A Savage War of Peace

by Alistair Horne

  On Thursday the 27th twelve hundred “green berets” of the 1st R.E.P. pulled out forever from their base at Zéralda, en route for disgrace and disbandment. Before they went they had dynamited their barracks and fired off in the air all their remaining ammunition. Little was left behind but the gravestones — many of them bearing German-sounding names — of the more than 300 men the regiment had lost in the six years of campaigning against the F.L.N. As the Legionnaires drove off in their transports they bellowed out in a full-bodied roar the plaintive but brave words of Edith Piaf’s “Je ne regrette rien”. Watching them go, pieds noirs lining the route wept hopelessly. The revolt of the Centurions against de Gaulle was well and truly finished. It had lasted just four days and five nights.

  [1] When asked by the author (in 1973) what he would have done had he actually been in Algeria in April 1961, Massu sighed and admitted after a pause: “It would indeed have been a very difficult problem for me. But I would certainly not have marched with the putsch, even if I had been there. Because I would have had no intention of creating divisions within the army, and also because I have always been with de Gaulle, whatever.” If nothing else, his record in the critical days of 1968 corroborates this.

  [2] On 24 December there had already been another abortive attempt to assassinate de Gaulle; led once again by the sergeant-major who had deserted from his para unit during “Barricades Week”. This time a vast landmine of ninety pounds of explosive had been placed by the side of the route de Gaulle normally took from Colombey-les-Deux-Églises to Paris. But the look-out — a man who had served with de Gaulle in London — lost his nerve at the critical moment.

  [3] By the most bizarre of coincidences, the day on which the putsch was decided — 12 April 1961 — was also the centenary of the day on which South Carolina batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter, thereby sparking off the American Civil War.

  [4] C. L. Sulzberger, then representing the New York Times in France, maintains that the C.I.A. knew no more about the timing of the putsch than did the French security services, and that the whole story was launched in Moscow’s Izvestia of 25 April and later taken up by anti-American circles in Paris.

  [5] Again there is a parallel with Stauffenberg’s plot of 20 July 1944, which aborted to a large extent through the failure of General Fellgiebel to destroy communications between Hitler’s Wolfsschanze headquarters in East Prussia and Berlin.

  [6] Challe told the author that when mention of Si Salah’s name was made at Challe’s trial, the Public Prosecutor immediately attempted to have the session held in camera.

  [7] Quarteron, the word de Gaulle used in a dismissive sense here, is virtually untranslatable. Literally it denotes a quarter (of a pound or of 100), but it is occasionally used to mean a handful or small group (of people).

  [8] In 1804 the Duc d’Enghien was shot as a traitor in the castle moat at Vincennes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Overtures for Peace:

  October 1960–December 1961

  France must understand now that a negotiation can no longer be entered into today on what Ferhat Abbas demanded with moderation in 1943. Our people have not eaten grass and roots in order to obtain a new statute given as a concession.

  Saad Dahlab, 20 July 1960

  Purge and punishment

  “THERE is one fact which they refuse to take into account; a fact which is nevertheless essential and which brings failure to all their calculations,” de Gaulle confided to Robert Buron the day after his return from sequestration by the rebels at In-Salah: “That fact is de Gaulle. I don’t always understand it very well myself … but I am a prisoner of it.” Once again they, his multifarious enemies, had been routed by that old, sure touch of magic. It is just conceivable that, if faced by one of the weak governments of the Fourth Republic, the rebels might have succeeded. But there were a number of good reasons why the generals’ putsch had collapsed as swiftly as it did: it was planned with undue haste; its leaders gravely overestimated the appeal and influence that retired officers (even those as popular as Challe) can wield over ambitious serving officers; they refused to co-ordinate their plans with the pieds noirs “ultras”; they had no coherent long-range strategy; they miscalculated the encouragement they might expect abroad, and the mood of French civilians at home; and — above all — they failed to consider what might be the reactions of the rank-and-file of the army in Algeria. All these were contributory factors, yet undoubtedly none carried so powerful an impact as de Gaulle’s stern commands for obedience to the rank-and-file over the heads of their leaders — the “Victory of the Transistors”. So the old magic had triumphed once again — but at what a terrible cost, this time!

  The magnificent French army was torn in pieces. It would be many years before the wounds would heal; in some ways, perhaps they would never heal. Reading in May the long lists of the senior officers disgraced, Janet Flanner remarks that the front page of France-Soir “looked like a bankruptcy report”. Approximately 14,000 officers and men were estimated to have been implicated in the revolt in one degree or another, and by the end of April five generals and 200 other officers had been arrested. Each and every one was required to give an hour-by-hour account of his activities during the putsch, and for months afterwards the most disagreeable form of witch-hunt ensued. Conscripts denounced regular officers, seniors their juniors, and vice versa. Those who had perched unadmirably on the fence were now praised for their “abstention”, while those who had declared themselves forthrightly were condemned. It was all a thoroughly nasty episode, bringing out much of the worst in human nature, and for many months its poison lingered in the body of the French army. On 1 May there began the trial of the rebel leaders — causing surprisingly few ripples of interest in France. Those who had “gone underground” — Generals Salan, Jouhaud and Gardy, and Colonels Argoud, Broizat, Gardes, Godard and Lacheroy — were all sentenced to death in absentia. Meanwhile, after ten days in hiding, a dilapidated, elderly figure in civilian clothes gave himself up in a park in Algiers. It was General André Zeller. After spending one night in a chicken coop and several concealed by a brother-in-law, Zeller had been decided by the news that Constantine’s General Gouraud, for whose ultimate and fatal decision Zeller felt personally responsible, had been arrested. Insisting that he should not be arrested by the police like a common felon, but should have a proper officer escort, Zeller surrendered to face trial with Challe.

  Fully expecting the death sentence, Challe received the maximum sentence of fifteen years’ imprisonment, suffering the loss of his rank, decorations and pension. Ruined by a participation that had been pressed upon him, that he had never wholeheartedly wanted, he felt satisfied that at least he had “saved the honour of the army”. Zeller and Bigot, the commander of the Fifth Air Region who had enabled Challe to make his flight to Algiers, both shared Challe’s sentence. Nicot, chief-of-staff to the air force, received twelve years; Major Denoix de Saint-Marc of the 1st R.E.P., ten years; Colonels Masselot and Lecomte eight years; and the unhappy General Gouraud, seven years. Several hundred other officers received lesser punishments.[1] Amid much grief, fine regiments like the 1st R.E.P., the 14th and 18th R.C.P., were disbanded and their officers posted away to France. Units that had blotted their copy-books to a lesser extent were sent to the frontiers of Algeria, but with their fuel so strictly rationed as to make it difficult for any of them to make their way to the Algiers or Oran areas. Shattered by the sentences, Massu conspicuously absented himself from the twentieth anniversary commemoration of de Gaulle’s famous Free French address of 18 June 1940. Distinguished soldiers like General de Bollardière resigned from the army they loved; General André Beaufre, in line to become Chief-of-Staff to the Armed Forces, decided to retire that September rather than preside over an army “torn in two”. Torn in two and sorely demoralised it was. In the aftermath of the putsch a public opinion poll indicated that now only twenty-four per cent of Frenchmen were confident they could “trust” their army. In Algeri
a the sense of let-down among the pieds noirs who had tacitly hoped for Challe’s success was naturally enough immense. A gaping vacuum was left, which, in their despair, something grim and terrifying would have to fill.

  Strong negotiating position of the F.L.N.

  In practicable terms, the failed putsch meant that de Gaulle now had to abandon all hope of imposing on Algeria the kind of peace “by association with France” for which he had been hoping over the past months. The breaking of the army in Algeria and its ensuing demoralisation deprived de Gaulle of any tool for “enforcement”. The April 1961 putsch, says Bernard Tricot, “made even more inevitable the result which it had wanted to prevent, at the same time reducing the chances of attaining it under acceptable conditions”. It was abundantly clear that de Gaulle had now no option but to negotiate purposefully to end the war, but as the next round of negotiations approached it was equally clear just how weak his own bargaining hand had become — how strong that of the F.L.N. Over the best part of the ensuing year the talks were to drag wearily on, with the jaded French being forced to yield one bastion after another in the quest for peace.

  From the moment of the Muslim riots in December 1960, which had so shaken de Gaulle in his hopes and which had occasioned a real turning-point in the war, everything seemed to be going for the F.L.N. Both at home and abroad the pressures had been mounting on de Gaulle to make peace. In the United States John F. Kennedy, the avowed friend of Algerian independence, had become president and was soon leaning heavily on de Gaulle. If the pressure needed any adumbration, in 1961 United States military aid for France was to be reduced to a tiny fraction of its 1953 total. Since the Melun debacle of June 1960, the various travels by G.P.R.A. leaders in pursuit of Communist bloc support had begun to arouse increasingly substantial echoes — none of which was missed by de Gaulle, his ears especially sensitive to this particular threat. At the end of October, on the eve of the sixth year of the war, Ferhat Abbas had rejoiced: “We had need of allies, and now we have found them in Peking and Moscow.” As if to prove the point, the U.S.S.R. had followed up with a propaganda campaign of unprecedented virulence against de Gaulle’s Algerian policy. Present himself for that crucial Fifteenth Session of the United Nations, the G.P.R.A.’s Foreign Secretary, Belkacem Krim, had for the first time met Khrushchev in person. The unpredictable Ukrainian had stood holding both Krim’s hands for a long pause, then had posed for the photographers in almost affectionate postures. At a reception forty-eight hours later, Khrushchev informed Krim quite casually that the U.S.S.R. was about to accord the G.P.R.A. de facto recognition. In New York Krim, the veteran maquisard, admitted that for the very first time in his life he felt an over-powering sense of personal liberty. The strong F.L.N. delegation found itself veritably basking in an aura of warmth and goodwill among the Third World representatives at the United Nations — a token of the years of beavering which the F.L.N. had put in from 1955 onwards in its endeavours to “internationalise” the war.

  But there were still some arduous battles to be fought in New York. As usual, France was boycotting the debates concerning Algeria, but Jacques Soustelle was there in a semi-private capacity representing the Algérie française lobby. Resorting to the American media in a way that no French representative before him had ever done, with his brilliant intellect and mordant wit the former governor-general had won some telling points. But all arguments had been swept away by the totally unexpected force of the Muslim riots during de Gaulle’s December visit, which appeared to make a nonsense of Soustelle’s prime contention that the F.L.N. represented nothing more than a minority clique terrorising the Algerian majority.

  The Algiers riots organised by the F.L.N. during de Gaulle’s visit could hardly have been better co-ordinated or more effective. On 6 December the Political Committee began its debate on the “Algerian Question”; on the 11th Belcourt and the Casbah had exploded. Of the thirteen new “francophone” African nations who had recently gained their sovereignty from de Gaulle, and on whom in return de Gaulle had counted for assistance at the United Nations, a critical number wavered under the impact of the December events, whipped on by the eloquence of M’hamed Yazid. After more than a dozen sessions and innumerable speeches, the F.L.N. carried the day, with the Political Committee accepting its principle that any referendum on Algeria should be supervised by the United Nations. It was a slap in the face for de Gaulle’s ideal of a purely French supervised referendum; however, a last-minute face-saving compromise granted “France and her Algerian interlocutors” the right to define the supervisory body — a typical United Nations formula requiring untold further ergs of discussion before anything watertight would emerge.

  On 20 December the General Assembly voted paragraph by paragraph on the motion framed by its Political Committee. By a massive vote of sixty-three to eight, with twenty-seven abstentions, it recognised:

  The right of the Algerian people to self-determination and independence.

  The imperative necessity for adequate and effective guarantees to assure successfully the just application of the principle of free determination, on the basis of the territorial unity and integrity of Algeria.

  The responsibility of the United Nations to contribute to the success of implementing this principle.

  The fourth paragraph, dealing with the referendum technicalities, failed to pass through the Assembly by one solitary vote, meaning that it would have to carry over to the next session. In effect, for de Gaulle this signified that a “suspended sentence” had been pronounced upon his policy by the United Nations. What really counted, however, was the sheer weight of support which the G.P.R.A. was now able to muster to its side, and in almost total compliance to its will. The United Nations having played its role to the full, the antagonists in the Algerian war were now virtually to leave its floor forever for the arena of a single combat between “champions” of each side.

  To de Gaulle’s 4 November speech which, with its first mention of Algérie algérienne, pushed the rebel French generals over the brink, the G.P.R.A. had reacted with its customary blend of reservation and mistrust. It had, declared Yazid, “been presented with a tricolour bouquet, with at least five cacti inside it!” All signs pointed then to de Gaulle being in utmost earnest about ending the war on any reasonable terms, but once again it sounded to the hypersensitive Algerians as if the enigmatic and lofty French leader might still be endeavouring to impose “his” peace.

  As the peace wranglings drag on from one stage to another, one needs to bear sympathetically in mind the various deep-seated neuroses and inhibitions besetting the Algerian negotiators; an underprivileged people who for over six years had fought the grimmest of wars against a nation gifted to the full with every advantage of civilisation; a people aware that several times in the past their birthright had been stolen by guile, whether by fraudulent elections or unfulfilled promises (and how easily, on the very edge of success, might they be cheated yet again by French wiles or a foot placed incautiously!). On the other hand — as time passes on, moving ever to the disadvantage of the French — one must not ignore that all too human instinct of mankind to ask for more as soon as it realises that its adversary is floundering.

  Because of their basic mistrust there were a number of principles on which the F.L.N. negotiators could never yield. Chief among these was their intransigent refusal to permit any cease-fire in advance of a full political settlement. Against this, from Mendès-France onwards, successive French governments had insisted on a cease-fire first. This had been the impassable stumbling-block. The F.L.N.’s motivation here was basically quite simple; once the military revolt in the “interior” was stood down, if for whatever reason the emergent solution proved unacceptable, it would be extremely hard to get it going again. A second principle for which the F.L.N. had fought with equal persistence was that it, and it alone, represented the sole Algerian interlocuteur valable with whom France could discuss peace. There could be no other partner, no “third force”, whatever.r />
  In the new year of 1961, as soon as memories of the bitter December days in Algiers had begun to fade, the complex spider’s web of pre-negotiations was spinning again. The ever-ready, helpful and hopeful Bourguiba was at Rambouillet in February, and a Swiss journalist close to the G.P.R.A. brought encouraging noises from Tunis. In great secrecy de Gaulle despatched his trusted banker friend, Georges Pompidou (whom he had called upon to help draw up his first cabinet back in 1958) to the quiet and bürgerlich Swiss cuckoo-clock city of Lucerne. It was not quite Pompidou’s scene, nevertheless it provided an inconspicuous backdrop against which he could meet the jovial Algerian lawyer, Ahmed Boumendjel, who had led the unsuccessful talks at Melun the previous year. The two men got on well enough together, and the mere fact of Pompidou’s presence was accepted by the main body of the G.P.R.A. as a measure of de Gaulle’s seriousness. He then followed it up by making an immense concession. He would abandon the sine qua non of a prior ceasefire. He would go further; he would — at the risk of serious trouble with his army — order it to assume a unilateral truce, not shooting at the A.L.N. and carrying out only defensive patrolling operations, even if the A.L.N. would not respond in kind. He would also release several thousand more F.L.N. militants from French prisons. And what would his Algerian interlocuteurs valables offer by way of concession in exchange? They would simply agree to talk.