A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (2 page)

I also happened to be in France on two other occasions when events in Algeria threatened the very existence of the Republic—in May 1958 and again in April 1961, the latter the most dangerous of all when ancient Sherman tanks were rolled out on to the Concorde to guard against a possible airborne coup mounted from Algiers. Each episode seemed to me, in retrospect, to bear a curious resemblance to the essential rhythm of other great crises in modern French history, whether in 1789, 1870, 1916 or even 1940: a headlong rush to the brink of disaster, or even beyond it, followed by an astounding recovery and eventually leading to a re-flowering of the creative energies and brilliance that are France. The war in Algeria (which lasted nearly eight years—almost twice as long as the “Great War” of 1914–18) toppled six French prime ministers and the Fourth Republic itself. It came close to bringing down General de Gaulle and his Fifth Republic and confronted metropolitan France with the threat of civil war. Yet, when defeat led to the cession of this corner-stone of her empire where she had been “
chez elle
” for 132 years, out of it arose an incomparably greater France than the world had seen for many a generation.

What in France is called “
la guerre d’Algérie
” and in Algeria “the Revolution” was one of the last and most historically important of the grand-style “colonial wars,” in the strictest sense of the words. Many a French leader, and especially the
pieds noirs
of Algeria, waged the war in the good faith that they were, indeed, shouldering the “White Man’s Burden.” Many a French para gave his life heroically, assured that he was defending a bastion of Western civilisation, and the bogey slogan of “the Soviet fleet at Mers-el-Kébir” retained its force right until the last days of the
présence française
. It was a “war of peace” in that no declaration of hostilities was ever made (unless one should recognise the first FLN proclamation of 1 November 1954 as such), and during most of the eight years the vast majority of Frenchmen lived unaffected by it. Equally, it was undeniably and horribly savage, bringing death to an estimated one million Muslim Algerians and the expulsion from their homes of approximately the same number of European settlers. If the one side practised unspeakable mutilations, the other tortured and, once it took hold, there seemed no halting the pitiless spread of violence. As at a certain moment in the Battle of Verdun in 1916, it seemed as if events had escaped all human control; often, in Algeria, the essential tragedy was heightened by the feeling that—with a little more magnanimity, a little more trust, moderation and compassion—the worst might have been avoided.

Important as it was in the history of France, for Algerians the Revolution obviously meant far more. War, said General de Gaulle, “gives birth and brings death to nations.” To Algeria it brought birth. But, during that war, more was involved than simply the issue of whether nine million Muslims should gain their independence or not. Not merely one but several “revolutions” were taking place on a variety of distinct levels; there was,
inter alia
, a profound social revolution going on within the framework of Algerian Muslim society; and, on the French side, “revolutions” first by the army and later by the OAS against the political authority of France. Finally, there was the tug-of-war for the soul of Algeria as fought externally on the rostrum of the United Nations and the platforms of the Third World, and in the councils of both Western and Eastern blocs. For the West as a whole the Algerian War contained the lessons of two classic failures. First, the failure either to meet, or even comprehend, the aspirations of the Third World. This is with us today not least—or so it seems to me —because Boumedienne’s Algeria is very much a creature of its revolutionary experiences and, if the consequences of its powerful influence over the Third World are not always agreeable for the West, the reasons might well be sought in the years 1954–62. Secondly, the lesson of the sad, repeated failure of the moderates, or a “third force,” to compete against opposing extremes is one of constant relevance to the contemporary scene; whether it be in Northern Ireland, Southern Africa or Latin America. As in 1793 or 1917, in modern revolutions it is the Montagne that triumphs over the Gironde.

The reader should not be plagued too much by the technical difficulties of the historian’s trade—except, perhaps, where they may affect his comprehension or confidence. The treatment of the Algerian War or Revolution does, however, present certain peculiar problems that require mention in passing. The sheer length of it, in months and years, with a huge
dramatis personae
constantly appearing, reappearing and disappearing, and with its multiple levels of action often out of phase with each other, presents a canvas of daunting size. There is no obvious single focus, or climax, and possibly only one obvious
entr’acte
: the coming of de Gaulle in 1958. There is also the major problem of perspective; in terms of time it falls between the two stools of being neither, strictly speaking, history nor non-vintage contemporary events. I am conscious of the warnings of several participants in the story, including President Bourguiba of Tunisia, that “
un peu plus de recul
” might be necessary before any definitive account of the Algerian War could be written. On the other hand, I was flattered by one of the five ex-premiers of France kind enough to see me, who felt that no countryman of his could yet write a truly objective study, and that maybe “only an Englishman could,” and I am equally encouraged by Thiers’s wise and apt preface to his
Révolution Française
with which I humbly associate myself. I have been greatly aided in my research, in the cross-checking of facts and the correct gauging of moods, by the “memories” of surviving participants of the Algerian War (many of them by no means yet “old men”), and I would have been helped still more had I had recourse to those—especially on the Algerian side—who are no longer alive, or (like Ahmed Ben Bella) simply “unavailable.” I have tried to emulate Thiers in pitying the combatants “without sharing all their passions.”

Apart from these problems of perspective, perhaps the greatest obstacle lies in the inequality of source material. The number of books relating to the Algerian War published in France alone runs into four figures, varying widely in quality, while the periodicals and other printed sources can be more readily measured by the cubic metre. As
Le Nouvel Observateur
remarked of this profusion, “still, and despite this, the Algerian War is the little historical eczema of every Frenchman.” In interviewing French participants—Gaullists and anti-Gaullists, OAS and
barbouzes
, rebel generals and serving soldiers, right-wingers and left-wingers—I expected to encounter inhibitions about discussing the war, if not total refusals. In fact I found almost an
embarras de richesses
of frankness and helpfulness, with only one downright rebuff: an eminent lady writer, who indicated that the last word on Algeria had been written in her own memoirs, and there thus remained nothing more of value to be said.

The solution on the Algerian side, however, was quite different. At an early stage in my research, a senior Algerian diplomat, who had played an important part in the Revolution, while expressing personal enthusiasm for my project, warned me that in his country I might be discouraged by the shortage of written source material and also by a reluctance, both private and official, to talk. In fact, I was received with courtesy, interest and hospitality—and was
not
discouraged; but otherwise he was right, and for reasons that demand sympathetic understanding. First of all, on the purely military level, the style of guerrilla warfare was such that, with the FLN constantly on the move, few men in the field had either the time or circumstances to keep coherent journals.[
1
] And, it must be remembered, many were illiterate. Unlike the Yugoslav partisan war of 1942–5, with its rich literature, there was no centralised command. Many of the records that would normally have found their way into the archives of the new state were (so Algerian officials claim) either destroyed, or “removed” in the last desperate days of the OAS, and in the exigencies of creating a new state the work of collating the archives that exist is also not very far advanced.

The high walls that surround the houses in Algeria, the delightful courtyards concealed in total privacy behind squalid exteriors in the Casbah, hint at an Algerian characteristic that also does not ease the path of an historian. This natural instinct for secretiveness, developed over the five generations of French suzerainty, was further heightened to the point where few inklings leaked out during the eight years of clandestine warfare of the many internal splits that repeatedly threatened to rive the FLN leadership. It is no less difficult to discover the truth of such divisions today. Compounded with secretiveness there also remains some degree of apprehension. Factionalism of the Revolution continued long after Independence in 1962, and as late as 1967 there was an abortive coup against Boumedienne. Two of the
neuf historiques
founders of the revolt against France have been mysteriously murdered in exile in Europe; Ben Bella remains in prison, who knows where? Several other former revolutionary leaders live, like Trotsky, nervously in disfavour abroad. Though Algeria is today far from being a police-state on the Soviet model, it is an authoritarian regime, and the risk of a fall from grace can be incalculable.

One of my earliest surprises in Algiers was that in the Casbah, where the highly emotive Battle of Algiers had been waged against Massu’s paras, there is not the smallest plaque or commemoration to indicate where such heroes of the Revolution as Ali la Pointe fought and died; and often it is hard to find residents who can guide or inform you, even though little more than a decade has elapsed. The same applies elsewhere in Algeria, and the explanation is, in part, that the Algerian Revolution was, from the beginning, a movement of
collectivity
: of collective leadership, of collective suffering, and collective anonymity. Thus, deliberate efforts have been made to veer away from anything resembling a cult of the individual hero or martyr. There is, additionally, a more general factor in that the Arab tradition holds a concept of history that is rather different from the European. It rates altogether lower priority, insofar as the essential fatalism of religious teaching suggests that man is strictly limited in his capacity to shape his destiny. Thus there is a tendency to write off the past, relegating its events—whether they occurred yesterday or in A.D. 600—to the same vast limbo.

The wounds of the war still lie deep, and it was not until April 1975 that the tricolour could fly again in Algiers, with the first state visit of a French President. Yet an expression I heard many times in Algeria was “the page is turned.” On the one hand, this is a sentiment of the most admirable magnanimity; indeed, how many other peoples could—within two or three years of the close of an eight-year war that cost the lives of almost one in ten of the population—make a film,
La Battaglia di Algeri
, where a colonel of the dreaded French paras appears almost as its hero? On the other hand, it in no way helps the historian in his work. The most elementary precisions become obscure, or difficult to verify; for example, birthdates of leading revolutionary figures often differ radically, according to the source, and for the key FLN “Meeting of the Twenty-two” in the summer of 1954 no less than six different dates have been provided from the memories of those present.

Perhaps the best of much advice I received in the preparation of this book came from another of Algeria’s top ambassadors abroad. “Be absolutely honest,” he said, “and admit it if you have only seen part of the picture.” For the very real difficulties outlined above, I cannot claim to have seen anything like the “whole picture”; but it may be open to doubt whether anyone—French, Algerian or outsider—could do so at this moment. Possibly now no one ever will.

In the course of research I made two trips to Algeria and Tunisia, where I received the maximum co-operation from the authorities. I was received with warmth and openness by President Bourguiba of Tunisia; but a similar interview kindly sponsored by my publisher, Mr Harold Macmillan, with President Boumedienne was, alas, vitiated by its coinciding with the “Ramadan War” of 1973. I made many trips to France where, as previously noted, I was almost overwhelmed by a surfeit of information and helpfulness. My researches took me on vertiginous leaps across the over-hanging roofs of the Casbah, and to third countries for shadowy appointments with anonymous “Jackal” killers still “on the run”; though, as far as personal hazard is concerned, nothing was more alarming than a drive across Paris in Jacques Soustelle’s Mini, the former Governor-General reminiscing at 80 k.p.h. with both hands!

There remains the insidious problem of Arabic transliteration. When chided by his publishers for spelling inconsistencies in
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
, in that “Jedha the she-camel was Jedhah on slip 40,” T.E. Lawrence riposted dismissively: “She was a splendid beast.” Later on there was this exchange: “Slip 78. Sherif Abd el Mayin of slip 68 becomes el Main, el Mayein, el Muein, el Mayim and el Muyein.” T.E.L.: “Good egg. I call this really ingenious.” If so distinguished an Arabist as Lawrence should admit defeat over the endless variation in the spelling of proper names in Arabic, I hope I may be allowed some indulgence. Otherwise, on the advice of Dr Albert Hourani, I have tried to adopt the European transliteration of the appropriate “colonising” power; i.e. French for Algerian and Maghreb names, and English for the occasional Egyptian or Palestinian reference.