1. According to the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention of 1949, the definition of the term “mercenary” is as follows: a person specifically recruited to fight in a specific conflict. He takes a direct part in the fighting. His participation in hostilities is caused solely by the desire to receive the material reward promised to him, which significantly exceeds the remuneration of a soldier of the same rank and performing the same functions, but who is in the ranks of the armed forces of the country involved in the conflict. He must not be a citizen of the employer's country and must not represent the interests of a country not involved in the conflict.
2. In 1961, immediately after declaring its independence, Congo was plunged into civil war. The reason was the announcement of the separation of the province of Katanga, in which the most famous diamond mines and copper mines were concentrated. The self-proclaimed minister Moise Tshombe began to recruit an army, the main striking force of which were mercenaries from England and France. The bloody meat grinder that ensued made names for many mercenaries and demonstrated that anyone who is able to hire a couple of hundred professional military men can become president, for example, of an African republic.
3. Bob Denard, nicknamed “the last pirate,” is perhaps the most famous contract soldier of the 20th century. His soldiers of fortune, who called themselves les affreux (the terrible ones), were present in the Congo, Yemen, Benin, Nigeria, Gabon and Angola. In 1978, Denard and his guys returned the first president of the republic, Ahmed Abdallah, to power in the Comoros. After this, Bob Denard headed the presidential guard for 10 years. Thanks to his efforts, the Comoros became a real paradise for mercenaries. Bob himself became the largest property owner on the islands, converted to Islam and started a harem. However, after the murder of Ahmed Abdallah in 1989, Denard was urgently evacuated to France. And when in 1995 he returned to the Comoros with the aim of a new coup, he was captured by paratroopers of the French Foreign Legion. At home, the last pirate became a defendant in several criminal cases. However, he was never punished because he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Bob Denard died in 2007.
4. As a result of the bloody events in the Congo from the 1960s to the 1970s, mercenaries gained a reputation as real bandits and thugs. Of course, such accusations had some basis, since the soldiers of fortune practiced robbery, robbery and torture. But, at the same time, the contractors themselves were horrified by what other participants in African conflicts were doing. Bright to that proof - a common practice among the Chombovites is to boil their prisoners alive. And the Simba opposing them even practiced cannibalism.
5. Mike Hoare, nicknamed the Mad Irishman, fought in the ranks of British tank units during World War II. North Africa. And after the end of the war, he organized safaris for tourists. But in 1961, he led the Commando 4 detachment, which consisted of professional thugs. After serving his contract, he returned to South Africa, but in 1964, going to the Congo, he was almost immediately hired by Prime Minister Chombo to suppress the Simba uprising. For these purposes, the “Commando 5” detachment was formed. While completing the task, Hoar encountered Che Guevara himself, who arrived in Africa to start a revolution. However, the Cubans proved unable to resist the Mad Irishman's commandos. Che Guevara fled Africa, and dozens of captured Cubans were hanged. Hoar also took part in Operation Dragon over the Congo, which resulted in the release of hundreds of white hostages. After an unsuccessful coup attempt in the Seychelles, Hoare was arrested and put on trial. After leaving prison, the Mad Irishman moderated his ardor and retired.
6. In 1980, the film “Dogs of War” based on the work of the same name by Frederick Forsythe was released in cinemas. In this film, noble white “soldiers of fortune” give peace and tranquility to the black population of Africa. Around the same time, a movie with a similar plot called “Wild Geese” was released. The main character is the noble Colonel Faulkner. It is believed that the prototype for it was Mike Hoare, who, by the way, acted as a consultant for the film. All this, despite the efforts of UN lawyers and various propagandists, made the mercenaries in the eyes of the public the real heroic adventurers who were forced to bear the white man's burden.
7. An incident in Equatorial Guinea. Zimbabwe's intelligence services managed to uncover the coup plot and detain the group of mercenaries participating in it, which included the son of the late Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, as well as Lord Archer and oil tycoon Eli Kalil. But thanks to connections and money, they all managed to get off with symbolic sentences, and Mark Thatcher was completely sent home under the supervision of his mother.
8. The decline of traditional mercenary activity was marked by the trial of contractors captured in Angola in the 1970s. This process had a clearly defined political background and fit into the context of the Cold War, since the authorities of this country were supported by the USSR and its satellites. This process was aimed at presenting Angola as a victim of attacks by Western intelligence agencies. The accusing party talked about how the evil Yankees solder and seduce African peasants and military men with big money and use them to wage war on their fellow men. The result was the death penalty three mercenaries and long prison sentences for twenty others.
9. In the early 90s, when cold war ended, and at least in Africa the formation of national armies began, it became clear to the mercenaries that legal customers in the person of states, corporations and international organizations were much more profitable than insane dictators. In this regard, a trend began to outsource important military functions to private military companies, which in turn ceased to be gun-laden thugs, turning into respectable businessmen.
10. PMCs first demonstrated themselves in Sierra Leone, where government troops suffered one defeat after another at the hands of the Revolutionary United Front, and the UN still could not form a peacekeeping force. The government decided to hire a private military company, Executive Outcomes, created in South Africa and consisting exclusively of former special forces soldiers, for $60 million. The company's employees quickly formed a light infantry battalion, which was equipped with recoilless rifles, armored personnel carriers, mortars and cover helicopters. The results did not have to wait long; after two weeks, the anti-government forces were completely defeated. However, after the contract expired, the government considered that the job was done and did not renew it. This was a big mistake. Civil War flared up with new strength. And the peacekeepers, who were recruited from African states, have already set to work. The activities of such “official” units cost more than $500 million a year, but did not bring any results. Therefore, the government again turned to Executive Outcomes, which now also had to save the UN forces.
11. Since the end of the 20th century, private military companies began to provide services not only of a directly military nature. Thus, in Afghanistan, mercenaries are engaged in servicing unmanned aerial vehicles that carry out reconnaissance. Through joint efforts, US troops and PMC leaders managed to create a unified command center. In Iraq, Halliburton provides fuel and food to American troops. At the same time, private owners are also training local police and border guards. Moreover, about forty contractors from DynСorp are part of the security of Afghan President Hamir Karzai. And American officials working in Iraq are protected by representatives of the British PMC Global Risk Strategies.
12. In the United States, any company engaged in such activities is required to obtain permission from the State Department or the Department of Defense before entering into a contract with a foreign government, but contracts with individuals or foreign corporations are not regulated in this way and remain at the discretion of the management of the PMC. That is why transnational corporations often resort to the services of such organizations to protect their oil pipelines and industrial facilities located in the zone of a particular conflict. Along with them, the help of mercenaries is often used by such eminent public organizations as World Wildlife, which has entered into a contract to protect rhinoceroses from poachers in the Congo. And even the Red Cross organization hires PMC employees to protect its people in hot spots.
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Noun, number of synonyms: 3 mercenaries (7) soldiers of fortune (3) soldiers of fortune (3) ... Synonym dictionary
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Soldiers of fate, soldiers of fortune, soldiers of fortune, dogs of war, dogs of war, wild geese Dictionary of Russian synonyms. mercenaries noun, number of synonyms: 7 wild geese (1) mercenaries ... Synonym dictionary
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Books
- Soldier of Fortune, Alexander Avramenko. There are races for which killing one's own kind is unthinkable. But do they need to defend themselves somehow? There is only one way out - buy yourself an army. Who are the best soldiers in the universe? Earthlings! So, people, you...
- Soldier of Fortune, Avramenko A.. 400 pp. There are races for which killing one’s own kind is unthinkable. But do they need to defend themselves somehow? There is only one way out - buy yourself an army. Who are the best soldiers in the universe? Earthlings! So, people...
Short story mercenaries
A mercenary is a soldier who enters into an armed conflict not for ideological, national or political reasons, but for economic gain, that is, for money.
"Bad War" This is what the battles between Swiss and German mercenaries looked like
This STARTED a long time ago. On the one hand, there have always been, are and will be people who wield weapons better than others and are ready to use them. Some are attracted by battle, danger, adrenaline, others by the desire to kill and rob. On the other hand, sometimes life itself forces a person to take up arms for money. Probably, in the end, a mercenary is worse than a warrior-defender of his homeland, but at all times there was a demand for “soldiers of fortune,” “wild geese” or “dogs of war,” as mercenaries are also called.
The first known case of their use was noted 3600 years ago. Army ancient egypt half consisted of hired foreigners; the Carthaginians and Persians had them; In the Battle of Gaugamela, 9,000 mercenary Greeks fought for Alexander the Great. In the 3rd century. BC e. The “Agreement with Hired Warriors” of the Pergamon king Eumenes I very clearly stated the terms of employment: pay, 2-month rest after 10 months of service, pension for orphans in the event of the death of a warrior-father; Those who served the contractual term (or to their relatives, or “to whom the warrior leaves”) were assigned a tax-free pension and duty-free removal of property from the country.
And then the Roman Empire entered the historical arena and brought things to the point of absurdity.
For many centuries, its army was one of the strongest in the world, maintaining combat effectiveness despite all the upheavals of the state. What was the secret of her superiority? Initially, it was staffed only by Roman citizens. The expansion of the empire, constant wars required more and more soldiers, the presence of approximately 50 legions (350,000 people) is documented. Roman legionaries were superior to any enemy thanks to the advantages of a standing army: strict discipline, regular excellent training, and tactical skill. But the needs exceeded the available human resources - and foreign mercenaries began to be recruited into the troops, initially to guard the borders. And then each legion was given several auxiliary cohorts of non-Romans (Cretian archers, Balearic slingers, etc.), who received only a third of the legionnaire’s salary.
The “Dogs of War” left a very clear mark on history: on August 23, 476, the leader of the German mercenaries, Odoacer, overthrew the last emperor, Romulus Augustus, in Rome and proclaimed himself king of Italy. This day is considered the end of antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. And again, mercenaries were a tool for waging war and pacifying civil strife. Foreign squads of bodyguards are known almost everywhere: the Varangians of the Kyiv princes, the Scandinavian Huskerls in England, the Russians in the service of the German emperors. Slavic warriors were especially valued as guards for the Muslim rulers of Turkey, Syria, Egypt, and Arab Sicily, over time forming a privileged military nobility - the Janissaries and Mamluks, on whom the power of the sultans rested.
Sakaliba - Slavs who fought for the Cordoba Caliphate in Islamic Spain, after the collapse of the Caliphate rose to become the legitimate rulers of Muslim principalities.
Thinking only about profit, before each battle they swore an oath that they would plunder no earlier than the job was completed. One of the reasons for their continuous victories was the insane horror that they inspired in the Europeans with their cruelty. The fact is that Switzerland was inhabited by only half a million people, and the harsh nature very poorly rewarded their hard work. To keep 5% of the population under arms required an enormous amount of effort, unthinkable for a long time. The Swiss strategy of extermination is explained very simply: men capable of carrying weapons left their fields only for a short time and were forced to do the bloody work for which they were hired as quickly and thoroughly as possible. It was not enough to disperse the enemy; it was necessary to deprive him of the opportunity to gather again: the only sure way for this was death. And the mercenaries were strictly forbidden to take prisoners; all those who fell into their hands were destroyed. The Bernese were especially famous for their bloodiness: after the storming of the city, they had to be immediately removed from it, because they killed everything that moved. Machiavelli derived his principle of combat from the Swiss strategy of destruction. The microscopic country struck fear into all its neighbors.
They suffered defeat from a direction they did not expect: their military power was destroyed by money. Greed gave rise to reckless courage, ready for a price for any assault, regardless of where and when it is carried out. Discipline collapsed, as the mercenaries rebelled if payment was delayed, and this happened often in the then lack of money; if the campaign dragged on, they simply ran home. Finally, disputes over money (some received 10 times more than others) brought discord within their own ranks. And the Europeans sought to get rid of them by creating their own troops, and it was not only the decline of Swiss military prowess that prompted them to do this. If the Swiss were sold to someone (and they changed buyers every year), then the others could not remain defenseless. French, German, and Spanish infantry appeared, following the example of the Swiss. They, serving everyone, were teachers everywhere and themselves dug the grave of their monopoly. The fastest to catch up with them were the German landsknechts, who defeated their teachers in the battle of Milan in 1522.
The Germans returned to the European mercenary market. “Servants of their country” also preferred to fight for money under foreign banners. If Swiss mercenaryism was state-owned (the canton district sold its soldiers), then German mercenaryism was private enterprise. Recruited only for the duration of the war, it was, in fact, a European form of business: the monarch gave a contract to recruit troops to the general, who gave the contract to the colonels, and the colonel to the captains who recruited soldiers. And at all levels of relations, Their Majesty Money played a decisive role.
There was no alternative to the mercenary army; it fully met the requirements of that era. Impoverished Europe was full of “superfluous” people for whom there were only two options: famine or war. There were also many wars, and the soldier served whoever paid, subordinate only to his direct commander (captain), a lowly one, not claiming the throne, appointed by the king himself, so everyone had their own benefit.
German mercenary activity lasted 150 years; demand was constant, and supply was even excessive. All Landsknechts had the same status (“soldiers”), had their own justice, hierarchy, customs and even folklore. They wore colorful, provocative clothes from the loot, because they were free from the regulations appearance estates. A suit made of velvet, brocade or silk with wide sleeves, trousers with a codpiece and a lot of slits, and a huge hat with ostrich feathers deliberately shocked those around them, emphasizing the independence of the mercenaries.
Emperor Maximilian said: “Their lives are short and dull, and magnificent clothing is one of their few joys. Let them wear it." Under their influence, civilian fashion also changed.
Behind the army was a huge convoy. For luggage, there was 1 cart per 10 soldiers, but there were also rich people with a greater level of comfort: their private carts carried tents, furniture, beds, food, wives, children, servants who cooked food, did laundry, arranged housing, and looked after them when they were wounded or illness. The Military Code of 1530 allowed the regiment to have 2-3 prostitutes on staff, reporting directly to the colonel; for their services they received a small salary - 2 kreuzers per day. In general, they tried to limit the number of prostitutes; the decision was made by the colonel. The huge mass of people slowed down the movement of the entire army and corrupted discipline.
A necessary condition for combat effectiveness is discipline, and its norms were then cruel: captains monitored the behavior of soldiers, duels and robbery of the population not permitted from above were punishable by the gallows (which did not interfere with the “scorched earth” policy). Looting, robbing the dead and robbing the living has always existed, but only during this war did it become a way of life for large sections of the population. By the way, the word “gang” (i.e., a detachment of Landsknechts) appeared in the Thirty Years’ War, and “looter” is associated with the name of one of the two famous commanders of that war: a German general (Count Johann Merode) or a Swedish colonel (Werner von Merode ); the German "brother-meroder" (Merodebruder) gradually became "marauder". They became the wounded, soldiers with many children, and others for whom robbery was the only means of survival. They tried to fight this: patrols caught the villains, “shackled their arms and legs in iron, or even rewarded them with a hemp collar, pulling them up by their amiable neck.” The fate of the marauder who escaped the gallows was still sad: the “lowered” warriors trailing at the tail of the army were captured and finished off, because the population treated them even worse, because “they prowl everywhere, dragging everything, and what they cannot use, they spoil.” . The marauders brutally plundered the lands they passed through: “No one knows how many villages they deliberately burned.”
But they hated all Landsknechts. Thirty Years' War was full of immeasurable atrocities against the population. The attempts of the peasants to defend their home with arms in their hands only infuriated the warriors, and they savagely killed everyone. Cruelty caused cruelty; the peasants mocked the prisoners no less sophisticatedly. These were 30 years of inexplicable senseless pogrom, destruction and torture without a purpose, “just like that”! The Landsknechts were aware of their strength, and this freed their hands. Often their actions were justified by the command, officially called “foraging.” The townspeople fared no better: in the villages there were small detachments, and in the cities whole regiments of mercenaries, enraged by the hardships of war, took out their anger on the residents.
It was a war between Catholics and Protestants, ostensibly over faith, but there was not a trace of religious fanaticism in it. The Catholic Maximilian, fighting with the Protestant princes of Germany, kept Protestant chaplains in his army and even paid them a salary. The Catholic Habsburgs fought against Catholic France with the forces of Protestant Landsknechts. Charles V, having no money, gave his mercenaries as payment to plunder Rome, the residence of the Pope, and his Catholic landsknechts willingly ravaged the Eternal City. The mercenary did not fight for faith and remembered God only to justify his vile deeds: “With God we go on a raid, rob, ruin, kill, overthrow, attack, set fire, take prisoners!” He (logically!) fought for whoever paid the most; often changed both sides of the front and his religion. This was his moral: neither nationality nor military brotherhood had any influence on whose side he would take in a given situation. And the enemy army immediately placed those captured into its ranks. Of course, formally there was a certain “code of honor” (observe the oath, do not defect to the enemy), but they remembered it as long as it was profitable: business is business.
The war of Catholics against Protestants gradually reduced to their war against civilians, becoming a monstrous punitive expedition, brutal reprisals against the population, physical and mental terror. This war broke the psyche of Western Europeans: the beast, the horrors of war, were awakened in people, violence was perceived by them as an everyday occurrence. On the one side, characteristic feature The psychology of the masses has become cruelty, and on the other hand, unreasoning submission. The redundancy and complete senselessness of the atrocities crushed all the norms of the previous thinking of the ordinary German. Now he has learned to fear not punishment for something, not judgment after death, but to fear IN GENERAL, to fear power and to humiliate himself before it. It was a gigantic psychological disaster. So these Western European so-called " religious wars“were simply a brutal campaign of wild atheists against each other, close to the total extermination of their countries. But then America was discovered, and all this aggression, all their “ chromosome set"splashed out onto other continents, wiping out the local population.
Artem Denisov
"The Thirty Years' War with its horrors, and the example of the excellent army of Gustavus Adolphus opened the eyes of contemporaries to all the disadvantages of mercenary troops, and in the last quarter XVII century, all states, following the example of France, switched to a system of standing armies.”
(from Review of the book: Mikhnevich Nikolai Petrovich “History of military art from ancient times to the beginning of the nineteenth century”)
The image of a muscular, narrow-minded thug, completely devoid of any principles, and therefore ready to get involved in any military adventure for a decent reward, circulated by Soviet propaganda, was another touch to the picture of the “decay of the West.” The realization that this cup had not passed our country came a little later, when “soldiers of fortune” made in Russia began to appear in the permanently warring states of Africa, in the Balkans torn apart by ethnic conflicts, and in the “hot spots” of the former Union.
Mercenaries cannot be viewed one-sidedly, categorically hanging black and white labels. Yes, in most countries modern world, including ours, “wild geese” are outlawed, and public opinion is far from being on their side. But, despite this, the traditional system of moral coordinates “good - evil” is still not entirely applicable to the phenomenon of mercenaries.
Enemies on one side of the barricades
The people of the Mediterranean have known the profession of a mercenary since ancient times. The first documentary evidence of the use of mercenaries to solve military problems, as well as as bodyguards of tyrants, dates back to the ancient era. To wage endless bloody wars with the Persian despotism, Athens needed more and more soldiers. In conditions when traditional sources of army recruitment had practically dried up, and the need for soldiers was increasing, hired light and medium infantry was a way out of this situation. Free farmers and artisans, devastated by wars and debt bondage, willingly joined it.
Contributed to the development of mercenaries in Ancient Greece and the growth of the navy, where, for a variety of reasons, this phenomenon was even more widespread than in the land army. But, perhaps, the biggest role in the gradual displacement of the militia army by professional mercenary soldiers was played by... the laziness and idleness of the slave owners. Rich Greek IV - III centuries. BC e. he was pampered, cowardly, and did not want to go into battle. Physical Culture became for him only fun, entertainment; at sports games he preferred to be a spectator rather than a participant. And the flabby sons of Hellas, instead of serving for the good of their long-suffering homeland with weapons in their hands, rushed to buy off the “blood tax” by putting up a deputy for themselves, willing to fight for money. As a result, the demand for mercenaries increased and their number increased.
According to the sources that have come down to us, we can judge that mercenary soldiers in Ancient Greece were not treated on ceremony, and very strict laws and regulations were applied to them. Thus, in his monumental work “Tactics,” the military writer Aeneas mentions two instructions regarding mercenaries: “In a mercenary army, after calling for silence, the following must be announced: if anyone wants to leave, being dissatisfied with the existing situation, he can do so immediately. If he is caught trying to leave the city besieged by enemies later, he will be sold into slavery.”
By the same time - IV century. BC e - also include the first descriptions of the atrocities of mercenaries in the captured city. The historian testifies: “Those who entered immediately set to work, killing the guards of the gate and committing other mercenary deeds.” Could one expect anything different from people whose entire service was dictated by profit?
For centuries, mercenaries and their “employers,” fighting on the same side of the barricades, still remained enemies. The former, not without reason, suspected the latter of seeking to gain victory with more blood in order to save money or not pay at all, while the latter suspected the former of seeking to take power into their own hands. In the chronicles of archaic wars, there is constantly evidence that soldiers were delayed in paying their salaries, that there was nothing to pay, and commanders were preoccupied with finding funds. There are also descriptions of the various and sometimes truly ingenious methods that were resorted to to pay off mercenaries. The tricks of employers often caused real riots among professional warriors, which sometimes led to the seizure of power in a single policy. So, for example, in Syracuse and Heraclea, mercenaries, having carried out a coup d'etat under the leadership of their commander, made him a tyrant (ruler).
At the same time, it was the army of mercenaries - people from different regions and tribes of the Greek world - that significantly contributed to the formation of that common language, in which most of the surviving treatises were written, and which today is commonly called ancient Greek. And the first regular metal money, which began to be minted in Lydia, was intended specifically for payments to mercenaries.
“The knight is looking for work. Offer war..."
The pages of European newspapers could well have been filled with such advertisements, if they had existed in the 14th-15th centuries. Europe, tormented by wars and civil strife, had to abandon the Crusades, and with them the great religious dream - to return the shrines in the East, to plant a banner there catholic church and create their own states, in the image and likeness of Western European ones.
Everywhere in Western Europe the tragic lack of employment of the knights was revealed, who in their absolute majority did not want to do anything other than war, and could not. Crusades For a long time they directed knightly activity far to the East, camouflaging it with noble goals. But the boomerang returned: the “liberators of the Holy Sepulcher,” although they considered the practice of mercenaries not entirely worthy, increasingly supported their existence in this way. For the alternative was outright begging.
In the XIV century. The first, so-called lower, type of mercenaryism was formed, gradually replacing the weakening militia. The main feature of the lower type was the preservation of the feudal-knightly structure by the army in the presence of indefinite hiring. One of the variants of this type of mercenaryism was condottiere. Relatively small, mostly cavalry detachments, fully provided by the condottiere, were hired into the armies of states that needed troops. The guarantee of fulfillment of obligations was only a personal agreement with their leader, who, often pursuing his own political goals, turned weapons against employers.
The habit of not being content with the role of executors, but, when the opportunity arises, of taking control of the structures for which they were hired to protect, the “soldiers of fortune” carried through the centuries. In the 15th century The Duchy of Milan learned from its own experience that mercenaries should not be trusted: the successful condottiere Count Francesco Sforza, hired by Duke Visconti to protect Milan from the Florentine threat, captured the city in 1450 and laid the foundation for a new dynasty of Milanese dukes.
More profitable for the employer was the so-called captain's option, characteristic of England and France. The military commander-captain could be appointed directly by the king and was subject to some control. But gradually the positions of captains were seized by the nobility who defended separatist aspirations. This type of mercenary work was often not in the interests of centralized state. In addition, the revolution in military affairs required fundamental changes: first of all, an increase in the role of the infantry, and, consequently, a significant increase in the army, which the condottieri could not provide.
Around this period, a new, higher type of mercenaryism appeared, characterized by the presence of troops built on new structural principles with temporary hiring. There was a Swiss, “state” version and a German, “contract” version, based on a private enterprise basis. Warriors hired according to the second principle - Landsknechts - were much more closely tied to the employer than the Swiss, whom the cantons disposed of depending on their interests. However general features Both options had mass appeal and a greater connection with the state than before.
In the XVI - XVII centuries. there was no alternative to mercenaries. The German mercenary force of the highest type can be considered “long-lived,” which, due to constant demand both within the country and abroad, lasted for more than 150 years. It is the Landsknechts for a long time were considered the support of the British crown, and during the redistribution of the world in the 18th - 19th centuries. The Germans staffed individual units and entire armies that went on the attack under the English flag. Medieval German mercenaries were an open corporation that did not recognize the national, religious, or, in part, even class affiliation of its members. All landsknechts had one status - the status of a soldier. Mercenaries enjoyed significant autonomy, had their own justice, hierarchy, customs and even folklore. In those days, mercenaries tried to spare each other in battle. In one of his works, Machiavelli describes a case when in a battle that lasted a whole day, one man died, and even then, by falling from a horse.
Soldiers of secret wars
The hopes of humanists that the 20th century would be a time of peace did not come true. On the contrary, such bloody “showdowns” using military force What the new century brought with it, human history did not know. What are the costs of just two world wars, which claimed millions of lives! And then the time came for local wars: it was in this simple way that the superpowers of the USA and the USSR sorted things out and measured their strength. In practice, the principle of “little loss and on foreign territory” was applied, so Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan became new theaters of combat. This is where politicians remembered mercenaries, who were perfect for the role of soldiers in secret wars. After all, you can always disown a mercenary, unlike a regular army soldier, remain in white gloves and preserve your reputation.
The palm in putting mercenary activity on stream belongs to the West, where almost immediately after the Second World War, private military companies began to appear, which were, in essence, legal recruiting points. At the end of the 40s of the last century, two veteran pilots of the Second World War founded a small company, Pacific-Eastern Airlines (PEA), and received a contract from the US Department of Defense for air transportation of military cargo, and a little later - for the formation of “contract field teams” staffed by service specialists military equipment. The fact that the company (though now under the name Dyncorp) exists to this day is most eloquently evidenced by the fact that the business of retired military personnel has taken off. Among the services provided are the physical protection of US embassies in a number of countries, the provision of maintenance of many US military facilities abroad, and the protection of the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
And then, as they say, off we go. Today, according to some estimates, the annual financial turnover of companies operating in the security sector is more than $100 billion, and the number of people working in them is already close to 30 million. Moreover, the majority of private companies employing military personnel operate on the African continent.
The main market for mercenaries was Africa, divided into many mini-states, most often with a weak and untrained army, where professionals were urgently needed. Today there are about 80 such campaigns in Angola alone, where the local government requires private firms such as oil and mining companies to ensure their own security. These kinds of conditions, set by many countries on the black continent, make it possible for companies to legally hire former military personnel and arm them in the most serious way, including attack helicopters, attack aircraft and armored personnel carriers. True, no one can predict in which direction the muzzles of these machine guns will turn tomorrow, or against whom the mercenaries will fight.
The largest and most successful companies in this market are the British Sandline International and the American Military Professional Resources Incorporated. And before its dissolution in 1999, this list was headed by the South African company Executive Outcomes, which during its existence became legendary among the “wild geese”.
Executive Outcomes (EO) was founded by retired South African intelligence officer Ibin Barlow in 1989. Barlow recruited his first mercenaries from the 32nd Battalion of the South African Armed Forces, which had extensive experience in counter-guerrilla warfare. Experts agreed that “on a signal” the EO could deploy up to 2 thousand bayonets.
The company signed its first major contract, worth $30 million, with two oil giants, Gulf/Chevron and Sonangol, to guard their facilities in Soyo, Angola. According to another version, closer to reality, EO employees were hired to drive UNITA units out of the territory where oil company facilities are located. In March 1993, 50 EO officers, supported by government troops, landed in Soyo. After a week of fighting, UNITA militants were driven from their positions. The success of the operation brought EO several more contracts from the Angolan government.
Two years later, the government of Sierra Leone called on the EO to help in the fight against the local Revolutionary United Front, which controlled 57% of exported diamonds. The government agreed to pay $60 million and share in future profits from diamond mining for EO's assistance in training troops, gathering intelligence, and using their military equipment. The military operation to defeat the rebel forces was supposed to take seven days, but EO professionals completed it in two.
Restoring order in African states, the EO used powerful weapons: armored personnel carriers equipped with 30-mm guns, BTR-50 amphibians, Land Rovers equipped with machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons, radio interception systems, Soviet Mi-24, Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters. To transport units, the EO used two Boeing 727s, and Soviet MiG-23s as attack aircraft.
The level of salaries in the EO greatly depended on the experience of the officer and the region where he had to operate: from 2 to 13 thousand dollars per month. Instructors received 2.5 thousand, pilots - 7 thousand. In addition, all employees were provided with insurance. The annual income of the SW, according to official data, ranged from 25 to 40 million dollars.
In 1998, the South African government passed a law prohibiting mercenarism. And on January 1, 1999, EO ceased to exist, at least under this trademark. However, it is known that in the summer of 1998, about 300 foreign mercenaries joined the ranks of the UNITA partisans, most which were made up of former employees of the already dissolved EO.
Russians are coming?
The collapse of the USSR and the collapse of the Soviet army confronted professional military personnel, mainly officers, with a primordially Russian question: “What to do?” There were also those who, soberly judging that they couldn’t do anything else, decided to return to the occupation that they had been taught all their lives. Fortunately, there were more than enough wars for everyone...
According to some information from the organizers, one of the first domestic “soldiers of fortune” were several young employees of the KGB of the USSR, who graduated in 1988 border school, and in 1991 they left “to work” in South Africa. Since 1990, the Russian press has regularly featured information about participation in armed conflicts in the territory former USSR mercenaries from among former officers. Along with Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria and Chechnya, Russian “wild geese” confidently entered the world market of specific military services. Soon Russian speech was already heard on combat airwaves in the Balkans and in countries African continent, sowing panic in the enemy camp.
But here, too, there was a mysterious Russian soul: at first, most of our compatriots went to fight abroad as volunteers, not in pursuit of a long ruble, but for an idea. In addition, during the fighting in Kosovo, the Serb brothers simply did not have the money to pay mercenaries. But the harsh reality of war has a way of chilling ideological impulses, and many volunteers eventually actually became mercenaries.
Perhaps the most famous combat unit of Russian mercenaries who fought on the Serbian side was the “Royal Wolves” detachment, according to some sources, staffed exclusively by former special forces soldiers. During various periods of hostilities in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, military specialists in specific specialties were required. For example, in 1999, due to the large-scale use of NATO aviation, radio electronics engineers, anti-aircraft gunners and other air defense specialists were in particular demand.
Domestic specialists, mainly pilots and military instructors, are traditionally valued in Africa. Forty years later, Africans still learned to fight each other without the support of white mercenaries, but they still cannot handle Soviet and Russian-made equipment, which makes up the bulk of the heavy weapons of large and small armies of the black continent.
Strange things sometimes happen to mercenaries. In July 2000, information appeared that Russian pilots took part in the ten-month conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. During the conflict, an Ethiopian Su-27 shot down an Eritrean MiG-29, while both aircraft were flown by Russian mercenary pilots. This information was confirmed by the press secretary of the Eritrean embassy in Moscow, Vikki Rentmeester.
Nobody knows how many Russian “soldiers of fortune” earn their living today while fighting in a foreign land. One thing can be said with confidence: the Motherland is in no hurry to welcome these nameless heroes of unknown wars back into its arms. Criminal Code Russian Federation provides for mercenaries a punishment of imprisonment for a term of up to seven years, which is fully consistent with the protocols of the Geneva Convention of 1949. This should be remembered by the ugly ducklings who are just taking wing, who look with envy and delight after the flocks of “wild ones” flying into the heat of other people’s wars geese."