The Dogs of War (novel)

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For other uses of The Dogs of War, see The Dogs of War

The Dogs of War is a 1974 novel by Frederick Forsyth and a 1981 film, based on the novel, directed by John Irvin. It follows a company of European mercenary soldiers who are hired by a British industrialist to overthrow the government of a fictitious African nation called Zangaro.

The central characters, like the title character in Forsyth's earlier work The Day of the Jackal, are professional killers: ruthless, violent men who are "heroes" only in the loosest sense of the word (anti-heroes). Carlo Alfred Thomas "Cat" Shannon, the Irish commander of the mercenary group, is the sole exception to this pattern. Both book and film follow, in detail, the preparations for the final attack: recruitment, training, reconnaissance, and the acquisition of weapons. Like most of Forsyth's work, The Dogs of War is more about craft than about character.

The Dogs of War draws on Forsyth's experiences as a journalist covering the Biafran War between Biafra and Nigeria. The dedication of the book--which names five individuals and "the others in the unmarked graves" and concludes with the line "at least we tried"--is clearly meant as an allusion to Forsyth's time in Biafra. The story's dark tone and cynical plot may stem from the same source.

The title is derived from a line in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar: "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!"

[edit] Plot

The story opens with a prologue in which Shannon and his team of mercenaries leave a war in West Africa, a war they have lost, and say goodbye to the General, who has employed them for the past six months.

Ruthless mining tycoon Sir James Manson discovers a ten-billion dollar deposit of platinum in the hinterland of the Central African republic of Zangaro. As the ruler of Zangaro, Jean Kimba, is a Marxist and under heavy Soviet influence, Sir James realizes that he must be replaced with a puppet dictator, Colonel Bobi; a man of little intelligence who - once confirmed as president - will sign over the Zangaro mining rights for a pittance and a hefty bribe into his own bank account.

On a recommendation from a freelance writer, he hires Anglo-Irish mercenary soldier Carlo Alfred Thomas (“Cat”) Shannon to visit Zangaro and propose how Kimba could be overthrown. Shannon recommends an all-out assault on Kimba's palace in the capital of Zangaro, Clarence, and the assassination of Kimba himself. He prices his project at £100, 000, with £10, 000 for himself. Sir James agrees and Shannon assembles the team who will help him prepare his plan: German ex-smuggler Kurt Semmler; South African mortar expert Jan Dupree; Belgian bazooka specialist “Tiny” Marc Vlaminck; and Corsican knife man Jean-Baptiste Langarotti.

Semmler travels around Europe searching for a suitable cargo vessel to transport them and their equipment to Zangaro. Dupree stays in London and purchases all their clothes, boots and berets. Langarotti travels to Marseilles to buy inflatable landing craft for an amphibious assault. Vlaminck accompanies Shannon to Belgium to purchase one hundred Schmeisser machine pistols from an ex--SS man. Shannon himself travels to Luxembourg to set up a holding company for the sale of the ship, to Spain to purchase four-hundred thousand rounds of 9mm ammunition for the Schmeissers, walkie talkies and flares, and to Yugoslavia to purchase the bazooka, mortars and the necessary rockets and bombs. Shannon also manages to find time to have a brief fling with Sir James' daughter, Julie.

However, the scientist who advised Manson on the platinum in Zangaro has inadvertently revealed the secret to the Russians who appoint a bodyguard to protect Kimba while they send their own survey team there.

Meanwhile, Sir James Manson and his two henchmen, Simon Endean and financial whizzkid Martin Thorpe, secretly purchase a controlling share in a rundown mining company Bormac Trading, Plc. When the Zangaro mining rights are sold to Bormac, Sir James will make an estimated £80 million windfall.

A rival mercenary Charles Roux, jealous that he was not given the Zangaro job, places a contract on Shannon, but Shannon traps the assassin in a Paris alleyway and Langarotti kills him with a knife throw. The Schmeissers are smuggled across the Belgian border and loaded onto their ship at Marseilles hidden in oil drums, along with the clothes and speedboats, supposedly for watersports in Morocco. They then sail to Ploce in Yugoslavia to load the weapons he has bought from an arms dealer there, without telling them they already have arms aboard. These weapons are then hidden below decks and the ship sails to Spain to pick up the ammunition (supposedly sold to the police force of Iraq). The ship then sails to Sierra Leone to pick up the six African mercenaries who will also take part in the raid, and an African doctor named Okoye.

The assault on Kimba's palace takes place: the palace courtyard is pounded with mortar fire and the gates destroyed by Vlaminck's bazooka. However Kimba's KGB bodyguard shoots Vlaminck in the chest and the Belgian is only just able to kill the Russian with his last bazooka rocket. Dupree is also killed by a grenade thrown in error by one of the Africans. Semmler shoots Kimba as he tries to escape through his bedroom window.

Simon Endean arrives in Clarence to install Colonel Bobi as the new Zangaran president. He is accompanied by his own bodyguard, a former enforcer for the Kray twins. Shannon shoots Bobi and Endean's bodyguard. He then leaves Dr. Okoye in charge as he drives Endean to the border. Dr. Okoye refuses a Russian survey team's request to land.

Shannon explains to Endean that, in his research, he failed to take note of the twenty thousand immigrant workers who do most of the work in Zangaro, but who were never franchised by the government. Okoye is one of them, and so are the hundred Schmeisser-equipped soldiers Shannon brought into the country at dawn, and they will now lead the new government. When Shannon tells Endean that the coup was conducted on behalf of the General, Endean is furious, but Shannon points out that at least this government will be fair and that if Manson wants the platinum, he will have to pay a market price for it.

In the final scene it is revealed that Shannon has been suffering all along from terminal malignant melanoma. He goes into the African bush to end his life on his own terms; with ”a bullet in his chest and blood in his mouth.”

[edit] Trivia

• The Central African republic of Zangaro is based on the former Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea.
• Real-life mercenaries Mike Hoare, Bob Denard and Jacques Schramme are all name-checked.
• Frederick Forsyth appears in cameo as an unnamed freelance writer who recommends mercenaries to Simon Endean.
• To research the story, Forsyth pretended to be preparing a coup in Equatorial Guinea on behalf of the Igbo people of whom he is a passionate supporter. He was told it would cost $250,000. This led many to believe Forsyth was actually planning a real coup in Equatorial Guinea. Forsyth later said that arms dealers were the scariest people he ever met. Forsyth's activities in Africa at the time are an extremely controversial subject and it is difficult to separate truth from fiction. It is difficult to separate out what he pretended to do versus what he might have planned to actually do.

[edit] Film version

A film version, The Dogs of War, was made by United Artists in 1981. It was directed by John Irvin and starred Christopher Walken, as Shannon, and Tom Berenger. It loosely followed the plot of the book. The film, cast without major stars, takes a similar approach. Christopher Walken gives a repressed, bordering on flat, enigmatic performance as Shannon.