A Savage War of Peace

by Alistair Horne

  [2] As it was little more than a year since de Gaulle had said that France must be made to “marry her time”, and little had happened in that period of setbacks and disasters to consummate the union, this still looked more like a statement of intent than of fact.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Suitcase or the Coffin:

  April 1961–February 1962

  The moment despair is alone, pure, sure of itself, pitiless in its consequences, it has a merciless power.

  Albert Camus

  The O.A.S. takes over

  ON the night of Challe’s surrender in April 1961, Captain Pierre Sergent of the 1st R.E.P. — in common with many of his contemporaries at that time — felt that his world had collapsed about him. A St Cyrien, he had betrayed the sacred “order”. There could be no going back. He asked himself the question “Where do we go from here…?” And — in common with many of his fellow putschists in the same predicament — the ineluctable answer that came back was: join the Organisation Armée Secrète.

  Though its title had been invented by Lagaillarde and Susini while in exile in Madrid, the O.A.S. was actually the direct successor of those pied noir counter-terrorist organisations that had flourished ever since 1956. It had started its ugly new career with the assassination, in January 1961, of the young liberal Algiers lawyer, Maître Popie, following it up with the even more irrelevant killing of the mayor of Evian on the eve of the first peace talks there. Its first leaders came from the ranks of the “ultras” whom most of the para leaders — for all that they might share the same ideals of Algérie française — heartily despised. Now, however, born of despair, the O.A.S. attracted — in their despair — those regular officers, like Sergent, whom the failed putsch had turned into “fallen angels”. They, in effect, took it over, giving it a military organisation and structure. Since Challe (who would have been most unlikely to have had anything to do with the O.A.S., anyway) was in prison, the logical and obvious leader of the O.A.S. was Salan. The much-decorated former Commander-in-Chief, always the “Mandarin”, now assumed the grandiose code-name of “Soleil”.

  Courageously accompanied by his inseparable wife, la biche, Salan after the collapse of the putsch had gone into hiding with Robert Martel, the “ultra” leader from the Mitidja, an expert at concealment. According to Susini, Martel had installed a large barrel in his barn which he would enter on the approach of security forces, pulling a string to release an avalanche of hay totally covering the barrel.

  With the foppishly blue-rinsed white hair now dyed black in disguise, Salan was to switch bolt-holes some sixty times over the next months. Yet, even as a fugitive, he remained ever the “Mandarin”. “Decidedly a strange person, this Salan, who may well singularly disconcert future historians,” wrote his “Boswell”, Captain Ferrandi, to whom Salan seemed just as elegant and impassive as when living in luxury in Madrid; possibly “even gayer, less systematically sceptical, more confident, more resolved. The cautious dilettante found himself once again leader of a band.” As leader of the band Salan also found himself now in alliance with curious bedfellows: the “ultras” who had attempted to murder him with the bazooka just four years previously. But he was never, in fact, to be much more than titular “leader” of the O.A.S. Procrastinating, sometimes maddeningly indecisive, and removed from day-to-day control as a result of the frequent changes of domicile imposed on him by the non-stop police hunt, for much of the time Salan was completely out of touch with the O.A.S.’s activities. Frequently he would evince indignation and shock to Ferrandi at O.A.S. outrages of which he had no forewarning. Nevertheless — though vanity may have persuaded him to remain titular Commander-in-Chief — it must be to Salan’s credit that, when the chips were down, he insisted on bearing full responsibility for all the bestialities perpetrated in his name, never “passing the buck” to his more ruthless subordinates.

  Under the rather transparent code-name of “Soleil bis”, General Jouhaud took over as Salan’s deputy. Having had the modest sum of 2,000 (old) francs pressed in his hand by Challe, on the night of the surrender Jouhaud had gone into hiding first near Zéralda, then moved steadily westwards. He equipped himself with false papers as “Louis Gerbert, born in Algiers, married in Bône and a widower”, shaved his head, grew a bushy moustache, dyed it black, and donned spectacles. Says Jouhaud proudly, it all gave him the air of “an austere professor, whom candidates would dread at exam time”, though, in fact, photographs reveal something resembling more the coarse features of a meridional peasant. After the inevitable conflict with Salan and his juniors, the choleric ex-air force general took himself off in August to assume command of the O.A.S. in his native Oran, where he remained until the end. Among the other “fallen angels” to throw in their lot with the O.A.S. after April 1961 were General Gardy, the former Inspector-General of the Legion, and the more familiar names from the past of Colonels Godard, Gardes, Argoud, Broizat and Lacheroy. While Captain Sergent returned to France to organise the O.A.S. there, Argoud — after a nerve-racking flight from Algeria and accompanied by Lacheroy — had made his way to Madrid to join Lagaillarde (who had been frustrated from joining the putsch)[1] and constitute the Spanish branch of the O.A.S. As a natural choice, the complex work of setting up the infrastructure of the O.A.S. fell to Godard; Gardes, always more the ideologue than the successful man of action, was appointed to his old role of responsibility for propaganda and psychological warfare under the rather optimistic title: Organisation of the Masses. But apart from Godard, to whom the O.A.S. owed its organisation, the effective leaders were not the renowned colonels or generals but Susini, Dr Pérez, and Roger Degueldre.

  Susini, Pérez — and Degueldre

  Jean-Jacques Susini, the dedicated young right-winger who had first entered the limelight as Ortiz’s éminence grise at the time of “the Barricades” provided the political brains of the O.A.S. To Pierre Sergent, ever since their first encounter that January of 1960, with his pale fanatic’s eyes, his “rigid comportment and incisive speech, Jean-Jacques Susini evoked in me … the image of St Just”. Already, in Madrid, Ferrandi had noted Susini’s “impressive authority”, and an initially reluctant Salan had been “literally conquered” by him. With full confidence in Susini’s ability, Salan became increasingly content to leave the overall management of the O.A.S. in the hands of this twenty-seven-year-old ex-medical student. Under Susini the key executive role was filled by Dr Jean-Claude Pérez as head of the O.R.O. (“Organisation—Intelligence—Operations”) branch. Pérez, the tall, voluble doctor with the engaging smile from the poor district of Bab-el-Oued, regarded himself as the champion of his “parishioners” there. Compared to Susini, Pérez physically reminded Sergent of a St Bernard against “an intelligent greyhound”. But Pérez “was a man of action, as well as of ideas. In his mouth the word revolution assumed the colour of blood. Hatred of injustice turned this man of heart and charity into a violent being.”

  Unlike Susini, Pérez claimed no political orientations: “I couldn’t be called a Fascist any more than a Communist.” Back in 1955 it was Pérez who had organised one of the first urban anti-terrorist units in Algiers. It was he who from his office in Algiers signed all “operational” orders for the O.A.S.

  If there is one thing on which virtually all the surviving leaders of the O.A.S. are agreed, however, it is that by far the most effectual and imposing operative of them all was Roger Degueldre, the thirty-six-year-old ex-lieutenant who had lied about his nationality so as to join the Foreign Legion, risen through its ranks after outstanding bravery in Indo-China, and deserted from it in disgust after the abortive coup of December 1960. A tough and virile figure bearing wounds from Dien Bien Phu, with vigorous black hair en brosse and a long horse-face, Degueldre had what his senior in the same regiment, Captain Sergent, describes as “the indispensable presence of the leader”. He was “carved out of rock that doesn’t crumble”, says Sergent: “He was the real chief of action in the O.A.S.… All talked, like Susini, but
Degueldre acted. Degueldre killed.” Nor did he shrink from killing his own men; he once threatened his O.A.S. subordinates: “If I see one of your men in a bar, I will shoot you unless you yourselves have shot the man before I next see him.” He meant what he said, executing at least two of his own killers when they were found guilty of embezzling O.A.S. funds.

  Yet even those who most hated what he represented and did expressed a certain reluctant admiration for Degueldre, ruthless but utterly fearless as he was. Yves Courrière says of him: “Roger Degueldre was without doubt the strangest and the most attractive personality to traverse this tragic period. Hero for some, assassin for others.” Exerting a powerful attraction over women, Degueldre was currently involved in a violent and tragic passion with a fellow officer’s wife who was prepared to follow him to the bitter end. Degueldre’s motive for joining the O.A.S. (according to Pérez) was contained in the simple explanation: “I’ve never lost a battle.” Since being involved in the May days of 1958 with the 1st R.E.P., he was determined that Algeria should remain French, whatever the cost. He seems to have been obsessed by the heroic but disastrous Hungarian revolution of 1956, and in his first meeting with Sergent after Challe’s surrender he declared:

  We must do a Budapest! It’s the only solution. The F.L.N. has imposed itself by violence, and thanks to that it’s become an interlocuteur valable for the French government. Only violence will make us heard at present. The generals and the colonels didn’t want it.… They failed. That proves they were wrong. Now, one must strike. Blow for blow. Unleash war on the authorities. Kill the traitors. It’s the only solution remaining to us.

  Sergent realised that Degueldre was in deadly earnest. After deserting, he had made contact with some of the toughest and least gun-shy elements among the “ultras”, and after the “generals’ putsch” he had gathered up a number of other Legionnaires who had chosen to desert rather than face purge and punishment. They included a young sergeant of Yugoslav origin, Bobby Dovecar, who was devoted to Degueldre and became his right-hand man. Within two months of the collapse of the putsch Degueldre had at his disposal some 500 armed and resolute killers, formed into “Delta Commandos” (“Delta” was the code-name he adopted).

  Organisation, finances and aims

  Working at top speed, and despite all the adversities of operating clandestinely, already by the beginning of May Susini and that efficient staff officer, Yves Godard, had completed the organisation of the O.A.S. At the top of the pyramid stood the Commandement (Salan—Jouhaud) and the General Staff (Godard); below came the three sections, each with its separate sub-divisions:

  “Organisation of the Masses” (O.M.) — Gardes.

  “Organisation—Intelligence—Operations (O.R.O.) — Pérez.

  “Political Action and Propaganda” (A.P.P.) — Susini.

  The infrastructure was modelled on a combination of the F.L.N. (which none had studied more closely than Godard) and the D.P.U.s (Dispositifs de Protection Urbaine) established by Trinquier and Godard during the Battle of Algiers to divide the city up into a grid. With comparable speed Godard managed to assemble and weld together within his organisation all the numerous “ultra” splinter-groups from the past — such as the F.A.F. and the F.N.F. — various freelance operators as well as the army deserters left stranded after the April putsch. Or, as de Gaulle less charitably described them:

  thugs consumed by totalitarian passion, such as Jean-Jacques Susini … deserters and fanatics who were the scum of the army, particularly of the Foreign Legion units, and the underworld elements who are always brought to the surface by latent political turmoil … finally, it was linked with all kinds of political thieves’ kitchens, networks of conspiracy and scourings of ex-“militias” which, in metropolitan France, were bent on bringing down the republic at any price and in many cases on paying off old scores which they had been harbouring against de Gaulle since 1940.

  Inevitably, because of the disparate strands woven into it, the structuring of the O.A.S. was accompanied by many internal wrangles through the summer of 1961; the military were at odds notably with the civilian revolutionaries (on one occasion Godard threw his lighter across the table in rage when Pérez suggested that the role of the army leaders should be confined to that of “counsellors” only).

  For its finances the O.A.S. initially relied on the substantial sums of money which had been raided from government safes during the April putsch; then it supplemented these by means of levying “contributions” from the pieds noirs in much the same way as the F.L.N. had cajoled and bullied the Muslims. As the F.L.N. had “banned” smoking, so the O.A.S. forbade the pieds noirs to go abroad on holiday. Those who defied the order might return to find the following note awaiting them at home:

  Monsieur,

  The O.A.S. sees everything, knows everything. We know, therefore, that you went on holiday to France….

  As a consequence, the O.A.S. condemns you to pay 2,000 francs to 1 help our organisation. This sum must be paid within twenty-four hours.

  If your response is negative, we shall know it and will act accordingly….

  The O.A.S.

  Later windfalls from astutely executed bank robberies helped swell the O.A.S. “treasury”, which at one point allegedly reached the staggering figure of two and a half milliard (old) francs (or neary three million pounds) for the three main cities of Algeria alone. This was also despite the considerable siphoning off of funds, diverted into the bistros or boutiques of the “collectors”.[2]

  What, then, was the overall aim of the O.A.S., in embarking upon what, by the summer of 1961, already looked like a lost cause? In simplest terms, it was to make it impossible for de Gaulle’s representatives to govern in Algeria; beyond that, there was little coherent, or unified, thought. Though studiously vague at the time, Salan told the author in 1973: “I thought that we could somehow orient opinion in France towards some kind of solution like South Africa — a kind of Apartheid for Algeria.” He expressed admiration for Ian Smith: “a man of spirit — and, look, Britain still has Rhodesia”! For many of the pieds noirs the ideal of Algérie française was now but a fantasy — though had it ever genuinely been much more? — and thoughts did gravitate towards a fascist kind of South Africa, with the Muslims “kept in their places”. But the O.A.S. was, as one of its chroniclers, Paul Henissart, remarks: “a very odd organisation, an uncooked pudding of conflicting freakish ideas and aspirations and principles”. The idealist Gardes, for instance, who still claims to have joined the O.A.S. because he “could not abandon the Muslims”, continued to aim for a utopian Algeria in which the Muslims would be fully integrated. Susini, who admired the “fanaticism of the Jews of Palestine” and their passionate attachment to the soil (though he thought the pieds noirs too soft by comparison with the Israelis), wanted a kind of “… Algerian Haganah, a civil army powerful and with conviction, which would regain Muslim confidence from the F.L.N., and carry along the Europeans … to seize power in Algeria, in order to assume it one day in France.” At the end of the road he desired a true revolution introducing reforms and a kind of socialist corporate state, but retaining French rule. Pérez, on the other hand, considered the struggle for Algérie française as “the last battle for White Christian civilisation in the northern part of Africa”. If a common denominator in O.A.S. policy could be arrived at, it was to render peace talks impossible by killing off the remaining “men of good will”, the moderates of both sides, and by random outrages against the Muslim population which would create an atmosphere in which neither negotiation nor compromise could exist. In this they would be eminently successful — but it would produce quite the opposite results from those desired.

  First O.A.S. successes

  On 3 May a tract was circulated round Algeria, signed by the O.A.S. and making the resounding announcement: “A great army of the maquis is organising itself…. Listen to us and all can be saved. Don’t give up your arms. Regroup in small sections. Kill those who try to arrest you. B
urn the government offices. Kill all the traitors, little and big.” At the same time a flood of posters and graffiti appeared on walls across the country. The first to appear showed a crude dagger striking from a map of France and simultaneously stabbing to pieces both the F.L.N.’s crescent and star and the Cross of Lorraine; others bore the bold caption, “La France Reste”, or declared menacingly, “The O.A.S. strikes where it wants, when it wants”; a pair of glaring eyes daubed on walls was surmounted by the words “The O.A.S. sees everything”; and there was one produced by the ever-optimistic Gardes showing a Muslim and an European head sandwiched between the two words “Frères… O.A.S.”. War had been declared.

  On 19 May, the eve of the “scandalous” negotiations at Evian, the O.A.S. set off nineteen of the plastique explosions in Algiers, known as la strounga in pied noir parlance, and striking at European or Muslim liberals. As the conference went on, the stroungas occurred daily with the Algiers gendarmerie showing themselves helpless to intervene. On 13 June the O.A.S. celebrated the breakdown of the talks with a particularly powerful strounga right in the centre of Algiers. Up to the end of May, however, only property had been attacked, but on 31 May the O.A.S. under its new management carried out the first opération ponctuelle — the sinister euphemism used by Degueldre when issuing orders to kill. The target was Commissaire Gavoury, the senior police officer charged with tracking down the O.A.S. It was reckoned by Degueldre that the “execution” of so prominent a figure would both act as a deterrent to other “traitors”, and at the same time show that the O.A.S. really meant business. Two Delta Commandos were sent out, one under Bobby Dovecar tracking the Commissioner down to his apartment. Spotting the ambush, he tried to escape, shouting in vain for help, but was stabbed to death by repeated blows of a para dagger.