A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (77 page)

Often de Gaulle would make a pass in the direction of the F.L.N. then immediately succeed it with a tough call to the army to step up pacification. Or his subordinates would come forth with statements, patently “cleared” by the Elysée, but sounding discordantly out of tune with what de Gaulle had just been saying himself. For instance, shortly after his “self-determination” speech, Delouvrier was telling Challe: “I’ve just seen the Prime Minister, and you can state that the French army will continue to fight in order for Algeria to remain forever French.” Then, after de Gaulle had made his equivocal reference to
une solution qui soit française
during “Barricades Week”, Challe was thrust into the breach to explain to the army: “You are the guarantors of France in Algeria. You will fight on so that Algeria remains France.” Usually the lot of making the toughest
Algérie française
pronouncements fell to the devoted Debré. “France cannot abandon Algeria. France must not abandon her, and she will not abandon her,” Debré declared over Canadian television in January 1959; and before the French Senate that June: “We cannot ask the army for sacrifices and at the same time pursue a policy which annihilates these sacrifices!” This propensity to permit others (often through lack of clear instructions) to stick their necks out, eventually to get them chopped off, was not one of de Gaulle’s most endearing characteristics and, in the long run, it would backfire, bringing even Debré to the brink of revolt when he realised that he had uttered words that could not be honoured. Finally, there was de Gaulle’s own self-confessed habit of using semantics simply “to establish emotional contact” with his audience.

What does de Gaulle himself have to say in his memoirs about his Algerian policy? Surprisingly little, but in various key passages he declares:

Now it was too late for any form of subjection…. Integration, then, was in my view no more than an ingenious and empty formula. But could I, on the other hand, contemplate prolonging the status quo? No! For that would be to keep France politically, financially and militarily bogged down in a bottomless quagmire when, in fact, she needed her hands free to bring about the domestic transformation necessitated by the twentieth century and to exercise her influence abroad unencumbered. At the same time, it would condemn our forces to a futile and interminable task of colonial repression, when the future of the country demanded an army geared to the exigencies of modern power.

(For what, against whom? an innocent mind might enquire.) From the moment of taking the helm—though he admits to having “no strictly pre-determined plan”, “there was in my view no longer any alternative for Algeria but self-determination”. But “it must be France, eternal France, who alone, from the height of her power, in the name of her principles and in accordance with her interests, granted it to the Algerians”. Christian Fouchet, de Gaulle’s last representative in Algeria, who says that de Gaulle never doubted that independence of Algeria would come, adds revealingly: “But what was most important to him was that it should be done
well
, and with
honour
…de Gaulle always wanted to control the procedure towards independence himself.” It was for this lofty purpose that Challe was called upon “to make ourselves masters of the battlefield”. Finally, the ideal of
Algérie française
was dismissed as “a ruinous Utopia”. On the other hand, all this was said long after the war was dead and buried. Nothing seemed by any means so cut and dried at the time.

Of all the people able to bring insight into de Gaulle’s intentions, Bernard Tricot—the Elysée counsellor, distrusted alike by the
pieds noirs
and
Algérie française
army generals, but constantly at de Gaulle’s elbow from 1958 onwards—should have been the best situated. Summing up de Gaulle’s policy as he saw it, he says that he “undertook at first useful reforms for the future, whatever that might be, and based his long-term policy on the right of the people to dispose of themselves, ending—in default of a solution within the community—with one of independence….” Admitting (which was as revealing as it was honest) that it was pure supposition on his part, Tricot goes on to speculate that, having realised it was too late for “integration”, he had at least “to give a chance, if one still existed, to the idea of
francisation
”. But, referring to de Gaulle’s own account of his policy as rendered in his memoirs, Tricot states that when sent the manuscript he queried the passage “there was in my view no longer any alternative for Algeria but self-determination” with the rather courageous comment, “I lived through all this period at your side, and the facts then seemed to me less simple.”

One is left with the question, why did de Gaulle practise such ambiguity, even to baffling Tricot and fudging up the record afterwards (a practice not unknown in the memoirs of ex-heads of state)? If he had believed in “self-determination” in 1958, why had he not then said so outright, instead of letting his supporters deceive themselves and the war drag on for over another year before coming out with it? Tricot, bravely loyal, suggests that part of the reason may have lain in the hazards of communication between de Gaulle and his subordinates. Explaining for himself why his own memoirs, covering the four crucial years of his service at the Elysée, reproduced virtually no conversations with de Gaulle in
oratio directa
, he says: “I felt there was something dishonest about coming out of his office and then immediately writing down what he had said; but then, afterwards, in a curious way one’s mind became almost a blank as to what he had
actually
said.” This almost mesmeric impact of de Gaulle’s presence and eloquence was experienced by many others, but at best it offers no more than a fraction of the truth. Tricot recognises a more intrinsic fact: French public opinion was certainly not ready in 1958 to admit the possibility of Algerian autonomy. So many thousands of young Frenchmen had done their national service in Algeria and their emotions were still deeply committed there. Admitting his need for “tactics” whereby “to proceed cautiously from one stage to the next”, de Gaulle himself explains in an eloquent metaphor:

Were I to announce my intentions point-blank, there was no doubt that the sea of ignorant fear, of shocked surprise, of concerted malevolence through which I was navigating would cause such a tidal wave of alarms and passions in every walk of life that the ship would capsize. I must, therefore, manoeuvre without ever changing course until such time as, unmistakably, common sense broke through the mists….

The use of the word “manoeuvre” reminds one that, above all, de Gaulle remained the eternal, quintessential soldier. The fragile “ship”, in danger of capsizing, to which he referred, was not specifically public opinion. It was the army,
his
army. From his earliest days as a “prophet without glory”, de Gaulle had always been a military innovator, profoundly deploring the backward mentality of the French army. “And what did he find in 1958?” asks Tricot:

An enemy conducting a totally archaic battle, without tanks, just rifles and machine-guns, and with the French army combating them with the slowest aircraft—which were the most useful. It was all very distasteful to him. What he really desired to do was to modernise the French army, bring it into the atomic era, and this was always impeded by Algeria.

If it was for the future salvation of the army that de Gaulle wanted to be disencumbered of Algeria, then it was for the sake of preserving it intact that he could not risk telling it the whole truth of his intentions. Thus, to save it for a brilliant future that only he could see glimmering in the distance, de Gaulle had—from 1958 onwards—to speak carefully to the army in a special language; or, more crudely put, lie to it for its own good. This seems to be the most fundamental explanation for de Gaulle’s “double-talk”. To some extent he may have deceived himself by it. In formulating his policy for Algeria he seems throughout to have suffered from three basic misconceptions. The first was that his great personal prestige would persuade the Muslim majority to accept his terms. (Whether the
pieds noirs
would was always of secondary importance to de Gaulle.) But, as he received one snub after another from the F.L.N., his prestige waned until by the end of 1960 it was doubtful whether it could have carried an effective majority. Secondly, he fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the F.L.N., thinking, as a military man himself, that he was dealing with a conventional armed insurrection led by modern Abd-el-Kaders who would sooner or later recognise military defeat and the advantages of sensible compromise. But he could not seem to grasp that his adversaries were ruthless and adroit political revolutionaries, deeply committed to totalitarian principles of “no compromise”. Finally, he somehow persuaded himself that time would wait upon him while he found the correct formula and then imposed peace with it. But time would be wrenched from him.

Challe goes: de Gaulle’s new team

On 23 April General Challe left Algiers as Commander-in-Chief. At the time of his departure he had many reasons for bitterness, and better ones than his predecessor, Salan, who was already in a state of extreme disaffection. First of all, though never so ambitious as Salan for professional advancement, Challe had just cause for feeling let down personally. In February, when told of de Gaulle’s intention to transfer him from Algiers, he had been promised the top job in the French armed forces. Now here he was, posted in mid-stream in April, and only to replace General Valmy as commander of N.A.T.O. forces, Central Europe, a promotion of a kind, but nothing like what had originally been proffered. But of much more serious consequence to Challe was the disruption this posting signified to the eponymous plan to which he had been so deeply committed all through his career in Algeria. The withdrawal of élite troops from the
bled
necessitated by “Barricades Week” had come as an infuriating interruption to Challe, just at a moment when Deuxième Bureau reports were giving the impression that the A.L.N. was on the verge of breaking. Immediately afterwards he had strained at the leash to get on with the Challe offensive by cleaning up the last “unpacified” area and the birthplace of the revolt: the Aurès—Nementchas. This new, final operation was due to begin on 19 April, but Challe’s successor, General Crépin (promoted after replacing Massu in January), had other ideas.

Crépin was a fifty-two-year-old gunner, who during the Liberation had commanded the artillery of the famous Second Armoured Division, which had supplied France’s post-war army with so many of its ranking officers. Sometimes known as “Casse-Noisette” because of a stubbornly prognathous jaw, he was a stolid personality, principally distinguished for having pioneered the S.S.-10 anti-tank missile. Crépin was unusual in the army of the time in having no political attachments, but was unconditionally loyal to de Gaulle and for this reason he had been selected to replace the fallen Massu in January 1960. The new Commander-in-Chief was a coldly scientific
polytechnicien
, totally lacking the panache of a Massu or the popularity of a Challe, and of whom para captains said “Crépin?…never seen him!” To Challe, on the eve of his departure, Crépin expressed reluctance to persist with the Aurès offensive, explaining: “It’s a difficult operation and I wouldn’t like to run up against this affair coming fresh on the job….” Subsequently Crépin would, in fact, resume Challe’s offensive policy—but never with quite the same thrust. Thus Challe saw himself frustrated of his final victory after such brilliant military successes over the past year. At the moment of his departure the balance sheet claimed that 26,600 rebels had been “knocked out”, 11,000 captured, and nearly 21,000 arms recovered in that period, while Boumedienne’s 10,000 strong “army of the exterior” showed every sign of being—at least temporarily—neutralised. The A.L.N. of the “interior” could no longer muster more than 8,000 men, in scattered and generally demoralised groups.

Painfully conscious of de Gaulle’s mistrust of him, aware of the frustration of his own
chef-d’oeuvre
, as Challe left Algiers his overflowing cup of gall contained one final ingredient. During the crisis of “Barricades Week” he had been induced to give those various assurances to the men under him that they were “fighting in order that Algeria shall remain definitively French”, and that de Gaulle had promised him “there will be no negotiations with the F.L.N.” Over the course of the next few months he was to come to believe that he had been permitted, if not actively encouraged, by de Gaulle to perjure himself. It was therefore perhaps not surprising that Challe had refused, somewhat brusquely, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour which Michel Debré had come to bestow upon him on his departure.

For the other half of the ruling tandem, Paul Delouvrier, the withdrawal of Challe was also bad news. While their association had been so fruitfully close that it had been remarked “you could never slide a cigarette-paper between them”, between Delouvrier and Crépin relations would never be more than stiffly formal. Like Challe, Delouvrier recognised that de Gaulle had lost confidence in him since “the Barricades”, and this awareness was not helped when, in its aftermath, de Gaulle imposed on the Delegate-General “his man” to fill the re-created post of Director of Political Affairs. His choice was Colonel François Coulet, a remarkable figure. A close aide of de Gaulle’s in wartime London, when the Algerian war began, Coulet had resigned a senior diplomatic post as Minister in Belgrade to rejoin the colours (at the ripe age of fifty) and form his own “private army” of air force paratroops. For the previous four years his regiment had acquitted itself with distinction; then he had been summoned to the presidential bosom, to hold himself ready for “political tasks”. His new role in Algiers was clearly to act as an “observer” reporting directly to de Gaulle on the performance of the Delegate-General, and as a “stiffener” in case of a repeat of “the Barricades”:—a function that was as embarrassing for Coulet as it was humiliating for Delouvrier.