Foreword: I would like to write about an extraordinary story, a true story of a historical day in the year 1974. This event changed Portugal, a country in the southwest of Europe. I copy sentences from wikipedia for parts 1 and 2 of my story, because I do not want to describe anything generally wrong or to tell my opinion about political systems, social problems, military power or wars. Furthermore, it is not my intention to glorify any kind of revolutions or of heroisms. Parts 3 and 4 are my own parts of the story. Today I know dramatic things about the Carnation Revolution, but it is still a subjective point of view, of course. I can warmly recommend to those, who are interested to learn more about the modern history of Portugal to look for the Carnation Revolution (in German Nelkenrevolution) in the internet. And there is also a Portuguese movie, called Capitaes de Abril (April Captains), which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in the year 2000. It is like a documentation and a very good film in my opinion, but it is not so easy to get a copy of it. Part 1. Background Information The Carnation Revolution, also referred to as the 25 de Abril, was a left-leaning military coup started on April 25th 1974, in Lisbon, the capitol of Portugal. It can be described as the necessary means of bringing back democracy to Portugal after more than 50 years of dictatorship and ending an unpopular, endless and brutal Colonial War. This revolution was unusual in that the revolutionaries did not use direct violence to achieve their goals. It was the end of the Estado Novo (New State) regime, the longest authoritarian regime in Western Europe, and its secret police, which repressed elemental civil liberties and political freedoms. It was also the final dissolution of the Portuguese Empire. In the aftermath of the revolution a new constitution was drafted, censorship was formally prohibited, free speech declared, political prisoners were released and the Portuguese overseas territories in Sub-Saharan Africa were immediately given their independence.

Salgueiro Maia was one of the captains of the Portuguese Army who led the revolutionary forces during the Carnation Revolution. He was a young captain who drilled officers-in-training and he was informed about the plans to bring down the dictatorship. On April 24th, at 10.55 pm, the signal for the uprising was played on the radio, which was the song ‘E depois do adeus’. At that moment, Maia and his cadets grabbed their weapons and, against the will and even resistance of several regular officers, among them the commandant who was simply arrested by Maia, they marched out of their barracks on the early morning of April 25th, toward Lisbon. Despite repeated appeals from the revolutionaries on the radio inciting the population to stay home, thousands of Portuguese descended on the streets, mixing with the military insurgents. Many people joined revolutionary soldiers on the streets of Lisbon, in apparent joy and audible euphoria. The other signal used that day was the folk song ‘Grândola Vila Morena’, by the Portuguese singer and composer Zeca Afonso, which was the signal for the coup leaders to announce that they had taken control of strategic parts of the country. Maia and his troops peacefully forced the ruling dictatorship to resign and it is in a large part due to his brave intelligence, humble and sensible character and his strategic and social genius that bloodshed was avoided at all cost during the Revolution. There were "only" four dead people during the Carnation Revolution, which were not killed by the revolutionaries nor Maia's troops, but tragically by the political police of the regime before it surrendered. This happened in the afternoon, when hundreds of civilians were peacefully demonstrating in front of the headquarters of the political police in downtown Lisbon. The red carnations became the beautiful symbol of the peaceful revolution because, besides having happened in the beginning of Spring, some of the soldiers and civilians asked flower sellers on the market of Lisbon for some flowers to put on the tip of their guns and tanks, as a sign that there would be no bloodshed. That afternoon and night, there was a celebration of life and peace in Lisbon.

In spring of 1974 my parents and I were on a long holiday trip along the coastline of Spain and Portugal. In the early morning of April 25th, we were on the main road to Lisbon with our VW bus camper. We started our travel to Lisbon very early that day, almost in dark, because it was quite a long trip and we intended to spend the whole day in this wonderful old European capitol. We were still many kilometers north of Lisbon, when we came to a crossing and the few cars on the road had to stop, because an army convoy entered the road. We intended to stop behind the other civilian cars, but someone in uniform made hectic gestures with his arms that we had to bypass the waiting cars without stopping. This barricade guard was visibly startled, perhaps because we approached too fast and with our headlights still on, although the sun was already shining. Anyway, our VW bus was immediately directed to follow an army vehicle in the long line of jeeps, trucks and tanks. Just the color of our vehicle was different from other camouflage painted VW buses in the convoy, it was red, the same intensive red color of fire engines. Perhaps this was the reason, that we were included in this army convoy, because the barricade guard wrongly thought, that our red VW bus was an emergency vehicle on duty. And after that crossing, everybody else thought, that our VW bus in the middle of the convoy was a special kind of escort vehicle. None of the surprised looking police officers along the way of the convoy dared to pick us out, like they did with other cars of civilians, which somehow managed to get involved. I want to explain it, because it is not comprehensible from our knowledge of today: Portugal was an isolated and very poor European country, a dictatorship, but it was not dangerous at all to be there as a tourist. The living situation in the 70s and also 80s were very different in countries of Western Europe, not so adapted like today. Especially, when you traveled with a camper, there were no restrictions to go and to see everything of these countries. It was a great time of freedom for RVs in Western Europe. A German VW bus camper was something unknown for many Portuguese, they had never seen such RVs before. Only a minority of Portuguese had a little car, but many people knew, that such red VW buses were very common emergency vehicles for fire fighters. So how should someone, who did not know about private owned VW buses not expect, that every red VW bus with its headlights on at daylight is such a little fire truck on duty on its way to a burning house. We assumed, that this little human error caused this confusion, that we were integrated in the convoy of Maia’s revolutionary troops. No matter who made a mistake, we were unintentionally a permanent part of the convoy of Maia’s troops, which came from their barracks this early morning and entered the main road at the same moment, we were approaching this crossing. They were on their way to the city center of Lisbon, the same place where we intended to go. And so we were unnoticed in the middle of the Carnation Revolution as it started, even before the regime or the world press knew that anything unusual was going on in Portugal. What would have happened to us, if the regime have had already knowledge of the revolution and regime friendly troops have attacked our convoy on its way to Lisbon?

Captain Maia was in the first vehicle of his convoy. In the narrow streets of downtown Lisbon, the convoy had to stop the first time on its way, because Maia had lost the orientation, where to go to the government buildings. This took a few minutes and in this time the soldiers in the vehicles in front and in the rear of us investigated, who we were and why we were going the same way all the time, but we could not understand them. These soldiers in uniform were friendly and looked ready to be on parade. They gave us signs to drive on and to take a side street away from the convoy. Perhaps they tried to warn us to leave Lisbon again. We parked our car in a street, that was a little bit far away from the city center than intended before, so we had to make a long walk to the market place and the palace, the heart of the old city center, but this was later an advantage, when we left Lisbon more or less in panic. We walked through the main street as the army convoy of Maia came down this street on its way to the government buildings. Shops closed their doors immediately and suddenly many people were on the streets, shouted and waved happily at the astonished soldiers. My parents thought: ‘Hey, this is a victory parade, the war in Africa is over. These troops are on their way to take the salute of the regime.’ Everybody around us were very enthusiastic. The soldiers kept discipline and were a bit nervous, no aggressions at all, but they were not relaxed. For a few minutes, we observed this “parade”. This is the picture, I can remember. Then suddenly, we saw that a young soldier lost something: cartridges felt down on the street as he jumped down from a truck. The uniform pockets of these soldiers were full of ammunition and they had rifles in their hands. There were more weapons on the trucks and the tanks were fully armed. We recognized, that this was not a harmless parade, there was something very strange going on in Lisbon. So we weren’t happy to be spectators of this "parade" any more and left the main street. We returned to our camper and left Lisbon very quickly. Closing words The realization of being in the middle of a military coup gave my undaunted parents the fright of their lives. I was not scared of it, because I was too young to understand how dangerous this situation was and my cool parents took my mind off my arising worries. I was a kid that depended on the right decisions of responsible adults, but in such a situation, life-experienced adults became the same as unsuspecting kids, not able to understand what was going on around them, blind to see the danger. Their senses were alerted, of course, but they failed to response in a proper way and were not able to protect others, not even themselves. There were some more situations that day, we were in greatest danger. Soldiers pointed their weapons at us at a road block, but it happened nothing. Powerful men were not aggressive against their fellow human beings, they were peaceable to their enemies. So I think, it is only sensible to believe: God, the Father, held His good protective hands above an endless number of His children in Lisbon that day. May God bless you all. Peace, Martin