Our Friends Beneath the Sands

  Foucauld stayed at Taghit for three weeks, devotedly caring for the légionnaires; Dr Boulin gave him some credit for the fact that of the 48 wounded, 10 of them serious cases, only one died – a remarkable outcome under those conditions. As the rest became stable and gained some strength, they would be sent north to convalesce in the hospital at Ain Sefra, the last arriving during November. On 18 September, Father de Foucauld rode to El Moungar to consecrate the mass grave, being met at the site by the surviving half-company of the 22nd (Mounted) from El Morra. Captain Mariande of 1st Bat d’Af escorted him, and took a photograph; there is something biblical in the image of the spare figure in his blowing white robe preaching beside the lonely grave, attended by a rough rank of trail-worn, unshaven soldiers holding their helmets. This was a period of rabid anti-clericalism in the War Ministry, but the Rue Dominique was a long way from El Moungar.41

  The official verdict on the disaster was that the mixing of undisciplined private groups of camel-drivers in the convoy had been disruptive, that the escort for the second section had been too weak, and that the intervals between the sections had been too long, but that nevertheless Captain Vauchez was largely to blame. He had bunched his rifles at the head of the camel train instead of spreading them along the flanks; his rearguard of five troopers had been ridiculously small; and above all, his choice of halting place, coupled with his failure to send out sentries, had condemned his men to surprise attack.

  THE AMBUSH AT EL MOUNGAR was not, of course, evidence of any growing threat, but a mere epilogue to the failure of the harka at Taghit two weeks previously. By the end of summer 1903 tribal resistance in the south-east had, in fact, more or less collapsed, and increasing numbers of Dawi Mani were making peace with the French all along the Zousfana. Sultan Abd el Aziz, entirely preoccupied by court intrigues and the challenge from El Rogi in the north-east, had effectively abdicated responsibility for the pacification of the frontier to the French. Although the 1902 accords still placed strict limits on their operational freedom, outrage over El Moungar provoked them to interpret these aggressively.

  The virtual wiping out of a hundred-strong Legion unit resonated a good deal further than Ain Sefra, and caused acerbic correspondence at a high level. At Oran Division, General O’Connor tried to turn Lieutenant-Colonel Cussac and Major Bichemin into scapegoats, but neither 19th Army Corps nor the War Ministry agreed.42 As early as 10 September, Governor-General Jonnart – then on leave in France – was expressing his views directly to the prime minister, and the head he really thought should roll was General O’Connor’s (the snap of bullets past his pith helmet at Figuig still seemed to rankle with Jonnart). The governor-general argued that the divisional commander’s paramount responsibility was for the logistic and operational problems of Ain Sefra Subdivision, yet command and control over that territory had been neglected. The subdivision commander and his deputy, General Prot and Lieutenant-Colonel Lane, were both seriously ill and requesting their return to France, and O’Connor was recommending confirmation of the interim commander, Colonel d’Eu. Jonnart argued that what Ain Sefra needed was the immediate appointment of an officer of energy and imagination, who should be given a broadly drawn remit. As it happened, he knew a man whom nature and experience seemed to have fashioned for just such a task.43

  SOME WEEKS PREVIOUSLY the governor-general had attended a lunch given by Jules Charles-Roux, a former deputy for Marseille and a supporter of the colonial lobby, and one of his fellow guests had been Colonel Hubert Lyautey of the 14th Hussars. Jonnart spoke freely of the situation on the frontier, and pressed Lyautey for his opinions. While inhibited by his lack of experience of the Sud-Oranais, the colonel allowed himself to be persuaded to enthuse about the success of the ‘Galliéni method’ of pacification in Tonkin and Madagascar.

  In the first week of September, during the public furore ignited by the first reports of El Moungar, Jonnart visited Avord camp to witness machine-gun trials in company with the War Minister. He took the opportunity to ask General André for Colonel Lyautey’s appointment to Ain Sefra Subdivision, and the minister agreed. Lyautey was with his regiment on 4th Army Corps manoeuvres in the Sarthe when he received a telegram summoning him to report to the War Ministry without delay.44

  11.

  The Lyautey Drill

  1904 – 1907

  The moral is that the telegraph is a dangerous machine, and that the first act of every commander who is operating [far] from home should be to cut the wires . . .

  Major Hubert Lyautey, 18951

  GENERAL LOUIS ANDRÉ, who had become war minister in May 1900, was a genuinely able reformer, but he owed his appointment to his passionately Republican convictions. Not content with retiring a number of traditionalist generals, he planned a wholesale ‘purification’ of what he saw as malign conservative cliques within the 25,000-strong officer corps.

  Simply by virtue of their background, many officers were emotionally attached to the old focuses of loyalty, and during depressing times they were naturally inclined to nostalgia. The idealistic patriotism of their youth had curdled for lack of an outlet; many of the young men who had entered St Cyr in the 1870s on a wave of enthusiasm for ‘la Revanche’ were now middle-aged captains, scraping to raise families on inadequate pay in stagnant provincial garrisons.2 During the Dreyfus affair many had overreacted to the most strident attacks on the Army, and had come to believe that the nation as a whole no longer valued them.

  This mood of defensive unhappiness was aggravated by the Army-baiting of the Combes administration (1902 – 1905), which used it to enforce its anti-clerical policies. The closing down of religious institutions caused demonstrations by the devout, and troops were ordered to ensure civil obedience – orders given in full knowledge of how distasteful the Army found them. These confrontations, painful for Catholic officers and bewildering for the conscripts, continued under Combes’ successor Clemenceau, whose formal separation of Church and State in 1906 led in some cases to soldiers being ordered to force church doors in front of angry crowds. Simultaneously, at a time of financial recession, troops were being sent on to the streets to confront increasingly angry and confident labour unions. The Army hated these episodes, which often ended in bloodshed and were bound to summon up the ghosts of 1871; some officers flatly refused their orders and paid the price, and others resigned their commissions. The extreme Radicals were not merely insensitive to the soldiers’ unease but delighted to force them to do the government’s dirty work, which both damaged their morale and alienated them from public sympathy.3

  Denied by French history the priceless gift of an apolitical army – England’s blessed legacy since the 1690s – it had long been commonplace for successive regimes to keep themselves informed about the sympathies of individual officers, and under the Third Republic local officials made secret reports on those suspected of royalist or Catholic tendencies. When General André decided to extend and systematize this surveillance, his choice of means was tactless in the extreme, and played into the hands of conspiracy theorists: he chose to employ the network of Freemasons.4 The ‘craft’ had many adherents on the Left (including Prime Minister Combes); now the widespread lodges of the Grand Orient rite were set to gathering local intelligence about the private attitudes of individual officers. Often the notes on their index cards – fiches – were brief and banal, but some were rather disturbingly intrusive. Of a battalion commander in the Legion’s 2nd Foreign Regiment – clearly a good soldier, reacting sensibly to an ugly atmosphere – we read:Very able, not very sincere. He displays anti-clerical opinions, but he encourages his wife and children in Catholic worship – he seems to want a foot in both camps. He professes republican ideals, but very weakly, and he would like to see a military man as president of the Republic. Of above average intelligence, he is a brave soldier, good to his men and devoted to his duties. In a word, he is without deep convictions, and is capable of adopting whatever outward conduct best serves his views and his ambitions.5

/>   While the involvement of the Grand Orient was not publicly revealed until ‘l’affaire des fiches’ caused a scandal in October 1904, the fact that the ministry was seeking windows into men’s souls was all too well known .6 It was common knowledge that informers were reporting the private conversations of brother-officers, to the benefit of their own careers. In the British Army, the revelation of such behaviour would have been a matter for instant resignation from the service, if not for taking the proverbial revolver into the library (or, indeed, for flight to enlist in the Foreign Legion). In France, different standards applied, and some informers did not even request a transfer out of their regiments when rewarded with promotion. The consequences for morale can well be imagined.7

  IN SUCH A DIVISIVE atmosphere, it is hardly surprising that the voluble Hubert Lyautey feared the worst when he received a direct summons from manoeuvres to report to the Rue Dominique. Despite his youthful flirtation with the Vatican (encouraged by a devout aunt), his letters give no hint of deep religious feeling; but he was a snobbish haut-bourgeois who enjoyed any opportunity for ceremonial display, and he and some of his like-minded officers had recently attended, in uniform, a service at Alençon cathedral to mark the death of Pope Leo XIII. Now his journey to Paris was passed in gloomy expectation of being handed his professional death-sentence. However, on his arrival at the railway terminus his mind was relieved, thanks to another characteristic failing of the French Army. His appointment to the Ain Sefra Subdivision with effect from 10 September was already being reported (and, thanks to Jonnart’s contacts, welcomed) in the Paris press.8

  Happy and confident, Lyautey proceeded to Algeria without delay. At Oran he was received coldly by General O’Connor, and fellow officers seemed more inclined to offer commiseration than congratulation. Ain Sefra had the reputation of a trap, where the commander risked being held responsible for a volatile situation while being denied the means to control it. However, these Jeremiahs had not enjoyed a ten-year masterclass in the Galliéni approach to colonial command, and neither did they appreciate that Lyautey’s role was not simply to be the governor-general’s new broom but his co-conspirator. As long as the Quai d’Orsay maintained its policy of trying to shore up and manipulate Abd el Aziz’s regime while engaging in quiet diplomacy with Britain, Spain and Italy, Jonnart recognized that he must continue to pay lip service to the vague Franco-Moroccan condominium over the border, even though the Maghzan’s gestures of cooperation there merely weakened it in the eyes of its own people. However, Jonnart’s constituencies in Paris and Algiers looked to him to take active steps to prevent another El Moungar.

  On 9 October 1903, at the age of 48 – when some of his classmates were still majors – Lyautey exchanged the five stripes of a full colonel for the two stars and gold képi leaves of a brigadier-general. While warning against shameless violations of the diplomatic frontier, Jonnart encouraged his new general to use his initiative. He had chosen his man partly because of Lyautey’s proven ability to achieve success by intelligent subtlety rather than short-term military crudities, and his priority was to dissuade the tribes from further adventures that would threaten the peace and profits of the Sud-Oranais. Jonnart was covered in the National Assembly by the powerful bloc led by his ally Eugène Étienne, and he judged that Lyautey had the imagination to steer a middle course between the paralysed hesitancy of the Quai d’Orsay and the more primitive instincts of the Rue Dominique, while maintaining a working relationship with both ministries.

  In order to give him the elbow-room he needed, Jonnart supported Lyautey’s requests for unprecedented freedom to circumvent the chain of command – specifically, General O’Connor at Oran. After an initial whirl-wind tour of his territory, Lyautey reported to the governor-general that his ability to do what was asked of him depended upon having complete local control over all troops and political officers, with the freedom to shape Native Affairs policy and to launch minor operations without Oran’s prior approval. He would need privileged access to Jonnart himself and, when necessary, direct telegraph communications with the War Ministry over General O’Connor’s head. (This was emphatically not because Lyautey wished to give even more remote echelons of command an invitation to interfere in his decisions, but because he wanted a direct channel, unmediated by the hostility of Oran, through which he could influence the reception of such explanations as he could not avoid giving.) Within the month, Jonnart had secured the War Ministry’s agreement to these extraordinary demands.9

  LYAUTEY’S BROAD PLAN was predictably based on his experience in Tonkin and Madagascar: the War Ministry understood only the stick, the Foreign Ministry only the carrot, but Galliéni had taught him how to wield both simultaneously. As he wrote to his friend Eugène de Vogüé, he never had any intention of approaching the frontier like a military hammer, but like a gimlet – ‘the drill that penetrates slowly but irresistibly’.10 He intended to pursue military and political initiatives in parallel, oasis by oasis, tribe by tribe, bending the caids to his will by a combination of implied threats and delivered benefits. He believed in ‘showing force in order not to have to use it’, but the threat could not be empty, and he would not hesitate to spill blood when he judged it to be necessary.

  Previous commanders in the Sud-Oranais had planted small, isolated posts whose radius of control was limited to their immediate vicinity. Once they were installed, the demands of ensuring the resupply of their garrisons tended to distract Oran Division from a wider view of operations, and soaked up most of the available troops in essentially defensive roles – witness the pointless waste of Legion mounted companies as convoy escorts. (The new nickname for the Zousfana corridor was ‘the boulevard of the Legion’ – a term whose implication of repetitive traffic was a positive betrayal of Négrier’s original vision for the mule companies as an offensive and rapid-reaction force.) General Lyautey stood in no danger of militarily serious defeats, but he had to regain the initiative. Historically, French generals in North Africa had done this by resorting to expensive, unwieldy and pointlessly destructive column-warfare, and there were plenty of atavistic voices in France and Algeria calling for the same old bludgeon now. In that sense, Lyautey was lucky to be cramped up against a diplomatic frontier that obviously inhibited such conventional responses. The campaign he had to win was largely one of perceptions, both French and Arab; in public-relations terms, his operations had to serve a convincing new ‘narrative’. This was a task for which he was perhaps uniquely equipped, with his combination of colonial experience, practical intelligence, negotiating skills and instinctive sense of theatre. His brain could operate simultaneously on two levels – cold calculation, and a quite genuine empathy for tribal attitudes.

  While refusing to fight on the tribes’ terms, he must make French strength so evident that the chiefs would come to seek peace of their own accord. He had to employ light, mobile forces to deter marauders by swift but carefully focused violence, and his strike units would need a new series of advanced outposts. These must be located not simply as way-stations along established French routes, but with a longer-term strategic purpose, so that they could become as soon as possible – as in Madagascar – ‘poles of attraction rather than repulsion’, protecting the facilities that would demonstrate the advantages of the pax Gallica over the virtual anarchy of many previous years. Establishing such posts would inevitably involve some violation of the ambiguously defined diplomatic frontier, since creating ‘oil patches’ of stability, as a buffer for the Zousfana and the advancing railway, would require pushing the edge of military domination west of the Djebel Béchar. To an officer of Lyautey’s temperament, such insubordination, winked at by the new chief on whom he had fixed his loyalty, was an acceptable – even an enjoyable – gamble.

  Lyautey would maintain blandly polite contacts with the almost powerless Maghzan border officials shut up in Oujda and Figuig, while reporting his illegal new forts to Paris simply as ephemeral ‘bases for reconnaissance’, of carefully imprecis
e location – even bureaucrats could understand that a main line of defence must be protected by forward outposts. As their continuing teamwork generated mutual trust, Jonnart was to further Lyautey’s education in the patient art of managing politicians and functionaries. Echoing Galliéni exactly, he advised his protégé to present as if they were purely provisional and local those of his decisions that would choke the Quai d’Orsay if argued as precedents for general policy, and to turn the provisional into the permanent by quiet stealth. A man as articulate as Lyautey would have no difficulty in wording reports to give an appearance of conformity with the windy abstractions that came down from both the Foreign and War ministries. He was also an accomplished and tireless networker, and in time he would fine-tune his skills in playing off not just one ministry against the other, but one faction within a ministry against its rivals.11

  WHEN GENERAL LYAUTEY RODE into the dusty desert township of Ain Sefra, his staff greeted him with a mountain of administrative paperwork that had accumulated since General Prot and Lieutenant-Colonel Lane had fallen sick, but he quickly disabused them of the notion that he was going to be that sort of commander. Enthralled by his rediscovery, after twenty years, of the colour and excitement of the Muslim world and the austere glory of the desert, he spent his days in the saddle, and set a punishing pace as he harvested local information from the Native Affairs officers and visited every post in his territory.