[4] Schramme ran his estate along militaristic lines, having a very authoritarian and paternalistic leadership style as he took to calling himself a père ("father") to his black African workers.

[5] In Schramme's viewpoint, he and the other Belgian settlers should provide the strict, but loving paternalistic care that he believed was what the Congolese needed.

With the Congo falling into chaos, Schramme provided an armed guard to move Belgian settlers into the British colony of Uganda.

[5] In the spring of 1961, Schramme enlisted in Groupe Mobile E , a mercenary unit commanded by a hard-drinking Scotsman, Robert Chambers, who called himself Louis Chamois, and whose French was atrocious.

[6] The Groupe Mobile E had a terrible reputation for cruelty; with one Belgian settler, Frans Heymans, complaining in May 1961 of "the brutalities at the hands of Chamois and his men".

"[6] Schramme was arrested by Swedish soldiers serving as United Nations peacekeepers and expelled to Belgium on 17 September 1961 as a troublemaker.

[6] Schramme spent several weeks in Belgium, and then went to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe), where he purchased the book Quotations from Chairman Mao to "know his enemy" as he phrased it.

[6] During his time in Southern Rhodesia, Schramme had recruited several white British and South African settlers to come with him to fight for Katanga.

[7] In October 1961, Schramme took the town of Kisamba from the Congolese, proudly reporting his small unit had just routed two battalions of the Armée Nationale Congolaise, owing to their superior discipline.

Believing that he needed the support of the West, the army commander, General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu persuaded President Joseph Kasa-Vubu to appoint Tshombe premier on 9 July 1964.

[11] On 30 June 1967 president Moïse Tshombe's jet aircraft was hijacked en route to Algiers, before he could return to Congo after his exile in Spain.

For Schramme, this was a sign that he was fighting the wrong enemy and on 3 July 1967 he began to lead an uprising in the Tshopo province against Mobutu along with fellow mercenaries Denard and Jerry Puren.

[13] On the morning of 5 July 1967 10 Commando ANC, Schramme's unit, launched surprise attacks on Stanleyville, Kindu, and Bukavu.

A number of Katangese gendarmes fled into Angola, where they retained their loyalty to the Mwaant Yav, the traditional king of the Lunda people.