Portuguese Colonial War, 1961–1974

Portuguese Colonial War

For thirteen years Portugal fought nationalist guerrillas in Angola, Portuguese Guinea and Mozambique; the unwinnable war exhausted the country and led the army to overthrow the Estado Novo in 1974.

Date

4 February 1961 – 25 April 1974exact date · duration: ≈ 13 years

Place

Luandatoday: Luanda, Angola · Africa

Participants

Estado Novo (Portugal), António de Oliveira Salazar, Marcelo Caetano, MPLA, FNLA, UNITA, PAIGC, FRELIMO

Threads

History of Portugal since the Battle of Aljubarrota

Also known as

Guerra do Ultramar; Guerra Colonial; Overseas War; War of Liberation; Заморская война

The war began in Angola. On 4 February 1961 armed men attacked a prison and the police headquarters in Luanda (the attack is usually attributed to the MPLA), and on 15 March the UPA, later the FNLA, launched an uprising in the north in which at least 1,000 settlers and a larger number of Africans were killed; the Portuguese reprisals were no less brutal. In January 1963 the PAIGC opened a front in Guinea, and in September 1964 FRELIMO began attacks in northern Mozambique. The movements, backed by the Soviet bloc, China and neighbouring African states, often fought one another as well.

By the early 1970s the war consumed up to 40% of the state budget, and on average more than 100,000 troops were deployed in Africa each year. Reports of atrocities, such as the massacre at Wiriyamu in Mozambique in 1972, isolated the regime internationally. Disillusioned junior officers formed the Armed Forces Movement, which ended the war by overthrowing the government on 25 April 1974. In Portugal the conflict is also called the Overseas War, in the former colonies the War of Liberation. The event is placed in Luanda, where it began.

Connections

Causes and preconditions

Salazar’s Estado Novo: the Constitution of 193319 March 1933 · Western and Central Europethe doctrine of an indivisible, “pluricontinental” Portugal ruled out negotiations with the African independence movements

Consequences

Carnation Revolution25 April 1974 · Western and Central Europeofficers disillusioned by the war organised the coup of 25 April 1974

Independence of Angola11 November 1975 · Africaindependence crowned the armed struggle that had begun in Luanda in 1961

Related events

Indian annexation of Goa18–19 December 1961 · South Asiathe loss of Goa came in the same year as the start of the colonial war in Africa

Portuguese Colonial War

Connections

Causes and preconditions

Consequences

Related events

Meanwhile in the world

Western and Central Europe

South Asia

The same period

Sources