Operation Gordian Knot (Operação Nó Górdio) was the largest and most expensive Portuguese military campaign in the Portuguese overseas province of Mozambique, East Africa. The operation was carried out in 1970, during the Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974). The objectives of the campaign were to close down the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO)'s infiltration routes across the Tanzanian border and to destroy permanent FRELIMO bases inside the liberated zones in Northern Mozambique. Gordian Knot was a seven-month long campaign ultimately employing thirty-five thousand men, and was almost successful since it destroyed most guerrilla camps located inside FRELIMO's liberated zones and captured large numbers of rebels and armaments, forcing FRELIMO to retreat from their bases and outposts in the provinces. The operation ultimately failed when FRELIMO forces regrouped and thrust further south into the province of Tete, opening a new front and overstretching the Portuguese Army. The failure of Gordian Knot helped fuel the discontent that led to the Carnation Revolution in April 1974.
Background
Independentist guerrilla
The communist-inspired, independent-seeking guerillas of FRELIMO soon realised the difficulties they would encounter in militarily defeating the NATO-backed Portuguese forces on the open battlefield and for this reason FRELIMO took on a strategy that was relatively unique. With no real working class or Mozambican military to isolate from the Portuguese regime and ultimately from which to gain support as in the case of a typical Marxist-Leninist strategy, FRELIMO's military adopted a Maoist strategy. The Maoist insurgency is typically three-staged:
The First Stage was to create networks of guerrilla political/progaganda groups to win popular support and to train terrorist teams to intimidate sections of the population which may be hesitant to support the insurgency or which support the targeted government outright. The intent is to neutralize any area of the population which will not support the insurgency at the outset and to organize the areas of the population which will provide support. The Second Stage (or open guerrilla warfare) began with armed resistance by small bands of guerrillas operating in rural areas where terrain is rugged and government control is weak. Initially, this stage is characterised by low level hit-and-run tactics designed to highlight the strength and organization of the insurgent movement and expose the weaknesses of the government. As more of the population is won over to the insurgency, the magnitude of the armed resistance and guerrilla warfare is increased to include greater segments of the countryside and more lucrative targets. The rate of increase in the guerrilla effort is dictated solely by the response of the government. If the government responds in a forceful, well-organized fashion, the insurgency may remain in an early stage two mode of operation for a prolonged period of time or may even revert to stage one. The intent of stage two, however, is to continue to gather popular support and gain control of the countryside, isolating government forces in small areas, mainly urban, and making them pay a heavy price when they venture into guerrilla-controlled areas. The Third Stage of a Maoist insurgency is the evolution of the insurgency into an open civil war, where the guerrilla forces take on the appearance of a regular army and conventional warfare is more predominant. The intent here is to openly defeat and displace the existing government authority if it has not already come apart from within.
This was the strategy FRELIMO adopted from the outset with a notable exception. FRELIMO had not yet moved to the third stage of the Maoist strategy by 1970. The Portuguese had held relative military supremacy during the course of the liberation struggle but struggled to win the support of the majority of the population outside the major cities and towns, where settlers and colonial authorities had firmly established themselves.