The Great Toyota War was the nickname for the final phase of the Chadian-Libyan conflict.
This was due to the many Toyota Land Cruisers and Hiluxes used by the Chadian
forces in place of armored vehicles. But what started the conflict? And why did
Toyotas see combat? In this video, we will be diving into this crazy story.
Following the Second World War, European nations started decolonizing Africa. Not because they
had finally seen the error of their ways, but because they were so riddled with debt they
could no longer afford to maintain their colonies. Throughout the 1950s until 1975, many independence
treaties were negotiated, and the African continent went through major political change.
As with most great power shifts throughout history, the decolonization of Africa was
rife with violence. Rebellions, coups, and civil wars plagued the continent,
and a number of dictators forced their way into power. One such dictator was the now-infamous
and now-dead Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. Gaddafi seized power in 1969 following a
coup d'état. Like many dictators, Gaddafi was an ultranationalist who wanted his country to
be as self-sufficient as possible. He also wanted to take back everything,
land, resource, or otherwise, that he felt had been stolen from Libya.
A long chunk of land in northern Chad called the Aouzou Strip was
among the things Gaddafi wanted to reclaim.
In 1935, France controlled Chad, and Italy controlled Libya. The two European nations
entered an agreement in which France would give the Aouzou Strip to Italy
as part of a post-World War I award. Though the leaders in France and Italy signed the treaty,
it was never ratified, and the Aouzou Strip remained part of Chad.
Gaddafi felt that the Aouzou Strip was Libya's rightful property.
In 1972, he began an intervention with Chad. At this time, Chad was in the midst of a bitter civil
war, and Libya was supplying Chadian rebel groups with weapons to secure allegiances with them.
Giving so much military power to the rebels made Chad’s authoritarian leader, François Tombalbaye,
nervous, which opened the door for Gaddafi to enter negotiations with Tombalbaye.
These negotiations ended with Gaddafi occupying the Aouzou
Strip but promising that he’d stop sending supplies to the Chadian rebels.
The Aouzou Strip wasn’t anything special, mostly desert and sparsely populated. However,
it was rumored to have uranium deposits, which Gaddafi wanted very badly. And more than anything,
the occupation of the Aouzou Strip was a way for Gaddafi to puff his chest and show off Libya’s
increasing wealth and power within North Africa. Libya owned the Aouzou Strip fair and square for
three years after the occupation. That changed when François Tombalbaye was overthrown in 1975.
The Chadian military didn’t like Gaddafi’s influence in their country,
which reopened hostilities between the two nations. So once again,
Gaddafi began supplying weapons to the northern rebels.
There were a series of military interventions by Libya in the late 70s and early 80s,
with France lending Chad a hand during some of them. In 1983, a line was drawn across
the country, with the pro-government forces in southern Chad and rebel groups in the north.
Because Gaddafi had aligned himself with the Chadian rebels and had been supplying them
with AK-47s, RPGs, mortars, and recoilless cannons, he indirectly controlled half of
Chad. Military bases he’d constructed in the Aouzou Strip further consolidated his influence.
The conflict raged on throughout most of the 1980s. In support of 5,000 Chadian rebels,
Gadaffi brought 7,000 troops, 60 combat aircraft, 300 tanks,
and a number of MI-24 helicopters and artillery pieces to bear. This compares to just 5,000 poorly
armed troops in the south. Even with French support, the forces of southern Chad were no
match. Libya’s equipment was far from state of the art, but they far outclassed the Chadians.
What the Libyans lacked, however, was organization. Gaddafi’s troops hadn’t
been trained to act as assault infantry, to do reconnaissance,
or to do anything except give the Chadian rebels weapons and an extra hand here and there.
After some success early in the conflict, like taking the capital city in 1981 alongside
the rebels, the Libyans got somewhat complacent and began losing motivation.
So in 1986, when the Chadian rebels turned on Gaddafi following a number of defeats,
the Libyans were screwed. On the other hand, the southern troops welcomed defected rebels with open
arms, doubling their numbers. While the northern rebels had far more advanced military knowledge,
having been trained by East German officers, the southern forces had a secret weapon.
The French had provided the southern Chadian forces with 400 brand-new Toyota pickup trucks,
mostly Hiluxes, and some Land Cruisers. But why these cars?
Toyota created the Hilux in 1968 to compete with American-made pickup trucks. The aim was to create
a comfortable and extremely durable vehicle that would outperform its competitors. Today,
the Hilux is so well-known for being durable, it has earned the nickname “The Nokia of trucks”.
To prove that point, the BBC’s popular show Top Gear put the Hilux’s robustness
to the test. The hosts submerged one of these vehicles in the sea, dropped a caravan on it,
smashed it with a wrecking ball, set it on fire, and then put it on top of a skyscraper,
which they then demolished with explosives – and the Hilux still started. Hiluxes were
also great because soldiers didn’t need special training to drive them,
and any halfway decent mechanic could repair one no matter how banged up it got.
They were a major asset to the Chadian forces, and the vehicles’ unassuming nature played a
major role in Chad’s ultimate victory. As we said before, Gaddafi and the Libyans were up
a creek without a paddle after their rebel allies ditched them. The dictator's forces
were scattered. They had no knowledge of the area and no clear plan for success. Morale was low,
and most soldiers were confused as to why they were there at all. Still, Gaddafi pursued
conflict, under the impression that superior equipment would be enough to secure victory.
The Chadians, however, were much more of a threat than Gaddafi gave them credit for. They used their
enemy’s disorganization to buy time and lay out a winning plan. The soldiers were highly motivated,
knew the land, and knew their enemy. And they had Toyotas. They fitted the trucks with artillery,
machine guns, and anti-aircraft guns gifted to them by France and the US.
With the French providing air cover, they launched their counter-offensive
on January 2nd 1987, catching the Libyans completely off guard.
The Chadians first attacked the Libyan-held city of Fada, almost annihilating the Libyan
armored brigade. The Libyans were shocked that their tanks were no match for the Toyotas,
which ran circles around the slow-moving armored vehicles and fired at them with ease. The Chadians
took out 100 tanks in that first battle alone, while the Libyans destroyed just three Toyotas.
In March of the same year, the Chadians quickly captured the Ouadi Doum air base,
which had been defended by 5,000 Libyan soldiers, as well as armored vehicles, tanks, aircraft, and
fields of landmines. With Libyan aircraft grounded because of the French, and with Toyotas ruining
Libyan tanks with their anti-tank guns, all the Chadians had to worry about were the landmines.
Luckily for them, they found paths through the minefields, which meant they could drive right
up to the airstrip virtually unopposed. There is even an unverified account that if the Chadians
drove over the mines at speeds of 100 kilometers per hour, they didn’t trigger the mines at all.
Within the first few months of the Chadian counter-attack, an estimated
3,000 Libyan soldiers had either been captured or killed, or they’d deserted. Chadian forces
had all but recaptured the country, with one notable exception: the Aouzou Strip.
So why stop now?
The French, however, would not press on,
concerned an attack on the Strip would lead to international conflict.
The Chads – I mean Chadians – would have to continue without air support.
While they captured the town of Aouzou with relative ease, they soon learned
that it was much harder to defend with Toyotas than it was to attack with them,
especially now that the Libyans could attack them from the air. The Chadians
were driven out of the Aouzou Strip just 20 days after they captured it.
But that defeat did not break their spirits. They regrouped and came up with a new plan:
they would drive 200 kilometers into Libya and attack Maaten al-Sarra Air Base.
Not only were they successful in this attack, but they also made it to the air base completely
undetected. It was a slaughter. In one night, the Libyans lost between
1,000 and 1,700 soldiers, 70 tanks, at least 30 APCs, and between 26 and 32 aircraft.
By comparison, the Chadians lost 65 men and a handful of Toyotas.
The attack on the air base scared the French as they weren’t sure if the Chadians would
continue their offensive in Libya. If they did and the conflict escalated further, the French
could have been implicated by the Libyans in the invasion of their country. Even though the
French removed themselves from the conflict before the Chadians got to the Aouzou Strip,
they played a major role in helping the Chadians get there in the first place.
So, a few days after the attack in September 1987, the French called for a ceasefire,
hoping to save themselves from being pulled into a war they didn’t want
to fight in. Luckily for them, the two fighting nations agreed to the ceasefire.
Many feared that fighting between Chad and Libya would start again, but the ceasefire
violations that did occur were minor. By October of the following year, Chad and Libya resumed
diplomatic relations. In September 1990, the two countries agreed to hand the matter of the
Aouzou Strip over to the International Court of Justice. Four years later, the court ruled
in favor of Chad. The Aouzou Strip was returned to the Chadians, and the matter was laid to rest.
As for the Toyotas, the Chadians had started a global trend. The trucks are
now ubiquitous in conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. The Toyota Hilux and Land
Cruiser are the preferred vehicles of rebel groups all over the world – and Australians.
But what do you think? Do you think Toyotas could
win again? Do you think Toyota should stop making these trucks? Do you know
of any vehicles that are as tough as the Hilux? Let us know in the comments below.