Kongo (Gold)

Congo is both a battlefield and a turning point in Creasy and Guido’s history: Katanga’s attempted secession gives the two former Legionnaires a war to fight, while the later collapse of their campaign ends in retreat and internment. The country’s successive conflicts bind them together as mercenaries and carry them from combat in Katanga to the defeat that drives them out.

Political and Geographic Setting

Katanga, described in Guido’s account as a province of the Belgian Congo, tried to break away when the Belgians withdrew in 1961. He explains that its population belonged to a different tribe and that the province held much of the region’s mineral wealth; its bid for secession drew mercenaries from abroad. Katanga is now called Shaba, linking the name used for the conflict in Guido’s recollection to a later name for the same place.

Mercenary Campaigns

After finding a war in Katanga, Creasy and Guido joined a French former paratroop colonel, Trinquier, who knew them from Algeria and recruited them for their experience. Their transition from Legionnaires to mercenaries changed little about the work, but they missed the Legion, and that shared sense of loss deepened their friendship. Their fighting became renowned among the other mercenaries: closely attuned to one another, they moved and fought as if they were a single unit, particularly when clearing enemy forces from buildings. Their coordinated use of grenades and submachine guns became a defining part of their combat reputation.

The failure of Katanga’s secession did not end their mercenary work. They went with other mercenaries to Yemen under Denard, then returned to Congo when Tshombe came back from exile. Under Denard’s French 6th Commando, they fought through the convoluted war until Mobuto triumphed. The movement between theaters made Congo more than a single campaign in their past: it was a place to which they returned, and where their shared military skill was tested through another changing political struggle.

Retreat and Internment

After Mobuto’s victory, Creasy and Guido retreated with hundreds of other mercenaries to Bukavu. Their withdrawal led not to freedom of movement but to internment in Rwanda under the auspices of the Red Cross. They had to surrender their weapons. Although the camp offered ample room, the restriction itself tormented Guido and brought on his claustrophobia. The contrast between their practiced mobility in combat and the limits imposed by internment gives the retreat a particular force: the men who had moved through buildings and battlefields with precision were now disarmed and confined.

After five months in Kigali, they were repatriated to Paris. In Guido’s account, Congo’s campaigns thus conclude not with a negotiated return to civilian life but with defeat, a retreat across the border, and months of enforced idleness. The experience belongs to the same history that made the two men formidable partners, while exposing the cost of a life organized around war.