He was 35 years old when he commanded the 4th Commando Brigade in the Biafran Army, as seen in the photos. As a lieutenant-colonel, history claims that the first three brigades never existed; the Biafran command headquarters spread this false information to mislead the Nigerian Federal Forces.
For the majority of 1968, Steiner’s opponent was 3rd Nigerian Marine Commando Division’s “Black Scorpion” Adekunle. During the battle, Steiner got into a physical altercation with Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu. The story will disclose all the specifics of what happened.
Steiner chose the skull and crossbones as his regimental emblem because he believed it would serve as a constant reminder tohis soldiers of the dangers associated with war. He discovered that the Biafran people were very driven and quick learners. Instead of being a mercenary, Steiner became a citizen of the Biafran people and fought for them unpaid all the way to the end of the war—long after the majority of other European soldiers of fortune had deserted.
The majority of the other commanders had trained in conventional warfare at Sandhurst, but Steiner’s guerilla warfare skills aided the Biafran cause far more.
DETAILS OF THE STORY
He got in touch with his old colleague Roger Faulques, who was setting up a mercenary force for the newly independent Republic of Biafra, in 1967 while residing in Paris.
Biafra, which controlled a large portion of Nigeria’s oil reserves and could produce one million barrels of oil per day, was backed by France. Biafra was estimated to have oil reserves in 1967 that were roughly one-third that of Kuwait. Charles de Gaulle, the president of France, thought that by supporting Biafra’s separation from Nigeria, the French oil companies would be granted permission to extract Biafra’s oil. Note: The United Kingdom Soviet Union also provided support to the Nigerian Army.
Steiner was one of the mercenaries hired by the French secret service, the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage, to fight for Biafra. Declassified French documents in 2017 verified long-held suspicions: the “Africa cell” led by controversial French civil servant Jacques Foccart within the French government was responsible for arming and recruiting mercenaries like Steiner to fight for Biafra. Once French weapons were transported in from Libreville, Gabon, Uli’s airfield earned the title of “Africa’s busiest airport.”
Biafra was recognized by Gabon, a former French colony and member of France, per French directives. French weaponry was transported by air to Uli from Libreville. Aside from France, South Africa was the primary foreign backer of Biafra because the apartheid regime desired the collapse of oil-rich Nigeria, which was thought to be the black African nation most likely to oppose South African authority. Furthermore, from a South African perspective, the continuation of the Nigerian Civil War was beneficial since apartheid supporters in North America and Europe utilized it as evidence that Black people were incapable of governing themselves.
Steiner joined the Biafran army and flew to Port Harcourt via Lisbon, Portugal, and Libreville. Regardless of whether they had previously held officers’ commissions in other militaries, all-white mercenaries were automatically commissioned as officers within the Biafran Army. After leading his men in an unapproved attack to retake the city of Calabar, which ended in disaster in October 1967, Faulques and the majority of his 53 mercenaries soon left Biafra. Being a former sergeant in the French Foreign Legion, Steiner was one of the few who stayed on and eventually became their leader. Except for the Irish, Fauques and the majority of the mercenaries he had enlisted had anticipated a recurrence of the Congo crisis, but instead had encountered ungovernable and ill-trained people Swedish and Indian United Nations peacekeepers.
Most of the mercenaries left Biafra after learning that the Nigerians were more disciplined than the Congolese; the thought of potentially being killed unnerved them. Moreover, the Nigerian Federal Army detested the white mercenaries in particular because they were perceived as outsiders who had come to split up Nigeria, and prisoners were hardly ever taken during the Nigerian Civil War.Author Ayuba Mshelia of Nigeria referred to Steiner and the other white mercenaries as some of the “most hated and hideous mercenaries on this planet” as late as 2012.
According to British historian Peter Baxter, the main reasons why white mercenaries had an excessive influence during the 1960–1965 Congo crisis were that the mercenaries were superior to the ill-trained Congolese militias and the Congolese Army had all but collapsed. It was thought that in Nigeria, white mercenaries would make a comparable difference. Baxter does point out that even though two coups in 1966 had killed most of the Nigerian Army’s leadership, there were still enough Sandhurst-trained officers remaining to provide the army with just the right amount of professional leadership to keep it intact. When Steiner initially arrived in 1967, his first goal was to turn some river boats into gunboats in an effort to establish a brown water fleet for Biafra. Controlling the riparian waters was crucial, according to Steiner, since Biafra was surrounded by rivers on three sides, most notably the large Niger River, which acts as a natural defensive barrier. Despite the tiny size of the Federal Nigerian Navy, Biafrawas severely affected by the naval blockade enforced by one frigate and eight patrol boats, which prevented the export of oil and the purchase of food and weapons. Converting three Chris-Craft Boats from the Port Harcourt Sailing Club into temporary gunboats, Steiner worked with the Italian mercenary Giorgio Norbiato, a former Marine Commando of the Italian Navy.
Successful surprise night raids along the rivers by the recently established Biafran Navy brought in much-needed arms and munitions. Nevertheless, neither the naval blockade nor the Nigerian Army’s ability to cross the rivers was broken by the three gunboats. Nigerian superiority over the sea and the air, along with their determination to starve Biafra into submission, ultimately dictated the outcome of the war, despite the fact that it was fought mostly on land. Because of the massive population growth in Biafra and the scarcity of locally grown food, food had to be imported. The embargo by Nigeria resulted in a famine that claimed the lives of two to three million people. The starvation was the main factor in Biafra’s 1970 defeat.
After achieving some success in the Navy, Steiner managed to lead small forces into combat against the Federal Army of Nigeria. On November 12, 1968, David M. Bane, the American ambassador in Libreville, sent a cable to Washington stating: “Ojukwu then had military advisors in the form of Taffy Williams, Rudy Steiner, and an unidentified Italian.” Steiner and the Italian were each assigned leadership of a battalion of 400–500 Biafran commandos at the end of April 1968. According to history, Steiner was appointed lieutenant colonel and given leadership of the 4th Biafran Commando Brigade, which consisted of 3,000 troops. At the time of its formation, the 4th Commando Brigade was meant for irregular operations and operated outside of the Biafran Army’s normal chain of command. The Biafran army manufactured this false information to mislead the Nigerian Federal forces; the first three Commando battalions were not real. Because it was designed for specialized duties, the 4th Brigade was also referred to as the “S” brigade.
Instead of using any allusion to the Nazi SS or the pirate Jolly Roger, Steiner decided to use a skull and crossbones as his regimental emblem, believing that this would serve as a continual reminder to his soldiers of the dangers associated with battle. He also adopted the motto “Long Live Death! Long Live War!”
Steiner observed that the 4th Commando Brigade considered itself an elite force and took great pride in its skull and crossbones symbol. He also observed that the Biafran people were highly motivated and rapid learners. Adventurers such as the Italian Giorgio Norbiato, the Rhodesian explosives specialist Johnny Erasmus, the Welshman Taffy Williams, the Scotsman Alexander “Alec” Gay, and the Irishman Louis “Paddy” Malrooney were among Steiner’s subordinates, the Corsican Armand Iaranelli, who had managed to join the Foreign Legion by posing as an Italian; and “Johnny Korea,” a former Jamaican bartender who became a mercenary.
Gay, Erasmus, and MNorbiato had all previously fought for Katanga in the Congo as hired guns. Williams was one of Steiner’s minions who was infamous for his short fuse and for being “bullet proof” due to his resilience to repeated injuries. Malrooney was renowned for his bravery in the face of danger, his completely brutal style of combat, and his propensity to carry a revolver and a bottle of wine in his hands while out and about. Erasmus enjoyed blowing up buildings and bridges and was an expert at setting up homemade explosives to impede the Nigerian assault. Iaranelli was renowned for his unwavering will to battle even if he kept losing bodily parts.
Iaranelli was known as “Armand the Brave” in Biafra; he was a fighter despite having sections of his body amputated and bullets and shells embedded in him. Lastly, there was the heavily armed, aggressive Gay, a former Paratroop Regiment veteran with a heavy working-class Glasgow accent, who always carried a FN rifle, a shotgun, and a Madsen submachine gun “just in case I have to shoot my way out of this bloody place”. Gay declared his faith in the Celtic idea of the mythical “little people” who actually ran the universe, threatening, very literally, to “jam your machine gun and cause your rockets to misfire” if anyone offended the “little people.” Gay was injured four times in six days, and he eventually escaped Biafra.
The brigade was split up into the Guards Strike Force under Williams, the Ahoada Strike Force under Iaranelli, and the Abaliki Strike Force under Erasmus.Though he thought the word “Strike Force” sounded better, Steiner’s “Strike Forces” were actually battalions. During the first three months of 1968, the 4th Brigade operated in support of the Federal Nigerian Army. Although Steiner had desired to carry out ad hoc operations, after March 1968 he and his soldiers were given a far more traditional job in order to protect Biafra’s oil wells.
The lines that the Nigerians had captured in March 1968, just past Onitsha, were held by the 3rd Nigerian Division. General Murtala Mohammed’s 2nd Nigerian Division had captured Onitsha; the Biafrans were caught off guard and this victory put a dangerous wedge in their ranks, but Mohammed decided not to take advantage of it. The 4th Commando unit successfully stopped the Nigerians at Onitsha, where they initially remained along the front. However, in July 1968, the unit was transferred to the Owerri sector. The idea behind the brigade was to act as a counterweight to prevent Nigeria from advancing along a front that stretched from Owerri to Port Harcourt. At this point, the 4th Brigade was acting as shock troops, stationed wherever the greatest pressure from Nigeria was. Norbiato, an Italian colleague of Steiner’s who conducted a raid aimed at slowing down the Nigerians, was killed in action. In his 1969 book The Biafra Story, British writer Frederick Forsyth included a whole chapter about Steiner and the 4th Brigade’s 1968 adventures.
The 4th Commando Brigade engaged in intense combat in August 1968, trying to prevent General Benjamin “Black Scorpion” Adekunle’s 3rd Nigerian Marine Commando Division from crossing the Imo River. The Nigerians were pursuing their conquest of Port Harcourt, the hub of the country’s oil industry. The 4th Commando Brigade had only about 1,000 troops by this point in the war, and some of them had to steal ammunition from the enemy to arm themselves.
When their ammunition ran out in September 1968, the 4th Brigade was forced to flee from their attempt to retain the town of Aba. The 4th Brigade was instrumental in stopping the Nigerian attack during intense fighting that took place during the war. In October 1968, the Nigerians started an offensive with the goal of taking the Biafran capital, Umuahia. Operation OAU, which saw the Biafrans retake Owerri, culminated the bloodiest combat of the war. Due to his enormous ego, General Adekunle was overconfident and insisted on the 3rd Marine Commando Division operating alone because he wanted to claim all the glory that came with seizing Umuahia. But the 3rd Marine Division was ultimately destroyed by the tenacious opposition put up by Steiner and the 4th Commando Brigade. Despite widespread criticism for their crazy plan—Lagos being too far from the front—Steiner began to encourage the Biafrans to begin an offensive to take control of Nigeria’s greatest metropolis, Lagos. After the proposal to capture Lagos was turned down, Steiner pushed for an assault to retake Calabar.The 4th Commando Brigade, led by General C. Odumegwu Ojukwu, the president of Biafran, was worried that the Nigerians might seize his ancestral hometown of Nnewi, so he instead assigned Steiner and the Brigade to a defensive role just outside of Onitsha, where heavy Biafran losses were making offensives increasingly impossible.
Journalist A. J. Venter of South Africa characterized Steiner as “a ruthless, demanding taskmaster” who was “hard” on his troops and held a respectable but unloved reputation among the men he commanded. Steiner, who took great pleasure in the conflict, was well-known for his oddities, which included taking out his Browning Hi-Power pistol and shooting everything into the air to get people’s attention. Additionally, according to Venter, Steiner was a “austere, engaging” man who won over the hearts of war correspondents who thought the colorful, eccentric mercenary made for an interesting story. The world was shocked by a 1968 photo of Steiner shot by Italian journalist Romano Cagnoni, who captured the guy striking a menacing, martial attitude while wearing a uniform he had designed himself. “If any corporal serving under me in the Legion had taken more than a week to conquer West Africa with their kind of equipment, I’d have him shot for dereliction of duty,” Steiner reportedly said of his opponents in a 1968 Time article. Known for his outbursts, Steiner would frequently declare, “You are not Legionaries, you are not men,” and would always hold the Foreign Legion up as the pinnacle of military brilliance, a standard that the 4th Commando Brigade did not reach.
Because his men who spoke Ibgo did not comprehend what he was saying, Steiner eventually had to switch to speaking English. This was due to the fact that he normally spoke either in his native German or French. Steiner was regarded as a good talent evaluator since he elevated qualified men to tactical leadership positions, but he was also notorious for arbitrarily demoting and elevating personnel up the ranks. There were protests when Steiner made an Igbo soldier a captain, claiming it was improper to have a guy at the officers’ mess who was unable to handle silverware and who ate with his fingers; Steiner replied that he did not care if he ate with his feet as long as he was a good officer.
Contrary to popular belief, Steiner fought for the Biafrans without receiving compensation and continued to serve long after the majority of other European soldiers of fortune had deserted, according to Chinua Achebe. Asserting that the Igbo people were the victims of genocide, Steiner claimed to have fought for Biafra for idealistic reasons. However, American journalist Ted Morgan ridiculed his assertions, branding Steiner a militarist who merely wanted to wage war since it was the only thing he was skilled at. Fola Oyewole, a Yoruba who fought for Biafra, claimed that the majority of Biafran officers “…loathed Steiner for his pompous attitude and his lack of manners”. “You general in Biafra, in France a corporal!” Steiner reportedly said to a Biafran colonel, according to Oyewole’s memory. Because of his refusal to follow commands from any Biafran officer and the fact that he was a sergeant in the French Foreign Legion, Steiner was despised by the Biafran people. Although British journalist John St. Jorre regarded Steiner’s English as “quite competent,” Steiner insisted on issuing his directives in “Legionarie French,” a highly simplified version of the language used in the Legion.
Since English was widely spoken in both Nigeria and Biafra as a result of Nigeria’s former British colony status, Steiner’s insistence on French as the language of command incited animosity among the Biafran officers, who perceived his linguistic preference as a means of avoiding communication with them.Oyewole recalled that one mercenary had told him that “Steiner was a very good commander when he had about 100 exceptionally brave fighters.” Oyewole claimed that the 4th Commando Brigade’s original goal was to conduct irregular operations behind Nigerian lines and that it was a foolish decision for Bifaran leader C. Odumegwu Ojukwu to employ the brigade as a regular unit. In conclusion, Oyewole said that the common people of Biafra detested the white mercenaries for their tyrannical actions, propensity to flee rather than stand their ground when it seemed the Nigerians were about to cut them off, and love of looting, pointing out that the European mercenaries seemed more interested in making as much money as they could than in aiding Biafra. Steiner launched Operation Hiroshima on November 15, 1968, with the intention of regaining Onitsha and halting the Nigerian assault. Baxter stated that Steiner “ordered a surprisingly ill-conceived full frontal assault against Nigerian positions across an open area without artillery, air or fire support”.
The Nigerians firmly put an end to the Biafran offensive when Adekunle’s forces were entrenched behind heavily reinforced machine gun posts. When he launched a suicidal attack against a strategically located Nigerian position, Belgian mercenary Marc Goosens and the majority of his troops were slain. Upon the withdrawal of the operation on November 29, 1968, the 4th Commando Brigade had suffered more than half of its casualties. After Operation Hiroshima failed, Steiner fell into a deep depression, started drinking excessively, and developed paranoia because he thought his own troops were plotting his murder. Forsyth evaluated Steiner and said the following: “He was good once, but deteriorated.” He was affected by the media attention, which is never good for a mercenary.
Steiner was told to appear before Ojukwu on December 6, 1968, and provide an explanation for his failure. Steiner arrived very inebriated and aggressive. He insisted that he deserved cold beer, but when he received his order of a glass of warm beer, he became quite irate and smashed his glass. Steiner tried to smack Ojukwu across the face when he refused, which sparked a fight with Ojukwu’s bodyguards. The meeting finished with Ojukwu taking custody of Steiner and marching him out in handcuffs. Only Ojukwu prevented Steiner from being shot on the spot.
After having multiple altercations with his Biafran coworkers, Steiner left the company and was taken into custody. Biafra evicted Steiner on December 10, 1968. The French ambassador to Gabon, Maurice Delauney, sent the following report to Paris on December 15, 1968: “Three European combatants remain with the Biafrans after the departure of Rolf Steiner and his comrades: two French and one English.” Oyewole said that “Steiner’s departure from Biafra removed the shine from the white mercenaries, the myth of the white man’s superiority in the art of soldiering” .
The Biafran officers expressed their relief upon his departure.When a journalist questioned Philip Effiong, the head of the Biafran general staff, about the influence of the white mercenaries on the conflict after it had ended, he responded, “They had not helped.” If none of them had shown up to work for the secessionist troops, it would not have mattered. The longest-staying was Rolf Steiner. More than anything, he was a horrible influence. We were relieved to be free of him. Regarding Steiner’s overall effectiveness as a military leader, historians disagree.
By late 1968, a number of Biafran officers believed that Steiner was more of a liability than an advantage for Biafra, according to the Indian historian Pradeep Baru, who noted that the 4th Commando Brigade had a “poor operational record” under his leadership. Regarding Steiner and his “S” battalion, a Nigerian historian named Balarabe Usman Yousef said, “Some people think the “S” stands for’ strike,’ but I like to think that it stands for “stupid’! Steiner’s command proved “extremely costly” for the 4th Commando Brigade, which suffered severe casualties in every mission, according to British historian Philip Jowett. Jowett also claimed that Steiner’s self-evaluation of his skills had become “delusional” due to his excessive confidence.
Most importantly, he believed he did not need to follow instructions from Ojukwu’s staff, which greatly increased tension over the rouge commander. On the other hand, the 4th Commando Brigade, led by Steiner, was praised by British historian Peter Baxter as the “best unit in the [Biafran] army” and as “well commanded and tactically sound” in its day-to-day operations. Following his arrest, handcuffed, and uniform-less arrest, Steiner retired to Germany, where he remarried and dictated his memoirs to his ghostwriter, Yves-Guy Berges. The memoirs were published in 1978 as The Last Adventurer in English and 1976 in French as La Carré rouge. At ninety-one years old, Steiner is still alive today.