGC guerrillas, which hunted down the rebels and won back the initiative for the Portuguese, and an elaborate training program, Instrução de Aperfeiçoamento Operacional (IAO, Operational Proficiency Instruction) to acclimatize troops and units when arriving in theater. This was similar to the method used by the British in Malaya.66 Spínola also laid much emphasis on the air support provided by helicopters in counterinsurgency operations and deployed troops to seal the border.67 From 1968 the Portuguese had recovered most of the contested regions and controlled all the centers of population.68
In 1970 Spínola launched his campaign to “build a better Guinea,” aiming to eradicate the injustices that drove the black population into the arms of the PAIGC and to win their “hearts and minds.” Ninety million escudos were spent on civic action, notably the construction of 15,000 houses, 164 schools, 163 fire stations, 86 fountains, and 40 infirmaries. Ninety-five percent of doctors and twenty percent of teachers in Guinea were provided by the army, which also made improvements in agriculture and transportation, notably air fields and roads. In addition to economic development, Spínola also attempted to make the government more representative by employing blacks in the administration and making sure that they received justice in the courts. To ensure grievances were heard and dealt with, officers met representatives of tribal and religious groups and a system of ethnically based “People’s Congresses” was set up “to form strong instruments of psychological mobilisation around government policy” and to provide “dialogue between the government and the people,” culminating with a “General Congress” in Bissau. Spínola also presided over a legislative council of 14 elected members.69
Spínola’s socioeconomic reforms stole much of PAIGC’s thunder.70 The adoption of “psychological warfare” by the Portuguese as a response to the techniques of political doctrine employed by the PAIGC guerrillas was drawn from the experiences of other armies, notably the French in Indochina and Algeria. By 1968 the employment of psychological action to show the merits of a liberal, Western society in stark contrast to the rigid and authoritarian liberation movements, which were inspired by and led by communists, was a well-established component of counterinsurgency strategy. However, authoritarian Portugal faced real difficulties in establishing itself as an alternative to an indigenous liberation movement, given the destruction inflicted by its operations on the local population.71
Spínola’s conviction was that the war could not be ended by a military solution but that there had to be a negotiated settlement. One of his staff officers noted that:
The letters which he wrote to Lisbon both officially and privately, stressed that there could be no military solution to the conflict. We discussed it openly among ourselves. We all agreed with General Spínola. This attitude spread through all the troops. We felt that a political solution was necessary, but that we must fight in the meantime.72
In 1971, having regained enough initiative on the ground to be able to negotiate from strength, the Portuguese were given the opportunity to reach a political settlement when President Senghor of Senegal acted as mediator in exploratory talks. But although in mid-1972, Spínola was allowed to meet Senghor in Southern Senegal, Caetano refused to countenance a cease-fire followed by direct meetings between Spínola and Cabral, leading to a joint Portuguese–PAIGC government in Guinea. Indeed, Spínola was “profoundly shocked” to find that Caetano preferred “an honourable military defeat” rather than “negotiate with the terrorists” and open the door to similar negotiations in the other “overseas provinces.”73 Morale was at an all-time high prior to the breakdown of talks and the departure of Spínola in early 1973, but subsequently the Portuguese situation in Guinea began to worsen expeditiously.
Spínola’s dynamic leadership had served only to paper over serious cracks in the Portuguese war effort, and Guinea became a tinderbox after his departure as attitudes hardened on both sides, especially with the death of Cabral, killed by a bomb in January 1973. In contrast to the Portuguese forces, which suffered from shortages of equipment, PAIGC began to receive a steady stream of arms following the end of the Vietnam War, notably including modern ground-to-air missiles, such as the SAM-7, which restricted the operations of the Portuguese air force. This deprived the army of its air support and caused a devastating slump in morale following the loss of aircraft and two important Portuguese garrisons, which were wiped out by a PAIGC bombardment. The introduction of sophisticated weapons, including some sorties by MIGs from Conakry against Portuguese positions, tipped the balance, both militarily and psychological, toward the insurgents.74 As one officer, a miliciano (a temporary, nonregular officer), noted, “we knew then that we were headed for defeat.”75
Furthermore, the insurgents were able to rest, train, and strike from their bases in the sanctuaries of Guinea-Conakry and Senegal, employing hit-and-run tactics to strike and then withdraw, avoiding serious contact with security forces.76 The counterinsurgency campaign in Guinea was continued under General Bethencourt Rodrigues, but the situation deteriorated during 1973, and it was clear that neither side could achieve out-and-out victory. The PAIGC now controlled large areas. Guinea was Portugal’s Achilles’ heel, providing the principal reason for the army’s decision to overthrow the government in the coup of April 1974.77
By prolonging the war, which was increasingly senseless and slipping away from the Portuguese, Caetano encouraged division and discontent in the army, setting in train a coup d’état.78 The officer corps was united against the regime by its growing inability to meet the demands of the African wars as a result of the breakdown of the army, which began to show signs of cracking under the pressure. This included low morale, the fatigue of the small regular cadre, a dependence on black troops, the poor training of conscript soldiers, and growing tensions between regular and conscript officers. By 1974, the situation, which had been well in hand largely owing to the poor training and equipment of the guerrillas who opposed them, was becoming increasingly desperate.79 Owing to training, the insurgents had much improved in training, adaptability, and initiative, although still not equal to those of the Portuguese forces.80
As the insurgents improved so the professional standards of the Portuguese army declined. As the war progressed, the quality of the conscripts steadily declined. Many likely good fighting men were able to obtain deferments or evaded service by emigrating. The shortage of regular officers and NCOs threw the burden of training the conscripts on to inexperienced miliciano officers and conscript NCOs who themselves were just out of training. This resulted in soldiers who were often badly trained and led. Moreover, a “cost efficiency” system of training and manpower allocation borrowed from the U.S. Army undermined unit morale as the conscripts were trained in large camps rather than by the men who would lead them in battle and were knowledgeable in the local conditions. Officers at the front found that regimental cohesion was seriously undermined by the continual redeployment of soldiers, NCOs, and officers. The Portuguese, like the Americans in Vietnam, paid a stiff price for this more “efficient” system of manpower allocation. All troops in Africa fought as infantry even though artillery, engineer, and cavalry units were not trained for such tasks. In marked contrast to the tightly knit regimental structure of the kind employed by the British Army in Malaya, Kenya, and elsewhere, Portuguese commanders were forced to patch together units in the battle zone. The result was poor tactical efficiency, high casualties, and low morale.81
This situation was exacerbated by Portuguese techniques that were copied from French counterinsurgency methods in which stationary garrisons commanded by milicianos undertook civic action, patrols, and gathered intelligence while elite units of commandos, paratroopers, or marines moved around the countryside doing most of the fighting against the insurgents. These elite troops, often black, commanded by regular officers or keen miliciano volunteers formed a sharp contrast to the frequently timid stationary garrisons led by milicianos, who were fed up with the war and felt that they “were being used to do the dirty work.” These units often did not fight well, evading battle and staying in their bunkers rather than patrolling.82 The antiwar atmosphere in Portugal was demonstrated by the desertion rate in which some 110,000 conscripts did not report for military service between 1961 and 1974.83
The coup of April 25, 1974, signaled the final fall of prewar European fascism in its Iberian redoubt, the end of the Portuguese Empire—one of the longest lasting empires—and the independence of its African colonies, leaving Rhodesia and South Africa, the last bastions of “white supremacy.”84 The long, costly war had made the army increasingly skeptical that the struggle could be won.85 Like the French in Algeria, relations between the white community in the African colonies and the Portuguese army were not good. White settlers grew angry at the failure of the army to protect them against the guerrillas86 and often questioned the bravery and martial spirit of the army, resenting the increasing reliance of the army on black troops. One white Mozambican reported that:
The Army sold us out. They fought well at first, but then it was rubbish. From about 1970, officers began to say that this was not their country, it was not their war. I would estimate that 75 per cent of the officers felt this way.87
The Portuguese army adjusted well to the doctrinal requirements of counterinsurgency, and particularly successful was the policy of Africanization—employing indigenous troops. By late 1973 over 50 percent of the security forces were black and as high as 90 percent in some elite units such as the Grupos Espeçiais (GE), the airborne Grupos Espeçiais de Paraquedista (GEP), or the Commandos Africanos formed by Spínola in Guinea, while the DGS also recruited the Flechas, some of whom were recruited from former insurgents. There were also large African militia and self-defense forces, guarding aldeamentos and villages, respectively, who were given their own weapons.88
As with the French in Algeria, a split emerged between the elite units, such as the paratroopers and commandos, who did most of the fighting and the conscripts who formed the majority of the army (50 percent in Guinea, 70 percent in Angola) and were employed on garrison duties. The conscripts lacked discipline and motivation, demonstrating a reluctance to participate in the war with any enthusiasm. In Guinea Portuguese soldiers were reported taking siestas in the middle of the day while they were accused by the Rhodesians of operating noisily in Mozambique to ensure little contact with the insurgents.89 Tactically, the Rhodesians and South Africans thought that the Portuguese in Mozambique were clumsy and inept, employing patrols that were too large, consisting of 30 to 40 men rather than four-man “sticks.” Indeed, most of the problems were the result of a lack of regular, professional troops and the fact that the conscripts neither understood Africa nor wanted to be there. They fought from bases like the Americans in Vietnam and remained in the towns, being reluctant either to patrol the bush or control it by night,90 and failed to implement properly the army’s standard counterinsurgency tactics through poor motivation or techniques.91 This attitude is partly explained by the fact that, having limited resources, the Portuguese sought to limit casualties, losing fewer deaths in a decade from 1961 than the French lost in Algeria in a single year.92
No European imperial power fought so long a colonial struggle as that of Portugal between 1961 and 1974.93 The length of the war put enormous pressures on the nation and the army in particular. During the African wars, the enormous expenditure on defense amounted to over 7 percent of the GNP and 40 percent of the annual budget, placing Portugal in the same category as Israel.94 By 1967, some 75 percent of the metropolitan army was serving overseas. By 1970, with 150,000 troops in Africa, Portugal had deployed a proportion of its population, which was five times that of the United States in Vietnam in the same year. The Portuguese had called up a greater proportion of those eligible for military service than any other country except Israel and the two Vietnams.95 During the colonial wars, two conflicting approaches emerged, which became associated with the contrasting personalities of two of Portugal’s most celebrated generals,96 namely the more conventional Kaúlza de Arriaga in Mozambique and the more unorthodox although equally ambitious Spínola in Guinea.
For the army of one of the least rich and developed countries in Western Europe, to fight three wars simultaneously for such a prolonged period without suffering military defeat was a substantial accomplishment, but the strains of this effort resulted in the coup d’état of April 1974 and the collapse of both the Salazarist state and Portugal’s Empire.97 In May 1974, General Costa Gomes noted that the army had “reached the limits of neuro-psychological exhaustion.”98 With the wars in all three colonies in stalemate on the military plane, as in so many counterinsurgencies, the final outcome was decided at the political level.99 Thirteen years of costly warfare in three of its African possessions stretched Portuguese resources to the utmost, creating a climate of “psychopolitical collapse,” and, although still undefeated on the battlefield, Portugal cracked politically. The coup of 1974 followed by a period of political instability led inevitably to an abrupt withdrawal from Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique, which gained their independence.100
1. Foreword by General Bernard E. Trainor to John P. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War, 1961–1974 (Solihull: Helion, 2013), xi.
2. John P. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War, 1961–1974 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997), 93.
3. Ian F. W. Beckett, “The Portuguese Army: The Campaign in Mozambique, 1964–1974,” in Armed Forces & Modern Counter-Insurgency, ed. Ian F. W. Beckett and John Pimlott (Beckenham, Kent: Croom Helm, 1985), 136.
4. Douglas Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1977), 11.
5. Malyn Newitt, Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years (London: C Hurst, 1981), 49, 51–52.
6. Allen and Barbara Isaacman, Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution, 1900–1982 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983), 22–25.
7. Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 13.
8. Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal: Year of the Captains (London: Andre Deutsch, 1975), 11.
9. W. S. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 1961–1974 (Rivonia, South Africa: Ashanti Publishing, 1993), 120–21.
10. Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 37–39; Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 22–23.
11. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 109.
12. Norrie MacQueen, “Portugal’s First Domino: ‘Pluricontinentalism’ and Colonial War in Guiné-Bissau, 1963–1974,” Contemporary European History 8, no. 2 (July 1999): 23; Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 75–76; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 109.
13. General Kaúlza de Arriaga, The Portuguese Answer (London: Tom Stacey, 1973), 17–26.
14. Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 84.
15. Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 15; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 56.
16. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 37, 40–46, 57, Footnote 28; MacQueen, Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 17–22.
17. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 46–55; and W. S. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 114–16.
18. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 67.
19. Ibid., 46–55; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 114–16.
20. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 56–58, 62–63, 71–75, 78–79, 88, 91; Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 26–28.
21. Walter C. Opello, “Guerrilla War in Portuguese Africa: An Assessment of the Balance of Force in Mozambique,” Journal of Opinion 47, no. 23 (Summer 1974): 34; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 110–11; Douglas L. Wheeler, “The Portuguese Army in Angola,” Journal of Modern African Studies 7, no. 3 (October 1969): 431.
22. Opello, “Guerrilla War in Portuguese Africa,” 34; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 110–11; Wheeler, “The Portuguese Army in Angola,” 431.
23. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 136, 140–41, 183–89, 202, 208; Neil Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire (Newton Abbot, Devon: David & Charles, 1975), 66–78.
24. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 119–20, 197–202.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., 112.
27. Ibid., 120–21.
28. Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 76.
29. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 187–89.
30. Ibid., xi, 194; Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 131.
31. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 155–57, 184–87.
32. A. J. Venter, The Zambesi Salient: Conflict in Southern Africa (Old Greenwich, CT: Devlin-Adair, 1974), 57.
33. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 195–96.
34. Ibid., 224, 231–32, 234, 261.
35. Ibid., xiv.
36. Ibid., 84.
37. Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 53.
38. Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 30; MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 47; Opello, “Guerrilla War in Portuguese Africa,” 29–33; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 241.
39. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 241; Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 30.
40. Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 25.
41. Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 20, 81.
42. Arriaga, The Portuguese Answer, 70.
43. Venter, The Zambesi Salient, 35, 103–5, 266, 282.
44. Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 69.
45. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 1961–1974, 241; Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 30; Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 80.
46. Beckett, “The Portuguese Army,” 144–45.
47. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 242.
48. Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 154–63.
49. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 120; Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 54, 120, 128–33; MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 48–49; Venter, The Zambesi Salient, 103–5.
50. Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 31–33.
51. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 242.
52. Venter, The Zambesi Salient, 36.
53. Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 40.
54. Beckett, “The Portuguese Army,” 159.
55. Ibid.
56. Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 87–88; Chabal, “National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea, 1956–1974,” African Affairs 80/318 (January 1981), 82–83; Mustafa Dhada, Warriors at Work: How Guinea Was Really Set Free (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1993), 14–17, 22–27; MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 37–39; Norrie MacQueen, “Portugal’s First Domino: ‘Pluricontinentalism’ and Colonial War in Guiné-Bissau, 1963–1974,” Contemporary European History 8, no. 2 (July 1999): 212–13; Douglas Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 53; Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 26–27; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 1961–1974, 83.
57. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 1961–1974, 175.
58. Beckett, “The Portuguese Army,” 136; John P. Cann, Brown Waters of Africa: Portuguese Riverine Warfare, 1961–1974 (St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 2007), 143–47; Chabal, “National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea, 1956–1974,” 82–83; Dhada, Warriors at Work, 17–18; MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 37–39; MacQueen, “Portugal’s First Domino,” 212–13.
59. Dhada, Warriors at Work, xv, 23, 35–37; MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 39; Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 53; Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 26–27; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 83.
60. Neil Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 19; Dhada, Warriors at Work, 25–37; MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 39–40; MacQueen, “Portugal’s First Domino,” 213–14; Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 53; Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 26–27; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 83.
61. Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War: The Campaign for Africa (Cape Town, South Africa: John Malherbe), 1973, 33; Venter, Portugal’s War in Guiné-Bissau, 25; Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 19.
62. Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 91–92; Dhada, Warriors at Work, xv, 37; MacQueen, “Portugal’s First Domino,” 214–15; Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 26–27; Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 56; Venter, The Zambesi Salient, 280–81.
63. Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 26–27.
64. Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 53–54; Dhada, Warriors at Work, xv, 37, 41–44; MacQueen, “Portugal’s First Domino,” 214–15; Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 26–27; Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 93.
65. Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 93–94; Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 33–34; MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 39–40.
66. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 76–77.
67. Dhada, Warriors at Work, 41–42; Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 169–70.
68. Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 88.
69. Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 54–55; Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 33–34, 61–63.
70. Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 33–34.
71. Dhada, Warriors at Work, 37–44; MacQueen, Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 39–40; Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 55–56.
72. Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 56–57.
73. Dhada, Warriors at Work, 44–45; MacQueen, Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 40; Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 57–58; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 238–39.
74. Chabal, “National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea, 1956–1974,” 83–84; Dhada, Warriors at Work, 46–53; MacQueen, Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 40–42; MacQueen, “Portugal’s First Domino,” 224–25; Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces, 58; Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 172–84; van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 239.
75. Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 58.
76. Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 50–52, 97–98.
77. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 239–41.
78. Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 58.
79. Ibid., 62–63, 121.
80. Venter, The Zambesi Salient, 37.
81. Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 63–64.
82. Ibid., 64.
83. Ibid., 32.
84. Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 9–11.
85. Ibid., 15–16.
86. Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 33–34; Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 37–38.
87. Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 32–33.
88. Bruce, Portugal: The Last Empire, 66–7l; Beckett, “The Portuguese Army,” 149.
89. Beckett, “The Portuguese Army,” 151–52.
90. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, xiv; A. J. Venter, “Why Portugal Lost Its African Wars,” in Challenge: Southern Africa within the African Revolutionary Context, ed. A. J. Venter (Rivonia, South Africa: Ashanti Publishing, 1989), 265–66.
91. Henriksen, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 59.
92. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 93.
93. Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 15.
94. Porch, Portuguese Armed Forces, 11.
95. Beckett, “The Portuguese Army,” 142.
96. Sunday Times Insight Team, Insight on Portugal, 25.
97. Beckett, “The Portuguese Army,” 136.
98. Venter, “Why Portugal Lost Its African Wars,” 270.
99. Beckett, “The Portuguese Army,” 159.
100. van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, xiv; Venter, “Why Portugal Lost Its African Wars,” 226–27.