Portuguese Colonial War and other Western powers, as most analysts and the Nixon administration had concluded that Portuguese military success on the battlefield would resolve any political divisions within Portugal concerning the conduct of the war in Portuguese Africa, providing the conditions for US investment there. Most concerned was the apartheid government of South Africa, which launched a deep border incursion operation into Angola to attack guerrilla-controlled areas of the country following the coup. On 3 January 1961 Angolan peasants in the region of Baixa de Cassanje, Malanje, boycotted the Cotonang Company's cotton fields where they worked, demanding better working conditions and higher
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