Les Campagnes Coloniales du Portugal 1844-1941 (review)

René Pélissier has forged a matchless career in researching, writing, and publishing histories of the Portuguese military campaigns of Lusophone Africa and Asia. He began his work in the late 1960s and since then has produced a shelf of a dozen exhaustive and detailed books not only on the Lusophone colonies but on Spanish Africa as well. As an independent scholar, he holds a rare variety of doctorate, Doctorat d'état, which when he earned it in 1975 was required to hold the post of university professor. The time needed to complete it ranged from eight to twenty or more years. In Pélissier's case his Sorbonne thesis was a daunting three volumes totaling 1,736 pages and served as the basis for his first two books on Angola, Les Guerres Grises and La Colonie du Minotaure. He self-published these books in an era when it was considered maverick, as he was determined to pack into each the detail that has become his trademark. Most publishers would not even consider volumes of Pélissier's length and depth and of such a limited market potential, and yet each sold a thousand copies and is now long out of print. Orders for them continue to arrive on Pélissier's doorstep, and since this initial effort, he has self-published an additional four thousand pages.

The new book under review here is a compression of four of his earlier volumes, Les Guerres Grises (Angola), the Naissance du Mozambique, the Naissance de la Guiné (Guinea-Bissau), and Timor en Guerre, and consequently will appeal to a wider audience, with its shortened yet otherwise uncompromised format. Fortunately the contraction has affected neither his clear and elegant writing style nor his eye for the colorful phrase. His chapter titles, for instance, reveal a wry twist of earthy humor and employ wonderful imagery, and his opening one is titled "Tight Purse and Clenched Teeth: The Awakening of the Fidalgos." What delightful flavor!

The book is divided into five parts, and the first two introduce the reader to the mid-nineteenth century state of the Portuguese nation, its armed forces, and its people, and describe the situation in each of the Portuguese colonies. This is a valuable introduction to the third empire (Africa), which was raised from the ruins of the first (India and the Orient) and the nostalgia of the second (Brazil). The remaining text summarizes the chronological history of these ventures across the years and geography of the empire. This is no mean feat, as the Portuguese wars of colonial pacification were nearly endless in duration; in Angola alone there were 180 military campaigns between 1848 and 1926. The book was born in an effort to correct the general ignorance of these fights and a prevalent notion that only the great powers of Great Britain, France, and Germany were forces for colonization in Africa. The public at large seem to know that Belgium, Italy, and the United States played a peripheral role but seem unaware of Portugal and even Spain and the significance and origin of their presence. Portugal indeed experienced a colonial Renaissance in Africa between the years 1890 and 1900 that left it master of its territories, which were twenty-three times its European land mass.

Pélissier has done a superb job of accomplishing this goal. He has packed the volume with detail and has crafted his case well for raising the public awareness of these heretofore obscure campaigns and the Portuguese presence in Africa. The book is not simply a synthesis of his earlier works but contains new citations and revisions from subsequent historical revelations. Pélissier himself calls the book his magnum opus, although it would be shortsighted and disappointing to think that this would be the capstone to his career. It is, however, short enough finally to interest a commercial publisher. For the English-speaking public, the good news is that a U...