Abraham Maslow is credited with the first prominent theory which laid out a hierarchy of needs. The precise nature of the hierarchy and the needs have subsequently
been refined by modern neuroscientific and psychological research.
Since Maslow's work in the middle of the twentieth century, a
significant body of research has been undertaken to clarify what human
beings need to be happy and healthy. The UK has contributed
significantly to the international effort, through the ground breaking Whitehall Study led by Sir Michael Marmot,
which tracked the lifestyles and outcomes for large groups of British
civil servants. This identified effects on mental and physical health
from emotional needs being met—for instance, it showed that those with
less autonomy and control over their lives, or less social support, have worse health outcomes.
In the United States, the work of Martin Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania
has been influential. Seligman has summarised the research to date in
terms of what makes humans happy; again, this demonstrates themes about
universal emotional needs which must be met for people to lead
fulfilling lives.
At the University of Rochester, contemporaries of Seligman Edward Deci and Richard Ryan have conducted original research and gathered existing evidence to develop a framework of human needs which they call self-determination theory.
This states that human beings are born with innate motivations,
developed from our evolutionary past. They gather these motivational
forces into three groups—autonomy, competence and relatedness. The human
givens approach uses a framework of nine needs, which map onto these three groups.
Innate needs
The human givens model proposes that human beings come into the world with a given set of innate needs, together with innate resources
to support them to get those needs met. Physical needs for nutritious
food, clean water, air and sleep are obvious, and well understood,
because when they are not met people die. However, the emotional needs,
which the human givens approach seeks to bring to wider attention, are
less obvious, and less well understood, but just as important to human
health. Decades of social and health psychology research now support
this.
The human givens approach defines nine emotional needs:
Security: A sense of safety and security; safe territory;
an environment in which people can live without experiencing excessive
fear so that they can develop healthily.
Autonomy and control: A sense of autonomy and control over what happens around and to us.
Status: A sense of status—being accepted and valued in the various social groups we belong to.
Privacy: Time and space enough to reflect on and consolidate our experiences.
Attention: Receiving attention from others, but also giving
it; a form of essential nutrition that fuels the development of each
individual, family and culture.
Connection to the wider community: Interaction with a larger group of people and a sense of being part of the group.
Intimacy: Emotional connection to other people—friendship, love, intimacy, fun.
Competence and achievement: A sense of our own competence and achievements, that we have what it takes to meet life's demands.
Meaning and purpose: Being stretched, aiming for meaningful
goals, having a sense of a higher calling or serving others creates
meaning and purpose.
These needs map more or less well to tendencies and motivations
described by other psychological evidence, especially that compiled by
Deci and Ryan at the University of Rochester. The exact categorisation of these needs, however, is not considered
important. Needs can be interlinked and have fuzzy boundaries, as Maslow noted. What matters is a broad understanding of the scope and nature of human
emotional needs and why they are so important to our physical and mental
health. Humans are a physically vulnerable species that have enjoyed
amazing evolutionary success due in large part to their ability to form
relationships and communities. Getting the right social and emotional
input from others was, in our evolutionary past, literally a matter of
life or death. Thus, Human Givens theory states, people are genetically
programmed only to be happy and healthy when these needs are met.
There is evidence that these needs are consistent across cultures, and therefore represent innate human requirements.
Innate resources
The
Human Givens model also consists of a set of 'resources' (abilities and
capabilities) that all human beings are born with, which are used to
get the innate needs met. These constitute what is termed an 'inner
guidance system'. Learning how to use these resources well is seen as
being key to achieving, and sustaining, robust bio-psycho-social health
as individuals and as groups (families, communities, societies, cultures
etc.).
The given resources include:
Memory: The ability to develop complex long-term memory,
which enables people to add to their innate (instinctive) knowledge and
learn;
Rapport: The ability to build rapport, empathise and connect with others;
Imagination: Which enables people to focus attention away
from the emotions and problem solve more creatively and objectively (a
'reality simulator');
Instincts and emotions: A set of basic responses and 'propulsion' for behaviours;
A rational mind: A conscious, rational mind that can check out emotions, question, analyse and plan;
A metaphorical mind: The ability to 'know', to understand the world unconsciously through metaphorical pattern matching ('this thing is like that thing');
An observing self: That part of us which can step back, be
more objective and recognise itself as a unique centre of awareness
apart from intellect, emotion and conditioning;
A dreaming brain: According to the expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming,
this preserves the integrity of our genetic inheritance every night by
metaphorically defusing emotionally arousing expectations not acted out
during the previous day.
Three reasons for mental illness
A further organising idea proffered by the human givens approach is to suggest that there are
three main reasons why individuals may not be getting their needs met
and thus why they may become mentally ill:
Environment: something in our environment is interfering
with our ability to get our needs met. Our environment is 'toxic' (e.g. a
bullying boss, antisocial neighbours) or simply lacks what we need
(e.g. community);
Damage: something is wrong with our 'resources' -- our
'hardware' (brain/body) or 'software' (missing or incomplete instincts
and/or unhelpful conditioning such as posttraumatic stress disorder) is damaged;
Knowledge: we may not know what we need; or we may not have
been taught, or may have failed to learn, the coping skills necessary
for getting our needs met (for example, how to use the imagination for problem solving rather than worrying, or how to make and sustain friendships).
When dealing with mental illness or distress this framework provides a checklist that guides both diagnosis and treatment.
Within this framework Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell developed
models for several forms of mental illness based on their own research
and insights.
Depression – proposing expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming as the key to understanding the cycle of depression: how depression develops, is maintained and can be successfully treated.
Psychosis – described as waking reality processed through the REM state/dreaming brain
Human givens therapy
Psychotherapy
based on the Human Givens theory follows the APET model, following the
order in which the brain processes information and offers supportive
strategies for each phase.
Activating agent – a stimulus
Pattern match – a past event
Emotions
Thoughts
Sessions are structured by the RIGAAR model.
Rapport building
Information gathering
Goal setting (new, positive expectations related to the fulfillment of innate needs)
Accessing resources
Agreeing on strategies for change (for achieving the needs-related goals)
Rehearsing success
Human Givens therapy is a solution-focused brief therapy, an approach that is aligned with solution-focused coaching and wellness coaching, and thus the Human Givens approach is used by psychotherapists as well as life coachesand therapeutic coaches.
Efficacy and criticisms
Since
its first independent review in 2008, Human Givens Therapy has
consistently demonstrated strong outcomes in helping people overcome a
wide range of mental health difficulties. Early reviews highlighted its
innovative, needs-based approach and the effectiveness of tools such as
the rewind technique. Since then, a growing body of research—including
large-scale practice evaluations and independent studies such as the
recent King’s College London review of PTSD Resolution—has shown HG
Therapy to deliver reliable, measurable improvements that meet or exceed
standard clinical benchmarks. Today, Human Givens practitioners are
formally recognised under SCoPEd (the competence framework for
counselling and psychotherapy in the UK), placing HG Therapy alongside
other leading evidence-based approaches in the field.
In 2008, a systematic review
of the literature on the Human Givens approach concluded that the
evidence was limited and of low quality. They called for rigorously
designed studies. They did find 2 studies of higher quality evidence
supporting the rewind technique but attributed the rewind technique
rather than the Human Givens approach. The authors called on mainstream
journals to provide space for healthy debate.
In 2012 a retrospective review of 3,885 cases found Human Givens
Therapy to be clinically equivalent to a benchmark for relief from
psychological distress.
A controlled study found that treating people with mild to moderate depressed mood (measured using HADS)
with human givens therapy had quicker results than the treatment
provided to people in a control group, but suffered problems reaching an
adequately sized control group.
A five-year evaluation of the Human Givens therapy using a
practice research network found success with relieving psychological
distress.
In 2019 a retrospective study found that a Human Givens based therapy provided by PTSD Resolution for the Armed Forces Community was to be an acceptable alternative for IAPT treatment. The therapy offered by PTSD Resolution is based on the rewind technique as adopted by Human Givens.
In 2025 King’s College London confirmed the effectiveness of HG
Therapy as delivered through the charity PTSD Resolution. The findings
highlight:
82% of veterans completed their therapy, notably higher than the ~55% completion rate in NHS services.
79% of clients with anxiety and depression showed reliable improvement, outperforming the IAPT NHS average of 67–68%.
72% of probable PTSD cases experienced reliable improvement.
Treatment outcomes were comparable to standard clinical benchmarks, with improvements sustained over time.
The average course length was just ~8 sessions, with quick access—average wait was 12 days from referral.
An
interpretation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Represented as a
pyramid, with the most basic needs at the bottom, and the least basic at
the top.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a conceptualisation of the needs (or goals) that motivate human behaviour, which was proposed by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow. According to Maslow's original formulation, there are five sets of basic needs
that are related to each other in a hierarchy of prepotency (or
strength). Typically, the hierarchy is depicted in the form of a pyramid
although Maslow himself was not responsible for the iconic diagram. The pyramid begins at the bottom with physiological needs (the most
prepotent of all) and culminates at the top with self-actualization
needs. In his later writings, Maslow added a sixth level of "meta-needs"
and metamotivation.
The hierarchy of needs developed by Maslow is one of his most enduring contributions to psychology. The hierarchy of needs remains a popular framework and tool in higher education, business and management training, sociology research, healthcare,counselling and social work. Although widely used and researched, the hierarchy of needs has been
criticized for its lack of conclusive supporting evidence and its
validity remains contested.
Historical development
Maslow proposed his hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in the journal Psychological Review. The theory is a classification system intended to reflect the universal
needs of society as its base, then proceeding to more acquired
emotions. The hierarchy is split between deficiency needs and growth needs, with two key themes involved within the theory being individualism and the prioritization of needs.
According to Maslow's original formulation, there are five sets
of basic needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem and
self-actualization. These needs are related to each other in a hierarchy
of prepotency (or strength) beginning with the physiological needs that
are the most prepotent of all. If the physiological needs are
fulfilled, a new set of safety needs emerges. If both the physiological
and safety needs are fairly well gratified, the prepotent (‘higher’)
need of love (both its giving and receiving) then emerges. The next need
is esteem, and finally self-actualization. Maslow also coined the term "metamotivation" to describe the motivation of people who go beyond the scope of basic needs and strive for constant betterment.
The hierarchy suggests a rigid separation of needs, but Maslow
stressed that a need does not require being satisfied 100% before the
next need emerges. Instead, “a more realistic description of the
hierarchy would be in terms of decreasing percentages of satisfaction as
we go up the hierarchy of prepotency”.[19]
Pyramid
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid, with the largest, most fundamental needs at the bottom, and the need for self-actualization and transcendence at the top. However, Maslow himself never created a pyramid to represent the hierarchy of needs. The first depiction of the iconic pyramid was due to Charles McDermid,
an American consulting psychologist. In an article in the journal
Business Horizons, McDermid asserts that Maslow’s theory of motivation
provides better insight (than classic economic theory) into the dynamics
underlying human behaviour. More specifically, he states, "the
hierarchy of needs is arranged in a pyramid of five levels, from basic
physiological drives at the bottom to the desire for self-realisation,
the highest expression of the human spirit, at the apex”.
The most fundamental four layers of the pyramid contain what
Maslow called "deficiency needs" or "d-needs": esteem, friendship and
love, security, and physical needs. If these "deficiency needs" are not
met – except for the most fundamental (physiological) need – there may
not be a physical indication, but the individual will feel anxious and
tense. Deprivation is what causes deficiency, so when one has unmet
needs, this motivates them to fulfill what they are being denied.
The human brain is a complex system and has parallel processes
running at the same time, thus many different motivations from various
levels of Maslow's hierarchy can occur at the same time. Maslow spoke
clearly about these levels and their satisfaction in terms such as
"relative", "general", and "primarily". Instead of stating that the
individual focuses on a certain need at any given time, Maslow stated
that a certain need "dominates" the human organism. Thus Maslow acknowledged the likelihood that the different levels of
motivation could occur at any time in the human mind, but he focused on
identifying the basic types of motivation and the order in which they
would tend to be met. In addition to his anthropological studies, Maslow drew on animal data
that "studied and observed monkeys [...] noticing their unusual pattern
of behavior that addressed priorities based on individual needs".
Alternative illustrations of hierarchy
Alternative illustration of hierarchy of needs with overlapping needs
In contrast to the well-known pyramid, a number of alternative
schematic illustrations of the hierarchy of needs have been developed.
One of the earliest, in 1962, shows a more dynamic hierarchy in terms of
'waves' of different needs overlapping at the same time. As illustrated, the peak of an earlier main set of needs must be passed
before the next 'higher' need can begin to assume a dominant role.
Other schematic illustrations of the hierarchy use overlapping
triangles to depict the interaction of the different needs. One such
updated hierarchy proposes that self-actualization is removed from its
privileged place atop the pyramid because it is largely subsumed within
status (esteem) and mating-related motives in the new framework.
Needs
Physiological needs
Physiological
needs are the base of the hierarchy. These needs are the biological
component for human survival. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
physiological needs are factored into internal motivation. According to
Maslow's theory, humans are compelled to satisfy physiological needs
first to pursue higher levels of intrinsic satisfaction. To advance to higher-level needs in Maslow's hierarchy, physiological
needs must be met first. This means that if a person is struggling to
meet their physiological needs, they are unwilling to seek safety,
belonging, esteem, and self-actualization on their own.
Physiological needs include: air, water, food, heat, clothes, reproduction, shelter and sleep. Many of these physiological needs must be met for the human body to remain in homeostasis.
Air, for example, is a physiological need; a human being requires air
more urgently than higher-level needs, such as a sense of social
belonging. Physiological needs are critical to "meet the very basic
essentials of life". This allows for cravings such as hunger and thirst to be satisfied and not disrupt the regulation of the body.
Safety needs
Once
a person's physiological needs are satisfied, their safety needs take
precedence and dominate behavior. In the absence of physical safety –
due to war, natural disaster, family violence, childhood abuse,
etc. and/or in the absence of economic safety – (due to an economic
crisis and lack of work opportunities) these safety needs manifest
themselves in ways such as a preference for job security,
grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral
authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, disability
accommodations, etc. This level is more likely to predominate in
children as they generally have a greater need to feel safe –
especially children who have disabilities. Adults are also impacted by this, typically in economic matters; "adults are not immune to the need of safety". It includes shelter, job security, health, and safe environments. If a
person does not feel safe in an environment, they will seek safety
before attempting to meet any higher level of survival. This is why the
"goal of consistently meeting the need for safety is to have stability
in one's life", stability brings back the concept of homeostasis for humans which our bodies need.
Safety needs include:
Love and social needs
After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third level of human needs is interpersonal and involves feelings of belongingness.
According to Maslow, humans possess an effective need for a sense of
belonging and acceptance among social groups, regardless of whether these groups are large or small; being a part of a group is crucial, regardless if it is work, sports, friends or family. The sense of belongingness is "being comfortable with and connection to
others that results from receiving acceptance, respect, and love." For example, some large social groups may include clubs, co-workers,
religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs or
online communities. Some examples of small social connections include
family members, intimate partners, mentors, colleagues, and confidants.
Humans need to love and be loved – both sexually and non-sexually – by
others according to Maslow. Many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression in the absence of this love or belonging element. This need is especially strong in childhood and it can override the need for safety as witnessed in children who cling to abusive parents. Deficiencies due to hospitalism, neglect, shunning, ostracism, etc. can adversely affect the individual's ability to form and maintain emotionally significant relationships
in general.
Mental health can be a huge factor when it comes to an individual's
needs and development. When an individual's needs are not met, it can
cause depression during adolescence. When an individual grows up in a
higher-income family, it is much more likely that they will have a lower
rate of depression. This is because all of their basic needs are met.
Studies have shown that when a family goes through financial stress for a
prolonged time, depression rates are higher, not only because their
basic needs are not being met, but because this stress strains the
parent-child relationship. The parent(s) is stressed about providing for
their children, and they are also likely to spend less time at home
because they are working more to make more money and provide for their
family.
In certain situations, the need for belonging may overcome the
physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer
pressure. In contrast, for some individuals, the need for self-esteem is
more important than the need for belonging, and for others, the need
for creative fulfillment may supersede even the most basic needs.
Esteem needs
Esteem is the respect, and admiration of a person, but also "self-respect and respect from others". Most people need stable esteem, meaning that which is soundly based on
real capacity or achievement. Maslow noted two versions of esteem needs.
The "lower" version of esteem is the need for respect from others and
may include a need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and
attention. The "higher" version of esteem is the need for self-respect,
and can include a need for strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence,
independence, and freedom. This "higher" version takes guidelines, the
"hierarchies are interrelated rather than sharply separated". This means that esteem and the subsequent levels are not strictly separated; instead, the levels are closely related.
Esteem comes from day-to-day experiences which provide a learning
opportunity that allows us to discover ourselves. This is incredibly
important for children, which is why giving them "the opportunity to
discover they are competent and capable learners" is crucial. To boost this, adults must provide opportunities for
children to have successful and positive experiences to give children a
greater "sense of self". Adults, especially parents and educators must create and ensure an
environment for children that is supportive and provides them with
opportunities that "helps children see themselves as respectable,
capable individuals". It can also be found that "Maslow indicated that
the need for respect or reputation is most important for children ...
and precedes real self-esteem or dignity", which reflects the two aspects of esteem: for oneself and others.
It has been suggested that Maslow's hierarchy of needs can be
extended after esteem needs into two more categories: cognitive needs
and aesthetic needs. Cognitive needs crave meaning, information, comprehension and curiosity – this creates a will to learn and attain knowledge. From an educational viewpoint, Maslow wanted humans to have intrinsic
motivation to become educated people. People have cognitive needs such
as creativity, foresight, curiosity, and meaning. Individuals who enjoy
activities that require deliberation and brainstorming have a greater
need for cognition. Individuals who are unmotivated to participate in
the activity, on the other hand, have a low demand for cognitive
abilities.
Aesthetic needs
After
reaching one's cognitive needs, it would progress to aesthetic needs to
beautify one's life. This would consist of having the ability to
appreciate the beauty within the world around one's self, on a
day-to-day basis. According to Maslow's theories, to progress toward Self-Actualization,
humans require beautiful imagery or novel and aesthetically pleasing
experiences. Humans must immerse themselves in nature's splendor while
paying close attention to their surroundings and observing them in order
to extract the world's beauty. One would accomplish this by making
their environment pleasant to look at or be around. They might discover
personal style choices that they feel represent them and make their
environment a place that they fit well into. This higher level of need
to connect with nature results in a sense of intimacy with nature and
all that is endearing. Aesthetic needs also relate to beautifying oneself. This would consist
of improving one's physical appearance to ensure its beauty to balance
the rest of the body. This is done by making and finding ways one wants to dress and express
oneself through personal beauty and grooming standards and ideas.
"What a man can be, he must be.” This quotation forms the basis of the perceived need for
self-actualization. This level of need refers to the realization of
one's full potential. Maslow describes this as the desire to accomplish
everything that one can, to become the most that one can be. People may have a strong, particular desire to become an ideal parent,
succeed athletically, or create paintings, pictures, or inventions. To understand this level of need, a person must not only succeed in the
previous needs but master them. Self-actualization can be described as a
value-based system when discussing its role in motivation.
Self-actualization is understood as the goal or explicit motive, and the
previous stages in Maslow's hierarchy fall in line to become the
step-by-step process by which self-actualization is achievable; an
explicit motive is the objective of a reward-based system that is used
to intrinsically drive the completion of certain values or goals. Individuals who are motivated to pursue this goal seek and understand
how their needs, relationships, and sense of self are expressed through
their behavior.
Maslow later subdivided the triangle's top to include
self-transcendence, also known as spiritual needs. Spiritual needs
differ from other types of needs in that they can be met on multiple
levels. When this need is met, it produces feelings of integrity and
raises things to a higher plane of existence. In his later years, Maslow explored a further dimension of motivation,
while criticizing his original vision of self-actualization. Maslow tells us that by transcending you have a set of roots in your
current culture but you are able to look over it as well and see other
viewpoints and ideas. By these later ideas, one finds the fullest realization in giving
oneself to something beyond oneself—for example, in altruism or
spirituality. He equated this with the desire to reach the infinite. "Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or
holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends
rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in
general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos."
Ultimately, through the Hierarchy of Needs Maslow is
demonstrating that spiritual values have naturalistic meaning, that they
are not the exclusive possession of organized churches. Rather, that
they are well within the jurisdiction of a suitably enlarged science.
Criticism
Blackfoot influence
Maslow's early (1938) anthropological research included a field trip to the Blackfoot people (Siksika Nation)
in southern Alberta, Canada. Based on his observations of their
peaceful and cooperative way of life (in contrast to American society),
Maslow concluded that human destructiveness and aggression is largely
culturally determined and “most probably a secondary, reactive
consequence of thwarting of or threat to the basic human needs”. However, claims have been made that Maslow had failed to acknowledge
the influence of the Blackfoot philosophy in developing the hierarchy of
needs.
According to Kaufman,
while acknowledging that Maslow learned much from the Blackfoot people,
“there is nothing in these writings to suggest he borrowed or stole
ideas for his hierarchy of needs”. Without wishing to discredit Maslow, Blackfoot elders and scholars have
argued that Maslow did not really understand the Blackfoot philosophy.
"It is not that Maslow got the hierarchy wrong or upside down, it is
rather that he did not understand the circular nature in which all
beings in Siksika society are interconnected and integrated. They
surround each other and needs are met through these connections".
In
a 1976 review of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, little evidence was found
for the specific ranking of needs that Maslow described or for the
existence of a definite hierarchy at all. This refutation was claimed to be supported by the majority of
longitudinal data and cross-sectional studies at the time, with the
limited support for Maslow's hierarchy criticized due to poor
measurement criteria and selection of control groups.
In 1984, the order in which the hierarchy is arranged was criticized as being ethnocentric by Geert Hofstede. In turn, Hofstede's work was criticized by others. Maslow's hierarchy of needs was argued as failing to illustrate and
expand upon the difference between the social and intellectual needs of
those raised in individualistic societies and those raised in collectivist
societies. The needs and drives of those in individualistic societies
tend to be more self-centered than those in collectivist societies,
focusing on the improvement of the self, with self-actualization being
the apex of self-improvement. In collectivist societies, the needs of
acceptance and community will outweigh the needs for freedom and
individuality.
Criticisms towards the theory have also been expressed on the
lack of consideration towards individualism and collectivism in the
context of spirituality.
Sex ranking
The
position and value of sex within Maslow's hierarchy have been a source
of criticism. Maslow's hierarchy places sex in the physiological needs
category, alongside food and breathing. Some critics argue that this
placement of sex neglects the emotional, familial, and evolutionary
implications of sex within the community, although others point out that
this critique could apply to all of the basic needs. However, Maslow
himself acknowledged that the satisfaction of sexual desire was likely
linked to other social motives as well. Furthermore, it is recognized
that physiological needs such as sex and hunger can be related to
higher-order motivations.
Cultural and individual variations
Although
recent research appears to validate the existence of universal human
needs, as well as shared ordering of the way in which people seek and
satisfy needs, the exact hierarchy proposed by Maslow is called into
question. The most common criticism is the expectation that different
individuals, with similar backgrounds and at similar junctures in their
respective lives, when faced with the same situation, would end up
taking the same decision. Instead of that, a common observation is that
humans are driven by a unique set of motivations, and their behavior
cannot be reliably predicted based on the Maslowian principles.
The classification of the higher-order (self-esteem and
self-actualization) and lower-order (physiological, safety, and love)
needs is not universal and may vary across cultures due to individual
differences and availability of resources in the region or geopolitical
entity/country.
In a 1997 study, exploratory factor analysis
(EFA) of a thirteen-item scale showed there were two particularly
important levels of needs in the US during the peacetime of 1993 to
1994: survival (physiological and safety) and psychological (love,
self-esteem, and self-actualization). In 1991, a retrospective peacetime
measure was established and collected during the Persian Gulf War,
and US citizens were asked to recall the importance of needs from the
previous year. Once again, only two levels of needs were identified;
therefore, people have the ability and competence to recall and estimate
the importance of needs. For citizens in the Middle East (Egypt and
Saudi Arabia), three levels of needs regarding importance and
satisfaction surfaced during the 1990 retrospective peacetime. These
three levels were completely different from those of US citizens.
Changes regarding the importance and satisfaction of needs from
the retrospective peacetime to wartime due to stress varied
significantly across cultures (the US vs. the Middle East). For the US
citizens, there was only one level of needs, since all needs were
considered equally important. With regards to satisfaction of needs
during the war, in the US there were three levels: physiological needs,
safety needs, and psychological needs (social, self-esteem, and
self-actualization). During the war, the satisfaction of physiological
needs and safety needs were separated into two independent needs, while
during peacetime, they were combined as one. For the people of the
Middle East, the satisfaction of needs changed from three levels to two
during wartime.
A study of the ordering of needs in Asia found differences
between the ordering of lower and higher order needs. For instance,
community (related to belongingness and considered a lower order need in
Maslow's hierarchy) was found to be the highest order need across Asia,
followed closely by self-acceptance and growth.
A 1981 study looked at how Maslow's hierarchy might vary across age groups. A survey asked participants of varying ages to rate a set number of
statements from most important to least important. The researchers found
that children had higher physical need scores than the other groups,
the love need emerged from childhood to young adulthood, the esteem need
was highest among the adolescent group, young adults had the highest
self-actualization level, and old age had the highest level of security,
it was needed across all levels comparably. The authors argued that
this suggested Maslow's hierarchy may be limited as a theory for
developmental sequence since the sequence of the love need and the
self-esteem need should be reversed according to age.
The hierarchy of needs has been criticized from an Islamic point
of view. The authors conclude that integrating the model into Islamic
contexts requires a more nuanced approach that acknowledges the
centrality of spirituality in human needs. They also say that the
Islamic approach emphasizes balancing material and spiritual needs in
all life situations, challenging Maslow's hierarchy for oversimplifying
their interaction.
A mercenary is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather than for political interests.
Beginning in the 20th century, mercenaries have increasingly come
to be seen as less entitled to protection by rules of war than
non-mercenaries. The Geneva Conventions declare that mercenaries are not recognized as legitimate combatants and do not have to be granted the same legal protections as captured service personnel of the armed forces. In practice, whether or not a person is a mercenary may be a matter of
degree, as financial and political interests may overlap.
Protocol Additional GC 1977 (APGC77) is a 1977 amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions.
Article 47 of the protocol provides the most widely accepted
international definition of a mercenary, though it is not endorsed by
some countries, including the United States. The Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977 states:
Art 47. Mercenaries
A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.
A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is especially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is
motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for
private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to
the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that
promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the
armed forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.
All the criteria, as listed in 2(a) through 2(f), must be met,
according to the Geneva Convention, for a combatant to be considered a
mercenary. While mercenaries do not enjoy the same protection as prisoners of war
do, they must still be treated humanely according to the rules of the
Protocol and they may not be punished without a trial.
On 4 December 1989, the United Nations passed resolution 44/34,
the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and
Training of Mercenaries. It entered into force on 20 October 2001 and
is usually known as the UN Mercenary Convention. Article 1 of the UN Mercenary Convention contains the definition of a
mercenary. Article 1.1 is similar to Article 47 of Protocol I. Article
1.2 broadens the definition to include a non-national recruited to
overthrow a "Government or otherwise undermin[e] the constitutional
order of a State; or Undermin[e] the territorial integrity of a State";
and "Is motivated to take part therein essentially by the desire for
significant private gain and is prompted by the promise or payment of
material compensation". Under Article 1.2, a person does not have to
take a direct part in the hostilities in a planned coup d'état to be a mercenary.
Austria
If
a person is proven to have worked as a mercenary for any other country
while retaining Austrian citizenship, their Austrian citizenship will be
revoked.
France
In
2003, France criminalized mercenary activities, as defined by the
protocol to the Geneva convention for French citizens, permanent
residents, and legal entities (Penal Code, L436-1, L436-2, L436-3, L436-4, L436-5).
This law does not prevent French citizens from serving as volunteers in
foreign forces. The law applies to military activities with a
specifically mercenary motive or with a mercenary level of remuneration.
However, due to jurisdictional loopholes several French companies
provide mercenary services.
The French state owns 50% of Défense conseil international, which it founded, a private military company
(PMC) which does not supply any fighters but is used to export military
training services. It realised a profit of €222 million in 2019.
Germany
It
is an offence "to recruit" German citizens "for military duty in a
military or military-like facility in support of a foreign power" (§109hStGB).
Furthermore, a German citizen who enlists in the armed forces of a state
they are also a citizen of risks the loss of their citizenship
(§28StAG).
South Africa
In
1998, South Africa passed the Foreign Military Assistance Act that
banned citizens and residents from any involvement in foreign wars,
except for humanitarian operations, unless a government committee
approved deployment. In 2005, the legislation was reviewed by the
government because:
consequences of the mercenary soldier sponsorship case against Mark Thatcher for the "possible funding and logistical assistance in relation to an alleged attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea" organized by Simon Mann.
As of 2010, South Africa forbids citizens from fighting in foreign
wars unless they are under the direct control of their own national
armed forces.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the Foreign Enlistment Act 1819 and the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870
make it unlawful for British subjects to join the armed forces of any
state warring with another state at peace with Britain. During the Greek War of Independence,
British volunteers fought with the Greek rebels, which could have been
unlawful per the Foreign Enlistment Act. It was unclear whether or not
the Greek rebels constituted a 'state', but the law was later clarified
to indicate that they were.
Civilians with the US Armed Forces lose their law of war protection from direct attack if, and for such time as, they directly participate in hostilities.
In 1977, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
interpreted the Anti-Pinkerton Act as forbidding the US government from
employing companies offering "mercenary, quasi-military forces" for
hire (United States ex rel. Weinberger v. Equifax, 557 F.2d 456,
462 (5th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1035 (1978)). There is
disagreement over whether this proscription is limited to strikebreakers
only, because Weinberger v. Equifax states the following:
The purpose of the Act and the
legislative history reveal that an organization was "similar" to the
Pinkerton Detective Agency only if it offered for hire mercenary,
quasi-military forces as strikebreakers and armed guards. It had the
secondary effect of deterring any other organization from providing such
services lest it be branded a "similar organization." The legislative
history supports this view and no other.
— United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Weinberger v. Equifax, 1977
In the 7 June 1978 letter to the heads of Federal Departments and
Agencies, the Comptroller General interpreted this decision in a way
that carved out an exemption for "Guard and Protective Services".
A United States Department of Defense
(DoD) interim rule revised DoD Instruction 3020.41 to authorize
contractors, other than private security contractors, to use deadly
force against enemy armed forces only in self-defense (71 Fed. Reg.
34826), effective 16 June 2006. Per that interim rule, private security
contractors were authorized to use deadly force when protecting their
client's assets and persons, consistent with their contract's mission statement.
One interpretation is that this authorized contractors to engage in
combat on behalf of the US government. It is the combatant commander's
responsibility to ensure that private security contract mission
statements do not authorize performance of inherently governmental
military functions, i.e. preemptive attacks, assaults, or raids, etc.
On 18 August 2006, the US Comptroller General rejected bid protest arguments that the United States Army contracts violated the Anti-Pinkerton Act by requiring that contractors provide armed convoy escort vehicles and labor, weapons, and equipment for internal security operations at Victory Base Complex
in Iraq. The Comptroller General reasoned the act was unviolated
because the contracts did not require contractors to provide
quasi-military forces as strikebreakers.
In 2007, the US Army was temporarily barred from awarding a $475
million security contract in Iraq, the largest one at that time, because
of a lawsuit filed by a US citizen alleging violation of the
Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893. Three of the candidates under final
consideration for the contract (to include intelligence services and
security for reconstruction work by the United States Army Corps of Engineers) included British firms Aegis Defence Services and Erinys Iraq, as well as Blackwater of North Carolina. The case was later dismissed.
Recruits from countries of the Commonwealth of Nations
in the British Army swear allegiance to the British monarch and are
liable to operate in any unit. Gurkhas, however, operate in dedicated
Gurkha units of the British Army (specifically units that are
administered by the Brigade of Gurkhas)
and the Indian Army. Although they are nationals of Nepal, a country
that is not part of the Commonwealth, they still swear allegiance
(either to the Crown or the Constitution of India) and abide by the rules and regulations under which all British or Indian soldiers serve. French Foreign Legionnaires serve in the French Foreign Legion, which deploys and fights as an organized unit of the French Army.
This means that as members of the armed forces of Britain, India, and
France these soldiers are not classed as mercenary soldiers per APGC77 Art 47.e and 47.f.
Volunteers for the Ukraine Foreign legion have three-year contracts,
and are eligible for Ukrainian citizenship (the probation period being
the duration of the war).
The private military company
(PMC) is a private company providing armed combat or security services
for financial gain. PMCs refer to their personnel as security
contractors or private military contractors. PMC contractors are
civilians (in governmental, international, and civil organizations)
authorized to accompany an army to the field; thus, the term civilian contractor.
PMCs may use armed force, defined as: "legally established enterprises
that make a profit, by either providing services involving the potential
exercise of [armed] force in a systematic way and by military means,
and/or by the transfer of that potential to clients through training and
other practices, such as logistics support, equipment procurement, and
intelligence gathering".
Private paramilitary forces are functionally mercenary armies,
though they may serve as security guards or military advisors; however,
national governments reserve the right to control the number, nature,
and armaments of such private armies, arguing that, provided they are not pro-actively employed in front-line combat, they are not mercenaries. In February 2002, a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO) report about PMCs noted that the demands of the military service
from the UN and international civil organizations might mean that it is
cheaper to pay PMCs than use soldiers. PMC "civilian contractors" tend to have poor reputations among professional government soldiers and officers—the U.S. Military Command has questioned their war zone behavior.
In September 2005, Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander
of the Third Infantry Division charged with Baghdad security after the
2003 invasion of Iraq, said of DynCorp and other PMCs:
These guys run loose in this
country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you
can't come down on them hard when they escalate force... They shoot
people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all
over the place.
In 2004, the US and Coalition governments hired PMCs for security in
Iraq. In March 2004, four Blackwater employees escorting food supplies
and other equipment were attacked and killed in Fallujah in a videotaped attack; the killings and subsequent dismemberments were a cause for the First Battle of Fallujah.
Afghan war operations also boosted the business. The United States has made extensive use of PMCs in Afghanistan since 2001, mostly in a defensive role. PMC teams have been used to guard bases and to protect VIPs from Taliban assassins, but almost never in offensive operations. One mercenary stated about his work in Afghanistan: "We are there
purely to protect the principals and get them out, we're not there to
get into huge firefights with the bad guys". One team from DynCorp
provided bodyguards for President Hamid Karzai.
Colombia
In
2006, a US congressional report listed a number of PMCs and other
enterprises that have signed contracts to carry out anti-narcotics
operations and related activities as part of Plan Colombia. Referring to the use of American PMCs in Colombia, the former US Ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette
has said: "Congress and the American people don't want any servicemen
killed overseas. So it makes sense that if contractors want to risk
their lives, they get the job".
Not only have foreign PMCs worked in Colombia, but a
disproportionate number of the mercenaries with PMCs are Colombian, as
Colombia's long history of civil war has led to a surplus of experienced
soldiers. Also, Colombian soldiers are much cheaper than soldiers from developed countries. PMCs from several Middle Eastern countries have signed contracts with
the Colombian Defense Ministry to carry out security or military
activities.
UN concerns over legality of PMCs
The
United Nations questions whether PMC soldiers are sufficiently
accountable for their war zone actions. A common argument for using PMCs
(used by the PMCs themselves), is that PMCs may be able to help combat genocide and civilian slaughter where the UN or other countries are unwilling or unable to intervene. Yet, after considering using PMCs to support UN operations, Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, decided against it.
In October 2007, the United Nations released a two-year study
that stated, that although hired as "security guards", private
contractors were performing military duties. The report found that the
use of contractors such as Blackwater was a "new form of mercenary
activity" and illegal under international law.
Most countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, are not signatories to the 1989 United Nations Mercenary Convention
banning the use of mercenaries. A spokesman for the U.S. Mission to
U.N. denied that Blackwater security guards were mercenaries, saying
"Accusations that U.S. government-contracted security guards, of
whatever nationality, are mercenaries is inaccurate and demeaning to men
and women who put their lives on the line to protect people and
facilities every day."
History
Alabaster-bas relief, non-Assyrian mercenaries in the Assyrian army. From the South-West Palace, Nineveh. 7th century BC
Xerxes I, King of Persia, employed Arcadian mercenaries during his invasion of Greece.
In Anabasis, Xenophon recounts how Cyrus the Younger hired a large army of Greek mercenaries (the "Ten Thousand") in 401 BC to seize the throne of Persia from his brother, Artaxerxes II. Though Cyrus' army was victorious at the Battle of Cunaxa, Cyrus himself was killed in battle and the expedition rendered moot. Stranded deep in enemy territory, the Spartan general Clearchus
and most of the other Greek generals were subsequently killed by
treachery. Xenophon played an instrumental role in encouraging "The Ten
Thousand" Greek army to march north to the Black Sea in an epic fighting retreat.
In 378 BC the Persian Empire hired the Athenian general Iphicrates with his mercenaries in the Egyptian campaign.
The Mania, who was a sub-satrap, used Greek mercenaries in order to capture other cities in the region.
Memnon of Rhodes (380–333 BC) was the commander of the Greek mercenaries working for the Persian King Darius III when Alexander the Great of Macedonia invaded Persia in 334 BC and won the Battle of the Granicus River. Alexander also employed Greek mercenaries during his campaigns. These
were men who fought for him directly and not those who fought in
city-state units attached to his army.
Greek mercenaries in ancient India
Greek mercenaries were a significant part of the military forces in ancient India, particularly under the Indo-Greek Kingdoms and the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. These Hellenistic states, founded by Greek rulers after the conquests of Alexander the Great,
frequently employed mercenaries from the wider Greek world to maintain
control over their territories and to engage in warfare with both Indian
and Central Asian adversaries.
The presence of Greek mercenaries in India is documented in ancient Tamil literature, such as the Purananuru, which describes Greek soldiers, referred to as "Yavanas,"
(transliteration of "Ionians") as formidable warriors serving Indian
rulers. These texts depict them as "valiant-eyed Yavanas, whose bodies
were strong and of terrible aspect."
Greek mercenaries were particularly prominent in the armies of the Indo-Greek and Greco-Bactrian kings. Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher suggested that some of the warrior figures depicted in Gandhara art may represent Greek mercenaries, further supporting their role in military campaigns.
Stephanus of Byzantium recorded the existence of an ancient city called Daedala or Daidala (Ancient Greek: Δαίδαλα) in India, which he described as Indo-Cretan, likely due to the presence of Cretan
mercenaries. This suggests that Greek soldiers not only fought in
Indian campaigns but also settled in military colonies, forming part of
the Hellenistic governance in the region.
Carthage
Carthage contracted Balearic Islands shepherds as slingers during the Punic Wars against Rome. The vast majority of the Carthaginian military – except the highest officers, the navy, and the home guard – were mercenaries.
Greek mercenaries were hired by Carthage to fight against the Dionysius I of Syracuse.
Dionysius made Carthage pay a very high ransom for the Carthaginian
prisoners, but he left the Greek mercenaries prisoners free without any
ransom. This made the Carthaginians suspicious of their Greek
mercenaries and discharged them all from their service. With this trick
Dionysius did not have to fight again against the Greek mercenaries of
Carthage who were very dangerous enemies.
Byzantine Empire
In the late Roman Empire,
it became increasingly difficult for Emperors and generals to raise
military units from the citizenry for various reasons: lack of manpower,
lack of time available for training, lack of materials, and,
inevitably, political considerations. Therefore, beginning in the late
4th century, the empire often contracted whole bands of barbarians either within the legions or as autonomous foederati. The barbarians were Romanized and surviving veterans were established in areas requiring population. The Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Empire is the best known formation made up of barbarian mercenaries (see next section).
Other
Members of independent Thracian tribes such as the Bessi and Dii often joined the ranks of large organized armies as mercenaries.
Byzantine emperors followed the Roman practice and contracted foreigners especially for their personal corps guard called the Varangian Guard. They were chosen among war-prone peoples, of whom the Varangians
(Norsemen) were preferred. Their mission was to protect the Emperor and
Empire and since they did not have links to the Greeks, they were
expected to be ready to suppress rebellions. One of the most famous
guards was the future king Harald III of Norway,
also known as Harald Hardrada ("Hard-counsel"), who arrived in
Constantinople in 1035 and was employed as a Varangian Guard. He
participated in eighteen battles and was promoted to akolythos, the commander of the Guard, before returning home in 1043. He was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 when his army was defeated by an English army commanded by King Harold Godwinson. The point at which the Varangians ceased to be in the service of the Roman Empire remains unclear.
In England at the time of the Norman Conquest, Flemings (natives of Flanders) formed a substantial mercenary element in the forces of William the Conqueror with many remaining in England as settlers under the Normans.
Contingents of mercenary Flemish soldiers were to form significant
forces in England throughout the time of the Norman and early Plantagenet
dynasties (11th and 12th centuries). A prominent example of these were
the Flemings who fought during the English civil wars, known as the Anarchy or the Nineteen-Year Winter (AD 1135 to 1154), under the command of William of Ypres, who was King Stephen's chief lieutenant from 1139 to 1154 and who was made Earl of Kent by Stephen.
In Italy, the condottiero was a military chief offering his troops, the condottieri, to Italian city-states. The condottieri were extensively used by the Italian city-states in their wars against one another. At times, the condottieri seized control of the state, as one condottiero, Francesco Sforza, made himself the Duke of Milan in 1450. During the ages of the Taifa kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula, Christian knights like El Cid could fight for a Muslim ruler against his Christian or Muslim enemies. The Almogavars originally fought for the counts of Barcelona and kings of Aragon, but as the Catalan Company, they followed Roger de Flor in the service of the Byzantine Empire. In 1311, the Catalan Great Company defeated at the Battle of Halmyros their former employer, Walter V, Count of Brienne, after he refused to pay them, and took over the Duchy of Athens. The Great Company ruled much of central and southern Greece until 1388–1390 when a rival mercenary company, the Navarrese Company were hired to oust them. Catalan and German mercenaries also had prominent role in the Serbian victory over Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbuzd in 1330.
During the later Middle Ages, Free Companies (or Free Lances)
were formed, consisting of companies of mercenary troops. Nation-states
lacked the funds needed to maintain standing forces, so they tended to
hire free companies to serve in their armies during wartime. Such companies typically formed at the ends of periods of conflict,
when men-at-arms were no longer needed by their respective governments. The veteran soldiers thus looked for other forms of employment, often becoming mercenaries. Free Companies would often specialize in forms of combat that required
longer periods of training that was not available in the form of a
mobilized militia.
The Routiers
formed a distinctive subculture in medieval France who alternated
between serving as mercenaries in wartime and bandits in peacetime. The routiers were very destructive and became a significant social problem. After the Treaty of Brétigny ended the war between England and France in 1360, the French countryside was overrun by Free Companies of routiers while the French Crown lacked the necessary military and economic strength to put an end to their activities. To rid France of the rampaging mercenaries and to overthrow the pro-English King Pedro the Cruel of Castile, Marshal Bertrand du Guesclin was directed by King Charles V of France to take the Free Companies into Castile with the orders to put the pro-French Enrique de Trastámara on the Castilian throne. Guesclin's mercenaries were organized into the Big Companies and French
Companies and played a decisive role in putting Enrique on the
Castilian throne in 1369, who styled himself King Enrique II, the first
Castilian monarch of the House of Trastámara.
The White Company commanded by Sir John Hawkwood is the best known English Free Company of the 14th century. Between the 13th and 17th centuries the Gallowglass fought within the Islands of Britain and also mainland Europe. A Welshman Owain Lawgoch (Owain of the Red Hand) formed a free company and fought for the French against the English during the Hundred Years' War,
before being assassinated by a Scot named Jon Lamb, under the orders of
the English Crown, during the siege of Mortagne in 1378.
15th and 16th centuries
The battlefield of Marignano, drawing by Urs Graf, himself a Swiss mercenary who may have fought thereLandsknechte, etching by Daniel Hopfer, c. 1530
Swiss mercenaries
were sought during the late 15th and early 16th centuries as being an
effective fighting force, until their somewhat rigid battle formations
became vulnerable to arquebuses and artillery being developed at the same time. The Swiss Guard in particular were employed by the Papal States from 1506 (continuing to serve today as the military of Vatican City).
It was then that the German landsknechts,
colorful mercenaries with a redoubtable reputation, took over the Swiss
forces' legacy and became the most formidable force of the late 15th
century and throughout the 16th century, being hired by all the powers
in Europe and often fighting at opposite sides. Sir Thomas More in his Utopia
advocated the use of mercenaries in preference to citizens. The
barbarian mercenaries employed by the Utopians are thought to be
inspired by the Swiss mercenaries.
At approximately the same period, Niccolò Machiavelli argued against the use of mercenary armies in his book of political advice The Prince.
His rationale was that since the sole motivation of mercenaries is
their pay, they will not be inclined to take the kind of risks that can
turn the tide of a battle, but may cost them their lives. He also noted
that a mercenary who failed was obviously no good, but one who succeeded
may be even more dangerous. He astutely pointed out that a successful
mercenary army no longer needs its employer if it is more militarily
powerful than its supposed superior. This explained the frequent,
violent betrayals that characterized mercenary/client relations in
Italy, because neither side trusted the other. He believed that citizens
with a real attachment to their home country will be more motivated to
defend it and thus make much better soldiers.
The Stratioti
or Stradioti (Italian: Stradioti or Stradiotti; Greek: Στρατιώτες,
Stratiotes) were mercenary units from the Balkans recruited mainly by
states of Central and Southern Europe from the 15th century until the
middle of the 18th century. The Stratioti were recruited in Albania, Greece, Dalmatia, Serbia, and later Cyprus.
Most modern historians have indicated that the Stratioti were mostly
Albanians. According to a study by a Greek author, around 80% of the
listed names attributed to the Stratioti were of Albanian origin while
most of the remaining ones, especially those of officers, were of Greek
origin; a small minority were of South Slavic origin. Among their
leaders there were also members of some old Byzantine Greek noble
families such as the Palaiologoi and Comneni.
The Stratioti were pioneers of light cavalry tactics during this era.
In the early 16th century heavy cavalry in the European armies was
principally remodeled after Albanian Stratioti of the Venetian army,
Hungarian hussarss,
and German mercenary cavalry units (Schwarzreitern). They employed
hit-and-run tactics, ambushes, feigned retreats, and other complex
maneuvers. In some ways, these tactics echoed those of the Ottoman
sipahis and akinci. They had some notable successes also against French
heavy cavalry during the Italian Wars. They were known for cutting off
the heads of dead or captured enemies, and according to Commines they were paid by their leaders one ducat per head.
In Italy, during inter-family conflicts such as the Wars of Castro, mercenaries were widely used to supplement the much smaller forces loyal to particular families. Often these were further supplemented by troops loyal to particular duchies which had sided with one or more of the belligerents.
17th and 18th centuries
A peasant begs a mercenary for mercy in front of his burning farm during the Thirty Years' War.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, extensive use was made of foreign
recruits in the now regimented and highly drilled armies of Europe,
beginning in a systematized way with the Thirty Years' War. Historian Geoffrey Parker
notes that 40,000 Scotsmen (about fifteen percent of the adult male
population) served as soldiers in Continental Europe from 1618 to 1640. After the signing of the Treaty of Limerick (1691) the soldiers of the Irish Army who left Ireland for France took part in what is known as the Flight of the Wild Geese. Subsequently, many made a living from fighting in continental armies, the most famous of whom was Patrick Sarsfield, who, having fallen mortally wounded at the Battle of Landen fighting for the French, said "If this was only for Ireland".
The brutality of the Thirty Years' War, in which several parts of
Germany were ransacked by the mercenary troops, and left almost
unpopulated, led to the formation of standing armies of professional
soldiers, recruited locally or abroad. These armies were active also in
peacetime. The formation of these armies in the late 18th century led to
professionalization and standardization of clothing (uniforms),
equipment, drill, weapons, etc. Since smaller states like the Dutch
Republic could afford a large standing army, but could not find enough
recruits among its own citizens, recruiting foreigners was common.
Prussia had developed a form of conscription, but relied in wartime also
on foreign recruits, although the regulations stated that no more than
one third of the recruits were to be foreign. Prussian recruiting
methods were often aggressive, and resulted more than once in conflicts
with neighbouring states. The term mercenary gained its notoriety during
this development, since mercenaries were—and now are—often seen as
soldiers who fight for no noble cause, but only for money, and who have
no loyalty than to the highest bidder, as opposed to the professional
soldiers who takes an oath of loyalty and who is seen as the defender of
the nation.
The mercenary soldiers thus fell out of favour and was replaced
by the professional soldier. To augment the army, major European powers
like France, Britain, the Dutch Republic and Spain contracted regiments
from Switzerland, the Southern Netherlands (modern day Belgium), and
several smaller German states. About a third of the infantry regiments
of the French Royal Army prior to the French Revolution were recruited from outside France. The largest single group were the twelve Swiss regiments (including the Swiss Guard). Other units were German and one Irish Brigade (the "Wild Geese")
had originally been made up of Irish volunteers. By 1789 difficulties
in obtaining genuinely Irish recruits had led to German and other
foreigners making up the bulk of the rank and file. The officers however
continued to be drawn from long established Franco-Irish families.
During the reign of Louis XV there was also a Scottish (Garde Écossaise), a Swedish (Royal-Suédois),
an Italian (Royal-Italien) and a Walloon (Horion-Liegeois) regiment
recruited outside the borders of France. The foreign infantry regiments
comprised about 20,000 men in 1733, rising to 48,000 at the time of the Seven Years' War and being reduced in numbers thereafter.
The Dutch Republic had contracted several Scots, Swiss and German
regiments in the early 18th century, and kept three Scots, one Walloon,
and six Swiss regiments (including a Guard regiment raised in 1749)
throughout the 18th century. The Scots regiments were contracted from
Great Britain, but as relations between Britain and the Republic
deteriorated, the regiments could no longer recruit in Scotland, leading
to the regiments being Scots in name only until they were nationalized
in 1784. Patrick Gordon,
a Scottish mercenary fought at various times for Poland and Sweden,
constantly changing his loyalty based on who could pay him the best,
until he took up Russian service in 1661. In August 1689, during a coup d'état attempt in Moscow against co-tsar Peter the Great led by the Sophia Alekseyevna in the name of the other co-tsar, the intellectually disabled Ivan V, Gordon played the decisive role in defeating the coup and ensuring Peter's triumph. Gordon remained one of Peter's favorite advisers until his death.
The Spanish Army also made use of permanently established foreign regiments. These were three Irish regiments
(Irlanda, Hiberni and Ultonia); one Italian (Naples) and five Swiss
(Wimpssen, Reding, Betschart, Traxer and Preux). In addition one
regiment of the Royal Guard including Irishmen as Patten, McDonnell and Neiven, was recruited from Walloons. The last of these foreign regiments was disbanded in 1815, following recruiting difficulties during the Napoleonic Wars. One complication arising from the use of non-national troops occurred at the Battle of Bailén
in 1808 when the "red Swiss" (so-called from their uniforms) of the
invading French Army clashed bloodily with "blue Swiss" in the Spanish
service.
During the American Revolutionary War,
the British government hired several regiments from German
principalities to supplement the Army. They became known to
revolutionaries as Hessians and were portrayed by propagandists as mercenaries. However, they were auxiliaries and do not meet the definition of mercenary.
19th to 21st centuries
During the South American wars of independence from Spain, the British Legions from 1817 onward fought for General Simón Bolívar. Some of the British Legionaries were liberal idealists who went to
South America to fight in a war for freedom, but others were the more
classic mercenaries, mostly unemployed veterans of the Napoleonic wars,
who fought for money. In South America, especially in Colombia, the men of the British Legions are remembered as heroes for their crucial role in helping end Spanish rule. During the First Carlist War, the British government suspended the Foreign Enlistment Act to allow the recruitment of a quasi-official British Auxiliary Legion under George de Lacy Evans, which went to Spain to fight for Queen Isabel II against the followers of Don Carlos, the pretender to the Spanish throne.
The Atholl Highlanders, a private Scottish infantry regiment of the Duke of Atholl, was formed in 1839 purely for ceremonial purposes. It was granted official regimental status by Queen Victoria in 1845 and is the only remaining legal private army in Europe.
Syrian mercenaries are being deployed by Russia, with expected
numbers ranging from hundreds to up to 40,000 fighters ultimately
expected to take part. Wagner mercenaries are active in the Syrian civil war and sledgehammered a Syrian man to death. On 8 November 2024, US President Joe Biden allowed American Private Military Contractors to deploy to Ukraine. Per the United States Department of Defense, these contractors will help Ukraine repair and maintain military equipment.
East Asia
Warring States
Mercenaries were regularly used by the kingdoms of the Warring States period of China. Military advisers and generals trained through the works of Mozi and Sun Tzu would regularly offer their services to kings and dukes.
After the Qin conquest of the Warring States, the Qin and later Han Empires would also employ mercenaries – ranging from nomadic horse archers in the Northern steppes or soldiers from the Yue kingdoms of the South. The 7th-century Tang dynasty was also prominent for its use of mercenaries, when they hired Tibetan and Uyghur soldiers against invasion from the Göktürks and other steppe civilizations.
15th to 18th centuries
The Saika mercenary group of the Kii Province, Japan, played a significant role during the Siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji that took place between August 1570 to August 1580. The Saikashuu were famed for the support of Ikkō Buddhist sect movements and greatly impeded the advance of Oda Nobunaga's forces.
Ninja were peasant farmers who learned the art of war to combat the daimyō's
samurai. They were hired out by many as mercenaries to perform capture,
infiltration and retrieval, and, most famously, assassinations. Ninja
possibly originated around the 14th century, but were not widely known
or used till the 15th century and carried on being hired till the
mid-18th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish in the Philippines employed samurai mercenaries from Japan to help control the archipelago. Abroad the wreck of one Spanish galleon, the San Diego, that sank in Filipino waters on 14 December 1600 were found numerous tsubas, the handguards of the katanas, the distinctive swords used by the samurai.
In 1615, the Dutch invaded Ai Island with Japanese mercenaries.
19th century
Between 1850 and 1864, the Taiping Rebellion raged as the Taiping (Heavenly Peace) Army led by Hong Xiuquan,
the self-proclaimed younger brother of Jesus Christ, engaged in a
bloody civil war against the forces loyal to the Qing emperor. As Hong
and his followers, who numbered in the millions, were hostile to Western
business interests, a group of Western merchants based in Shanghai
created a mercenary army known as the Ever Victorious Army. During the Taiping Rebellion, the Qing came close to losing control of
China. It was common for the financially hard-pressed Qing emperors to
subcontract out the business of raising armies to fight the Taiping to
the loyalist provincial gentry, which formed the origins of the warlords
who were to dominate China after the overthrow of the Qing in 1912.
The rank and file of the Ever-Victorious Army were Chinese, but
the senior officers were Westerners. The first commander was an American
adventurer, Colonel Frederick Townsend Ward. After Ward was killed in action in 1862, command was assumed by another American adventurer, Henry Andres Burgevine,
but the Chinese disliked him on the account of his racism and his
alcoholism. Burgevine was replaced with a British Army officer seconded
to Chinese service, Colonel Charles "Chinese" Gordon.
A highly successful commander, Gordon won thirty-three battles in
succession against the Taipings in 1863–1864 as he led the Ever
Victorious Army down the Yangtze river valley and played a decisive role
in defeating the Taipings. Through technically not a mercenary as Gordon had been assigned by the
British government to lead the Ever Victorious Army, the Times of
London in a leader (editorial) in August 1864 declared: "the part of
the soldier of fortune is in these days very difficult to play with
honour...but if ever the actions of a soldier fighting in foreign
service ought to be viewed with indulgence, and even with admiration,
this exceptional tribute is due to Colonel Gordon".
During the French conquest of Vietnam, their most persistent and
stubborn opponents were not the Vietnamese, but rather the Chinese
mercenaries of the Black Flag Army commanded by Liu Yongfu, who been hired by the Emperor Tự Đức. In 1873, the Black Flags killed the French commander, Francis Garnier, attracting much attention in France. In 1883, Captain Henri Rivière, leading another French expedition into Vietnam was also killed by the Black Flags. When the French conquest of Vietnam was finally completed in 1885, one
of the peace terms were the disbandment of the Black Flag Army. Chinese
flag rebels also fought in the Haw wars in Laos and northern Thailand.
Philo McGiffin served as a naval mercenary in the Sino-French War and First Sino-Japanese War.
Easily the largest group of mercenaries in China were the Russian emigres who arrived after 1917 and who hired themselves out to various Chinese warlords in the 1920s. Unlike the Anglo-American mercenaries, the Russians had no home to
return to nor were any foreign nations willing to accept them as
refugees, causing them to have a grim, fatalistic outlook as they were
trapped in what they regarded as a strange land that was as far from
home as imaginable. One group of Russians wore Tartar hats and the
traditional dark greycoats, and fought for Marshal Zhang Zuolin, the "Old Marshal" who ruled Manchuria. White Russian mercenaries claimed that they had considerable
effectiveness against ill-trained armies of the Chinese warlords; one
White Russian claimed that when he and other Russians serving Marshal
Zhang they "went through the Chinese troops like a knife through
butter".
Chinese forces slaughtered most of a 350 strong White Russian
forces in June 1921 under Colonel Kazagrandi in the Gobi desert, with
only two batches of 42 men and 35 men surrendering separately as Chinese
were wiping out White Russian remnants following the Soviet Red army
defeat of Ungern Sternberg, and other Buryat and White Russian remnants
of Ungern-Sternberg's army were massacred by Soviet Red Army and Mongol
forces.
One group of Russian mercenaries led by General Konstantin Petrovich Nechaev were dressed in the uniform of the Imperial Russian Army and fought for General Zhang Zongchang, the "Dogmeat General" who ruled Shangdong province. Zhang Zongchang had Russian women as concubines. Nechaev and his men were infamous for their ruthlessness, and on one
occasion in 1926, rode three armored trains through the Chinese
countryside, killing everybody they met. When the Chinese peasants tore up the rails to stop Nechaev's rampage,
he and his men vented their fury by sacking in an especially brutal
manner the nearest town. Nechaev suffered a huge defeat at the hands of Chinese, when he and one
armoured train under his command were trapped near Suichzhou in 1925.
Their Chinese adversaries had pulled up the rail, and took this
opportunity to massacre almost all Russian mercenaries on board the
train. Nechaev managed to survive this incident, but lost a part of his
leg during the bitter fighting. In 1926 Chinese warlord Sun Chuanfang inflicted bloody death tolls upon
the White Russian mercenaries under Nechaev's brigade in the 65th
division serving Zhang Zongchang, reducing the Russian numbers from
3,000 to only a few hundred by 1927 and the remaining Russian survivors
fought in armored trains. During the Northern Expedition
Chinese Nationalist forces captured an armoured train of Russian
mercenaries serving Zhang Zongchang and brutalized the Russian prisoners
by piercing their noses with rope and marching them in public through
the streets in Shandong in 1928, described as "stout rope pierced
through their noses".
Alcoholic White Russian mercenaries defeated Muslim Uyghurs in
melee fighting when Uyghurs tried to take Urumqi on 21 February 1933 in
the Battle of Ürümqi (1933). Wu Aitchen mentioned that 600 Uyghurs were slaughtered in a battle by White Russian mercenaries in the service of the Xinjiang clique warlord Jin Shuren.Jin Shuren would take Russian women as hostages to force their husbands to serve as his mercenaries.
Hui Muslims fought brutal battles against White Russians and Soviet Red Army Russians at the Battle of Tutung and Battle of Dawan Cheng inflicting heavy losses on the Russian forces.
Chinese forces killed many White Russian soldiers and Soviet
soldiers in 1944-1946 when the White Russians of Ili and Soviet Red Army
served in the Second East Turkestan Republic's military during the Ili Rebellion.
During the early stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War,
a number of foreign pilots served in the Chinese Air Force, most
famously in the 14th Squadron, a light bombardment unit often called the
International Squadron, which was briefly active in February and March
1938.
In the medieval period, Purbiya mercenaries from Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh
were a common feature in kingdoms in western and northern India. They
were also later recruited by the Marathas and the British. In southern
India, there is a caste/community of mercenaries in the state of
Karnataka which is called Bunt.
The word "bunt" itself translates to warrior or mercenary, this
community later elevated itself as the rulers of the land, several
powerful dynasties emerged from this community. The most notable dynasty
being the Alupas of Dakshina Kannada, which reigned for 1,300 years.
This community still survives and has adopted the surnames shetty, Rai,
Alva, chowta etc. In Tamil Nadu, the three crowned empires used the Kongar pastro-peasantry tribes of the Kongunad region and the Kongar peasant tribes of the Erumainad
region as their swordsman mercenaries, cavalry mercenaries, and as
chariot soldier mercenaries, as well as personal guards. Kongars worked
along with the three empires' warrior tribes such as the Kallar,
Maravar, Aghamudaiyar, Parkavar, Valaiya-Mutharaiyar, and Mazhavar
tribes. During that time, these Kongar tribes were led only by the
chiefs of their own tribe and would not come under the command of the
emperor or his military general. Though these Kongar tribes of Kongunad
were feudatories to the three crowned empires, Kongunad was divided into
24 subdivisions and was only ruled by Kongars. However, the Kongars
(Gangars) of Erumainad established their own empire, the Western Ganga
dynasty, and ruled over it for centuries. Kongar tribes still exist in
the modern world, where they are referred as Kongu Vellala Gounder
(Kongunadu) and Gangadhikar Vokkaliga Gowda (Erumainad).
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the imperial Mughal power was crumbling and other powers, including the Sikh Misls
and Maratha chiefs, were emerging. At this time, a number of
mercenaries, arriving from several countries found employment in India.
Some of the mercenaries emerged to become independent rulers. The Sikh
Maharaja, Ranjit Singh, known as the "Lion of the Punjab", employed Euro-American mercenaries such as the Neapolitan Paolo Avitabile; the Frenchmen Claude Auguste Court and Jean-François Allard; and the Americans Josiah Harlan and Alexander Gardner. The Sikh army, Dal Khalsa,
was trained by Singh's French mercenaries to fight alone the lines used
by the French in the Napoleonic era, and following French practice, Dal Khalsa had excellent artillery. Singh had a low opinion of his Euro-American mercenaries, once saying
"German, French or English, all these European bastards are alike".
Until 1858, India was a proprietary colony that belonged to the
East India Company, not the British Crown. The East India Company became
the world's most influential corporation, having exclusive monopolies
on trade with India and China. By the early 19th century, the East India
Company in its proprietary colony of India ruled over 90 million
Indians and controlled 70 million acres (280,000 km2) of land
under its own flag, issued its own currency and maintained its own
civil service and its own army of 200,000 men led by officers trained at
its officer school, giving the company an army larger than that
possessed by most European states. In the 17th century, the East India Company recruited Indian
mercenaries to guard its warehouses and police the cities under its
rule. However, these forces were ad hoc and disbanded as quickly as they were recruited.
Starting in 1746, the Company recruited Indian mercenaries into its own army. By 1765, the board of directors of the Company had come to accept it
was necessary to rule its conquests to maintain a standing army, voting
to maintain three presidency armies to be funded by taxes on Indian
land. The number of Indians working for the Company's armies outnumbered the Europeans ten to one. When recruiting, the East India Company tended to follow Indian
prejudices in believing the pale-skinned men from northern India made
for better soldiers than the dark-skinned peoples of southern India, and
that high-caste Hindus were superior to the low-caste Hindus. Despite these prejudices, the men of the Madras Army were from south India. The Bengal Army were largely high-cast Hindus from northern India while the Bombay Army prided itself on being a "melting pot".
Because the East India Company ultimately by the end of the 18th
century came to offer higher pay than the Maharajahs did, and offered
the novelty in India of paying a pension to veterans and their families,
it came to attract the best of the Indian mercenaries. Initially, the mercenaries serving in the company's armies brought
along their own weapons, which was the normal practice in India, but
after the 1760s the company began to them arm with the standard British
weapons. The East India Company, generally known in both Britain and in India as
"the Company", had sufficient lobbying power in London to ensure that
several British Army regiments were also stationed to work alongside the
Company army, whose troops were mostly "Sepoys" (Indians). The Company
never entirely trusted the loyalty of its sepoys. The company had its own officer training school at the Addiscombe Military Seminary.
The company's armies were trained in the Western style and by the end
of the 18th century its troops were ranked as the equal of any European
army.
Latin America
Nicaragua
In
1855, during a civil war in Nicaragua between the Conservatives and
Liberals, the latter recruited an American adventurer named William Walker who promised to bring 300 mercenaries to fight for the Liberals. Through Walker only brought 60 mercenaries with him, to be joined by another 100 Americans together with the Belgian mercenary Charles Frederick Henningsen who were already in Nicaragua, he was able to defeat the Conservatives at the Battle of La Virgen on 4 September 1855 and by 13 October, Walker had taken Grenada, the Conservative capital. After his victories, Walker became the de facto dictator of Nicaragua, which many both inside and outside of the country soon started to call "Walkeragua".
At the time, Nicaragua was an extremely important transit point between the Western and Eastern United States. In the days before the Panama Canal and the first transcontinental railroad, ships from the Eastern United States would sail up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua,
where passengers and goods were unloaded at the port of Rivas and then
made the short journey via stagecoach to the Pacific coast, to be loaded
onto ships that would take them to the west coast of the United States. One of the most important companies of the Nicaraguan stagecoach business was the Accessory Transit Company owned by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt of New York. Walker confiscated the Accessory Transit Company's assets in Nicaragua,
which he handed over to the Morgan & Garrison company, owned by
rivals of Vanderbilt. As Vanderbilt happened to be the richest man in the United States, he
launched a lobbying campaign against Walker in Washington, D.C., and was
able to pressure President Franklin Pierce into withdrawing American
recognition of Walker's regime.
Once it was understood that the US government was no longer
supporting Walker, Costa Rica invaded Nicaragua with the aim of deposing
Walker, whose ambitions were felt to be a threat to all of Central
America. The Costa Ricans defeated Walker at the Battle of Santa Rosa and the Second Battle of Rivas. The beleaguered Walker sought to appeal to support in his native South
by restoring slavery in Nicaragua, making English the official language,
changing the immigration law to favor Americans, and declaring his
ultimate intention was to bring Nicaragua into the United States as a slave state. By this point, Walker had thoroughly alienated public opinion in
Nicaragua while he was besieged in Grenada by a coalition of Guatemalan,
Salvadorian, and Costa Rican troops. The decision by Henningsen to burn down Grenada enraged Nicaraguan
people and in March 1857, Walker, with his dreams of an empire in
tatters, fled Nicaragua.
In the 1980s, one of the Reagan administration's foreign policy
was to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government by arming
guerrillas known as the Contras. Between 1982 and 1984, Congress passed
the three Boland amendments which limited the extent of American aid to
the Contra rebels. By the late 1970s, the popularity of magazines such
as Soldier of Fortune, which glorified the mercenary subculture,
led to the opening of numerous camps in the United States designed to
train men to be mercenaries and also to serve as guerrillas in case of a
Soviet conquest of the United States. The vast majority of the men who trained in these camps were white men
who saw para-military training as a "reverse the previous twenty years
of American history and take back all the symbolic territory that has
been lost" as the possibility of becoming mercenaries gave them "the
fantastic possibility of escaping their present lives, being reborn as
warrior and remaking the world".
Owing to the legal problems posed by the Boland amendments, the
Reagan administration turned to the self-proclaimed mercenaries to arm
and train the Contra guerrillas. In 1984, the CIA created the Civilian Military Assistance (CMA) group
to aid the Contras. The CMA were led by a white supremacist from Alabama
named Tom Posey, who like all of the other members of the CMA were
graduates of the mercenary training camps. John Negroponte, the American ambassador to Honduras, arranged for permission to be given for the CMA to operate from Honduran territory. However, the operation collapsed later in 1984 when the Nicaraguans
shot down a CMA plane carrying arms to the Contras, killing two
Americans. Sam Hall,
a self proclaimed mercenary hero and "counter-terrorist" who joined the
CMA entered Nicaragua with the aim of performing sabotage operations. In 1986, Hall was captured by the Sandinistas, who held him for four
months before releasing him under the grounds that he was not a
mercenary, but rather a mercenary imposer. John K. Singlaub who worked alongside Hall described him as suffering from a "Walter Mitty type complex".
Colombia
In 1994, President César Gaviria
of Colombia signed Decree 356, which allowed wealthy landowners to
recruit private armies of their own and liberalised the law on settling
up PMCs in order to fight the Communist FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas. As a result of Decree 356, by 2014 Colombia had 740 PMCs operating, more than anywhere else in the world. Increasingly Colombian mercenaries have been hired by American PMCs as being cheaper than American mercenaries. The government of the United Arab Emirates has hired Colombian mercenaries to fight its war in Yemen.
Africa
Ancient Africa
An early recorded use of foreign auxiliaries dates back to ancient Egypt, the thirteenth century BC, when PharaohRamesses II used 11,000 mercenaries during his battles. A long established foreign corps in the Egyptian forces were the Medjay—a generic term given to tribal scouts and light infantry recruited from Nubia serving from the late period of the Old Kingdom through that of the New Kingdom. Other warriors recruited from outside the borders of Egypt
included Libyan, Syrian and Canaanite contingents under the New Kingdom
and Sherdens from Sardinia who appear in their distinctive horned
helmets on wall paintings as body guards for Ramesses II. Celtic mercenaries were greatly employed in the Greek world (leading to the sack of Delphi and the Celtic settlement of Galatia). The Greek rulers of Ptolemaic Egypt, too, used Celtic mercenaries. Carthage was unique for relying primarily on mercenaries to fight its wars, particularly Gaul and Spanish mercenaries.
In the 20th century, mercenaries in conflicts on the continent of
Africa have in several cases brought about a swift end to bloody civil
war by comprehensively defeating the rebel forces. There have been a number of unsavory incidents in the brushfire wars of
Africa, some involving recruitment of European and American men
"looking for adventure".
Many of the adventurers in Africa who have been described as
mercenaries were in fact ideologically motivated to support particular
governments, and would not fight "for the highest bidder". An example of
this was the British South Africa Police (BSAP), a paramilitary, mounted infantry force formed by the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes in 1889–1890 that evolved and continued until 1980.
Famous mercenaries in Africa include:
Frederick Russell Burnham was an American scout for the British South Africa Company who served in both the First Matabele War (1893–94) and the Second Matabele War (1896–97). He effectively ended the Second Matabele War by assassinating the Ndebele religious leader, Mlimo, but Burnham is best known in this war for teaching American Frontier scouting to Robert Baden-Powell and inspiring him to found the boy scouts. In the Second Boer War (1900–1904), Burnham served as Chief of Scouts to the British Army. He was presented the Cross of the Distinguished Service Order for his heroism and given a commission as Major in the British Army by King Edward VII personally even though he declined to renounce his American citizenship.Burnham's real-life adventures also heavily influenced H. Rider Haggard who created the fictional Allan Quatermain adventurer, a character who later was transformed by George Lucas into Indiana Jones.
Mike Hoare was a British career soldier who served with distinction in the London Irish Rifles during World War II. He later emigrated to South Africa, and was contracted by the State of Katanga in the early 1960s to form "4 Commando (Force Katangaise)", a unit of foreign military advisers in the local gendarmerie. Most of Hoare's recruits were Belgians or South Africans. After Katanga's integration in 1963, Hoare remained active in Congo affairs. He was solicited by General Joseph-Desiré Mobutu in 1964 to form "5 Commando" – a second mercenary force raised to crush the Simba Rebellion, which included European adventurers of at least twenty nationalities. Hoare later resurfaced in 1981, shortly after France-Albert René's ascension in the Seychelles, attempting to carry out a coup d'état on behalf of former president James Mancham. His troops were intercepted shortly after debarking on Mahé and only escaped by hijacking an Air India Boeing, which they flew to Durban.
Bob Denard was a former French intelligence operative, policeman, and dedicated anti-communist who saw action during the First Indochina War and Algerian War of Independence. After a brief inroad into civilian life, Denard returned to military
service with the Katangese gendarmerie in 1961. Refusing to surrender
when secessionist forces collapsed in January 1963, he disappeared into Angola with a nucleus of other die-hards and sought work training North Yemen royalists before returning to the Congo at the request of then-Prime Minister Moise Tshombe. Denard formed his own unit to fight the Simba Rebellion, les affreux, who were also instrumental in suppressing an attempted coup d'état in 1966. Dismissed by Congolese president Joseph Kasa Vubu, the French mercenary joined the Kisangani Mutinies and was wounded in action. He later went on to serve as a military adviser to several African governments, including Gabon and Rhodesia. Denard has since carried out five attempted coup d'etats in Benin and the Comoros Islands, three of them successful.
Simon Mann was found guilty in Zimbabwe of "attempting to buy weapons" (BBC 27 August) allegedly for a coup in Equatorial Guinea in 2004 (see below).
Congo Crisis
White mercenaries fighting alongside Congolese troops in 1964
The Congo Crisis (1960–1965) was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu.
During the crisis, mercenaries were employed by various factions, and
also at times helped the United Nations and other peace keepers.
In 1960 and 1961, Mike Hoare worked as a mercenary commanding an English-speaking unit called "4 Commando" supporting a faction in Katanga, a province trying to break away from the newly independent Congo under the leadership of Moïse Tshombe. Hoare chronicled his exploits in his book the Road to Kalamata.
In 1964, Tshombe (then Prime Minister of Congo) hired Major Hoare to lead a military unit called "5 Commando" made up of about 300 men, most of whom were from South Africa. The unit's mission was to fight a rebel group called Simbas, who already had captured almost two-thirds of the country.
In Operation Dragon Rouge, "5 Commando" worked in close cooperation with Belgian paratroopers, Cuban exile pilots, and CIA hired mercenaries. The objective of Operation Dragon Rouge was to capture Stanleyville and save several hundred civilians (mostly Europeans and missionaries) who were hostages of the Simba rebels. The operation saved many lives; however, the Operation damaged the reputation of Moïse Tshombe
as it saw the return of white mercenaries to the Congo soon after
independence and was a factor in Tshombe's loss of support from
president of Congo Joseph Kasa-Vubu who dismissed him from his position.
Later, in 1966 and 1967, some former Tshombe mercenaries and Katangese gendarmes staged the Mercenaries' Mutinies.
Biafra
Mercenaries fought for Biafra in the Fourth Commando Brigade led by Rolf Steiner during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970). Other mercenaries flew aircraft for the Biafrans. In October 1967, for example, a Royal Air BurundiDC-4M Argonaut, flown by mercenary Heinrich Wartski, also known as Henry Wharton, crash-landed in Cameroon with military supplies destined for Biafra.
It was hoped that employing mercenaries in Nigeria would have
similar impact to the Congo, but the mercenaries proved largely
ineffective. The British historian Philip Baxter wrote the principle difference was
that the Congolese militias commanded by leaders with almost no military
experience were no match for the mercenaries, and by contrast the
Sandhurst-trained Nigerian Army officers were of an "altogether higher
caliber" than Congolese militia leaders. Through much of the leadership of the Nigerian Army had been killed in
two coups in 1966, there were still just enough Sandhust graduates left
in 1967 to hold the Nigerian Army together and provide enough of a
modicum of military professionalism to defeat the mercenaries. By October 1967, most of the mercenaries who had been expecting easy
victories like those won in the Congo had already left Biafra,
complaining that the Nigerians were a much tougher opponent who were
defeating them in battle.
When asked about the impact of the white mercenaries, General Philip Effiong,
the chief of the Biafran general staff replied: "They had not helped.
It would have made no difference if not a single one of them came to
work for the secessionist forces. Rolf Steiner stayed the longest. He
was more of a bad influence than anything else. We were happy to get rid
of him." One Biafran officer, Fola Oyewole, wrote about the sacking of Steiner
in late 1968: "Steiner's departure from Biafra removed the shine from
the white mercenaries, the myth of the white man's superiority in the
art of soldering". Oyewole wrote that the white mercenaries were hated by the ordinary
people of Biafra due to their high-handed behavior; a tendency to
retreat when it appeared possible the Nigerians were about to cut them
off instead of holding their ground; and a fondness for looting, noting
that the European mercenaries seemed more interested in stealing as much
as possible instead of helping Biafra."
In May 1969, Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen formed a squadron of five light aircraft known as the Babies of Biafra, which attacked and destroyed Nigerian jet aircraft on the ground[167] and delivered food aid. Count von Rosen was assisted by ex-RCAF fighter pilot Lynn Garrison.
Angola
In 1975, John Banks, an Englishman, recruited mercenaries to fight for the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) against the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the civil war
that broke out when Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
In the United States, David Bufkin, a self-proclaimed mercenary hero
started a recruiting campaign in Soldier of Fortune magazine
calling for anti-Communist volunteers, especially Vietnam veterans, to
fight in Angola as mercenaries, claiming to be funded to the tune of
$80,000 by the Central Intelligence Agency. Bufkin was in fact a former U.S. Army soldier "who has gone AWOL
several times, has been tried for rape, and been in and out of jail
several times", did not have $80,000, was not supported by the CIA,
instead being a con-man who had stolen most of the money paid to him. Bufkin managed to get a dozen or so American mercenaries to Angola,
where several of them were killed in action with the rest being
captured.
One of the leaders of the mercenaries was Costas Georgiou
(the self-styled "Colonel Callan"), who was described by the British
journalist Patrick Brogan as a psychopathic killer who personally
executed fourteen of his fellow mercenaries for cowardice, and who was
extremely brutal to black people. Within 48 hours of his arrival in Angola, Georgiou had already led his
men in disarming and massacring a group of FNLA fighters (his supposed
allies), who he killed just for the "fun" of it all. At his trial, it was established that Georgiou had personally murdered at least 170 Angolans. Inept as a military leader as he was brutal, Georgiou notably failed as
a commander. It was believed in 1975–76 that recruiting white
mercenaries to fight in Angola would have a similar impact that the
mercenaries had in the Congo in the 1960s, but in Angola the mercenaries
failed completely as Brogan described their efforts as a "debacle". If anything, the white mercenaries with their disdain for blacks, or in
the case of Georgiou murderous hatred seemed to have depressed morale
on the FNLA side.
Many of the mercenaries in Angola were not former professional
soldiers as they claimed to have been, but instead merely fantasists who
had invented heroic war records for themselves. The fantasist
mercenaries did not know how to use their weapons properly, and often
injured themselves and others when they attempted to use weaponry that
they did not fully understand, leading to some of them being executed by
the psychopathic killer Georgiou who did not tolerate failure. On 27 January 1976, a group of 96 British mercenaries arrived in Angola
and within a week about dozen had accidentally maimed themselves by
trying to use weapons that they falsely claimed to be proficient with. The MLPA forces were better organized and led, and the dispatch of
35,000 Cuban Army troops in November 1975 decided the war for the MLPA. Cuban accounts of the Angolan war speak of the efforts of the
mercenaries in a tone of contempt as Cuban veterans contend that the
mercenaries were poor soldiers who they had no trouble defeating.
When captured, John Derek Barker's role as a leader of
mercenaries in Northern Angola led the judges to send him to face the
firing squad following the Luanda Trial.
Nine others were imprisoned. Three more were executed: American Daniel
Gearhart was sentenced to death for advertising himself as a mercenary
in an American newspaper; Andrew McKenzie and Georgiou, who had both
served in the British Army, were sentenced to death for murder. Georgiou was shot by firing squad in 1976. Costas' cousin Charlie Christodoulou was killed in an ambush.
Executive Outcomes employees, Captains Daniele Zanata and Raif St Clair (who was also involved in the 1981 Seychelles coup attempt), fought on behalf of the MPLA against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in the 1990s in violation of the Lusaka Protocol.
Comoros
A major aim of French foreign policy was and still is to maintain the French sphere of influence in what is called Françafrique. In 1975, Ali Soilih took power in the Comoros via a coup, and proved unwilling to accept the French viewpoint that his nation was part of Françafrique. Unhappy with Soilih, the French secret service, the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage in 1978 hired the French mercenary Bob Denard to invade the Comoros to overthrow Soilih. Making the Comoros a tempting target for Denard were its small size,
consisting of only three islands in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, Soilih
had abolished the Comorian Army, replacing the Army with a militia known
as the Moissy, made up mostly of teenage boys with only the most
rudimentary military training. The Moissy, which was modeled after the Red Guards in China,
existed mainly to terrorize Soilih's opponents and was commanded by a
15-year-old boy, appointed solely because of his blind devotion to
Soilih.
On the night of 13 May 1978, Denard and 42 other mercenaries
landed on Grande Comore island, annihilated the poorly trained and badly
commanded Moissy, none of whom had any military experience, and by the
morning the Comoros was theirs. President Soilih was high on marijuana and naked in his bed together
with three nude teenage schoolgirls watching a pornographic film, when
Denard kicked in the door to his room to inform him that he was no
longer president. Soilih was later taken out and shot with the official excuse being that he was "shot while trying to escape". The new president of the Comoros, Ahmed Abdallah, was a puppet leader and the real ruler of the Comoros was Colonel Denard, who brought the Comoros back into Françafrique.
As a ruler, Denard proved himself to be extremely greedy as he
rapaciously plundered the Comorian economy to make himself into a very
rich man. Denard served as the commander of the Comorian Presidential Guard and
became the largest single landowner in the Comoros, developing the best
land by the sea into luxury resorts catering to tourists who wanted to
enjoy the tropics. Denard converted to Islam (the prevailing religion in the Comoros), and
took advantage of the Islamic rules on polygamy to maintain for himself
a harem of Comorian women. Officially, France was committed to the
United Nations sanctions against the apartheid government of South
Africa, which French and South African businesses circumvented via the
Comoros, a form of sanctions-busting that was tolerated by Denard as
long as he received his cut of the profits.
Ultimately, Denard's antics as the "great white conqueror" of the
Comoros and his lavish lifestyle made him into embarrassment for the
French government, as there were charges that France was engaged in
neo-colonialism in the Comoros. At the same time there were alternatives
to Denard in the form of black Comorian politicians who wanted Denard
out, but were willing to keep the Comoros in Françafrique, which
would allow Paris to achieve its aims without the embarrassment of a
white European exploiting a country inhabited by black Africans. When
Abdallah tried to dismiss Denard as commander of the Presidential Guard,
Denard had him assassinated on 26 November 1989. At that point, the French government, which had an alternative
leadership in place, intervened by sending paratroopers to remove Denard
and the other mercenaries from the Comoros while installing Said Mohamed Djohar as president.
On 28 September 1995, Denard again invaded the Comoros, but this time, Paris was against the invasion, and staged Operation Azalee – dispatching 600 paratroops to the Comoros to usher Denard and his mercenaries out. Denard was charged in France with the murder of President Abdallah, but was acquitted owing to a lack of evidence. In 2006, he was found guilty of conspiracy to overthrow the government
of the Comoros in 1995, but by this point Denard was suffering from
Alzheimer's disease and he did not serve a day in prison, instead dying
in a Paris hospital on 13 October 2007.
In 1981, "Mad Mike" Hoare was hired by the government of South Africa
to lead an invasion of the Seychelles with the aim of deposing the
left-wing President France-Albert René, who had roundly criticized apartheid, and replacing him with a more apartheid-friendly leader. Disguised as a drinking club, Ye Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers, and as
rugby players, Hoare led a force of 53 men into the airport at Port
Larue on 25 November 1981. Hoare's men failed to make it past the customs at the airport as an
alert customs officer noticed one of the "rugby players" had an AK-47
assault rifle hidden in his luggage. What followed was a shoot-out at the airport between Hoare's men and Seychellois customs officers. Realizing the invasion was doomed, Hoare and his men escaped by
hijacking an Air India jet which flew them back to South Africa. The fiasco of the Seychelles invasion marked the beginning of the
decline of the traditional soldier of fortune, centered around a
charismatic figure like Hoare or Denard, and a change over to the
corporatized private military company, run by men who shunned the
limelight.
Eritrea and Ethiopia
Both sides hired mercenaries in the Eritrean–Ethiopian War from 1998 to 2000. Russian mercenaries were believed to be flying in the air forces of both sides.
Sierra Leone
Robert C. MacKenzie (standing, wings on hat) with some of the Sierra Leone Commando Unit he was training with the Gurkha security guards
American Robert C. MacKenzie was killed in the Malal Hills in February 1995, while commanding Gurkha Security Guards (GSG) in Sierra Leone. GSG pulled out soon afterwards and was replaced by Executive Outcomes.
Both were employed by the Sierra Leone government as military advisers
and to train the government soldiers. It has been alleged that the firms
provided soldiers who took an active part in the fighting against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
In 2000, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC-TV) international affairs program Foreign Correspondent
broadcast a special report "Sierra Leone: Soldiers of Fortune",
focusing on former 32BN and Recce members who operated in Sierra Leone
while serving for SANDF. Officers like De Jesus Antonio, TT D Abreu Capt
Ndume and Da Costa were the forefront because of their combat and
language skills and also the exploits of South African pilot Neall Ellis and his MI-24 Hind gunship. The report also investigated the failures of the UN Peacekeeping Force,
and the involvement of mercenaries and private military contractors in
providing vital support to UN operations and British military Special
Operations in Sierra Leone in 1999–2000.
In August 2004 there was a plot, which later became known as the "Wonga Coup", to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea in Malabo. eight South African apartheid-era
soldiers, organised by Neves Matias (former Recce major and De Jesus
Antonio former Captain in 2sai BN) with (the leader of whom is Nick du Toit)
and five local men were held in Black Beach prison on the island. They
were accused of being an advanced guard for a coup to place Severo Moto in power. Six Armenian aircrew, also convicted of involvement in the plot, were
released in 2004 after receiving a presidential pardon. CNN reported on
25 August, that:
Defendant Nick du Toit
said he was introduced to Thatcher in South Africa last year by Simon
Mann, the leader of 70 men arrested in Zimbabwe in March suspected of
being a group of mercenaries heading to Equatorial Guinea.
It was planned, allegedly, by Simon Mann, a former SAS
officer. On 27 August 2004 he was found guilty in Zimbabwe of
purchasing arms, allegedly for use in the plot (he admitted trying to
procure dangerous weapons, but said that they were to guard a diamond
mine in DR Congo). It is alleged that there is a paper trail from him
which implicates Sir Mark Thatcher, Lord Archer, and Ely Calil (a Lebanese-British oil trader).
The BBC reported in an article entitled "Q&A: Equatorial Guinea coup plot":
The BBC's Newsnight television
programme saw the financial records of Simon Mann's companies showing
large payments to Nick du Toit and also some $2m coming in – though the
source of this funding they say is largely untraceable.
The BBC reported on 10 September 2004 that in Zimbabwe:
[Simon Mann], the British leader of
a group of 67 alleged mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in
Equatorial Guinea has been sentenced to seven years in jail... The other
passengers got 12 months in jail for breaking immigration laws while
the two pilots got 16 months...The court also ordered the seizure of
Mann's $3m Boeing 727 and $180,000 found on board.
Libya
Muammar Gaddafi in Libya was alleged to have been using mercenary soldiers during the 2011 Libyan civil war, including Tuaregs from various nations in Africa. Many of them had been part of his Islamic Legion created in 1972. Reports say around 800 had been recruited from Niger, Mali, Algeria, Ghana and Burkina Faso. In addition, small numbers of Eastern European mercenaries have also turned up supporting the Gaddafi regime. Most sources have described these troops as professional Serbian veterans of the Yugoslav conflict, including snipers, pilots and helicopter experts. Certain observers, however, speculate that they may be from Poland or
Belarus. The latter has denied the claims outright; the former is
investigating them. Although the Serbian government has denied that any of their nationals
are currently serving as mercenary soldiers in North Africa, five such
men have been captured by anti-Gaddafi rebels in Tripoli and several others have also allegedly fought during the Second Battle of Benghazi. a number of unidentified white South African mercenaries were hired to
smuggle Gaddafi and his sons to exile in Niger. Their attempts were
thwarted by NATO air activity shortly before the death of Libya's ousted
strongman. Numerous reports have indicated that the team was still protecting Saif al-Islam Gaddafi shortly before he was apprehended.
Amnesty International has claimed that such allegations against
Gaddafi and the Libyan state turned out to either be false or lacking
any evidence. Human Rights Watch
has indicated that while many foreign migrants were erroneously accused
of fighting with Gaddafi, there were also genuine mercenaries from
several nations who participated in the conflict.
More recently in 2020 at least several hundred mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group have been fighting on the side of the warlord, General Khalifa Haftar, whom the government of Russia supports. The Wagner Group mercenaries arrived in Libya in late 2019. The Wagner Group have excelled as snipers, and one result of their
arrival was a rapid increase in the number of sniper deaths on the
opposing side that holds Tripoli. In response, the government of Turkey hired 2,000 Syrian mercenaries to
fight for the opposing faction that it is supporting in the Libyan
civil war.
A November 2020 report by human rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch claimed that approximately hundreds of Sudanese
men were hired by an Emirati security firm Black Shield Security
Services as security guards for shopping centres and hotels in the UAE, but were subsequently tricked into fighting in the Libyan Civil War.
Reportedly 390 men were recruited from Khartoum, out of which 12 spoke
to HRW and told that they were made to live alongside Libyan fighters
aligned with UAE-backed General Khalifa Haftar. The recruits were hired to safeguard the oil facilities controlled by the Haftar forces.
Middle East
Egypt
By 1807, Muhammad Ali the Great, the Albanian tobacco merchant turned de facto independent Ottoman vali (governor) of Egypt had imported about 400 French mercenaries to train his army. After the end of the Napoleonic wars, Muhammad Ali recruited more
mercenaries from all over Europe and the United States to train his
army, through French and Italian veterans of the Napoleonic wars were
much preferred and formed the largest two groups of mercenaries in
Egypt. The most famous of Muhammad Ali's mercenaries was the Frenchman Joseph-Anthelme Sève who set up the first staff school in Egypt and served as the chief of staff to Ibrahim Pasha, the son of the vali and his favorite general. By the 1820s, Muhammad Ali's mercenaries had created a mass conscript
army trained to fight in the Western style together with schools for
training Egyptian officers and factories for manufacturing Western style
weapons as the vali did not wish to be dependent upon imported arms.
Muhammad Ali's grandson, Ismail the Magnificent,
who ruled as the Khedive of Egypt between 1863 and 79 recruited
mercenaries on large scale. After Napoleon III made an unfavorable
arbitration ruling in 1869 about the share of royalties from the newly
opened Suez canal, which cost Ismail 3, 000, 000 Egyptian pounds per
year, Ismail came to distrust his French mercenaries, and began to look
elsewhere. A number of Italian mercenaries such as Romolo Gessi, Gaetamo Casati,
Andreanni Somani, and Giacomo Messedaglia played prominent roles in the
Egyptian campaigns in the Sudan. Ismail also recruited British mercenaries such as Samuel Baker and the Swiss mercenaries such as Werner Munzinger. After 1869, Ismail recruited 48 American mercenaries to command his army. General Charles Pomeroy Stone, formerly of the United States Army, served as the chief of the Egyptian general staff between 1870 and 1883. Ismail's Americans went to Egypt largely because of the high pay he
offered, through several were Confederate veterans who were barred from
serving in post-1865 United States Army; the fact that the Americans in
Egyptian service had fought on opposing sides in the Civil War was a
source of recurring tension as the antagonism between North and South
continued in Egypt.
Syrian civil war
A banner on the wall of the office of the Mahdi Army in Al Diwaniyah, Iraq announcing the killing of one of the militia members in Syria
The Free Syrian Army claimed the Bashar al-Assad regime recruited mercenaries from Iran, Hezbollah militia, and the IraqiMahdi Army militia during the Syrian civil war. The Russian government had approved of the deployment in 2016 of the Wagner Group mercenaries to fight for the Syrian government. The Wagner Group is reported to have played an important role in
helping to turn the tide of the Syrian civil war in favor of the
government, which in 2015 appeared to be close to collapse. On 7 February 2018, the Wagner Group mercenaries were reported to have
attacked an American base in Syria together with a pro-Assad militia in
what is known as the Battle of Khasham.
Turkey used Syrian mercenaries against the Kurds in Syria.
During Operation Decisive Storm, multiple sources reported that Latin American military contractors from Academi headed by Erik Prince were hired by UAE Armed Forces to assist in the fight against Houthis.
A cyber mercenary is a non-state actor that carries out cyber attacks for nation states for hire. State actors can use cyber mercenaries as a front to try and distance themselves from attacks with plausible deniability.
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