The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent
A “gripping” story of the Angolan Civil War and how it evolved into a Cold War struggle between superpowers (New York Journal of Books).
 
Lasting over a quarter of a century, from 1975 to 2002, the Angolan Civil War began as a power struggle between two former liberation movements, the MPLA and UNITA—but became a Cold War struggle with involvement from the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa, and the United States.
 
This book examines the height of the Cuban-South African fighting in Angola in 1987–88, when three thousand South African soldiers and about eight thousand UNITA guerrilla fighters fought in alliance against the Cubans and the armed forces of the Marxist MPLA government, a force of over fifty thousand men. Fred Bridgland pieced together the course of the war, fought in one of the world’s most remote and wild terrains, by interviewing the South Africans who fought it, and many of their stories are woven into the narrative. This classic account of a Cold War struggle and its momentous consequences for the participants and the continent now includes a new preface and epilogue.
 
“Highlights just how much political and social considerations dictate the outcome of war . . . A highly detailed work of military history, The War for Africa can tell us a lot about the nature of counter-insurgency warfare and how small states can become contested battlegrounds between superpowers.” —New York Journal of Books
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The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent
A “gripping” story of the Angolan Civil War and how it evolved into a Cold War struggle between superpowers (New York Journal of Books).
 
Lasting over a quarter of a century, from 1975 to 2002, the Angolan Civil War began as a power struggle between two former liberation movements, the MPLA and UNITA—but became a Cold War struggle with involvement from the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa, and the United States.
 
This book examines the height of the Cuban-South African fighting in Angola in 1987–88, when three thousand South African soldiers and about eight thousand UNITA guerrilla fighters fought in alliance against the Cubans and the armed forces of the Marxist MPLA government, a force of over fifty thousand men. Fred Bridgland pieced together the course of the war, fought in one of the world’s most remote and wild terrains, by interviewing the South Africans who fought it, and many of their stories are woven into the narrative. This classic account of a Cold War struggle and its momentous consequences for the participants and the continent now includes a new preface and epilogue.
 
“Highlights just how much political and social considerations dictate the outcome of war . . . A highly detailed work of military history, The War for Africa can tell us a lot about the nature of counter-insurgency warfare and how small states can become contested battlegrounds between superpowers.” —New York Journal of Books
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The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent

The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent

by Fred Bridgland
The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent

The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent

by Fred Bridgland

eBook

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Overview

A “gripping” story of the Angolan Civil War and how it evolved into a Cold War struggle between superpowers (New York Journal of Books).
 
Lasting over a quarter of a century, from 1975 to 2002, the Angolan Civil War began as a power struggle between two former liberation movements, the MPLA and UNITA—but became a Cold War struggle with involvement from the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa, and the United States.
 
This book examines the height of the Cuban-South African fighting in Angola in 1987–88, when three thousand South African soldiers and about eight thousand UNITA guerrilla fighters fought in alliance against the Cubans and the armed forces of the Marxist MPLA government, a force of over fifty thousand men. Fred Bridgland pieced together the course of the war, fought in one of the world’s most remote and wild terrains, by interviewing the South Africans who fought it, and many of their stories are woven into the narrative. This classic account of a Cold War struggle and its momentous consequences for the participants and the continent now includes a new preface and epilogue.
 
“Highlights just how much political and social considerations dictate the outcome of war . . . A highly detailed work of military history, The War for Africa can tell us a lot about the nature of counter-insurgency warfare and how small states can become contested battlegrounds between superpowers.” —New York Journal of Books

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781612004938
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Publication date: 01/10/2020
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 360
File size: 21 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Fred Bridgland, a graduate of St Andrew’s University, is a British veteran foreign correspondent and author. He has reported on wars in India, Pakistan, the Middle East and Africa. In 1975 his discovery of South Africa’s secret US-engineered invasion of Angola uncovered the CIA’s involvement in one of Africa’s longest wars, and was a world scoop. He has written a number of books, including Jonas Savimbi: A Key to Africa, and is currently writing a biography of Winnie Mandela.

Table of Contents

Preface
Prologue

PART 1: GENERAL SHAGANOVITCH’S OFFENSIVE
The Prelude
The South Africans move in
Sniffing out the enemy
Fapla’s advance continues

PART 2: THE DEFENCE
South Africa steps things up
South Africa’s first disaster
Enter the Falcon
The first land battle
The Second ‘Rumble on the Lomba’

PART 3: THE STING
Waiting and watching
Recce hardships
The Air Force gears up
War in the air
Laying the trap
Fancy tricks and dirty tricks
The Cavalry – 61 Mech – rides to the rescue
Softening up 47 Brigade
The trap closes
The destruction of 47 Brigade
Booty from the battlefield
Fapla’s offensive ends

PART 4: THE STALEMATE
Forward beyond the Lomba
The reinforcements arrive

PART 5: THE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE
The attack on 16 Brigade
‘Destroy the G-5S!’
Fapla’s Great Escape: The Chambinga Gallop

PART 6: THE SIDESHOW
Begging for permission to destroy the enemy

PART 7: INTO 1988. OPERATION HOOPER – THE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE CONTINUED
The attack on 21 Brigade: 13 January 1988
Throwing something at the Cuito River Bridge
The attack on 59 Brigade: 14 February 1988
The attack on Highpoint 1251

PART 8: THE SIDESHOW (CONTINUED)
The attack on Menongue

PART 9: THE THREE BATTLES FOR THE TUMPO TRIANGLE
Mike Muller leads the First Tumpo Attack: 25 February 1988
Mike Muller leads the Second Tumpo Attack: 29 February 1988
Jaw-jaw begins to supplant war-war
Gerhard Louw leads the Third Tumpo Attack: 23 March 1988

PART 10: THE DENOUEMENT
More jaw-jaw
Fidel’s last hurrah!

Epilogue
Postscript: UNITA
Timeline
Glossary
Select Bibliography

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