Black Magic Doesn’t Work on White Mercenaries

Congo Mercenary Story Hour

One persistent myth from the mid-Cold War period is that European powers had to give up their colonies because they suddenly lacked the “overmatch” capability that the Maxim gun and repeating rifle had once given their flying columns¹ over spear and musket-armed native forces.

This is total nonsense, and my favorite aspect of mercenary commander Mike Hoare’s memoirs of war in the Congo during the Simba Rebellion—a tale of black magic, witch doctors, and crazy combat in the bush—shows why.

You can listen to it here, if you prefer listening to reading:

[AUDIO] Black Magic Doesn’t Work on White Mercenaries

But first, a bit of background on the claim, and why it isn’t true.

The general claim is that Europeans could no longer hold their colonies, particularly in Africa, after World War II because of a mix of nationalist sentiments from the local populations and the fact that the proliferation of light machine guns and assault rifles narrowed the technological gap between Europeans and Africans to such a degree that holding the colonies in the face of that nationalist sentiment became too expensive.

This isn’t really true, at least of combat and colonies in Africa.

For one, aerial bombardment replaced the Maxim gun even before the natives were all that much better-armed. Indeed, the plane was far superior to the Maxim gun in terms of cost-effectiveness, as Lawrence James covers well in his The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. In 1920, for example, the British crushed the “Mad Mullah” in Somaliland at the cost of just £70,000 through the use of planes rather than Maxim and repeater-armed flying columns, which was far cheaper than past imperial campaigns.²

As proponents of this tactic noted, old-style ground columns took considerable time to reach remote areas—often resorting to burning crops, destroying livestock, and demolishing homes—whereas aircraft provided swift “chastisement” of rebels, even across vast and inaccessible terrain. All it required was the will to use it mercilessly, as the flying columns had once been.

Regardless, even when aircraft were not used, a well-disciplined and even somewhat well-supplied European force remained more than capable of holding onto the colonies, so long as it was given a free hand to do what was necessary to win. They were, after all, still fighting in Africa, much as they always had been. The Asante campaigns were won without much trouble and before the Maxim gun, after all.³

One of my favorite stories on this from the days of decolonization comes from Congo Mercenary, Mike Hoare’s tale of leading his famous 5 Commando mercenaries against the Simba Rebels in the Congo, after decolonization was forced on the country by America and the UN in the name of equality.

The Simba Rebels, for reference, were a collection of ragtag rebels who rose up in the aftermath of the Katanga Crisis and the justified killing of Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba was a communist who tried to take over the Congo in the wake of decolonization’s early days, and the Belgians slew him before he could destroy the country and their remaining mining interests in it for good. The Simbas—the leaders of whom were his supporters—went on a berserk rampage that tore through the country in the wake of his death.

Their rebellion went well despite being disorganized, and they ripped across the country in a horrible blitz, capturing village after village in a mad orgy of slaughter and rapine. The rebels were known for their cruelty, their drug use, and their ferocity. The Congolese National Army, or A.N.C., was utterly ineffective in stopping them, dispersed as it was in a collection of undermanned and undersupplied garrisons.

These garrisons also had a nasty habit of running away when they feared that they would be attacked by the Simba rebels, who had a reputation for being merciless and cruel—even for African rebels—to captured prisoners. And why might the A.N.C. soldiers fear that they would be attacked? It’s not as if they were performing much reconnaissance…

Well, the Simbas would call them ahead of time to say that they would be attacking. Despite everything else quickly falling to pieces, the telephone network the Belgians built remained surprisingly intact. The rebels used this to their advantage. Repeatedly, as they blitzed through the formerly Belgian Congo in August of 1964, they would spread panic ahead of their advance by making a single telephone call ahead of the attack and telling the garrison that the Simbas were on their way. Generally, was enough to ensure instant evacuation on the part of the garrison.

Here is how Hoare describes that in Congo Mercenary:

At the beginning of September 1964, almost one-half of the Congo was in rebel hands. The only reverses the Popular Government had suffered so far were the loss of Albertville and the repulse at Bukavu. Flushed with success, the Popular Army of Liberation had swept westwards across the country with the speed and ferocity of a grass fire. The coming of the Simbas struck terror into the hearts of the Congolese villagers and whole garrisons of the A.N.C. capitulated without firing a shot. In a number of cases, all that was necessary was a telephone call, warning that the Simbas were on their way!

In another passage on much the same subject, Hoare writes:

The incident was typical of war in the Congo and I was reminded that the rebels had often used the telephone to frighten off the A.N.C. when they advanced in August. A phone call to say they were on their way was usually enough to ensure instant evacuation.

Why was a mere phone call enough to make the A.N.C. soldiers retreat? Part of it was just fear of what would happen if the rebels won. Fear of death by gruesome torture is enough to frighten many a man, particularly an unpaid and undersupplied conscript, into retreating.

But there was more to it than that. The leader of the Simbas, a savage named Mulele, decided to introduce dark magic to the struggle. According to his doctrines, “Believers in him had only to shout the magic words ‘Mai Mulele’ and their enemies and worst fears would be overcome. In battle, after taking the dawa—a specially prepared medicine—they would be immune to all danger, bullets would turn to water or pass through them harmlessly, and they would be invincible.” Further, followers of Mulele believed that, “Having taken the dawa they would immediately be possessed of superhuman powers.”

This dawa was, of course, nothing but a bit of water. It was applied by witch doctors, often alongside drugs. But, as Hoare noted, “The belief that witch-doctors are able to make bullets pass through one’s body is fairly widespread in the Congo.” And so, “In this drugged state the followers of Mulele firmly believed in their invincibility and their immunity from all harm.”

They weren’t the only ones who believed the dawa made them invincible. The A.N.C. troopers did as well, and so news that Mulele’s followers were on their way was enough to throw them into flight. As Hoare writes of the dawa and its morale impact on the Congolese troops:

Whilst the effect of this doctrine would be negligible on white soldiers the effect it produced on the Congolese of the A.N.C.— the Armée Nationale Congolaise, the National Army—was nothing short of catastrophic. The mere announcement that “les Mulele-istes” were on their way, or worse still, the sight of them standing drugged, hands outstretched, throwing their eyes in their direction, was sufficient to reduce entire garrisons to a state of instant panic and headlong flight, in which they frequently abandoned their arms and equipment to the advancing rebels.

Here is how Hoare describes one such retreat:

On the fifth day of August, 1964, they struck. Unheralded, a column of sixty motor vehicles descended on Stanleyville from nearby Wanie Rukulu, led by a handful of prancing witch-doctors, waving palm leaves before them and chanting incantations. The population was spellbound. The thousand strong garrison of the city, terrified by the sight of the witch-doctors in their full regalia and the rag-tag army of rebels dressed in monkey skin caps and feathers, fled in disarray, flinging their arms into the Congo River as they went.

When paired with the use of the telephone tactic, and even without it, this was calamitous upon the fortunes of the Congo in its effort to keep the Soviet-aligned Simbas from winning. Its troops believed in the dark magic of the witch doctors, and so a glimpse of the advancing, drug-addled rebels—or even a phone call of their approach—was enough to send what troops the Congolese government had into headlong flight, and city after city, village after village, mine after mine, fell to those brutal rebels.

Hence why “Mad Mike” Hoare was called upon to form 5 Commando, an elite mercenary unit consisting primarily of South African, Rhodesian, British, and European volunteers. The 5 Commando mercenaries did have the advantage of aerial surveillance support,⁴ and some armaments support supplied by America, but that is not the primary reason they won. They won because they were disciplined, and they were smart enough to not be scared away from fighting by superstitions of dark magic.

They knew no phial of water would stop bullets from piercing the hides of their communist quarry. They knew that their advantage in both airpower and in heavy weaponry they actually knew how to use gave them an advantage over their drug-addled, black magic-believing enemies. Here is how it went when the dawa-mad rebels attacked Hoare’s men:

We arrived at a lakeside village called Malembe at noon and as the men were beaten I called a halt for a swim and a rest. We were all sleeping soundly in the shade of a mango tree by the water’s edge when a knot of villagers ran up with panic in their faces to warn me that the Simbas were upon us. We scrambled into our equipment and stood-to. Through my glasses I could see a group of rebels making their way down the hill which overlooked Malembe, about seven hundred yards away. There was something odd about the way they were walking, swaying from side to side as though staggering under an unseen weight.

I gave out my orders.

“Mueller, get back on the track and stop them outflanking us. Eric, take a section along the beach and spread out. Remainder stay here with me.”

Then they were on us. They broke into three groups, dodging from hut to hut, until they appeared again in the open less than a hundred yards away. Single shots sizzled into the tree above.

I could see now they were all hopped up and mad with dawa. “Mai Mulele, Mai Mulele,” they screamed with blood-curdling yells, firing their Mausers and brandishing their pangas and long knives. “Mai Mulele,” they screamed louder as they came for us.

“This is it, boys,” I shouted, “Wait for it, wait for it.”

I raised my F.N. rifle and fired the first shot of the battle. All hell was let loose as my men poured out a fantastic volume of fire, most of it inaccurate, so that the enemy came on with every appearance of being immune from the bullets. Where a rebel was hit he advanced regardless, eyes staring, and in some cases hands held out before him. One or two stopped in their tracks to “throw their eyes” on us.

A Hollander named Van der Hoek, a seasoned hand, picked them off one by one, and in less than fifteen minutes it was all over.

Dark magic was enough for the Simbas to beat the A.N.C. It feared the rumors that its bullets would turn to water when directed against them, that the dawa might work, that the witch doctors’ men were invincible, and that a single phone call might herald doom.

It was not enough to beat Mike Hoare’s mercenaries. They knew all of that to be utter nonsense, and were more than capable of standing and fighting when attacked, or going on the offensive. And so they could crash into them with all the swagger and success—if not more—of past flying columns of Europeans. Here is how Hoare describes one such incident, the assault on Kindu:

Fifty kilometres from Kindu we hit two bus loads of Simbas in a village. We got most of them before they melted into the bush and one who was badly wounded told us that they were reinforcements for Kibombo and they had no idea we were so near to Kindu. This was heartening.

Two kilometres from Kindu the column halted and our air reported feverish activity in the town, particularly at the southern entrance where they thought they could see a road block. Excitement became intense right through the column and every man checked his weapons for the final assault. Alastair asked the air to strafe and rocket the road block as hard as they could right up until the moment we appeared—we would accept the risks of very close support—and then to transfer their attention to the town itself; they were to rocket the landing stage and as we entered the town proper, they were to make dry runs to keep the enemy heads down. The Cubans repeated their instructions, anxious to make no error. “Is that affirmative, Johnny?”

“That’s affirmative, Bravo,” said Alastair and the battle was on. The column accelerated for the dash into Kindu. The warplanes came screaming down from 5,000 feet, each blasting off its eight Browning 50 machine guns in a terrifying cruuuump! Now two Bravos came out of the sun and loosed off their rockets in a silent swoosh to explode on the target with a sonorous didoom! The column was getting nearer and nearer and still the air kept at it.

“Tell them to hold it,” I screamed at Alastair over my radio as empty cartridge cases rained down on us from above and pieces of rocket shrapnel whizzed dangerously by this was close support all right, too close. We crashed into the southern entrance of Kindu and swept past the road block dealing with the defenders like lightning. The column careered along madly, travelling too fast for control, all guns blazing. The enemy had fled into the bush and was keeping up a sporadic fire on our flanks as we sped through.

Hoare won the Congo Crisis conflict. His victory was made impermanent by the United Nations and its diktats about white mercenaries in the Congo, but he won nonetheless.

Executive Outcomes later won in Angola, and would have finished the job in Sierra Leone too, again if not for the UN. Neall Ellis won in Sierra Leone with a single helicopter of his own, sometimes just crushing the rebels with it when out of ammunition. (For those interested, I’ll cover all these men and stories in much more depth in future articles and episodes of The Old World Show).

Colonialism didn’t end because the Africans suddenly got better at fighting. In every case, the old rule held true: disciplined Europeans would win, so long as not stabbed in the back by other European powers (as Rhodesia was) and so long as they didn’t just give up, as happened to British Kenya after the authorities crushed the Mau Maus.

Sometimes the fights were somewhat harder than they had been in the past. Oftentimes, air power and armor made them somewhat easier. But the myth that colonialism had to end because of the proliferation of machine guns is a lie. The great empires did not die natural deaths of technological maturation. They were murdered by the same sorts who murdered Rhodesia, for the same reasons. That means we could bring it back today…perhaps starting in the ever chaotic Congo.

Why Colonialism Remains Relevant

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_column

2. As James notes:

The peace of Iraq and Jordan would be kept by a novel system known as ‘air control’, which had the enthusiastic backing of Churchill, Lawrence, Leo Amery and Air-Marshal Lord Trenchard, the Chief of Air Staff. Aircraft had been used in pacification operations in the Sudan, on the North-West Frontier, and most recently in Somaliland. The final defeat of the Mad Mullah in 1920 had been achieved after the bombing of his strongholds in what the Colonial Office regarded as a model campaign. Its total cost was £70,000, which made it the cheapest imperial war ever, and did much to convince waverers that air control was the thriftiest way to police the empire’s more unruly subjects.

3. Manning covers this well in Britain at War with the Asante Nation, 1823–1900

4. As Hoare notes:

Right from the start we had the inestimable advantage of air. If the enemy had had aircraft against us, the result might have been very different. I was always very conscious of this powerful weapon and gave it into the special care of Commandant Wicks, who had much experience as an Air Liaison Officer in the last war and was himself a pilot. The main role for aircraft was to recce the road ahead. The T-28, slow and cumbrous as it is, is the ideal plane for this purpose.