The Dogs of War (novel)

This article is about the novel. For other uses of The Dogs of War, see The Dogs of War (disambiguation).

The Dogs of War

First edition (UK)
Author	Frederick Forsyth
Cover artist	Ian West / Michael Brett
Language	English
Genre	War novel
Publisher	Hutchinson (UK) Viking Press (US)
Publication date	1974
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)

The Dogs of War (1974) is a war novel by Frederick Forsyth featuring a small group of European mercenary soldiers hired by a British industrialist to depose the government of the fictional African country of Zangaro. The story details a geologist's mineral discovery, and the preparations for the attack: soldier recruitment, training, reconnaissance, and the logistics of the coup d'état (buying weapons, transport, payment). Like most of Forsyth's work, the novel is more about the protagonists' occupational tradecraft than their characters. The source of the title, The Dogs of War, is Act III, scene 1, line 270 of Julius Caesar (1599), by William Shakespeare: Cry, 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war.

The mercenary protagonists, like the protagonist in the author's earlier novel The Day of the Jackal (1971), are ruthless, violent anti-heroes. Initially introduced as simple killers-for-hire, as the novel progresses they are gradually shown to adhere to a relatively moral mercenary code. Forsyth draws upon his journalistic experiences in reporting the 1970 Biafran War between Biafra and Nigeria; though fictional, the African 'Republic of Zangaro' is based upon Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony. The novel's dedication to five men named Giorgio, Christian, Schlee, Big Marc and Black Johnny and "the others in the unmarked graves" concludes: "at least we tried"—and alludes to Forsyth's time in Biafra; the dark tone and cynical plot of the story stem from the same source.

An eponymous film was released in 1980, based upon the novel and directed by John Irvin. The movie was filmed in Belize.

Plot summary

Prologue

1970]: Anglo-Irish mercenary Carlo Alfred Thomas "Cat" Shannon and his four fellow mercenaries - German ex-smuggler Kurt Semmler, South African mortar expert Janni Dupree, Belgian bazooka specialist "Tiny" Marc Vlaminck, and Corsican knife-fighter Jean-Baptiste Langarotti - leave a West African war they have lost, saying their goodbyes to the General, who employed them for six months.

Part 1: The Crystal Mountain

A few weeks later, a prospector employed by British-based company Manson Consolidated sends mineral samples, acquired from the "Crystal Mountain" in the remote hinterland of the African republic of Zangaro, to headquarters. When they are analysed, ruthless British mining tycoon Sir James Manson realises that there is a huge platinum deposit in Zangaro. The president of Zangaro, Jean Kimba, is Marxist, homicidal, insane, and under Soviet influence, so any public announcement of the findings would benefit only the Russians. Confiding only in his top assistants, security chief Simon Endean and financial expert Martin Thorpe, Manson plans to depose Kimba and install a puppet leader who, for a pittance, will sign over Zangaro's mining rights to a shell company secretly owned by Manson. When Manson Consolidated eventually acquires the shell company for a fair market price, Sir James Manson and his aides will pocket £60 million.

On the recommendation of a freelance writer (a thinly veiled allusion to Forsyth himself), Endean hires Shannon to reconnoitre Zangaro, and to investigate how Kimba might be deposed. After a visit to the country masquerading as a tourist, Shannon reports that the army has little fighting value and that Kimba has concentrated the national armoury, treasury and radio station within the presidential palace in Clarence, the Zangaran capital city and principal port. Should the palace be stormed and Kimba killed, there will be no opposition to any new regime. Because there is no organised dissident faction in Zangaro, the attacking force will have to be assembled outside the country and land near Clarence to launch the attack. Shannon prices the mission at £100,000, with £10,000 for himself. While Endean has used a fake identity, calling himself "Walter Harris", Shannon has had Endean tailed by a private investigator and has discovered his true identity and his involvement with Sir James Manson.

Although Manson has taken steps to silence the few people aware of the Crystal Mountain platinum deposit, the chemist who analysed the samples has inadvertently revealed his findings to the Soviets, who assign a KGB bodyguard to Kimba while they prepare to send in their own geological survey team. Manson learns from a Foreign Office bureaucrat that the Soviets have got wind of the deposit. He commissions Shannon to organise and mount the coup, to take place on the eve of Zangaro's independence day, one hundred days hence, but does not tell Shannon of the Soviet involvement.

Part 2: The Hundred Days

Shannon reassembles his old team to execute the attack on Kimba's palace. Semmler travels Europe looking for a suitable cargo ship to transport them and their equipment to Zangaro. Dupree remains in London to buy all their uniforms, boots, haversacks and sleeping bags. Langarotti travels to Marseilles to acquire inflatable boats for the amphibious assault. Vlaminck accompanies Shannon to Belgium to obtain one hundred "Schmeisser" submachine guns from a former member of the SS, then remains in Belgium to prepare them to be smuggled out in oil drums. Shannon then travels to Luxembourg to establish a holding company to handle the purchase of the ship, to Spain to buy walkie-talkies, foghorns, flares, and 400,000 rounds of 9mm ammunition for the Schmeissers with a forged end user certificate, and to Yugoslavia to buy bazookas, mortars, and ammunition for them.

Shannon also finds time for a brief sexual liaison with Julie Manson, Sir James's daughter, from whom he learns the bare essentials of Manson's true plan. Simultaneously, Charles Roux, one of Shannon's rivals, tries to have Shannon killed since he was frustrated that Endean did not approach him for the contract despite the freelance writer recommending him. Hearing of this, Langarotti tips Shannon off and they lure the assassin hired by Roux into a trap, sending his severed head to Roux to permanently silence him.

Martin Thorpe has meanwhile secretly purchased the controlling share in Bormac Trading, a mining and plantation-owning company which has long ceased trading, from Lady MacAllister, the ailing widow of the company's founder. His and Manson's involvement is concealed behind the names of several fictitious shareholders. Endean has simultaneously obtained the agreement of Colonel Antoine Bobi, a former commander of the Zangaran Army who fell out with Kimba and is now in exile, to participate in Manson's scheme. Once installed as president, the venal and illiterate Bobi will sign over the mineral rights to the Crystal Mountain to Bormac Trading for a nominal price but a large bribe for himself.

The mercenaries get underway after Semmler acquires a nondescript tramp cargo ship, the Toscana, for the operation. Hidden in oil drums, the Schmeissers are smuggled across the Belgian border into France and loaded aboard the Toscana at Marseilles, along with the uniforms and inflatable boats, marked supposedly for watersports in Morocco. They then sail to Ploče in Yugoslavia to load the mortars and rocket launchers purchased legitimately from an arms dealer, without telling the Yugoslav authorities that they already have arms aboard. These weapons are then concealed below deck and the ship sails to Castellon in Spain to collect the ammunition (seemingly sold to the Iraqi police force). The ship then travels to Freetown in Sierra Leone to pick up six African mercenaries, disguised as casual stevedores, who will also participate in the attack, and Dr Okoye, an African academic.

Part 3: The Killing Spree

The attack on President Kimba's palace takes place as planned. In the early hours of the morning, the mercenaries land on the shores of Zangaro and set up foghorns and flares to disorient the defenders and illuminate the darkness. Dupree and two of the African mercenaries begin the assault by using mortars to bombard both a nearby army camp and the interior of the palace compound, thereby eliminating the palace guard, while Vlaminck destroys the compound gates with anti-tank rockets. As the bombardment ceases, Semmler, Shannon, Langarotti and the other four African mercenaries storm the palace, with Semmler shooting Kimba as he tries to escape through his bedroom window. Kimba's KGB bodyguard escapes the firefight and shoots Vlaminck in the chest, but Vlaminck kills him with his last bazooka rocket as he dies. Following the bombardment, Dupree and his two African mercenaries attack the nearby army camp. A Zangaran soldier throws a grenade at them as he flees and one of the African mercenaries throws it back, but it falls short and Dupree, deafened by the gunfire and shelling, fails to hear the warnings and is accidentally killed in the blast.

Around midday, Endean arrives in Clarence to install Colonel Bobi as the new Zangaran president. He has his own bodyguard, a former East End gang enforcer. When Endean and Bobi arrive at the palace, Shannon lures Bobi into the presidential office. A shot is heard and Endean realizes that Shannon has killed Bobi. Shannon shoots Endean's bodyguard as the enforcer tries to draw his gun. He then casually introduces Dr. Okoye as the new head of government. At Shannon's order, the Soviet geological survey team's request to land in Zangaro is permanently refused.

The aftermath

As Shannon drives Endean to the border, he explains that Endean's otherwise comprehensive research failed to note the 20,000 immigrant workers who did most of the work in Zangaro, but were politically disenfranchised by the Kimba government. A hundred of them, in new uniforms and armed with Schmeissers, have already been recruited as the nucleus of the new Zangaran Army. When Shannon tells Endean that the coup was really conducted on behalf of the General, Endean is furious but Shannon points out that this government will at least be fair, and if Manson wants the platinum, he will have to pay the proper market price. Endean threatens revenge if he ever sees the mercenary in London, but Shannon ignores the warning.

In the novel's epilogue, it is revealed that Dupree and Vlaminck were buried in simple unmarked graves near the shore. Semmler later sold the Toscana to its captain, and died while on another mercenary operation in Africa. Langarotti's fate is ambiguous; the novel tells only that after he took his pay, he was last heard of going to train a new group of Hutu partisans in Burundi against Michel Micombero, telling Shannon "It's not really the money. It was never for the money."

The epilogue reveals that before embarking on the Zangaro operation, Shannon was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer (skin cancer in some American editions) with only a year to six months to live. Three months after the coup, he posts the remainder of his earnings to the surviving family members of his fallen teammates, and also sends a manuscript (presumably outlining the entire plan) to a journalist in London (presumably the aforementioned freelance writer). Lastly, Shannon walks into the African bush, whistling a favourite tune ("Spanish Harlem"), to end his life on his own terms with "a gun in his hand, blood in his mouth, and a bullet in his chest".

Characters

• Carlo Alfred Thomas Shannon: nicknamed CAT, an Anglo-Irish former Royal Marine turned mercenary soldier
• "Tiny" Marc Vlaminck: Huge Belgian mercenary and bazooka expert, bartender
• Kurt Semmler: German ex–Hitler Youth turned mercenary soldier, smuggler
• Janni Dupree: an Afrikaner mercenary and mortar expert
• Jean-Baptiste Langarotti: Corsican-born former French paratrooper turned mercenary soldier, expert knife-fighter and member of the Unione Corse
• Sir James Manson: owner of Manson Consolidated
• Simon Endean: Manson's chief of security and the man who hires Shannon. He poses as "Walter Harris"
• Martin Thorpe: Manson's top financial expert
• Jean Kimba: Zangaro's President turned dictator
• Antoine Bobi: Kimba's exiled army colonel recruited by Endean to be a puppet leader
• Charles Roux: French ex-Legionnaire, mercenary and small-time crime boss, Shannon's rival
• Raymond Thomard: mercenary hired by Roux to kill Shannon
• Henri Alain: one of Roux's contacts
• Dr Okoye: African academic installed as acting leader of government by Shannon after the coup
• Julie Manson: Daughter of Sir James Manson and Shannon's lover

Research

While researching the story of The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth pretended to be preparing a coup d'état against Equatorial Guinea on behalf of the Igbo people whom he passionately supports; he was told it would cost 240,000 US dollars. Five years after the 1973 attempted coup d'état, Forsyth's research was subject of a feature story in The Times, which posited he had commissioned the operation in earnest; many people believed he was planning a real coup d'état in Equatorial Guinea. Later, Forsyth said that arms dealers were the most frightening people he had ever met; the mercenaries Mike Hoare, Bob Denard, "Black Jack" Schramme and Rolf Steiner are all mentioned in the novel. According to UK National Archives documents released in 2005, in early 1973, several people in Gibraltar were planning a coup d'état against Equatorial Guinea, in the manner described in The Dogs of War. Spain arrested several mercenaries in the Canary Islands on 23 January 1973, foiling the plot.

There was a coup d'état in Equatorial Guinea in 1979 – Francisco Macías Nguema, the left-wing dictator, was overthrown and killed by his nephew, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo the right-wing President. In 2004, in a copycat plan based on Forsyth's book, a coup d'état intended to secure lucrative mining rights granted by a client puppet government was attempted. The plan involved Mark Thatcher, who was intending to trade on his mother's (former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher) connections and reputation to call favours, and the mercenary Simon Mann, who subsequently stood trial and was convicted. Thatcher received a suspended 4-year sentence; Mann was sentenced to 34 years in 2008 but was pardoned in 2009.

In Ken Connor's book How to Stage a Military Coup, the author praises The Dogs of War as a textbook for mercenaries.

Film adaptation

• United Artists released a 1980 film adaptation directed by John Irvin and starring Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger.