Roger Faulques

Faulques served in the First Indochina War as a Lieutenant with the 1^er BEP (1st Foreign Parachute Battalion) and participated in the struggles of this unit until its destruction in October 1950. On 26 February 1948, in command of a group of legionaries, Faulques was ambushed on Route Coloniale 3. Having lost half of his legionaries, Faulques led his men in hand-to-hand fighting until wounded in both feet by a machine gun bullet. His legionaries evacuated Faulques in extremis from the line of fire. Repatriated to the mainland for treatment, at the age of 23 Faulques was appointed a Chevalier of the légion d'honneur and held five citations.[1]

After recovering from his wounds, Faulques saw action in the Battle of RC 4, when he was placed in command of the training platoon of 1^er BEP, which lost nearly 80% of its force during the evacuation of Cao Bang in September and October 1950. Seriously wounded four times during this battle (right shoulder shattered by bullets, chest opened by a volley, left elbow and right femur shattered by bullets), he lay on the ground for three days, left for dead. Having survived, Faulques was captured by the Vietminh[1] who, judging him mortally wounded, released Faulques to the French authorities with other gravely injured prisoners. Mentioned in dispatches Faulques was made an Officer of the légion d'honneur[3] for exceptional services and was again repatriated to France. His injuries required him to spend several years in the Val-de-Grâce military hospital.

Ending the war in Indochina with six wounds and eight citations, Faulques then served in French Algeria as an intelligence officer of the 1^er REP during the Battle of Algiers.[2] He participated in the criminal torture practiced in Algeria and proved to be effective in the dismantling of several networks of the FLN.[1][2]

Faulques and Captain Yves de La Bourdonnaye were given leave by army minister Pierre Messmer, and left to provide support to the Belgian-backed Katangese Gendarmerie against the Republic of Congo-Leopoldville,[1] joining hundreds of other British, Rhodesian, French, and South African mercenary and voluntary irregulars in replacing the 117 Belgian officers, and other white volunteers of Belgian descent that staffed it under Tshombe's direction despite gestures made to remove these 'illegal combatants'.[4] Especially notable among the French mercenaries were professional career soldiers who had fought in the Algerian War, which of course included Faulques.[4]

Following his brutal deposition and kidnapping, Congolese-Leopoldville Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by the Katangese with the direct support of Belgium, the indirect support of the CIA, and possible involvement of British assets in 17 January 1961.[5][6][7][8] With the sentiment of mass protests that culminated into violent outrage against Belgian embassy staff around the world,[9][10][11] Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru condemned the assassination as “an international crime of the first magnitude”, and urged greater UN involvement, deploying the 4,700 strong 99th Indian Infantry Brigade as UN peacekeepers in March in order to keep foreign combatants out of the country.[12] In response to this, serious fighting soon broke out as Katanga’s President Moise Tshombe began to incite both Katangese civilians and white mercenaries to attack UN forces. On 5 April 1961, the Secretary-General criticised Belgian mercenaries for their service in Katanga and condemned Tshombe for turning the Katangese public against the United Nations.[4]

While attending the Coquilhatville Conference of Congo Leaders in June, Tshombe was arrested and forced to pledge to reunite Katanga with the rest of the nation.[13] Reneging on this pledge, by August, Tshombe had ramped up violence against the ONUC, who had by this point bloodlessly arrested and repatriated hundreds of mercenaries in operations such as Operation Rum Punch that led to the peaceful surrender of 81 foreign mercenaries, many of whom were simply allowed to return to Katanga after repatriation by their respective governments.[13]

As demands that foreign combatants be expelled, and attempts to reconcile with the Katangese fell on the deaf ears of the Belgian consul and President Tshombe, no longer able to tolerate the increasing violence in Katanga, ONUC commanders finally agreed to a new plan which would remove the Katangese government from power, violating their mandate of neutrality, launching the unsuccessful Operation Morthor on 13 September 1961.[14] The counterattack to Operation Morthor included the siege of Jadotville led by Faulques, Michel de Clary, and Henri Lasimone.

Prior to the siege, the lightly armed 155 strong Irish "A" Company had been deployed at the behest of the Belgian foreign minister in order to protect Belgian settlers. "A" company Commandant Pat Quinlan surrendered to Faulques and the 3000-5000 strong mercenary force (composed of Belgians, French and Rhodesians) four days into the siege (on 17 September) after inflicting serious casualties to the mercenary force (300 dead, 1000 wounded) and taking minimal casualties of their own (5 wounded), but being unable to stage a breakout (as their transport had been destroyed by Katangese air support) and having exhausted all of their supplies.[15]

In all, the failure of Operation Morthor was used in both arguments against the deployment of UN peacekeepers, and the strengthening of such forces.[14][16] On September 18, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld's plane crashed over Zambia en route to negotiate a ceasefire between ONUC and the Katangese, prompting much speculation over the suspicious nature of his death including theories that his plane was shot down by a Belgian mercenary fighter plane.[17][18] Hammarskjöld was succeeded by U Thant.

In December 1961, UN troops launched Operation Unokat in order to regain control of the situation, against which the defence strategy was designed by Faulques. Operation Unokat applied significant pressure on the rebel state, and eventually Tshombe relented and signed the Kitona Declaration.[1][19] When in 1962 violence began to flare up again,[20] Katangan gendarmes attacked peacekeeping forces in Katanga on 24 December in response to which, UN Secretary General Thant authorized the retaliatory offensive, Operation Grandslam.[20][21][22] Swedish air support and heavy mortar fire engaged the mercenaries, after which Swedish peacekeepers entered the Katangese capital Elizabethville, followed by the Indian brigade of General Raja, defeating the Katangese forces and securing the capital by 28 December.[21] After a year of guerrilla insurgency, Tshombe, realizing that his position was untenable, sued for peace on 15 January 1963. Two days later he signed an instrument of surrender and declared the Katangan secession to be over.[21][23]

Faulques continued his mercenary career, alongside his friend Bob Denard, first being deployed in North Yemen[24] from August 1963 to the end of 1964, in support of MI6 (British intelligence),[1] then in Biafra on behalf of the French government.[1][25] According to David Smiley in Arabian Assignment (page 156), the French and Belgian mercenaries alternated in the early 1960s between the Yemeni and Congo theatres since in the Congo they had women and alcohol at will but were rarely paid, while in Yemen they were paid but were deprived of women and alcohol.[26]

Faulques served as a model for certain characters in the novels of Jean Lartéguy, Les Centurions, Les Prétoriens (The Praetorians) and Les Chimères Noires (The Hounds of Hell) and in Declan Power's 2005 book “The Siege of Jadotville”. Faulques is portrayed by the French actor Guillaume Canet in the 2016 film The Siege of Jadotville.[27]

In 2010, Faulques was honoured at the Foreign Legion's Camerone ceremony.[1]