One calls mercenary a combatant serving for money another State that it his.

Etymology

The mercenary term described, at the origin, all people offering a service to the day against a payment. Thus, of the workmen or the peasants paid at the day on building sites or farms mercenaries were called. It comes from Latin mercenarius , itself derived from the word merces ( wages in Latin).

History

The Ten Thousand were a force of Greek mercenaries who were used to Cyrus the Young person in his rebellion against his/her brother the King as Persia Artaxerxès II. One among them, Xénophon, made the account of their fold towards the Greek colonies after the death of Cyrus in its Anabase .

During the First Punic War, the Carthaginois called upon mercenaries amply. They tested difficulties of demobilizing them the shortly after this war, at the point to enter in war against their own mercenaries - it was the Guerre of the Mercenaries known as war inexpiable (241 - 238 av. J. - C.).

At the time of the War One hundred Year old, appeared to a particular form mercenaries, the Grandes companies. The mercenaries with the service of the English received contracts then known as “contracts of endenture”. The part of the contract was cut out according to a nonrectilinear layout and each part preserved a share of the contract.

The Italian republics of the Renaissance often called upon mercenaries, named Condottiere S , for their defense. The author and politicking Nicolas Machiavel held them in poor think, underlining in the Prince their defects: honesty only based on the money, and absence of engagement with respect to the cause or the nation which they defend, leading them to fight with reserve. Certain confrontations of the Italian Rebirth are remarkable by the tiny number of victims compared to the size of the armies (mercenaries) being opposed. The British used Swiss mercenaries and German paticulièrement in his colonies of America. They took part with the British in the deportation of French of News-France in Acadie in 1755, in the fire and the plundering of 149 farms along the St-Laurent in 1759, and in battle of the Plains of Abraham. They took part and played a role in the military occupation of News-France for example Hadilmand (Switzerland) was governor after Jeffrey Amherst. Another Switzerland which was illustrated by its zeal is " Henri Bouquet (1719 - September 2nd, 1765) is an officer mercenary of the British army noticed in the Seven Year old war between French and the British and the war of Pontiac." http://www.umass.edu/legal/derrico/amherst/lord_jeff.html Peter d' Errico: Jeffrey Amherst and Smallpox Blankets http://www.umass.edu/legal/derrico/amherst/lord_jeff.html

Today

Since 1859, the pontifical Swiss Garde is the only force mercenary authorized by the Swiss right. It has the role of protecting the Pape with the the Vatican.

From the Years 1960, mercenaries are present in several conflicts in Africa, as with the Katanga in Democratic republic of Congo (DRC) like to the Yemen. It is in DRC that the mercenaries were most present, where of 1965 with 1967 there was more than 300 mercenaries divided into three groups that of Denard, Schramme and Hoard, where each one had a sector of North east of the DRC. During this war against the nationalist rebellion, much of mercenaries generally died in anonymity. All these men had signed a contract of service within the National army of Congo (ANC), where they left in the place the troops which it is not correct politically to send. Then, there were the Biafra, the Bénin, in Europe the Balkans and more recently the Ivory Coast.

Today, the mercenaries are mainly engaged in private military companies (SMP), sometimes in reinforcement of a Milice. One as well finds them in conflicts like the Civil war of Sierra Leone (Executive Outcomes), as in Afghanistan (DynCorp) or in Iraq (Military Professionnal Ressources Inc, Blackwater, Erinys).

They provide various services like the protection of installations, the drive of the troops, the maintenance of the military material and even take part, in certain cases, with the armed combat.

Famous mercenaries

See too

• the category Mercenariat and its subcategories (see at the foot of the page) which try to gather the whole of the articles related to this subject, of which for example:

• Condottiere (taking contractors of war in the Italy of the Middle Ages and the Rebirth)
• private military Company (contractors of war in the modern world)
• Swiss Mercenaries

With the cinema, on television and in the literature

• the Seven Samurais of Akira Kurosawa

• the Seven Mercenaries , adaptation of the precedent by John Sturges
• Agency all risks , Televised series
• Highway towards the hell , John Geddes, ISBN 2915243050
• Dogs of war (The Dogs off War, 1974) , Frederick Forsyth
• Flesh and blood , Paul Verhoeven
• the Cycle of the Black Company , series of novels of Dark fantasy by Glen Cook
• Soldiering of Ermanno Olmi, 2002 → Lire criticism in '' the Books of history ''
• the Mercenary , transformed into the Volunteer is a song of tradition of the French Army
• the wild gooses (The wild geese, 1978) of Andrew V. Mclagen

Simple: Mercenary

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