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French military officer and mercenary From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roger Louis Faulques (14 December 1924 – 6 November 2011)[2], also known as René Faulques, was a French military officer and mercenary. A graduate of the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, he served as a paratrooper officer in the French Foreign Legion, and later as a mercenary in conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. He fought in the Second World War, the First Indochina War, the Suez Crisis, the Algerian War, the Congo Crisis, the North Yemen Civil War and the Nigerian Civil War. He is one of France's most decorated soldiers.
Roger "René" Faulques | |
|---|---|
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| Nickname(s) | "L'homme aux milles vies" ("The Man of a Thousand Lives")[1] |
| Born | 14 December 1924 Zweibrücken, Weimar Germany |
| Died | 6 December 2011 (aged 86) Nice, France |
| Allegiance |  French Army |
| Service | Foreign Legion |
| Years of service | 1944–1964 |
| Rank | Colonel |
| Commands | Platoon ranking students (PEG) of 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion (1er BEP) |
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | Legion of Honour, Croix de Guerre |
Faulques was a maquis resistance fighter in 1944[1] and took part in the last battles of World War II in the French First Army. As a Corporal, he received the Croix de Guerre at the age of 20. Noted for his fighting spirit and sense of command, he was admitted to the Military School of Saint-Cyr, which had changed its terms of recruitment to overcome the lack of officers in the French army at the end of World War II. In 1946 he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant and was assigned, at his own request, to the Foreign Legion, within the 3rd Régiment Etranger d'Infanterie (3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment).[1]
Faulques served in the First Indochina War as a Lieutenant with the 1er 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 1er 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 1er REP during the Battle of Algiers.[2] He was accused of torture 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.[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 deposition and kidnapping, Congolese-Leopoldville Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by the Katangese with the direct support of Belgium, and the indirect support of the CIA.[5][6][7] Katangese military officer Moise Tshombe then declared himself president.
Lumumba’s death resulted in mass protests, which were not only confined to the Congo.[8][9][10] 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.[11] Nehru’s Indian forces under the command of Brigadier-General Raja attacked the Katangan capital of Elisabethville on 13 September 1961 in Operation Morthor. During this attack Indian soldiers assaulted the lightly defended post office and killed all of its Katangan occupants. According to Ian Goodhope Colvin who was an eyewitness, the attack was “needlessly brutal.”[12] In response to this, serious fighting soon broke out as Katanga’s self-declared President Moise Tshombe encouraged both Katangese civilians and foreign mercenaries to go on the offensive against UN forces. Prior to this on the 5 April 1961, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld criticised Belgian mercenaries for their service in Katanga and condemned Tshombe for turning the Katangese public against the United Nations.[4] The counterattack to Operation Morthor included the siege of Jadotville led by Faulques, Michel de Clary, and Henri Lasimone.
The siege of Jadotville lasted five days. At the end of the battle, 155 Irish soldiers under Commandant Pat Quinlan surrendered to Faulques and his 3,000–5,000 strong Katangan force on 17 September having run out of ammunition. During the action the UN forces had inflicted heavy casualties on the Katangans and their mercenary allies (300 dead, 1,000 wounded), with only minimal casualties of their own (five wounded).[13]
In all, the failure of Operation Morthor was used in arguments both against the deployment of UN peacekeepers, and for the strengthening of such forces.[14][15] 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 the possibility that his plane was shot down by a fighter plane piloted by a Belgian mercenary working for self-declared President Tshombe.[16][17] 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][18] When in 1962 violence began to flare up again,[19] Katangan gendarmes attacked peacekeeping forces in Katanga on 24 December in response to which, UN Secretary General Thant authorized the retaliatory offensive, Operation Grandslam.[19][20][21] 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.[20] 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.[20][22]
Faulques continued his mercenary career, alongside his friend Bob Denard, first being deployed in North Yemen[23] 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][24] 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.[25]
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.[26]
In 2010, Faulques was honoured at the Foreign Legion's Camerone ceremony.[1]
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