Portuguese Colonial War and political rights, corruption, poverty, inequality, and failed central planning eroded the initial revolutionary zeal. A level of social order and economic development comparable to what had existed under Portuguese rule, including during the period of the Colonial War, became the goal of the independent territories. The former Portuguese territories in Africa became sovereign states, with Agostinho Neto in Angola, Samora Machel in Mozambique, Luís Cabral in Guinea-Bissau, Manuel Pinto da Costa in São Tomé and Príncipe, and Aristides Pereira in Cape Verde as the heads of state. When the Portuguese began trading on the west coast of Africa, in
Portuguese Army of the first measures of the new republican regime was to implement a military reform that aimed to transform the Portuguese Army into a militia type army, modeled after the Swiss Army. Portugal participated in World War I on the side of the Allies. The Portuguese Army would engaged in combat against the Germans in the European Western Front, in the South-West Africa and in the East Africa campaigns. The conflict between Portugal and Germany started well before the formal declaration of war between the two countries when several military clashes between Portuguese and German troops occurred in the borders