My Battle Of Algiers: A Memoir [First Edition (U.S.)] 0060852240, 9780060852245

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I

M

i A MEMOIR

.ySA $24.95

anada $32.95

My Battle

of Algiers, an eminent historian and

In biographer recounts

own experiences

his

savage Algerian War, an event

in

the

too reminiscent

all

of America's present difficulties in Iraq.

Ted Morgan recalls a war that we would do well

A

not to forget. in

Yale graduate

both France and America

citizen

— he was drafted

Morgan

in

up

was then known

Gramont and was then a French

as Sanche de

served

who had grown

— he

Algeria

relives the

French

into the

1956 and

Army and

'57. In this memoir,

harrowing conflict

in

Arab was considered a terrorist— and

which every increasingly,

many were. As a newly minted second lieutenant, he spends

months

in

the back country

— the

bled— where

everyone, including himself, becomes involved

in

u

unimaginable barbarities. You cannot fight a guer-

war with humanitarian

rilla

Morgan

officer tells

a prisoner

kills

principles," a superior

early on.

who won't

He beats up and

talk and

responsible for the death of a friend.

man

in

He sees men

a firelight.

may have been He

die

in

kills

another

encounters

too small to be recorded, ones that his fellow sol-

Morgan, the memories

diers quickly forget. For will

never go away.

Later, in Algiers,

ence—he had

spent

on the Worcester,

Morgan's journalistic experiall

of four

months as a reporter

MA, Telegram— gets him

writing for an official newspaper.

the day-to-day struggle to put

insurgency, the unrelenting ture,

show

first in

He

lives

a job

through

down an Arab urban

modern

history, with

its

menu

of bombings, assassinations, tor-

trials,

executions, and the deliberate

humiliation of prisoners.

He misses death when

a

(continued or

0206

*>"g&sr

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2012

http://archive.org/details/mybattleofalgierOOmorg

MY BATTLE OF ALGIERS

BOOKS 11 SANCHE DE GRAMONT NONFICTION The Secret War: The Story of International Espionage Since World

War II

The Age of Magnificence: Memoirs of the Court of Louis

by the Due de Saint-Simon Epitaph for Kings: The

(selected, edited,

XIV

and translated by)

Long and Splendid Decline of the

French Monarchy and the Coming of the Revolution

The French: Portrait of a People The Strong Brown God: The Story of the Niger River FICTION Lives This

Way

to

Give

Up: The Memoirs of Count Gramont

BOOKS BtfTEO MORGAN

On Becoming American: A

Celebration of What It

and How

Means

It Feels

Rowing Toward Eden

Maugham: A Biography Churchill:

Toung Man

FDR. Literary Outlaw: The Life

An the

in a

Hurry (1874-1915)

A Biography

and Times of William

S.

Burroughs

Uncertain Hour: The French, the Germans, the Jews,

Klaus Barbie Trial, and the City of Lyon, 1940-1945

Wilderness at

Dawn: The

A Shovel of Stars:

Settling of the

North American Continent

The Making of the American West to the

— 1800

Present

A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone,

Communist, Anti-Communist,

and Spymaster Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America

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MV BATTLE

OFALGIERS A Memoir

Ted Morgan O

Smithsonian Books

C Collins An

Imprint of HarperColWnsPublishers

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my battle

of Algiers. Copyright

© 2005 by Ted Morgan. All rights

reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

may

No

part of this book

be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written

permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles

and reviews. For information, address HarperCollins

Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street,

may

HarperCollins books sales promotional use.

New

York,

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10022.

be purchased for educational, business, or

For information please write: Special Markets

Department, HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street,

New York, First Smithsonian

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Books edition published 2005.

BOOK DESIGN BY NICOLA FERGUSON

MAPS BY EVE STECCATI The Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data has been applied

for.

ISBN-10: 0-06-085224-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-06-085224-5

05

06

07

08

09

WBC/RRD

10

987654321

This book

Tom in I960,

Wallace,

my

is

dedicated to two oldfriends:

excellent agent, a friend

when he was an

editor at

of 50 years, who

Putnam, commissioned my first

book for a thousand-dollar advance upon signing.

Rob Cowley, my

brilliant editor, a friend

of 40 years, and a

distinguished military historian.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks:

To Don Fehr, who saw the merit in this book. To my wife, Eileen, for her superb and indispensable

editorial

help.

To

Alain Seznec, Jean Aslanian, and Andre Bayens, for their

recollections.

To Roger Rives, for his photographic memory of Algiers. To Paul Lochak, for our extended discussions on the war. And to those who refreshed my memory but did not want names

used.

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war will

be fought

HERODOTUS

Contents

Preface

PARI

1.

Introduction:

A Child's

I

History of Algeria,

How Went to War,

2.

I

3.

Les

4.

In the Bled,

Classes,

PARI

5.

xvii

Introduction:

How

41

59

II

the

War Moved from

the Bled to Algiers, 6.

The

1

05

First Battle of Algiers,

7.

8.

28

Between

The Second 9.

Battles,

1

Epilogue, Index,

266 271

19

75

Battle of Algiers,

My End Game,

1

236

202

3

Preface

The

battle of Algiers

an eight-year war.

Its

was

a relatively brief chapter in the history of

importance derives from the innovative

employed by the insurgents to turn the Algerian field.

nated

The

systematic use of urban terrorism as

tactics

capital into a battle-

we

see

it

today origi-

in Algiers in 1957.

With

its

population of 600,000 French and 300,000 Arabs, and

with one third of the latter living in the Casbah's cramped alleyways, Algiers was vulnerable to the violent destabilization of its civilian population.

The

insurgents'

methods were targeted assassinations and the

placement of bombs. In order to strike the

bombs went

off in the cafes

at the

"golden youth" of Algiers,

where they gathered and the casinos

where they danced. Bombs were also placed

downtown bus

women and

stops, killing

children

was

Arabs

at soccer

The

as well as French.

of

was a way of saying: "Algiers

summoning

city's

Moslem

reprisals

is

no longer yours."

from French

forces,

It

Arab country.

was

also a

when compared with

The

cor-

patrols, the searches, the raids, the ar-

rests of thousands of suspects turned effective,

way

which would bring the

population more firmly into the rebel camp.

doning off of the Casbah, the

Although

killing of

a deliberate tactic to create a climate of inse-

curity in the heart of the carefree capital of a colonized It

stadiums and

moderate Arabs into

rebels.

urban terrorism in Algiers was as primitive,

Iraq, as a

harquebus

is

to a rocket-propelled

The key weapon of the suicide bomber had not colonial wars. The Algerian Arabs were Moslems,

grenade.

yet been

used in

but even

PREFACE

XV111

the militant ones, while hating French oppression, had been exposed to the values of the

Enlightenment

in

French schools, and did not

have the required religious fervor to blow themselves up.

The

insurgents of Algiers did not have the technology to

make

roadside bombs, nor were there any car bombs, for they were not as well funded as the Iraqi insurgents and could not afford to buy cars for demolition.

They

their jury-rigged

make bombs by hand in recruit young Arab girls who

were, however, able to

Casbah

and to

labs,

could pass for French to carry them by hand to

where they

left

downtown

cafes,

the bombs in beach bags under a seat until a timer

exploded them.

The

Battle of Algiers can be seen as a

somewhat dissimilar and

miniature model for the Battle of Baghdad and other Iraqi Iraq there

is

cities.

In

nothing comparable to the French colon minority of one

million that ruled Algeria.

The

rebels were nationalists

who wanted

independence. There were only two sides, the French against the

FLN (National Liberation

Front), with small

numbers of rebels who

were turned by the French, and a passel of French Communists who collaborated with the rebels. Iraq civil

more

closely resembles a five-sided

war, with the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Kurds, and the foreign

fighters, all fighting each other,

and the Americans trying

to shore

up the government and maintain security. Iraq

turning out to be the worst foreign dilemma America has

is

faced since Vietnam, just as Algeria

was the worst

for

France since

Indochina.

The damage done

to the city in the Battle of Algiers

was mini-

mal, thanks in part to the use of small arms by the paratroopers

who

fought there. Just as the rebels had no suicide bombers, the paratroopers had no attack helicopters, no tanks or artillery, and no rockets.

More

to the point, there

of Algiers.

The

was no

It

combat

rebels used hit-and-run terrorism

(paratroopers) dismantled the leaders.

significant

A few who

bomb networks by

in the Battle

and the paras

tracking

down

the

refused to surrender were killed in gunfights.

took only the 6,000 paras of General Jacques Massu's 10th

Division to win the Battle of Algiers, thanks to the systematic use

PREFACE

XIX

of torture. Each of the four para regiments involved had

its

own

in-

terrogation center, and there was another center under a parallel

chain of command where alive

came out

ture

is

that

dead.

it is

The

it

was well known

conventional

ineffective, since

you anything you want to hear Algiers, however, torture

was

that those

who went

wisdom today regarding

someone being tortured

in

tor-

will tell

to avoid the pain. In the Battle of

effective.

The

paras built up their in-

formation incrementally, one fact at a time, sometimes no more than a

name

or an address.

by the Vietminh

They had

in the prison

who had been

interrogators

camps of Indochina. The

convince the suspect that the interrogator

trick

Arab telephone (word of mouth) spread the

some captured

rebels talked

from

was used

of untrained

reservists at

did,

When

the

fear of being tortured. at

Guantanamo,

in sensationalized but ineffective ways.

women

to

details of the torture

Others died without having talked. In Iraq and ture

was

knew more than he

and to ask questions that did not compromise the suspect.

centers,

taught

Abu Ghraib

tor-

The presence

prison contributed to

the circus atmosphere. In other holding centers, multiple incidents

of torture have been documented on the part of ignorant but brutal

young

soldiers.

At Guantanamo the interrogators were equally

clumsy and often did not know the identity of the suspects. The real

problem with torture, however, ity.

is

not

its

effectiveness, but its moral-

Torture dehumanizes the victim and corrupts the tormenter.

para lives,

may

say that he

is

A

using torture to obtain information to save

but he will carry the stain with him for the rest of his

life.

In

may have turned some of them into sociopaths with little regard for human life. There is also in every army a small number of brutes and sadists who like the case of Indochina veterans, their experiences

their work.

The

paras

won

the Battle of Algiers in 1957, but the French lost

the war. After General Charles de Gaulle realized Algeria

dence in 1962.

was

When

a lost cause

the

came

to

power

in 1958,

he

and gave the Algerians indepen-

news came out

that torture

was being used,

public opinion in metropolitan France turned against the war.

The

French never again fought another major colonial war, but the urban

PREFACE

XX

terrorism practiced by the rebels

De

has found disciples in

Iraq.

Gaulle realized that the Algerian war was unwinnable in that the

rebels could never be extinguished.

No

matter

how many

battles

were won, there would always be more. For the same reason, the war in Iraq,

with

its

porous borders,

is

unwinnable.

PARTI

Introduction:

no trouble

It's dren

A

Child's History of Algeria

for a child to

are told to be good, and

if

understand colonialism. Chilthey're not, they're punished.

Children are colonized by their parents, whether overbearing or permissive. Children are under the discipline of their parents, as the natives of a colony are under the discipline of the occupier, and chil-

dren rebel as do the occupied. Even a child can understand that the feigning of virtues one does not possess

North

Africa, separated

is

called hypocrisy.

from Europe by the lakelike Mediterra-

nean and inhabited by Berber tribesmen, was successively occupied by the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Vandals, and the Arabs, converted the tribes to Islam in the ninth century. rise of the great jigsaw, the

included west.

Hungary

Spanning

Ottoman Empire, which

to the north, Arabia to the east,

five centuries,

oretical vassalage.

The

Ottoman

who

Then came at

the

various times

and Algeria to the

rule devised a system of the-

sultan in Constantinople

was the head of the

Moslem community centered in Mecca, the city toward which praying Moslems turned and to which they journeyed on pilgrimage. But in

terms of temporal

conglomerate.

The

rule,

dey>

Algeria was like the branch office of a

or governor,

made

his

own

decisions and

TED MORGAN

signed his

own

with Christian powers but paid tribute to the

treaties

sultan.

From

the time they

tury, Algeria, Tunisia,

The Turks pioneered

fell

under Turkish rule

in the sixteenth cen-

and Tripoli were known as the Barbary

piracy, a naval

form of terrorism,

terranean. Algeria without piracy, which

in the

states.

Medi-

made up a large part of the The dey of Algiers had a

national product, could not have existed.

government department

in

charge of piracy, which employed thou-

from the carpenters who

sands,

manned them, from

built the ships to the sailors

who

agencies in charge of supplies and weaponry to

teams of accountants and auditors who kept the books, from prison guards

who

auctioneers

The

mistreated captured passengers in ankle chains to the

who

sold

them

as slaves.

were elected by their fellow soldiers from the ranks of

deys

the 4,000 Janissaries

who

ran things in Algiers. This privileged

caste kept the natives quiet through tribal alliances tribal leaders.

The normal method

Between 1801 and

1812, three deys

and payoffs to

of succession was strangulation.

were replaced that way. One of the

French consuls described the system as "despotism tempered by assassination." It

was no

the deys

picnic being a consul,

whims but

who had

to contend not only with

also with the animosity of the local population

toward non-Moslems. In 1798, the French consul, Dominique Moltedo, presented a formal complaint to the dey that while he

was

relax-

home near the mosque, a Turk standing in mosque had shouted, "Down with the faithless. Down

ing on the terrace of his front of the

with the Christians, whose faith

As every French in Algiers, Pierre

cal,

dung."

Duval, came to pay his repects to the

dey,

Hussein,

end of Ramadan. Perhaps made irascible by his month-long

at the fast,

is

schoolchild knows, on April 29, 1827, the consul

the dey slapped the consul with a fly whisk and called

him

a ras-

which created a diplomatic incident. The dey exported large quan-

tities

of wheat to France and believed that he was

owed

8 million

francs.

The

fly-whisk incident led to the French invasion of Algeria in

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD

1830. But

why did

S

1815,

5

the French wait three years to avenge their honor?

The answer had to do with the king, in

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

for after Napoleon's abdication

France had restored the monarchy. In 1830, 73-year-old

Charles X, the younger brother of the decapitated Louis XVI, had

been on the throne since 1824. By reason of temperament (embittered by long years of exile after the 1789 revolution), age (too old to

change), and the vicissitudes of

life

(having seen his brother sen-

tenced to death), he was a pious promoter of the old order.

He had

himself crowned in the Rheims cathedral, to emphasize the compact

between the king and the pope. His reactionary regime dramatized the failure of the

bon

to reconcile the spirit of the

last

Bour-

monarchy with the expectations of

X pushed through unpopular

the people after the revolution. Charles

laws, such as giving the returned emigres a billion francs for the loss

of their property.

committed

He

declared the death penalty for sacrilegious acts

in churches, as a favor to the religious right.

The rumor

spread that he had secretly become a Jesuit and that he spoke directly to

God.

As Charles

the fervent horseman cantered on the road to disas-

surrounding himself with fanatical reactionaries, a powerful op-

ter,

position arose in the polarized nation.

met

in

March

1830, a majority denounced the king's ultraconserva-

tive ministers.

ordering ria

came

new in,

The king

as a diversion, a at

This was where the invasion of Alge-

good way

to deflect public opinion

home. Charles needed to touch up

away

his coat of

a headline-grabbing pocket war.

On July 5, 37,000

struck back by dissolving the chamber and

elections in July.

from the troubles

arms with

When the Chamber of Deputies

men on

1830,

300 French

ships sailed

from Toulon and landed

the beaches of Sidi Ferruch, 20 miles west of Algiers.

Charles got the headlines he wanted: "Our gallant troops are crush-

ing the barbaric Turks."

To

France announced that

was making war on the

it

reassure the international community, rulers in order to

put an end to a tyrannical regime and bring freedom to a backward people.

The French convinced themselves

as liberators of a people long oppressed

that they

would be greeted

by the despotic Turks.

TED MORGAN

6

On

July 14 the Times of

London

said:

"France upbraids us with

We should be curious to

the misgovernment and oppression of India.

know how

she will govern Algeria."

know; they were improvising

The French themselves

as they

did not

went along. But they had the

firepower, and the French artillery dispersed the Turkish troops.

It

took three weeks for the dey to capitulate, and he sailed for Constantinople with his

harem of 60 women,

Just as Algeria

to the French, there

fell

in the July election, the opposition

responded with a

his officials,

won

was

and

his soldiers.

a crisis at

a decisive majority.

set of arbitrary decrees,

home,

for

The king

on July 26, dissolving the

newly elected Chamber of Deputies, restricting the already limited

number of voters, and cracking down on the

The next

dents and workers behind them, and the insurgents. In three days,

was

in the

press.

day, Paris exploded, with barricades in the streets, stu-

hands of the

army

known

units fraternizing with

as the Trois Glorieuses, Paris

and on August

rebels,

2,

1830, Charles

abdicated in favor of Louis-Philippe of the Orleans royal branch,

became known

as "the citizen king."

King Louis-Philippe had no plans waste," and left matters to the military,

thing was certain:

The

The

Dar

el

At

first,

Islam (the

and the

that "sandy

favored settlement.

One

home

Arab

lack of security.

De-

resistance persisted to

of Islam) against the people of "the

pig."

Algeria tended to be a repository for the unwanted. So-

cially conscious priests sent the

phans;

who

was the

spite the departure of the Turks, fierce

cross, the bell,

for Algeria,

occupation of Algeria was not temporary.

obstacle to settlement, however,

preserve

X

who

jails, their

unemployed; orphanages, their or-

convicts; police, their anarchists;

and do-gooders,

their beggars. Settlements tended to stay close to garrisons, for the

war raged against Arab settler

plowed with a

supplies in

tribes,

rifle

armed convoys.

who murdered

isolated settlers.

The

over his shoulder and went to town for Fortified villages

were locked

at night,

and sentries were posted. In 1832, a charismatic

Arab leader

led the tribes to victories that

forced the overextended French to sign a treaty giving

him control

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD

over

much

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

S

7

of western Algeria. Abd-el-Kader rallied the tribes and

for 12 years ruled a region

where the French could not venture. He

created the rough draft of a true state with courts, schools, taxes, officials

faith

on fixed

was the

salaries,

He

set

tribal rank. Religious

single force that brought the quarrelsome tribes to-

gether under a leader infidel.

and the abolition of

known

for his piety,

who preached

an example of austerity, living in a tent

hatred of the

like his

men.

Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, who was named governor-general of Algeria in 1841, in order to prosecute the war with a free hand, decided on a scorched earth policy.

He

invented the razzia, which con-

and the crops of Arabs loyal to

sisted of destroying the villages

Abd-el-Kader. In his opus on strategy, Bugeaud advocated "burning the villages, cutting

emptying the ple,

silos,

down

the fruit trees, setting fire to the crops,

seizing the

women,

the livestock and the furniture.

the children, and the old peo-

Only then

will the rebels capitu-

late."

Protests in France to these overzealous tactics brought Bugeaud before the

Chamber of Deputies on January

deputies upbraided him, he replied: "These

15,

1846.

When

murmurs seem

several to indi-

Chamber finds our methods barbaric. Gentlemen, you war with humanitarian instincts. ... I prefer French in-

cate that the can't fight a

terests to the interest of those

who

decapitate our

wounded and im-

prison our soldiers." Eventually, the razzias paid off and Abd-el-Kader fled to rocco. In 1846, realizing that further resistance

was

Mo-

useless, he re-

turned to Algeria and surrendered. Imprisoned in the French city of Pau, the rebel leader died in 1883. resistance,

Having broken the back of Arab

Bugeaud drove the rebels

colonizing the rich coastal plain.

must

mountains and began

As governor-general from

1847, he ruled that "wherever there

there one

into the

is

1841 to

fresh water and fertile land,

locate colons, without concerning oneself to

whom

The settlers were in the plain, protected by the The Arabs were in the mountains, looking up at heaven and its promise of an afterlife. By 1847, when Bugeaud left, 250,000 acres these lands belong."

army.

had been handed out to 36,000

settlers.

TED MORGAN

To organize

the

ment of Moslems,

a

new pattern of land use, based on the displaceDomain of the State agency was created, which

drafted the regulations to force ety,

them

off their land. In a tribal soci-

there were few written records; disputes were settled within the

family or the tribe.

The Domain

could not produce a written

of the State ruled that

title,

if a

Moslem

the land went to the state by de-

while another ruling authorized the state to give vacant land to

fault,

the settlers. This of course produced a cottage industry of fictitious

But thousands of acres were taken by the Domain of the State

titles.

from Moslems unable to prove ownership. Meanwhile,

Under

cur.

in France,

another regime change was about to oc-

the reign of the sluggish Louis-Philippe, an economic

1846 led to bankruptcies and high unemployment. Riots

crisis in

erupted in Paris in February 1848, and 40 rioters were killed in a fusillade

on February

23. Louis-Philippe abdicated

A republic, the second since

gland.

lasted for four years.

The

1792,

and

fled to

En-

emerged from the chaos and

leaders of the Second Republic,

who

in-

cluded romantic poet Lamartine, thirsted for justice for the enslaved peoples of Poland, Hungary,

Italy,

and Germany, where the 1848

revolution had spread. But on the matter of Algeria, they were

ardently colonialist than the monarchy. Lamartine, tions

were said to have brought

plained to the

apart

.

.

The

.

a

new music

Chamber of Deputies

predatory

to

more

whose Medita-

French poetry, ex-

that "Bedouins

.

.

.

are a race

men who cannot be tamed by any civilization." made Algeria an inte-

constitution of the Second Republic

gral part of France, divided into three departements, with the

same

layered bureaucracy of prefects, judges, and police commissioners,

and each departement sent two deputies and one senator to the parlia-

ment

in Paris.

colons (settlers),

Local government passed from the military to the

and every town and village could

elect its mayor.

The one discrepancy from France proper was that 90% of the Moslem majority, were not French citizens but French subjects. A Moslem could not be a citizen unless he repudiated the

population, the

law of Islam, the Sharia, and accepted the French the vast majority refused to do.

The Moslem

civil code,

religion

which

was deemed

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD

S

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

9

incompatible with French citizenship, mainly because of polygamy.

No

French

citizen kept four wives or divorced his wife

by saying

"I

repudiate thee" three times.

The post-1848 status of Algeria was a boon to settlement. The who were now in the saddle, floated various plans to margin-

colons,

alize the

Moslems. One, called the American Solution, was

their

wholesale removal to reservations in the Sahara, which was not ad-

was

opted. Instead, the colon plan year. In Paris, the National

mote that

to increase settlement

Assembly voted 50 million francs

project. In the first year,

150,000 acres by 13,700

by 12,000 a

settlers,

to pro-

42 settlements were founded on

many

of whom were Parisians

who

knew nothing about farming. At that time, the train went only

Lyon, and from there

as far as

down

the settlers proceeded by horse-drawn barges the townspeople stood on the banks cheering seilles,

them

the canals, as

on.

From Mar-

they crossed the Mediterranean to the port of Bone in eastern

Algeria and were escorted to their farms by the army, the

ing and the

women and

their mattresses

children riding on the

and kitchen

utensils, into the

ground

And

to sleep on,

gun carriages with

mountain-ringed val-

where the army had pitched tents with a

leys

men walk-

little

straw on the

and there was not yet an acre of cultivated land.

so they built their cabins and they plowed their land, and they

died of cholera and malaria. Close to their settlements stood the first

headstones of an improvised cemetery, and on Sundays in the town of Bone, a military band gave a concert.

The fever

of emigration spread every time there was a revolution

or a war, but also in normal times, for in France there was no primogeniture; land

was parceled out equally among the

heirs,

and many

families had less than an acre. Prior to 1830, the migrants had to America, the land of promise, but after 1830 they

went

gone

to Algeria,

the land of promises, where they were given free land and could re-

main French. From Le Havre

to

sailing vessel, until after 1860, days.

From

New York,

was

a

6-week

when steamships made

Marseilles to Algeria,

In their hunt for settlers,

it

it

trip

on

a

the trip in 12

took 2 days.

American recruiting companies put out

TED MORGAN

10

anti-Algerian propaganda: "Don't go there! You'll die in the desert! You'll be killed by Bedouins!

Your children

will be eaten alive!"

One

Texas recruiter paid the Rhine Observer in Cologne to print lurid stories to frighten

would-be

settlers.

And

yet by 1850, the colons

num-

bered more than 100,000, half of whom weren't French but European

from the revolution of 1848 and the

exiles

castoffs of Spain

and

Malta. In leon,

December

1849, Napoleon

III,

nephew of the great Napo-

the

was elected president of the Second Republic

for a four-year

name recognition. The constitution barred a second term, so in December 1851 he carried out a coup d'etat, and a year later he had himself crowned emperor. The Second Empire, as term, largely

it

owing

became known, Napoleon

III

to his

lasted almost

was the

first

20 years.

head of state to become actively involved

and to visit his French domain, in 1860. He was an Arabowho tried to navigate a skillful policy of tolerant paternalism. He wrote his governor-general, Pelissier, on February 7, 1863: "We must convince the Arabs that we have not come to Algeria in

in Algeria

phile

order to oppress them or rob them of their property." If the French

continued to confiscate land, he said, the

Arab population back

"it

would be necessary and

into the desert

inflict

upon

it

to drive

the fate

of the Indians of North America."

At that time, the senate

in Paris drafted a

ure by returning land confiscated by the tribes

and converting

that unless

owner of

tribal land

a real estate broker, tribal land

property with deeds and gages,

Domain

into private property.

sell

European

of the State to the

Napoleon

III

realized

you had stable land laws, colonialism was doomed. Under

Islamic law, the true

was not

it

law to clarify land ten-

titles,

had to be converted into

so that the Arabs could obtain mort-

or rent their land, or buy more.

real estate practices, Algeria

to a capitalist

was God. But since God

With

made

the introduction of

the change from a tribal

economy, which favored the most

efficient farmers.

Tribal land was broken up into douars (communes), and nomadic

tribesmen became landlords. The grip of tribal custom was loosened, and the Arabs were funneled into a system not their own.

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD

By

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

1870, land had been returned to 533 tribes

douars, the smallest of

900

S

and divided into

which had a population of 240 and covered

acres, while the largest, near Setif, in the eastern

mountains of

Kabylie, had a population of 90,432 and spread over about 20,000

What

acres.

returned.

Domain

the

The

of the State had taken away, Napoleon

reclassification

from 3,500,000 acres

third,

The

reduced state lands by more than one

to 2,100,000.

colons chafed at the reduction of state land,

warned would

III

stall settlement.

which they

Extremists such as Eugene Bodi-

chon, a doctor with a private practice in Algiers, said the Arabs were "the

enemy" and had

to be "exterminated."

Such dire solutions went

against the grain of Napoleon's reformist regime. His reign, however,

came

to a disastrous

the Prussians and less revolution

end when he led his troops into battle against

was captured

on September

Sedan.

at

4, 1870,

He was deposed

in a blood-

ushering in the Third Re-

public.

Alsace and Lorraine became

German

provinces, and

some of its

5 million inhabitants decided to leave rather than raise sons

would serve in the

German

portunity to revive

its

stagnant colonial policy and pacify a land

in a state of rebellion.

and

Hundreds, then thousands,

their lands for the Algerian adventure.

ganda

told

them

that they

who

army. France saw the exodus as an op-

A

left their

still

homes

drumbeat of propa-

were not going into exile but to

a

new

France. What was Algeria but Alsace with a sunnier climate? In June, 1871, the National

Assembly adopted

a plan to set aside

250,000 acres to resettle the refugees from Alsace and Lorraine. But with state lands depleted, where were these lands to be found? Fortunately, just in time, there

was

major Kabyle uprising. Between

a

January 1871 and January 1872, French troops fought 200,000 Kabyle guerrillas in the

Louis Bertrand called

rugged mountains of eastern Algeria. Author it

a "formidable insurrection that nearly flung

us back across the Mediterranean." It

was triggered by the growing Kabyle resentment over the law

of 1867, which ruled that

all forest

lands belonged to the state unless

claimants could produce deeds. Deprived of their forests, a major

TED MORGAN

12

source of income, the Kabyles erupted into full-scale revolt. Once

brought to

heel, they

were harshly punished. The government con-

1,250,000 acres of their arable land and levied a fine of

fiscated

31,500,000 francs, paid in gold.

Thus

made

the Alsatians

homes

their

in Algeria,

thanks to two

military defeats, that of the French by the Prussians and that of the

Kabyles by the French. Massive arrivals in 1872 created bottlenecks, for

took time to survey the newly acquired Kabyle acres. Between

it

1871 and 1895, the apogee of settlement, the

government handed out

1,600,000 acres to newcomers. There was said to be a "patriotic bias"

toward those who had it

was

left their

homes

a transaction that benefited the

to

remain French, but

government

in fact

as well as the set-

tlers.

The Alsatians

served the political and military needs of colonial-

ism, for they were spread across the country to populate rebellious

The army

areas. hills,

The

helped them build fortified villages on the sides of

with crenelated bastions where the soldiers also built roads,

dug

men

could

fire at attackers.

irrigation canals,

and planted eu-

calyptus trees. But the harsh conditions of locusts, the

life,

the droughts, the

sparrows devouring ripening grain, the fevers and epi-

demics, the dysentery from bad water, the city folk

enough

to

wear

couraged the fled to

a

first

hills rather

didn't

know

wide-brimmed hat under the scorching sun,

dis-

wave of Alsatians. Hundreds

and

America or back

military had led

who

them

than the

to Alsace.

The

sold their land

principal reason

was

that the

to poor locations for tactical reasons, in the

fertile valleys.

When

a

second wave of Alsatians

arrived in a pacified Algeria, the government duplicated conditions in

Alsace by building villages in the valleys grouped around church

and school.

The land grab and

the disenfranchisement of the Arabs were

accomplished under the cover of a republican ideology of progress ity

and

"civilizing influence."

The maintenance

of French superior-

required the systematic disparagement of the polygamous and

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD

S

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

nomadic Arab majority: The Arab was not

a Cartesian; he could not

think rationally. His laziness and immorality were inbred. citizenship be granted to

men who

13

kept their

women

in

How could

bondage and

had no notion of land ownership? The colons had to establish

this

degraded image to validate their exploitation of the natives. But when they stigmatized the Arabs for laziness and opposition to progress,

they failed to discern that in sive resistance to

French

many

instances these were signs of pas-

rule.

Emile Larcher, a law professor

at

the University of Algiers, did

not even bother to envelop his thoughts in the ideology of progress

when he wrote

in 1903:

"The French are

a victorious people impos-

ing their might on a defeated race. There are masters and there are subjects, the privileged

Here was the true

and the underclass. There

colon ideology, without

Dozens of books celebrated the was described

as stagnant

is

no

equality."

trimmings.

vitality of the colons, while Islam

and decrepit. Emile Gautier, another pro-

fessor at the University of Algiers, expressed this position in the

1930s when he said the Arab was "an anarchist, a a negator."

Racism entered the language with

derogatory terms for the Arabs, such as defiguier, raton, all the

bicot,

nihilist, a destroyer,

a colorful variety of

bougnoul, melon, tronc

approximate equivalent of

displays of racism, the colons could

nigger.

With

these

remind themselves that they had

earned the right to rule an inferior people.

Another element of contempt was

Arab children and then as 1955, only

say:

"They

to neglect the education of

can't even read or write."

As

late

one of eight went to school. Those who did were taught

not only that their ancestors were Gauls but also that the French revolution had given the world universal suffrage and equality before

the law. In addition, France had brought civilization to a nation of

backward nomads and had made the desert

fertile

through irrigation.

After school, the children went home, where there was no electricity or running water.

Algeria was France only in the sense that voted, served on juries, to

French

law.

was

\0% of the population

elected to political office, and

Moslems came under

was

subject

the Code de Vlndigenat (the latter

TED MORGAN

14

a

word

that

meant both

and "indigent"), consisting of a

"native"

list

of treasonable acts for which Moslems could be punished, enacted in 1874. five

The

sentence for these crimes included a fine of 15 francs and

days in prison for "remarks against France and against the gov-

ernment," or for "refusal to work," or for "unauthorized meetings of

more than

20."

The

alternative for the

Moslems, renouncing

their

religion to obtain French citizenship, amounted to apostasy.

When seemed

the twentieth century to be

of France. Only one fifth,

fifth

They owned most of plain,

with

its

of

surface

its

owned more than

the colons

dawned

in full control of a

in Algeria, the colons

country four times the size

was

cultivated,

and of that

half after 70 years of confiscation.

the well-watered land in the narrow coastal

vineyards, orchards, and citrus groves.

the fields of winter wheat and barley, and the

They owned

armada of harvesters

to

bring in the crops. They owned the cotton and tobacco plantations, the cigarette factories, the shipping lines, the construction nies, the iron

mines of Ouenza, the zinc mines near Tlemcen, and the

phosphate deposits domestic help.

The

in Tebessa.

The Arabs provided cheap

colons provided elected officials,

of small towns to the six deputies and three senators

and lobbied

compa-

for

high

tariffs

bles to protect imports

on Spanish and

labor and

from the mayors

who

Italian fruits

sat in Paris

and vegeta-

from Algeria. Algeria could export

and oranges to France duty-free, and

this

its

wine

was how the great

colon

fortunes were made.

The

insurrections of the previous century had for the

petered out, though occasional uprisings that the

French

still

listed as insoumis (unsubdued).

erupted

most part

among

tribes

Thousands of French

troops continued to be garrisoned in Algeria 70 years after the invasion, to

maintain security and extend France's grip southward into

the Sahara.

During World

War

I,

the French recruited thousands of

Algerian Moslems to fight in their army. Graves with Arab names

throng the cemeteries of Verdun.

introduction: a child

ith the coming of World

S

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

War

II

15

and the defeat of France

in

June 1940, a collaborationist regime under octogenarian

Marshal Philippe Petain governed France from Vichy, known

for its

curative baths.

Algeria became a Vichyite bastion, for the colons loved Petain and quickly

named dozens of avenues and boulevards

after him.

They

were devoted to a regime that was quick to adopt anti-Semitic legis-

The 1870

lation.

decree granting Algeria's Jews citizenship was

voided. Jewish civil servants were dismissed and Jewish students

were expelled from the

lycees.

The Depeche

d'Alger

was scandalously

pro-Vichy, praising Nazi victories in Russia and the sinking of British warships, particularly after the British

Mers

fleet at

el-Kebir to thwart a

German

sank most of the French takeover.

Many

colons ap-

proved when Pierre Laval, the head of the Vichy government, said in June 1942:

"I

hope

for a

colons told each other:

German

victory." In the cafes of Algiers, the

"The Old One [Petain]

is

getting the best of

Adolf."

In 1942,

American envoy Robert Murphy arrived

in Algiers to

prepare for the Allied landing with the help of French resistance

He had

groups.

whom

with him a posse of a dozen vice-consuls, none of

spoke Arabic.

The German

consul described them in a confi-

dential report to Berlin as "a perfect picture of the

and characteristics

in that wild

mixture of races

conglomeration called the United

States of America."

The French

didn't

want Americans meddling with the Moslem

population. In his memoirs,

laneous tribes France.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Murphy observed

had been

The one bond

a religion foreign to the

illogically

that held

that "Algeria's miscel-

incorporated in European

most of them together was Islam,

French administration."

One of Murphy's many visitors was the nationalist leader Ferhat who offered the support of the Algerian Moslems against

Abbas,

Nazi forces

in

exchange

for

an American-backed election of a native

TED MORGAN

Algerian assembly.

On November

7,

Murphy

recalled, he

once or twice to discuss Algerian independence

know what was

saw Abbas,

He had approached me

"the most ardent Algerian Arab nationalist.

.

.

.

and he wanted to

the American government's latest attitude toward

an autonomous Algeria.

...

I

told

him

that

Americans were generally

sympathetic to all desires for independence, but that our present

purposes

.

.

.

were concentrated on defeating the Nazis."

The next morning, November awoke

to see

1942, the citizens of Algiers

8,

hundreds of iron gray warships bobbing on the waters

of the Mediterranean. Allied troops stormed the beaches of Sidi Ferruch,

where the French had landed

The deployment

in 1830,

of American forces

made

and marched on Algiers. a lasting impression

on

was now vanquished,

as

the Arabs. France's collaborationist regime

France had been previously defeated by the Germans, and was no longer a major power. join the

The

colons

who had backed Vichy now had

Americans and the hated British

The GIs handed teens where

to

in a half-hearted alliance.

out cigarettes and chewing

gum

and

set

up can-

Arab children could get powdered milk. They conveyed and served as

a contagious impression of democratic expansiveness

the unwitting agents of emancipation.

A

who had been

in her early twenties in 1942,

with a GI.

was amazing," she

"It

woman I later met, told me she had a "fling"

colon

said. "I felt that

I

was not sleeping

with a man, but with a continent."

De

Gaulle took over in Algeria, after a six-month interlude dur-

way by Roosevelt he had an army of 230,000 men

ing which he overcame the obstacles placed in his

and Churchill. By the spring of 1944, in the field,

with

five divisions that

mandy campaigns and reclaimed

fought in the Italian and Nor-

Paris.

Thousands of young Arabs

fought in de Gaulle's army, and from their ranks would of the rebel army. It

also taught

Army

service taught

come

them armament and

them anti-French extremism,

for they

the core tactics.

were often as-

signed to segregated regiments and denied entry in the officer corps.

Three of the

historic leaders of the National Liberation

served in de Gaulle's army. in

Front (FLN)

Ahmed Ben Bella fought at Monte Cassino De Gaulle himself pinned

General Alphonse-Pierre Juin's division.

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD

S

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

17

the Medaille Militaire, the highest Free French decoration, on Ben Bella's chest, for exceptional

under

life

of an officer

rebellion,

and

de Gaulle's divisions.

in

awakened a

saving the

Boudiaf, the leader in eastern Algeria, were also non-

World War was

in

Belkacem Krim, the Kabyle leader of the

fire.

Mohammed coms

courage

II

put an end to the global colonial status quo and

nationalist aspirations in the

shaky

victor, the sick

man

Third World. In 1945, France

of Europe after five years of German

occupation, and gave up two of its protectorates, Syria and Lebanon. In Algeria, hopes of independence were revived.

Day became

ebration of Victory in Europe

French demonstrations

in

1 1

Algerian

In Setif, a bustling market

On May

8,

the cel-

a springboard for anti-

cities.

town on the high

plains of eastern

home of Ferhat Abbas, it was market day as well as V-E Day. The Moslem multitudes filled the streets. A procession of Algeria, and the

perhaps 5,000 formed outside the mosque.

Its

stated

aim was

to lay

who had fallen in the war. But the marchers also banners saying "Down with colonialism," and "Long live a

the wreath for those carried

free Algeria."

The police were ordered to seize the banners and who carried them. In the ensuing scuffle, shots rang crowd went 21 colons

wild, attacking colons

were killed

arrest those out,

and the

and vandalizing property. At

in Setif that day; in

towns

like

least

Guelma, near the

Tunisian border, and Blida, south of Algiers, similar scenes took place.

More shocking than

reprisals,

the

Arab

riots,

however, were the French

which seemed to be proclaiming, "We're going to show

you, once and for

all."

In the jails of Constantine,

shot through the bars of their

cells.

Arab inmates were

Other suspects were taken up

in

planes and thrown in the sea. French warships fired their big guns

on coastal

villages.

the gendarme" abs,

it

The

toll for

what became known

as "the

hour of

was an estimated 6,000 dead. For many Algerian Ar-

was the point of no return, the point where they decided that

they were better off fighting back than being massacred. Hopelessness leads to militancy, and the rebellion of a few becomes the revolution of the

many.

TED MORGAN

18

That

October 1945,

cisco, the

at its

founding meeting in San Fran-

United Nations charter included a paragraph on the

right of subject peoples to self-determination. But Algeria

governed as

it

had been

the French president.

in 1900,

Under the postwar Fourth Republic, temporiz-

—

that

is,

maintaining the status quo with the

for

still

with a governor-general named by

ing politicians tried to square the circle

demands

was

to reconcile colon

Moslem

majority's

pressing need for change.

Under the government of

Socialist

scholar of ancient Greece, the National

Premier Paul Ramadier, a

Assembly passed

a statute in

1947 creating an Algerian assembly of 120 deputies, divided in two

one representing the 370,000 colons and the

electoral colleges of 60,

60,000 assimilated Moslems and the other representing the 8,000,000 other Moslems. Important measures in this assembly required a twothirds vote, effectively giving the colons a veto.

was on the

scales.

ity rule, at a

ample

Such an obvious contrivance

time when the First Indochina

Normandy

if in

A

was doomed.

for the Arabs,

"What

The heavy colon thumb

friend of

for

thwarting major-

War

served as an ex-

mine

said at the time,

they had two electoral colleges, one for the

peasants and one for the bankers?"

The two

colleges

made nonsense

of the idea that Algeria was a part of France. In 1947, a cluster of

young men broke away from the reformist

party of Messali Hadj and formed a paramilitary group called the

Organisation Secrete, which began training guerrillas in the tains.

They

started with

300 desert war surplus

they paid for by selling their homes.

The OS was

Italian rifles,

mounwhich

a forerunner of the

FLN.

On April

9,

1949,

Ahmed Ben

armed robbery of the Oran post ($9,000). In

May

forced labor for

1950, he

life.

officers led

office.

and

16,

OS leader, carried

The take was

was arrested

On March

in Blida, south of Algiers,

Bella, the

in

out an

3,170,000 francs

Algiers and sentenced to

1952, he escaped from his prison

fled to Cairo,

where

a

band of young

by Gamal Abdel Nasser had deposed King Farouk. This

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD

was

a striking

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

S

19

example of a corrupt regime overthrown by Arab na-

tionalists.

In

of the

men

May 1954, the month of the fall of Dien Bien Phu, 22 leaders OS met in the Algiers suburb of Clos Salembier. These were

in their twenties

and

thirties,

not university graduates like Fer-

hat Abbas but the sons of humble

French oppression on farms,

modeled

logues, and they

against the Nazis.

name National armed

It

was

At

experienced

army.

Many were

movement. They were not ideo-

May

at this

the French resistance

meeting that they adopted the

(FLN) and formally endorsed

a later meeting, they decided

an insurrection

Saints' Day, for

in the

movement on

their

Liberation Front

struggle.

and

in factories,

defectors from the Messali Hadj

who had

families

on November

1,

the

All

craggy Aures Mountains of

in the

eastern Algeria, long a refuge for outlaws, where shepherds tended their

meager

flocks

and peasants lived

in abject misery. In the heart

of this neglected and desolate region, the "forces of order" consisted of seven gendarmes.

On

All Saints' Day, there were 70

tacks, supposedly

more or

synchronized to start

at 3

resort on the edge of the Sahara, several

less

bombs exploded.

miles north of Biskra, Colonel Lucien Blanche,

colons,

Salem Boubakeur, was were hidden

On

in a

feet,

In Batna,

about 50

commander of

the

a

town of

64 miles east of Batna, one of the rebel

leaders,

was shot and

4,000 with 800

at-

am. In Biskra, a winter

a garrison town in the Aures Mountains, at 3,000

garrison,

coordinated

killed in his staff car.

in

At Kenchela,

charge of the distribution of weapons, which

thermal bath outside town called Fontaine Chaude.

Sunday, there was a soccer

Salem the chance

attended by police, which gave

The local team won, and a festive mood. The armed FLN groups

to distribute

the colons repaired to cafes in

game

weapons

*

gathered that night in the forest, wearing World

War

II

U.S.

Army

surplus uniforms.

*The

role of soccer in

molding Algerian nationalism has been neglected. It was only to play on French teams and became stars that the Algerian

when Arabs were allowed

masses had nonreligious heroes to admire.

TED MORGAN

20

Salem described the weapons 56

an excellent

is

and

rifle,

it's

as he

handed them

out:

"The

MAS

weapons of the

a pleasure to use the

French against them." Someone asked him the difference between a

Thompson submachine

Beretta and a

between America and

Italy,"

he

said.

gun. "The same difference as

On Monday

the rebels attacked

the gendarmerie barracks, but the gendarmes unleashed their wolf-

hounds, and the attackers

They exploded

guns.

A

a police barracks, killed

a couple of

bombs

four hand-

and

in a spahi barracks

set

the stables.

sweep the next day arrested 100 Arabs, including Salem. The

gendarmes ing,

They attacked

commanding the detachment, and recovered

the lieutenant

fire to

fled.

when

"The dog's

let a

the

dog loose

in his cell that bit his

dog refused

to bite him,

floor of the cell

and when he got down on

his

and

The next morn-

one of the gendarmes

a friend of the fels" [fellaghas, or

dog food on the

arm.

told

said,

FLN). Then they threw

Salem

dog

food,

bit his

hand

to eat the

hands and knees, the dog

and the gendarmes stood behind him, laughing.

A bus from Biskra was chugging up the road

Monday morn-

that

ing to the mountain town of Arris, south of Batna, at 4,000

when

it

form.

The

was ambushed

in the

Tighanimine gorges by

rebels looked over the passengers

couple, rural schoolteacher

two months.

When

Honor ribbon pinned

He was

to his

the caid

Janine, his bride of

Arab with the Legion of

immaculate white

djellaba, tried to stop

(Moslem judge) Ben Hadj Saddok,

chief and one of the rare in the

French

a

they told Monnerot and his wife to get off the

bus, a distinguished-looking, gray-bearded

them.

15 rebels in uni-

and spotted

Guy Monnerot and

feet,

a tribal

Arabs who had reached the rank of captain

French army. "These two young people are here to teach our

children," he said. "Leave

alone."

The

reply

was

a burst

from

a

mortally wounded.

The

rebels stood the

side of the road, shot them,

and

left

Sten gun, and the caid

Monnerots by the

them

fell,

But Janine Monnerot survived.

And

them

to die.

so the cycle of violence and re-

prisal began.

Abane Ramdane, one of the most obdurate FLN leaders, argued war had changed since the World War II bombings,

that the laws of

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD

from the London

blitz to

S

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

Dresden and Hiroshima, and that the

ing of civilians was no longer off limits. lines,"

he

said, "to

make

21

"We

need blood

kill-

head-

in the

the world aware."

The Algerian rebels can be credited with launching modern terrorism. As they saw it, terrorism was the use of guerrilla tactics in cities to obtain political ends. After the All Saints' Day attacks, the

FLN

sought to alert the world that they were a force to reckon with.

Providentially, 29 African

and Asian nations opposed to colonialism

held a conference in April 1955 in the hilltop nesia,

and invited two

town of Bandung, Indo-

FLN "observers," Ait-Ahmed Hocine and Mo-

hammed Yazid. Ait-Ahmed had

taken part in the robbery of the Oran

Yazid, a one-time law student and follower of Messali Hadj,

post

office.

was

a born diplomat, debonair

ference expressed

which gave the

its

FLN

and reasonable. In

sympathy its first

report, the con-

its

North

"for the people of

Africa,"

glimmer of international recognition.

Even though the CIA men attending the conference mocked "the

darktown

strutter's ball," the

"We would

on the map. Terrorism and

political gains

18,

FLN

to put the

were intertwined. That

in Philippeville, a pretty oceanside city of

Algeria, where the rebels were strongest, the

gust

like

do something."

Another attention-getting action was required

August

as

two Algerians obtained promises

of aid. Nehru, the prime minister of India, told them: to intervene, but first,

it

guerrilla teams slipped in by night

21,000 in eastern

FLN

On Aucellars. On

struck.

and hid

in

Saturday, August 20,

when

the bells of St. Lucie

Church rang out the noon hour and hundreds

half the city-dwellers were at the beach,

of armed rebels emerged from cellars and were joined by Arab peasants carrying scythes and axes.

They marched down

toward the Place de Marque, as

if on

setting fire to houses. a panic that the city

a foreign legion unit

guns, and

The deputy

had

prefect,

in,

main

street

parade, killing as they went and

Dupuch, cabled Algiers

and locked himself in

was brought

mowed down

Ten miles

fallen

the

a basement.

in

But

took up positions with machine

134 rebels.

east of Philippeville there

French engineers and their

was

families, 130 in

a sulphur all,

lived

mine where on

site

with

TED MORGAN

22

FLN

The

2,000 Algerian miners.

leader at the El Halia mine, Zig-

houd Youssef, ordered the miners and their families and to

who had

miners attacked those

day. In a collective frenzy, they

women. Fourteen

adults

vivors, an engineer

to

show no

massacre the French civilians

pity.

stayed

At noon on August

home on

the

summer

hacked up children and disemboweled

and 23 children were

who had

a broiling

18,

killed.

One

of the sur-

to be hospitalized for shock-induced

dementia, later recalled that he was hiding under a bed in the shad-

owy light of his prefab when something rolled across the floor against his leg. He felt it, and it felt at first like a ball of wool. Then he realized

it

was

hair. It

was

his wife's head.

Troops arrived too

late,

but 60

prisoners were taken and executed on the spot.

El Halia became the emblematic

FLN

atrocity, reinforcing the

French conviction that they were dealing with savages. "That was

when

the insurrection

liberal

became

a war," said Jacques Chevallier, the

mayor of Algiers. The French had been slow

All Saints'

Day

attacks, insisting that the

FLN

to react after the

consisted of "just a

few groups scattered in the mountains," and that French troops were involved not in a

war but

Republic, political tive parties that

and

in

power

"maintenance of order." Under the Fourth

in

France was fragmented among ineffec-

formed unstable

in the thrall of lobbies.

events.

Andre

Siegfried, the

coalitions, incapable of leadership

The French

intelligentsia

was blind

French Walter Lippmann, wrote

to

in a

1954 column: "The French presence on the other side of the Mediter-

ranean

is

identical to the

Roman

presence of antiquity."

In January 1955, Jacques Soustelle arrived in Algeria as governorgeneral. Trained as an ethnologist, he had

done fieldwork on the Ma-

yans and the Aztecs. Soustelle had joined de Gaulle in London during the 31.

war and became the head of his

He combined

intelligence service at the age of

the ethnologist's professional interest in precolonial

people with the conspiratorial bent of a secret service agent. Soustelle at first had a plan to accomplish the genuine integration of Algeria into France,

into one

by blending the two electoral colleges

and extending the vote to

integration would

make

all

Arabs, including women. True

the Arabs a minority in a greater France.

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ALGERIA

But

23

August, Soustelle visited El Halia and saw the mangled and

in

decapitated bodies of women and children.

him

ter revulsion led

Soustelle

viously

was the

A

visceral reaction of ut-

to say: "I won't negotiate with cutthroats."

first to call

the

unknown and undefined

FLN methods

terrorism, "this pre-

scourge, which the state must learn

to oppose."

When divisions,

he asked for more troops, the French desperately juggled

moving them from

their adjacent protectorates,

NATO al-

and Tunisia, then from Germany, which angered France's since those

lies,

in

armed

Morocco

divisions had been trained to fight the Soviets

Europe, not the Algerians in the mountains of Kabylie. In August

1955, the

army had

to call

up 60,000 reserves and maintain 180,000

them from

conscripts with a stop-loss order preventing schedule.

Never before had a conscript army, nearly 3 million over

eight years of war,

In

retiring on

gone overseas when the mainland was

at peace.

1956, when the French granted independence to Tunisia and

Morocco

on Algeria, the

in order to concentrate

with two friendly border

states.

fighting the French from Libya turned their

Both countries provided the

mandos moved Yazid,

who

in

FLN

easily across the

FLN was blessed

Tunisian guerrillas

who had been

camps over

to

Ben

Bella.

with logistical bases, and com-

porous borders.

1956 was an observer

at the

FLN agents such as

United Nations, used

Mo-

roccan and Tunisian passports.

French elections that January of 1956, which became known as the crucial year of the war, brought to

under Prime Minister teacher

who

Guy

looked as

if

Mollet.

he were

A

power

a Socialist

government

colorless former lycee English

at the

blackboard even when he

wasn't, Mollet presided over the longest-lasting

Fourth Republic (January 1956 through

May

government of the

1957). Like others,

he

naming

as

started out wanting a negotiated solution to the war,

governor-general 79-year-old five-star general Georges Catroux. Despite his age, Catroux brought to the post his considerable experi-

ence in the Arab world, as de Gaulle's

man

in

Egypt, Algeria, and

TED MORGAN

24

Syria during

World War

II,

and as Minister

Moslem

for

Affairs in

the de Gaulle provisional government of 1944.

But when Catroux said he wanted "an honorable solution" to the war, the colons translated that as "sellout." his arrival,

as

Mollet decided to

prime minister

unrest

among

fly to

To prepare

the ground for

Algiers right after being invested

in early February.

He was warned

that there

sinate Catroux. Mollet took the precaution of sending 12

of riot police (the

February

6.

was

the ultras and that agitators had threatened to assas-

The

CRS)

ultras

to Algiers ahead of him,

companies

and he landed on

were ready with a boisterous welcome.

Mollet went directly from the airport at Maison Blanche to the

Monument

to the

Dead on

the Plateau des Glieres, on a rise in the

center of town, to lay the customary wreath.

were already

there, milling

Thousands of

ultras

around the statue of Joan of Arc and

screaming "Mollet au Poteau" (the firing squad), "Resign," and

"Throw him out

to sea."

When

he got out of his car with the wreath,

he was pelted with tomatoes, eggs, dried horse dung, and clumps of sod.

As Mollet

He made

tear gas.

CRS

fired

back to his car thanks only to the CRS,

who

laid the it

wreath, the crowd surged and the

charged the crowd, swinging their clubs and heavy capes, which

were lined with lead tors

pellets.

Once Mollet was gone,

the demonstra-

stomped on the wreath he had just placed. Mollet drove to the governor-general building, abashed by the

fierce

rancor of the demonstrators.

Catroux

in Paris

and ask

The

first

for his resignation.

thing he did was call

He

caved in to an orga-

nized show of force directed by teams of ultras. His authority as

prime minister had been life,

flouted.

It

was the worst humiliation of his

worse even than two years of German

captivity.

The riot had the desired effect. The traumatized Mollet changed course. He was now determined to fight an all-out war against the FLN. With a single street demonstration, the ultras engineered the resignation of a governor-general

named by

the prime minister and

overturned the government's Algerian policy. Once again, as with Soustelle, they

no Arabs

showed they could wag the dog.

in Algeria.

It

was

as if there

were

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ALGERIA

To

25

replace Catroux, Mollet chose his crony from the Resistance

and the Socialist Party, Robert Lacoste, who was the minister of finance

government. Short, with a large head on a squat and

in his

muscular body, Lacoste looked

Camargue

steers,

like

one of those stumpy, thick-backed

on two legs and without the horns. He knew noth-

ing about Algeria, but he had a blustering, bullying manner that

passed for decisiveness.

Lacoste arrived in Algiers on February

him he was

crazy,

was

it

"We all know politics I

know when

to

is

10, 1956.

a real shithouse over there, but he replied,

no bed of roses. I'm

like a

good soccer

push straight ahead and when to

well with the colons, and

His friends told

feint."

was soon co-opted by them,

He

player.

got on

for like

them,

he was jovial, quick-tempered, and garrulous, and he didn't mind doing business over a bottle of gros rouge and a five-course meal.

Soon

after his arrival, he said in a directive to civil servants

and

French troops: "From a terrorized and suffering Moslem population we must demand only one thing: recognition of the French fatherland and our

flag,

and that

is all."

Just as the French determined to fight an all-out

400,000 men, the

mer of 1956,

war with

FLN leaders held a summit conference in the sum-

for they

were too dispersed. The "internals" who did the

fighting inside Algeria resented the "externals" based in Cairo and their luxurious

too

much

life.

Communications were

improvisation and too

little

primitive,

cohesion

and there was

among the six

wilayas,

or military regions, in which Algeria had been divided. In their cor-

respondence, the leaders denounced each other with colorful jargon.

One was and

a "Berbero-materialist," another a "decaying bourgeois,"

a third "a westernized parasite."

Abane Ramdane, summit

in

a doctrinaire "internal" leader, organized the

a quiet cabin far

from French

River in a forest in Kabylie.

The summit

August 1956, and found

troops on the

Soummam

opened on August 20, presided over by the leader from Oran, Ben M'Hidi. About 20 leaders and their aides were on hand, though one of the "externals," Ben Bella, absence.

still in

Cairo,

was conspicuous by

his

TED MORGAN

26

The Soummam summit called made it clear that the FLN was now

for

an independent Algeria and

a national

movement

able to field

a guerrilla army, and representing a wide spectrum of the Moslem

population, from clerics and elites to illiterate peasants.

(CNRA) was

national council

set up,

and

A 34-member

at the top, a

five-member

executive committee.

The

FLN

was gaining international acceptance, not only from

Nasser but also from

its

newly independent

rocco. In October 1956, a conference

was planned

some form of North African union. The

med

V,

and

a

allies,

Tunisia and

in

Mo-

Tunis to discuss

sultan of Morocco,

Moham-

and the Tunisian president, Habib Bourguiba, would preside,

number of

FLN

leaders

would attend. The sultan invited an

FLN

delegation of four to meet

Tunis

—Ben

Boudiaf,

Bella,

Ait-Ahmed,

him

in

Rabat prior to flying to

Mohammed

Khider, and

Mohammed

all historic leaders.

In Paris,

Prime Minister Mollet viewed these meetings with

alarm. In Algiers, the French special services monitored the move-

ments of Ben Bella and

his friends.

They knew

that on October 22

the four Algerians were flying from Rabat to Tunis aboard a char-

DC-3

tered

with a French pilot

named

Grelier, a

major

in the air

commander of the French air force would be feasible to intercept Ben Bella's plane.

force reserves. General Frandon, in Algeria,

Max

thought

it

Lejeune, the minister of defense, agreed.

in the dark.

The DC-3

left

Rabat

Guy

Mollet was kept

in the late afternoon, flying

over

the Balearic Islands to avoid Algerian air space, while the sultan took his

own

plane to Tunis.

From

Algiers,

Major Grelier received the

order to land at the Maison Blanche airport instead of proceeding to Tunis.

The French

air hostess told the passengers: "Please fasten

We

are about to land in Tunis." At 9 pm, the plane

your seat landed

at

belts.

Maison Blanche, and the passengers, thinking they were

Tunis, sauntered police.

They were

down

the gangplank into the

arrested, handcuffed,

in

arms of the French

and flown to Sante prison

in

Paris.

International opinion called the hijacking an act of piracy, but

the colons applauded, describing the jailed leaders as "traitors with

INTRODUCTION: A CHILD

three passports tred."

The

who

fly all

that the

HISTORY OF ALGERIA

over the

sultan of Morocco

hijacked that he gave the

S

map

27

to incite anti-French ha-

was so furious

that his guests had been

FLN $500,000 to buy weapons. Predictions FLN proved to be wishful think-

French had decapitated the

ing, for the

advantage of collegial leadership was that empty chairs

could quickly be

filled.

But a negotiated solution was now out of the

question. It life.

was

at this point, in the fall

of 1956, that Algeria entered

my

2

How I Went to War

I

should explain that I got into Yale thanks to affirmative action, then known as a little help from a wealthy alumnus. In 1952, I was wasting away at the Sorbonne, at a time when

France was

still

hung over from the Second World War. Professors

advised students not to attend their overcrowded classes but to pick

up mimeographed copies of their lectures. attending law school told

announced

me

that

on the

A friend of mine who was day of class, the dean

first

to the assembled students: "Half of

What France

you

will flunk out.

needs are good carpenters, not bad lawyers."

My mother had promised my father that she would French university, but

I

had spent most of my

wanted to get into a good Ivy League treaties

We met in

ble with a

Paris,

sang.

I

think he had a

and over dinner

view of Notre

illuminated, which

Ham

college.

She gave

in to

a

at the

me

on

and

my

I

en-

Tour d'Argent,

after

at a ta-

(where, for $75, he had the cathedral

my

kind but canny

to a

a philan-

swimming pool named

was a form of philanthropy

Colket quizzed

He was

Dame

me

in the States

and contacted her friend Hamilton Colket, who was

thropic Yale alumnus.

him.

life

send

plans as he

man and

for the other diners),

dug

into his canard au

took the precaution of giving

HOW

me

a biography of

WENT TO WAR

I

Lenin to read,

subversive instincts.

I

in case

I

29

showed signs of

latent

him the system would never work

told

if

the

doctors were paid the same as the nurses. Also they did not believe in

beauty pageants or competitive eating, the bedrock of a free soci-

ety.

He saw

that

and competition

I

had a

capitalistic bent,

at all levels.

That summer

went to

I

New Haven

Griswold, the president of Yale.

from

credit

my

year

at

was no such

I

and had a chat with Whitney

was admitted

into junior year, with

the Sorbonne, on the condition that

course in American history. there

based on wage differentials

thing.

I

But

in

majored

in poli sci

my American

take a

I

and learned that

history seminar,

I

had

my eyes opened through the case system. To understand the Supreme Court,

we

studied the opinions of Chief Justice John Marshall.

Com-

pared with the homilies in the history books of the French lycees, the case system was a

quantum

ambled through

I

where

it

leap.

my two

seemed mandatory

man numerals

after

your

years at Yale, then a preppy enclave

to have several middle

last

name. The fraternity subculture and

determined drinking was something

went to the Fence Club with a glass at his reflection

drunk,

I

names and Ro-

a friend

I

saw only

who was

as a guest.

its

Once

I

so drunk that he threw

on the mirror behind the

bar.

Since

I

was

also

did the same, to be companionable. "You can't do that," the

bartender

"You're not a member."

said.

To overcome my mural squash and

outsider status,

tennis.

I

sang

I

became

in the

a joiner.

I

played intra-

second-string glee club, the

Adelphi, which had the fringe benefit of invitations to perform at the

Seven

Sisters.

Eliot Society.

by

my

I I

helped arrange exhibits of rare books for the Jared acted in productions of Restoration comedies staged

college, Berkeley.

I

examined Shakespeare

folios at the Eliza-

bethan Club, which served afternoon tea and Ritz crackers with peanut butter. little

One

of my friends there,

Hendon Chubb, would

pick up a

round cracker sandwich, press the two sides carefully together,

remove the peanut butter from the rim with replace the cracker on the tray.

I

his index finger,

shouldn't criticize, for

and

Hendon had

an interesting mind in a dilettantish sort of way (learning Japanese,

TED MORGAN

30

taking up painting), and he gave that

Romanee Conti

ever drank, a

I

me

the second best bottle of wine

wedding

1959, as a

He

present.

was, however, a bundle of eccentricities, which showed that not ev-

eryone

In

Yale was cut from the same cloth, though in those days the

at

diversity

came more from temperament than race or

my senior year

I

class.

took up night-climbing, an activity borrowed

from Oxonians, which consisted of climbing the neo-Gothic spires and towers on campus without using any equipment such flashlights.

as ropes or

Night-climbing was completely antithetical to the values

that Yale instilled, such as

winning

a letter in a varsity sport, getting

tapped for Bones or Scroll and Key, and becoming a Big

Campus. Night-climbing was surreptitious and

illegal,

Man

on

and getting

caught by the campus police could have meant expulsion or worse.

The

only reward of this secret diversion, more than a

than a sport, was the risk and difficulty of doing

crime were Strode Purdy,

Ed

since, but

more

I

got through

terrified of

it,

I

him what

I

didn't

their country," or a for Niarchos,

meant being

drawn is

net.

build-

brave, but because

friends than

Purdy continued

I

I

I

want

was

was of

to climb fell

think, a Soviet expert. Sparn, to Thailand.

"Mendicant

When

I

asked

friar."

I

looked for something

to be a diplomat like

my father, Gabriel de

told me, "Diplomats are sent abroad to lie for

businessman

whom

at the

We climbed

number of other

my

graduated from Yale in 1954,

I

to do.

journalist

became,

his cover was, he said,

Gramont, who once

ever,

was

campus by the CIA, was sent

hen

partners in

venues where he taught, and eventually

his back. Coulter

recruited on

I

in front of

performing a trapeze act without a

and broke

a

less

have never been so scared before or

not because

backing out

after graduation, in the

My

Sparn, and Harry Coulter.

Calhoun College, the Sterling Library, and ings, usually after midnight.

it.

game and

like

my

uncle Dimitri.

He worked

he called "the bandit." Medicine and the law

beck and

call

of patients and clients.

to journalism after reading a phrase of

the historian of the moment." That

was

I

was, how-

Camus: "The

my high-minded

HOW

WENT TO WAR

I

My low reason was that

reason.

had always been a snooper, and the

I

journalist gets paid for snooping.

had the nasty habit of going

I

through drawers and medicine cabinets. Once when

me

mother took

to visit a couple near

had a beautiful daughter of about sniffing her dresses. ity,

however,

a

is

also an engine;

I

much-undervalued

it

12,

my

She caught

me

in her closet

learned the meaning of mortification. Curiostrait.

That

"lust of the

keeps you going because you need to

happen next. Although

will

18.

was

I

Wilmington, Delaware, who

knew he

I

had changed his medication,

suffered

is

know what

from depression and

never understood

I

mind"

how my

old friend

and fellow Congo correspondent, Tony Lukas, could have killed himself when he had a book coming out. Big Trouble. Didn't he want to see the reviews

and

the intense pleasure of cursing the re-

feel

viewers?

The deeper motivation

pulling

me toward journalism was

had developed an aversion to causes, however noble.

that

I

instinctively

I

sought to remain uninvolved, an observer rather than a participant.

This was the lingering aftershock of my in Paris,

I

remember my

He

shoulders or singing songs. planes he was learning to pilot

and one

age than for

once did

I

for him.

me

see

I

darken,

quixotic.

age of

for rides

on

was

I

easier for

him

a smile that

snuck into his

lit

his lap in the for the

to revert to

up

his face.

and

office

my

Only

spilled a

his desk.

used to describe him was

idea into his head, he

a deity that could allow

occur,

my

to his

pronouncements, she replied

was

inflexible.

At the

father told his mother: "I have lost lightly,

such a catastrophe to

my

faith."

"Where

Accustomed

did you lose it?"

had misplaced his wallet. "At the Gare Saint-Lazare," he

realizing that she did not take

had stopped believing

When

his

reading Voltaire's essay on the Lisbon earthquake, in

which he repudiated

as if he

me

his friends affectionately

Once he got an

15, after

it

He had

when on

took

me on

which had open cockpits, one

figured

bottle of ink over papers

The word

fly,

to reach his.

it

Growing up

father's death.

father as a playmate, carrying

he was

18,

in

he

him

seriously.

But he was serious

said,

—he

God. fell in

love with a 16-year-old

Greek

girl at

TED MORGAN

32 2

a sanatorium in Switzerland, a spot

on

his

where he had been sent

for treatment of

lung (Mariette was there with her tubercular mother).

In those Magic Mountain surroundings, he wanted to get married

immediately, but his mother insisted that he go to South Africa for

two years and work on didn't get over

was

a ranch,

hoping that he would get over

He married my mother when

it.

it.

He

she was 18 and he

20.

My

father's friend

wedding

Ettore Bugatti gave him one of his cars as a

When

present.

they

left

on their honeymoon,

father

impassioned protests, that she learn to drive

insisted, in spite of her

the two-seat roadster at high speed. She drove

poplars that line French roads. hospital.

my

They spent

it

right into one of the

their

honeymoon

in the

have a photograph of them, swathed in bandages like

I

Egyptian mummies, holding hands across their white metal beds.

My mother soon learned that my father could not be swayed from He was

his intended path.

loving cups in his side Paris.

"Not

office,

One Sunday

in Valliere,"

he

a

champion

golfer,

and he played every Sunday

she pointed out that

said.

When

friends. Exasperated,

he was studying for his exams for

was

filled

Our house was

my

earliest

the

from the Roland Gar-

memories was the snap of rackets

hitting balls during the tournament season).

was

He wanted

cell.

in Auteuil, across the street

ros tennis club (one of

with relatives

he went outside and broke a street

lamp, then called the police and asked to be arrested.

peace and quiet of a jail

at his club out-

was raining very hard.

it

the Quai d'Orsay (foreign office), our house

and their

with a shelf of silver

One

of our houseguests

my father's mother, Maria. Born a Ruspoli, a well-known Roman my grandmother had married my grandfather, the portly and

family,

walrus-mustached due Agenor de Gramont, when he was 52 and she

was

17.

Twice widowed, Agenor had gone

widowed mother, but with a

man

10 years

fell

to

Rome

for Maria. After his death,

younger than she was,

as if in

to

woo

Maria

Maria's

fell in

love

compensation

Francois Hugo, the grandson of Victor Hugo. At the age of 47 she

became pregnant.

My practical

mother,

who

called

them

as she

saw

HOW

I

WENT TO WAR

33

them, pointed out Maria's noticeable condition to his

mother

woman,

as the perfect

a saint-in-waiting.

enraged that he shook her until she later,

Maria gave birth

When my

was

I

five, in

my two

mother,

to a son,

1937,

fell

to the floor.

He became

A

brothers, and

father brought us to I,

few months

Two

Washington,

where he had been posted years

as air

when war broke out

later,

Europe, he went to France and joined the

air force.

As

a diplomat,

he would not have been mobilized, but in his patriotic ardor, he

and three sons behind to take part

his wife

so

George Hugo, and married Francois.

my

attache at the French embassy. in

my father, who saw

left

in the drole de guerre

("funny" or "phony war") of 1939-1940. After the armistice and the fall

of France, rather than take a diplomatic post in the Vichy gov-

ernment, he sailed to England in a fishing boat days after General de Gaulle's June 18 appeal to the people of France, and flew in the Free

French escadrille of the Royal Air Force (RAF).

One at St.

when

I

was

11,

I

came home from school

Matthew's, next to the cathedral, to our apartment at 2040 S

Street. at

day, in April 1943,

My

mother was home, which was unusual, since she worked

Elizabeth Arden's on Connecticut Avenue.

I

saw from her frozen

expression that she was trying to control herself "Something has

happened

to

your

father,"

she said. At that point

but trying to keep him alive a

I

longer,

little bit

knew he was

dead,

said: "He's

been

I

wounded." "No," she said, "his plane was shot

bombing

raid

and he was

killed."

down

At the time,

over Frankfurt in a

my

grief

was tinged

with pride that he had died in combat and killed some Germans, for I

had been obsessively following the course of the war, not only

in the

papers and on the radio, but in movies such as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and

OSS

A

Walk

in the

agent in Paris,

is

Sun. In one of them, Alan Ladd, playing an

caught by the Gestapo by the way he eats his

steak, not knife in the right style,

but cut your meat, put

chew. Later on,

I

Niven, playing a

was

stirred

downed

hand and fork

down

hand French

the knife, pick up the fork, and

by Stairway

RAF flyer,

in the left

to

Heaven, in which David

gets a second chance at

life.

TED MORGAN

34

But that was not to ther endure.

my father's of the

I

be,

nor did the heroic image

I

had of my

my mother, in an attempt to make my expectations, had made up the story The truth was that my father had been killed in

later learned that

death conform to

bombing

raid.

a crash at his air base in England.

The

plane he was piloting had run

out of gas a few miles from the runway as he tried to land. stupid

way

to die,

banal accident,

So

to anger.

I

I

thought, by running out of gas. As

was

this

left fatherless

was where

it

glish cemetery.

He would

a

the patriotism, the commit-

all led,

—

What

a result of a

My grief turned

and rudderless.

ment, the compulsion to get involved

in

fa-

to a

wooden

cross in an

En-

have been better off staying with his family

Washington. But

as

it

turned out, the year of my greatest sorrow became the

year of my personal liberation.

My bereaved and overwrought mother

couldn't handle three boisterous boys and a full-time job. She took

my pants a hairbrush. When the '43send me to New York for a

her resentment out on me, and every other day

down and

get whacked on the butt with

'44 school

year started, she arranged to

year to stay with

was glad

to get

my

I

had to pull

aunt and uncle and attend the French lycee.

I

my grieving mother and my two whining, younger brothers. New York beckoned, full of

away from

snot-nosed, tattletale

promise.

My my

aunt and uncle, Catherine and Dimitri Negroponte (he was

mother's younger brother), were an attractive couple in their

twenties. Dimitri

mane

was

dark and brooding, with a

a Valentino type,

of oiled hair brushed straight back, while Catherine was a rare

blue-eyed blond Greek from Sparta, a fine-boned and elegant beauty.

They

lived in a splendid

apartment

130 E. 75th Street, with a

at

fresco by Jean Pages in the dining room.

room

off the kitchen,

refrigerator.

where

I

was glad

was given the tiny maid's

to be, since

Their four-year-old son John

George W. Bush's somewhat

I

irrelevant

(later to

was

in

could raid the

become President

ambassador to

there was no Iraqi government to be accredited rector of Intelligence),

I

to,

Iraq, since

and then the Di-

another section of the house with his

HOW

I

WENT TO WAR

35

nanny, seldom seen, but often heard, since he was something of a crybaby.

Catherine and

Dimitri were out most nights

at

El Morocco or

Larue (where the band played "Stay As Sweet As You Are" whenever she made an entrance), and Far from

my mother's

dom, which

age of

at the

but by what

bility

11

felt

I

I

was

left to

my own

devices.

an exhilarating sense of free-

was matched not by

a sense of responsi-

could get away with in a vacuum of parental and

I

The

school authority.

nitpicking,

lycee at that time

was located

in a

mansion on

95th Street, off Fifth Avenue. Attendance was loosely enforced, and

my friends and where and

I

played hooky, exploring the great hub of 86th Street,

a few years before, brown-shirted Bundists

had goose-stepped

The great attraction of 86th Street, aside from "The Hamburger With the College Education," with its

heil-Hitlered.

Prexy's,

was

smiling, mortar-boarded burger over the door,

movie theaters within two blocks Grand,

a

seedy

dump

that

Gunga Din and The Four colonial ethic. All three

subjects

12)

it

had three

—Loews Orpheum, RKO, and

showed old movies.

It

was there

Feathers, films extolling

showed double

and the Movietone news,

were under

that

features,

I

first

the

saw

heroism and the

and what with short

for the price of a quarter (if

you

you could spend much of the day there instead of

attending boring classes.

When

I

got

drich, stole loose filled

home

I

The Green Hornet and Henry Alcould find

it,

and dropped water-

paper cups from a window of the eighth-floor apartment. This

of the

I

was reprimanded by

my

uncle Dimitri,

when one

doormen complained about "that crazy kid." In the evening

when they were

out,

musicals. In a song

found

my personal

went something Eagle

listened to

change whenever

was the one time

I

I

it

I

played their albums of scores from Broadway

from Bloomer anthem.

It

was

like this: "River

like to spread its

wing

Girls,

it

with lyrics by Yip Harburg,

called the "Eagle like to flow,

against the sky.

and Me," and

Eagle

Possum

it it

like to

it

fly,

like to run,

TED MORGAN

36

Ivy

it

autumn and summertime. Free be,

Whatever

me.

and bumblebee want freedom

like to climb. Bird in the tree

is

as the

sun

is free,

That's

how it

bumblebee and river and eagle

right for

is

in

got to

right for

We gotta be free, The eagle and me." Such was the synchronicity

of New York, that capital of brilliant people,

I

burg could have written those great

few blocks from where

was mapping out my territory. a civil rights

anthem before

lyrics a

I

played that song, which was actually

I

and

time, over

its

thought, that Yip Har-

over,

and ever

since,

I

have associated Manhattan with freedom, freedom to shrug or smile,

freedom to groan and moan, freedom to sink or swim. a

New Yorker "down

to the last capillary," as Yip

I

also feel like

Harburg described

himself.

And so

in the fall of

1954

I

enrolled in journalism school at

Co-

lumbia, which had the advantage of taking only one year, so that

I

could start earning

my

frustration with the school

living recording printable events.

was

that

it

pretended to be a newspaper.

We were sent out on stories that were never printed. Once to the United Nations,

I

was sent

where the French ambassador, Charles Lucet,

had been a friend of my parents' before the war. to say hello, he told

When

I

stopped by

me: "Something terrible has happened. Vyshin-

sky died during the night."

The

notorious prosecutor of Stalin's

purges was dead, but his death had not yet been announced. scoop, but

I

couldn't do anything with

In those days,

My

I

had a

it.

newspaper editors across the country came to Co-

lumbia to look over the graduating class and perhaps hire a young reporter at a beginner's wage.

I

was picked by the managing

editor

of the Worcester Telegram, Frank Murphy, one of those tightly wound, dyspeptic Irishmen

rock kindness.

wore

a

whose mocking sense of humor concealed

He was

the prototype of the crusty editor and actually

green eyeshade and cuff restrainers in the city room.

In Worcester, Massachusetts,

I

rented a

house and bought a beat-up Studebaker. spent

a bed-

my

days off in Cambridge, where

I

room

in a

was paid $55 I

a

boarding

week, and

I

had friends of both sexes

HOW attending the Harvard the paper, which

summer

seemed more

of its anatomy.

tillation

WENT TO WAR

I

I

was

37

My

school.

was

real joy

as

happy

as a

clam

high

at

the bustle of the city room, the reporters and the rewrite

typewriters banging out stories, the desk copy, the city desk sending

the finished product,

your hand the result of

it

down

this

men

to be set,

warm from

still

my work

at

real than the little city itself, as a dis-

men

at their

red-pencilling their

and

seven you had

at

You could hold

the presses.

combined

loving

tide,

in

which you had con-

effort to

tributed.

The

staff was the usual

mix of the mundane and

the eccentric, of

bright boys and retreads, of the ambitious and the pension-bound.

Ernie Labranche, a copy

editor,

War

had written a World

I

novel,

Immortal Sergeant, that was made into a movie starring Pat O'Brien.

who was from Kentucky, had covered the 1948 Truman convention, when Alben Barkley was picked as vice president. He

Jack Kelso,

liked to intone his lead as if reciting a line net:

from

Shakespeare son-

"Alben Barkley wept as the band played 'My Old Kentucky

Home'

." .

.

And

started as a

As

a

file

then there was the guy in the morgue clerk

newcomer,

I

and

in

two years

I

became

was given an assignment

Each morning on the front page, there was under the rubric "There's Always

most news

is

bad news

—

a

come up with anything

who

assistant

Good News."

said: "I

file clerk."

nobody wanted.

that

box with

a

graph or two

a truism that

It's

accidents, murders, wars, financial chica-

nery, an endless array of humanity's misdeeds. to

a

I

scratched

my

head

hoary old chestnuts

positive, resorting to

such as "The Sounds of Summer," and stealing a line from

Andrew

summer day." we weren't pretending, as we had been in J-school. I interviewed a man who owned a valuable stamp, and the story made the front page on a slow day. He called the city desk to complain that his wife was mad at him because Marvell for the kicker: "All the

To me,

I

the flimsiest story

had quoted him as saying,

live

was

"I'd

murmur

of a

a delight, because

no more

sell this

stamp than

I'd sell

my wife." Another assignment that no one wanted w as r

parents of a boy

who had drowned

at

to interview the

summer camp.

I

rang the

bell,

TED MORGAN

38

feeling like the

meddlesome

violator of their grief, but to

ment they greeted me warmly, offering me albums of photographs.

couldn't

I

tell if

a beer, and

my

amaze-

showed

me

they wanted to share their

sorrow or whether their innate sense of hospitality had overcome their desire for privacy.

In August, torrential rains

Several reporters could not

fell

make

photographer to cover the flood.

and parts of the to work, so

it

We found

I

city

were flooded.

was sent out with

an old canoe and paddled

around

the tree-lined streets of Worcester, talking to people

moved

to their attics, above the water line.

Murphy commended me

my

for

name was

a problem,

de Gramont) when

and got

I

I

changed

my

For the

who had Frank

time,

first

When pointed out that my "Who will know but you?" My

work.

byline had been misspelled, he said:

a

it

I

to

citizenship.

Ted Morgan

My

first

(an

anagram of

name, Sanche, was

an abbreviation of St. Charles, which everyone pronounced "Sanchee,"

whereas mont,

it

rhymed more or

was often

spelled with

French consulate

9

at

am

I

at a

The long arm of

with paunch.

two

m's.

last

name, de Gra-

"By the way," Frank

received a letter ordering

said, "the

me

on Sep-

to appear

barracks in the town of Vernon, in Normandy.

conscription had reached across the Atlantic and

grabbed me. Conscription was not the national service.

My

Boston called to get your address."

in

A few days later, tember 3

less

Upon

draft.

France had

his twentieth birthday, every

a

system of

young man was

obliged to serve his time in the army. There were, of course, student

deferments, but the

army had caught up with me,

The reason was lion

that the

suffice.

a

The

wide

net.

age of 23.

army needed men. The Moslem

had broken out the previous November

was casting

at the

France had

in Algeria,

a professional

conscripts and the reserves had to

army, but

make up

it

done,

I

did not

the shortfall.

Conscription went back to Napoleon's excursion into Egypt.

we never be

rebel-

and the army

Would

fulminated, with these infernal African adven-

tures? I

wondered what

and stayed

in

to do.

Worcester.

taking orders as

much

I

I

could easily have ignored the

was not drawn

as giving them,

and

to the military. I

summons I

disliked

shunned regimentation.

HOW I

did not

did

feel

I

want

to leave the

I

WENT TO WAR

working democracy of the

city

room, nor

impelled to defend the colons of Algeria from rebellious Ar-

But something was pulling

abs.

39

was the memory of my

owed

debt of honor

father.

to a

me

in the other direction,

and that

Avoiding conscription would betray a

man who had

served and died for a free

France, even though the war in Algeria was a question mark, while his

war had been

ways

felt

not go,

I

that

a just one.

my

father

would bear the

rational, but there

When

I

it

I

didn't believe in an afterlife, but

was watching over me. guilt of

knew

that if

having disappointed him.

It

I

I

was

al-

did ir-

was.

showed the conscription notice

"I've lost a lot

I

to

Frank Murphy, he

said:

men for a lot of reasons, but this is the first time I've lost He asked me to send him some copy when I

one to the French army." got to Algeria.

"We

I

said that

would be frowned on by the

authorities.

won't use your name," he said. "We'll use Pierre d'Alzon.

He was

the founder of the Assumptionists."*

*Emmanuel-Marie- Joseph-Maurice Daude d'Alzon (1810-1880) founded the Order of Augustinians of the Assumption (or Assumptionists) in 1864. At the Vatican Council of 1869-1870,

dAlzon drafted

the Pierre from

I

don't know.

the definition of papal infallibility.

Where Murphy

got

Les Classes

n September

3,

1955,

at the train station in

Vernon, a

I quaint town of thatch-roofed houses with apparent beams,

v-/

trucks were waiting for the 100-odd recruits assembled on

the platform. sions on

On

ways

the

way

to the barracks,

"you'll look like

can of sardines in hot

in a towel

break a finger or two," another

The what

oil,"

said

one of the conscripts,

you have jaundice."

"Or wrap your hand

reditary.

listened to urgent discus-

to flunk the physical.

"If you eat a

"I've

I

and bang

it

with a hammer. You'll

said.

got a chronic liver problem," said a third. I

wonder

if they'll reject

me

if it's

"I

think

it's

he-

hereditary."

conscripts were not showing a great deal of enthusiasm for

lay ahead.

We arrived in front of a massive arched pig-iron gate that seemed built to

keep the inmates from escaping. Inside there was a courtyard

with paving stones as big as an

officer's head.

All over France were

scattered antiquated barracks such as this one, built during wars of

centuries past, and seeming to go back as far as the

War. The courtyard smelled of cold coffee and urine.

Hundred

Years'

We were led in

TED MORGAN

single

file

into a

low hangar where men

in

white smocks were lined

up behind desks. "All right, everybody," a topkick shouted,

wear."

As our names were

called out,

"down

we stood

smock who ran the x-ray machine and asked

to

your under-

in front of the white

us to cough.

Then on

to

another white smock in front of an eye chart, a third standing in

and

front of a scale,

One

fellow

a fourth

was limping.

who stamped your

A

file.

white smock asked, "So you limp, do

you?" "Only when ords.

I

walk,

I

sir,"

brought photographs.

stamped

his file

"Good

The men waiting

I

for the

in line

that even with glasses

he replied.

I

"I

was born

Armed

my

brought

this way."

medical rec-

The white smock

Services."

were chattering. "I'm going to

tell

them

can't read the eye chart."

"You must be dreaming.

My cousin's

a hunchback, but they took

him."

"How "On

did he carry his knapsack?"

his chest."

"Did you see the one with one leg shorter than the other?" "They'll put

him

in the infantry."

"And the midget?" "They'll send "I

had

him

to officer's school."

a student deferment, but they canceled

it.

And just

before

exams."

"What, you don't want

to give

your

life

for

your country?"

"Shit, no."

"I'm engaged.

What

is

my fiancee

going to do without me?"

"Don't worry. If she's pretty, she won't be lonely."

When my

turn came, the white smock said, "You can see, you

can hear, get the hell out," and stamped

my file "Good

for the

Armed

Services."

We moved forms.

With

on to another hangar where we stood

the ill-fitting uniform

racks number:

room

21, staircase 5,

came

a slip of

building C.

As

in line for uni-

paper with a barI

was leaving the

43

les classes

hangar, a topkick shouted: "Can anyone here speak English?"

my

I

raised

hand.

"Then take It

was

An

a

this

broom and sweep the

hour

later,

returned the broom to the sergeant,

I

on his desk, where

file

yard."

useful lesson: Never volunteer.

said I'd

it

gone

"So you're the intellectual with the

pink

he

ass,"

rubber stamp from the drawer and stamped ("illiterate") in

United States.

to college in the

little

my

who had my

said.

file

He

took a

analphabete

big block letters.

In the barracks, about 80 metal beds with thin mattresses rolled

up it

one end were lined

at

and

down, thinking,

sat

in a canoe.

who was

at

I

picked one out and threw

my

gear on

could be in Worcester covering the flood

I

noticed a sandy-haired, round-faced, pug-nosed recruit

I

smiling

at

me.

turned out that

was going

"I

me

English, "but you beat It

up.

to

my

to raise

hand," he said in

it."

was not the only conscript who had arrived

I

Vernon from America. The other one was Alain Seznec, the son of

a professor of French literature at Harvard.

Sorbonne

in 1950,

While studying

he had married an American

girl, Janet,

at the

and to-

gether they returned to Cambridge, where by 1955 they had two children and he

was an

"When

my

I

got

French consulate twelve months. live

with "I

conscription notice," he said.

in Boston,

They

my wife

assistant professor.

me

went

to the

only have to serve

I'd

said I'd be an officer in four

weeks and

could

I

and children."

went to the consulate

too,"

I

said. "I didn't

have the money for

me my travel expenses would

a plane ticket.

They

told

upon

What

crap!

arrival.

and they told

"I

They

don't

want

be reimbursed

to be bothered with any-

thing that would interfere with their three-hour lunches. We'll be lucky

if

we

get out of here in eighteen months."

"The funny thing

honeymoon can't

in

is,"

Seznec

Vernon, and

said, "that Janet

now my

and

I

spent our

wife and kids are in Paris and

I

go and see them."

"Well, we'll be here for three months of basic training,"

I

said.

TED MORGAN

"The worst thing

is

the monotony. Life becomes a series of reflexes.

Salute, present arms, attention, at rest, heads right, heads

"The

left."

usual values are turned inside out," Seznec said, as he

your boots

his bed. "Shining

is

made

more important than the complete

works of Descartes."

now

"So

we're in the intendance"

"Its the quartermaster corp.

You know what de Gaulle

Someone

said:

yelled, "Fixe!"

captain strode

in,

wearing

It's

I

said,

"whatever that

where they put

"The intendance will

And we

all

all

follow."

A

pudgy

welcome you

to the

stood at attention.

his kepi. "I'd like to

is."

the misfits.

regiment," he said. "You have been assigned to a building in good condition. in the

Make

morning,

sure

stays that way. to see

on the

And

When my

sergeant comes by

your beds properly made and your gear

want the Johns always

I

floor.

want

I

stored away.

Do you

it

clean, not a sheet of toilet paper

now, in formation in the courtyard, on the double.

think you're at the beach?"

And

so

it

went, that robotlike schedule of marches, gymnastics,

target practice, and drills.

As

sensible Seznec advised,

thing you get through. Just do what everyone else

At target

practice,

we

is

"it's

some-

doing."

learned to take apart and put together

ma-

chine guns blindfolded. There was always someone hovering over you, barking orders: "Flat on your stomach! firing

Lower your

sight! You're

above the target! Spread your legs more, so that your

rifle

forms a forty-five-degree angle with the axis of your body. The stock hard against the hollow of your shoulder. Your cheek hard against it

to muffle the recoil.

At

my command

.

.

.

Exhale normally and then hold your breath.

fire! Lift

the bolt, eject the cartridge, and

move

toward the target." This particular gunnery instructor once made an observation that stuck with me.

"Where," he asked, "does the bullet go when

leaves the barrel of the rifle?"

The answer

it

was: "Into the domain of

ballistics."

And

we, the conscripts, seemed to be in the domain of some un-

Our regiment was made up partly of university graduates who'd come to the end of their deferments, who played

fathomable buffoonery.

45

les classes

bridge and discussed Sartre, and partly of younger

grade education

at best,

One

talked of nooky. write, asked

me

he

said.

played belote

(a Spit-like

of them, a farm boy

who

card game) and

could barely read or

"My

cock

is

arriving"

"Are you sure that's the way you want to put it?"

He

said that

was what she wanted

asked.

I

to hear.

Seznec had struck up a friendship with a hoodlum from a working-class section of Paris,

him awake

the sergeant shook

new

nun's fart," his

a sixth-

to help him with a letter to his girlfriend, to tell her home on leave. He began to dictate: "Prepare your

he was coming ass,"

who

men with

who

Belleville,

acted as his bodyguard.

at reveille, shouting,

"Wake

When you

up,

friend said, "Don't touch Seznec or you'll deal

with me." In October, our general routine

the quartermaster-general

racks,

in the balance.

washing the

We

were

tile floors,

to review the regiment.

They knew

never seen the officers so agitated.

hung

was interrupted by the news

was coming

that

I

had

that their promotions

put to work cleaning up the bar-

all

painting cracked walls, scrubbing the

Johns. In the courtyard, they planted a flowerbed, and in the kitchen,

the big copper pots shone.

On

the appointed day, the entire regiment stood in formation on

three sides of the courtyard, expecting the arrival of the general,

kept us waiting for else,

was

more than an

who

hour. Punctuality, like everything

a matter of rank. Finally he arrived, a thin, long-nosed

man

with close-set eyes, wearing his braided kepi and his decorations on his chest.

The

captain shouted, "Present arms!" which

eral filed past the status. Seznec,

dren,

my

we

rows of soldiers, asking each one

who was

general."

I

standing next to me,

said, "Bachelor,

fellow on the other side of me, no

my

said,

his

and the gen-

name and

civil

"Married, two chil-

general."

more than

did,

The

five feet tall,

spindly

little

shouted out:

"En concubinage, mon general" To each conscript the general said the

same

thing: "Very good. Continue."

binage (having a

common-law

wife)

I

should have realized that concu-

was

a legal status in France, but

couldn't help stifling a laugh, and the general gave

me

a dirty look.

I

TED MORGAN

6

After reviewing the troops, the general spoke. said, "will

"Many

be called upon to protect our compatriots in Algeria.

of you will advance to higher rank. Never forget that a

makes

good

a

of you," he

officer

and a good

good private

knows he was once

officer

Some good

a

private."

November,

In

as

we would

heard that

our days all

year of the big buildup.

who had completed

in

Vernon were winding down, we

was going

be sent to Algeria; 1956

We

to be the

were alarmed to learn that even those

their military service a year or

two before were

being called up again. Stories appeared in the newspapers about these the callbacks were known,

rappeles, as

and

lay across the tracks. In

to leave the barracks

The

and had to be forced

and jobs

refused to board trains

at

the rappeles refused

7,

gunpoint into the trucks.

had done their time and shouldn't have to

rappeles felt that they

leave their wives

who

Rouen on October

for a

war they

didn't believe in.

Those who

refused to board the train were taken by truck to Marseilles, where the boats

men

left for

Algeria. In another incident, near Bordeaux, the

of the 401st Anti-Aircraft Regiment,

who were being

kept "un-

der the flag" an extra nine months, were sent on a training operation

on the beach, where they took off their clothes and went swimming. Pamphlets began to appear

in barracks saying:

"We who

under a foreign occupation learned to hate the occupiers.

cowards or

many

defeatists, but

we

refuse to fire on our

of whom served in the French

army

in

In Vernon, the conversations turned to to Algeria.

simple," Seznec said. "All

"It's

have lived

We are not

Arab brothers,

World War Two."

how

to avoid being sent

you have to do

is

go

to the

Ecole de Caporal in Metz. Once you're a corporal, you apply for Ecole de Sergent in Versailles. for the

EOR

And when you become a sergeant, you

apply

[Ecole d'Officiers de Reserve]; and that takes

months. By the time you're an

officer,

five

you've served most of your

time."

"You don't have to worry,"

"Maybe the rappeles. lion

men

so,"

By

he

said, "but

I

said.

"You've got two children."

they keep changing the rules.

the middle of next year, they

in Algeria. I'm not

want

Look

at

to have half a mil-

taking any chances. I'm going to Metz."

47

les classes

Another fellow

Arme-

gotten to know, Jean Aslanian, was an

I'd

nian who'd been a tool-and-die worker at the Renault plant in Paris.

He had

thick black hair and a bushy mustache, and he

along with everyone. agrees with me. I

I

They

don't

mind the army," he and the

like the order

salute the officers,

in town.

"I

I

discipline.

seemed

men

way

said. "In a

So

I

make my

peel the potatoes, and on Sundays

say girls like

to get

in uniform, but I've

I

it

bed,

go dancing

never had any

luck."

When go

Metz.

to

and

I

I

asked him what his plans were, he said, I'd

rather remain a private.

I

want

don't

don't like to order people around.

It

"I

want

don't

to lose

to

my pals,

changes you to wear

stripes."

But when he thought about a choice

it

some more, he

realized that he had

between Algeria and Metz, and he chose the

latter.

cember, in the dead of one of the worst winters on record,

who had

applied to be corporals

left for

Metz, a

In

all

De-

those

city in northeastern

France on the Moselle River, near the German border, and the scene of

many

battles in three

groups of

12,

wars with the Huns.

We

left for

Metz

in

so as not to create bottlenecks upon arrival, traveling

third class on the train for the five-hour trip.

My

dirty dozen in-

who climbed into an overhead luggage used to do this when I had a girlfriend in

cluded Seznec and Aslanian,

rack to stretch out.

"I

Lyon," he said. "If you don't

your

lie

just right, the metal divider cuts into

ribs."

If the

Vernon barracks were nineteenth-century, the Metz bar-

racks were medieval, surrounded by a 20-foot-high wall, and above the wall, rolls of barbed wire. In the courtyard in

rows of

six with rifles

"Hup hup, one

two."

men were marching

on their shoulders, as a corporal

yelled,

We stood under a veranda shivering in the cold,

hopping from one foot to the other and slapping our hands, but there

was not an

officer in sight.

The

place

seemed

to be

run by corporals

and sergeants. "If Vernon

was

a prison, this is

sergeant came toward his shoes

pinched his

an asylum," Seznec

said. Finally a

He seemed to have trouble walking, as if feet. He was short and round and red-faced, us.

TED MORGAN

48

with a head too big for his body and the long, crooked yellow teeth of an old horse.

"Where one

come

did this bunch of shit-heads

"What

in particular.

from," he said to no

are you, in transit?" Seznec explained that

we'd come from Vernon to be trained as corporals. don't

"I

know what

do with you," the sergeant

to

said.

"You were

supposed to be here on the fourth." "Hey," Aslanian said, "if you don't

"Oh, a comedian," the sergeant

You can

you.

"We

want

us, we'll

said. "I've

go home."

already found a job for

clean the Johns with a toothbrush."

were

five

hours on the train," Aslanian

said.

"When do we

eat?"

"You think we're going shut your filthy

mouth and

you?" the sergeant

to feed

follow me."

He

said.

"Now

room where

led us into a

a corporal sat with his feet on the desk reading Tintin at the Beach.

He

interrupted his reading to unlock a cupboard of field rations. "Hey,

you

you

shit-eaters,

to myself,

didn't salute, so you're not getting any."

Why should

become an

I

salute a fucking corporal

and winter

on duty. "Bring on

it

I

thought

would soon

officer?

When we had eaten our rations, kets

when

I

the sergeant took us to get blan-

coats. "I'd forgotten these guys,"

me

the

files."

He

sat at the table

he told the corporal

with the stack of files

and examined them while coughing and burping and scratching

his bald spot.

"Looks

was run over by

like

we

lost one,"

he

said.

"Must be the one who

He assigned us to companies up those who seemed to be pals, and

a truck."

barracks, to break

get out of here, assholes.

How

can

I

in different said:

"Now

run a training camp when I'm

being constantly interrupted?" In Metz,

I

past. In 1940, later,

you could

experienced the French propensity for living in the

Metz had been on still

the

Maginot

Line. Fifteen years

get arrested for taking snapshots of the

army was always one or two wars behind. to use gas masks, as if the Algerian rebels

Why did we were going

city.

to fire

mustard

gas at us? "I

have a small head," Seznec

said. "I can't

The

have to learn

keep mine on."

49

les classes

"You can use

The

first

it

your

kids,"

I

said.

month, we were restricted to quarters. Both Seznec and

Aslanian seemed this,"

to scare

Aslanian

dejected.

said. "I

"Vernon was a piece of cake compared to

need to find a whore and get

time he bribed a sentry to

out for an hour,

slip

laid."

But the one

was too cold even

it

for whores.

My

God,

it

was

cold,

hours of guard duty

we

and

at night,

snowed

it

you

unheated classrooms,

our overcoats and couldn't take notes

sat in

two

the time. If you did

all

froze. In the

—

the ink in our Bic

pens froze. In the dorms, we were ten to a room with a puny coal stove that

we took turns

stoking.

One morning

the courtyard, filling his helmet with snow.

ing froze," he

said.

"The only way

I

I

ran into Seznec in

"The pipes

can shave

is

in

our build-

by melting snow over

the stove." In

Vernon Seznec had been the model

soldier.

Now, holding

his

snow-packed helmet, he cursed the army. "The lunatics are running

want

the asylum," he said. "These corporals and sergeants don't instruct, they

want

to humiliate.

They

to

hate our guts because we'll

soon be out of here, but they're stuck here." Each morning there was a

room

inspection,

and the men stood

at attention

inspected their beds, clothing, and weapons.

spected Seznec's

room had

tight enough, there arbitrary,"

Seznec

He had

was

noncom

while a

The noncom who

was not

fastened on him. His bed sheet

a scuff

mark on

his boots. "It's completely

said.

just found out that his wife, Janet, had an

abdominal

problem that would require surgery, and he wanted to be by her in Paris.

He was planning

morning

at the inspection, his

placed

him under

to ask for compassionate leave.

nemesis found a speck on his

came

and

rifle

arrest with the citation "Neglects the care of his cita-

four days of prison.

Seznec found an officer to officer could not did,

side

But that

weapon, compromises the progress of the instruction." With the tion

in-

whom

he

felt

he could appeal. But the

grant leave, since he'd been put under arrest.

He

however, reduce the sentence to four days of guard duty.

Seznec was beside himself.

"My

wife could die under the knife,

TED MORGAN

50

and

won't be there with her," he said.

I

I'm no

France has been

lefty.

worth keeping. I

can not to go.

I

until

now

in Algeria since 1830;

was reconciled

I

"Up

to going.

hate this fucking army,

But now its

I've I

I'll

gone along.

thought

was

it

do everything

sadism mixed with cre-

tinism."

As

turned out, Janet had her operation and did

it

on guard duty

woman

entrance of the barracks

at the

fine.

when

Seznec was

pregnant

a

came by and decided to give birth on the sidewalk. Seznec

brought her inside the guard post, and since there was no doctor around, he helped in the delivery.

my own

had

I

problem. At morning assembly,

command

under the

of the red-faced sergeant

my

platoon was

we had met on

day whose name was Bouvard. Each morning he took the

and we

replied, "Present."

repeated

it

One morning when he

got to

the

my name,

several times, insisting on the particle, de, which

"

'de

said,

Gramont de mes deux couilles" ("de Gramont of my two

During the

balls").

he

was sup-

posed to be the mark of nobility. "De Gramont, de Gramont," he then added,

first

roll call,

he was on

drill,

my

one

case: "So you're the only

who's marching in step, turnip head?" At the obstacle course, he was

on

my

you're I

in

case:

home

"Move, you imbecile! Push your grease!

sat at the

my

"Bouvard

dining hall table with Aslanian and Seznec,

is

a dog," Aslanian said, his

"When

he pisses, he

my

mouth

full

chin

of boudin (blood

lifts his leg."

can understand that he has every reason to dislike me,"

"He never went beyond the the rest of his

life.

"Be patient," Seznec 'I

do not provoke.'

"Why

can't

I

said.

sixth grade, and he'll be a sergeant for

So because he outranks me,

sweat blood. That doesn't

Tolls:

you think

hands, wondering what to do.

sausage). "I

Do

in the castle?"

mean

said.

I

have to take

he's

going to make

me

it."

"As Pablo said in For

Whom

the Bell

"

you pretend

to be

an

idiot like the rest of us," Asla-

nian said.

The next morning his face

at roll call,

was about an inch from

when Bouvard came

my

chest,

and

it

to

my

name,

was so cold

that

les classes

puffs of white

I

smoke were blowing through

"De Gramont de mes deux

dor's.

replied, "Present,

his nostrils, like a

Labra-

he snorted.

couilles,"

Bouvard de merde" ("Bouvard of shit").

Bouvard dropped the it

51

roll-call list

on the ground and

"Pick

said,

up."

"Pick

it

up yourself,"

I

said.

"Eight days of prison for insulting a noncommissioned officer

and refusing to obey an

The

order,"

prison was one long

Bouvard

room

said.

with, instead of a floor, a

platform on an incline so you couldn't sleep lying

up in a blanket with

was

a Turkish toilet,

my

flat.

I

overcoat on. At one end of the

two corrugated porcelain

between, and a sink with frozen pipes.

I

room

there

was the only inmate.

my

the six-inch square grill in the prison door,

made

my Troupes"

slept rolled

with a hole in

feet

bread-and-water diet was improved, thanks to

guard. "Hey, you can have

wooden

I

friends.

My

Through

a deal with the

(the 10 packs a

month of free

we got from the army). "My friends will give them to you when they come by." Aslanian pushed some chocolate through the grill and Seznec brought a copy of Simone de Beauvoir's Les Manda-

cigarettes

rins,

which he said was

"riveting,"

and a

flask of

of the guys in his

and

ward

it

sure helped

eight days,

I

was

filthy

who hang around

off the chills.

and unshaven.

When I

I

—one

prune brandy

room came from Alsace and had

a steady supply,

got out at the end of

looked like one of the hobos

the Paris Halles, picking at the garbage.

My main

concern was that

be part of my record,

which might

school.

hand, the

my "insubordination" would affect my admission to officers'

army had an urgent need

The first week

On

the other

for officers.

of February 1956, Seznec and

I

left

Metz

for

sergeant's school in Versailles. But Aslanian decided to remain a corporal

was put

and was shipped off to

in

charge of blankets.

The two months first stripe,

in Versailles

things were

more

a supply depot in Algeria,

He knew how

where he

to stay out of trouble.

were a breeze. As soon as you had your relaxed.

You were no longer

a bleu, as

TED MORGAN

52

raw

recruits

get along.

had

were

The

personality.

its

You got the hang of it. You learned how

called.

to

quality of the instructors improved. Every barracks

Metz had been

was

toxic. Versailles

relatively

benign.

in.

Most of us, however, felt a disconnect from the situation we were soldiers we had to follow orders and go where we were sent,

As

but at the same time, as long as possible.

asm

for the war.

we wanted

Among

our departure for Algeria

to delay

the conscripts, there was

enthusi-

little

Why hang on to a piece of real estate four times the

size of France, most of

desert and mountains, where repressive

it

treatment of the native Arabs had led to a rebellion? In the spring of 1956,

when

new wave of protests, with

was

I

still at

in

tice

arms by the thousands, but

and reported to

a barracks,

did no

it

and

a

The

rappeles of 1956

good

—they got

week

later,

were

the end of 1956 the buildup reached 400,000 troops.

were assigned

way

telephone and electric lines. About

combat.

citizen soldiers

groups

—two

It

was no longer

in Algeria.

Most

of

and power

in 10 of those

By

them rail-

stations, the

400,000 was actu-

war of professionals but

a

war of

from the mainland who could be divided into three

fringe minorities resolutely for or against the war, and

a vast majority

who

didn't

carry out orders and get that they

a

1

were

their no-

keep the roads and

to protect colon property, to

lines open, to protect the port facilities

ally in

a

the rappeles refusing to wear uniforms and

pulling emergency switches to stop trains.

up

was

Versailles, there

were fighting

it

a

want

to be there but

over with.

They

war for France

ing their duty to insubordination.

myth

France but preferred do-

Of course,

could turn into an Arab-hating warrior

ready to

did not buy into the

in

behavior depended on the situation he was

who were

as in

any war, a

soldier's

A peace-loving slacker overnight. A few were so in.

scarred by combat that they killed themselves. Mostly they clamored for la quille.

A

quille is a

bowling

pin, but in military slang

day of liberation from service (from the expression trousser "to

pack up and be

were

was

off"),

ardently longed

cries of "quickly la quille"

and

for,

"la quille,

coincer la bulle, or "squeezing the bubble,"

it

was the

ses quilles,

and every day there dammit." Also heard

which

literally

meant

53

les classes

positioning the bubble on the mortar sight, which was like a level, until

it

was

in the middle, but in slang

it

meant

to take

many

goldbrick, to be horizontal. Still another phrase on planque, which

means

out of harm's way.

ing

at a

hiding place," but for us

"a

preme Headquarters, Allied Forces said

I

meant

in

A

passed over.

figured

I

I

applied,

lips

was

a cushy job

mine

SHAFE

(Su-

Europe) outside of Paris.

and the

test

was

I

He

was bilingual

a cinch, but

I

was

was because of having done prison time

it

la

friend of

a planque at

should apply for a position as a translator, since

French and English.

easy, to

m the navy, work-

desk in the admiralty offices in Marseilles.

from the Sorbonne days, Jean Legouis, had

in

it

of my cousins had a planque

One

it

in

Metz.

There was nothing

me and

left

but officers' training, which would keep

out of Algeria for another five months. After Versailles, Seznec I

parted ways.

Maixent, a sleepy

I

went

little

in central-west France, officers'

to the infantry officers' school in Saint-

village off the

maps and unknown

to tourists

near Poitiers. Seznec opted for the artillery

school near Paris and ended up in a regiment stationed in

Germany. As

second lieutenant, he was able to bring his wife and

a

two children with him. By third child, which helped

was shipped

that time Janet

him

was pregnant with

stay out of Algeria

when

his

their

regiment

over.

The Saint-Maixent barracks were nothing like the ancient wrecks in Vernon and Metz. The buildings were of recent vintage and the toilets flushed. Saint-Maixent had an Olympic swimming pool, a state-of-the-art

gym, and

a

harrowing obstacle course with rows of

barbed wire, horizontal beams over mud, a hedge of upright logs to climb over, and ropes that you had to swing on, Tarzan-like, over a

wide ditch studded with sharpened bamboo Indochina War.

The

officers

were

fit

sticks, a

souvenir of the

and smart and came from

elite

regiments such as the paratroopers, with none of the bloated and

vehement retreads we'd seen

before.

General Faure, the school commander, was himself a blue beret,

and

in his

opening address he told

do whatever

it

takes to

make

us:

"Gentlemen, we are going to

officers out of you."

There were 300 of

TED MORGAN

54

us,

assigned to barrack rooms of 30 with double-decker bunks. Saint-

Maixent was the feeder

We went through grueling

Algeria.

the

machine gun

as devious

and

fanatical; obsta-

night missions in the coun-

blowing up

a bridge. If

was waiting with

a stopwatch.

tryside, such as

learned to

a

ammunition over our heads; and combat exer-

fired live

We were sent out in teams of 6 on

We

over France and

where we crawled through mud under barbed wire as

cle courses,

instructor

all

12-hour days, a mix of classes on

Arab mind, which was described

cises.

regiments

for infantry

fire

the light

weapons

and when we found

that, as officers,

an

it,

we would

MAT 49 submachine gun, FM (fusil-mitrailleur) 24-29,

be handling in Algeria: the old reliable

15-pound

effective at close range; the

which

fired in single shots

50 yards, but you erations.

We

and bursts.

pitied the

It

was reasonably accurate

poor bastard who had to carry

learned to bracket rounds on the

60-mm

it

at

in op-

and 81-mm

mortars by squeezing the bubble and to zero in on a target. Saint-Maixent was highly competitive, for

end of our

at the

five

months, we were ranked and graded. Each of us had to choose a

regiment

in order of rank, so that those

pick, while those at the

iments. riors,

Our

but

it

bottom were

legs, it

and

left

with the least desirable reg-

instructors hoped to transform us into

didn't turn out that way. In

was only one fellow who wanted Berger was a

with the top grades had their

little

over five feet

a thick neck.

He had been

up with the Paris police

like the party, a

and men, one

and

He

but muscular, with big arms and

a militant

in the early '50s.

all for one.

wasn't at

all a

there

combat regiment. Jean

Communist who mixed

To him,

the paras were

band of brothers with camaraderie between

for all

baroud (combat).

my barrack room of 30,

to join a para tall,

gung-ho war-

He wanted

to

officers

jump; he loved

boastful tough-guy type; he

was

thoughtful and mild-mannered, but he had a passion for action.

My own

strategy was to try and rank high enough to be able to

pick a regiment

still

stationed in France. This

was no guarantee,

since any regiment, and particularly infantry regiments, could swiftly

be transferred to Algeria.

I

liked the physical stuff, the obstacle

course and the combat training, but some of the classes

made me

55

les classes

laugh. Since

was too stupid

I

to keep

my mouth

shut,

got a reputa-

I

tion as a rouspeteur (griper).

On

graduation day

at

book with several blank pages where the men

what they thought of you.

I

looked

read the judgment of my peers. ican" at a time

when

I

at the

in

a year-

your barracks wrote

program

recently and re-

was of course known

as "the

Amer-

the graffiti on Paris walls often said "U.S.

Home." So one comment would miss knowing

we were given

the end of August,

a

said,

Go Home,

"Don't say U.S.

good-hearted fellow,

for

Go you

in spite of his often dif-

ficult personality."

Other comments were:

"We "I

often

saw him go

to

war against everything and

nothing."

hope he will maintain the agreeable aspects of Cervantes' hero,

which bought him the friendship of everyone."

"An enemy of the banal and commonplace, which earned him the enmity of mediocrities." "His tongue was the best and the worst, according to whether the words

came from

"Above ble,

all,

his heart or his head."

he loved his bed.

and he taught us

We taught him

to squeeze the

bub-

le 'relax.'"

My favorite comment was: "He wasn't the best, and he wasn't the worst, but he

was the

tallest."

That was exactly where

wanted

to be,

in the only lecture

room

I

in the middle.

The

traditional graduation

with rising bleachers, where a suspenseful

all

ceremony

300 of us could

drama. Each of us had a

list

fit,

turned out to be

of the available regiments,

about 40 of which were in France, a few in Germany, and the rest in Algeria, and a

list

of our ranks.

A

tall,

athletic para colonel

Murat, a veteran of Indochina and Algeria, clad

form known

combat uni-

as the tenue leopard (camouflage pattern), strode

stage to the lectern and told us that

person should stand

at attention

when he

called out the

names

called out a

on the

name, that

and shout out what regiment he had

picked, while the rest of us scratched

He

in the

named

it

off our

list.

in order of rank, starting with the best

and the brightest. They rose and shouted out regiments

in Paris, in

TED MORGAN

56

Lyon, in Bordeaux.

was obvious

It

that our

months of competitive

striving to attain a high rank had everything to do with staying out

of Algeria and nothing to do with wanting to fight the war. In the

my dorm mate Berger opted for a para regiment located

only

first 20,

Aures Mountains of eastern Algeria, a zone of heavy combat.

in the

could actually see Colonel Murat getting red in the face under

I

his blue beret. Finally he exploded. "You're

all shit-heads.

France

is

completely corrupt! You'll see what happens to this government of

cowards up."

I

—we

don't even have to take power,

we only have

to pick

never forgot those words: "he pouvoir nest pas a prendre,

il

it

est

a

ramasser" predicting a military coup d'etat, which in fact took place in

May

1958, bringing General de Gaulle to power.

The

colonel's outburst did not

change matters. The men contin-

ued to pick regiments outside of Algeria until there were no more.

was ranked eighty-second out of 300, and by the time the choices were limited.

south of Algiers, the

I

1st

I

my turn came,

chose a regiment stationed about 50 miles

Regiment of the Colonial

Infantry.

I

was

intrigued by this corps, which recruited

its

troops from France's re-

maining

in

West

mainly from Senegal

colonies,

noncoms and

officers

endary reputation

for

being full of surprises.

I

though the leg-

had the feeling it would

be less regimented, less by the book, perhaps a

among

Africa,

were mostly French. The Coloniale had a

bit exotic, a

renegade

regiments, as in one of their songs: "Etj'aifume du kifsur

O Sarazine aronde" ("And

pitons du Rif,

the Rif mountains,

Oh

I

les

smoked hash on the peaks of

swallowlike Saracen maiden").

A few days later, wearing the single silver bar of a second lieutenant on

sewn ship

my

epaulets and the forage cap of the colo with a tiny anchor

to the

hem,

would take

men were on of the war.

I

I

me to Algeria.

train to Marseilles,

where the troop

In Marseilles, however, the longshore-

strike, refusing to load

Algeria-bound ships

in protest

had to go down the coast to the smaller harbor of Frejus

and spend the night rats

was on the

in filthy

running through the

departing conscript

At dawn,

barracks with

halls.

said: "I'm

in single

file,

On

the

lice in

the mattresses and

bunk next

to mine, another

already sick of Algeria, enormously."

the

men went up

the gangplank of the

les classes

Ville d'Alger,

51

weighed down by their barda

(gear),

and

was obvious

it

from the smell that the old tub had brought back from Algeria a cargo of sheep. "Hey, storm coming up," one

"What snarled.

man

said.

him

are you, a fucking barometer?" the one behind

The well-known good humor of the French

soldier

was

lack-

ing in this crowd.

On

deck, a naval officer said: "Install yourselves in the transats

[folding chairs],

if you

so you can throw up

if

can find one, with helmets between your you're seasick."

In the sky, dark clouds clustered, and on the horizon,

curve of the roiled

sea.

against the keel, and

legs,

I

saw the

Then, the engine noises, waves breaking

we were

off.

I

watched the coastline disappear

through the morning haze.

When we

got to the open sea,

all

along the deck heads leaned

over the railing. If they threw up against the wind, the vomit flew

back into their

faces.

"You could get

said:

It

The

naval officer whose order had been ignored

sick just

watching these guys."

wasn't quite up to the standard of ocean liners,

I

with

reflected,

bow-tied stewards in white jackets offering bouillon, as in the Cu-

nard line poster: "Getting there vomit, tied

I

down.

Its seats

were dry and quite comfortable.

member who was checking

said he'd been to a brothel

black It

half the fun." Tired of the smell of

climbed a ladder to a higher deck where an army jeep was

conversation with a crew

He

is

girl.

on

struck up a

the lifeboats.

his last night in harbor. "I

had a

They're just like the others, pink on the inside."

took two days to reach Algiers, with the

they had to sleep in the hold, with

its

being treated no better than sheep.

when

I

men

bitching that

sheep stink, and that they were

The

toilets

were backed

up,

and

the ship rolled, the urine on the floor rippled and splashed.

We

steamed into the Bay of Algiers on a sunny morning. In the

distance, the white city rose steeply

streamed buildings.

in rivulets

On

from the

sea,

and the

light

through the palm trees down the facades of the

the right, a stand of Aleppo pines gave off a faint smell

of resin. Under a dusty blue sky, the city in early September was a

TED MORGAN

sponge exhaling humidity. coins.

My

first

A long line of children in rags begged for

impression was the difference between the beauty of

the landscape and the squalor of the Arabs. So this

A jeep com who

from

said:

my

"Now

was France?

regiment was waiting for me, driven by a nonyou're in the

colo.

Be proud."

In the Bled

only a glimpse of Algiers before we drove south into the Ihad that protect the bled (countryside), past the low coastal hills

rich

wheat

fields

landscape, like

ria's

its

of the Mitidja plain from the sea winds. Alge-

from stony moun-

people, went to extremes,

tains to idle desert, divided by

narrow bands of arable

along the thousand-mile coastline with

Mediterranean acted out

its

its

profusion of beaches, the

moods.

My own mood mingled dismay with curiosity. for

combat

win

a war,

in a

war

I

had no stomach

you must hate your enemy.

enemy who had

for. I

I

was now headed

Clausewitz wrote that to

found

it

difficult to hate

as much when they threw out the British. The village of Champlain, where my regiment was in

wooded

hills

land, while

an

right to independence as the Americans

stationed, lay

50 miles south of Algiers. To get there, we passed

through Medea, a long-time garrison town, with a square that

fea-

tured the usual obelisk honoring the dead of Algerian campaigns past.

My

driver,

Sergeant Lavigne, suggested we stop for a drink.

Stocky and sandy-haired, he looked a

little like

the corporal

who had

TED MORGAN

60

been on

my

case in Metz. There

I

had been punished with

time;

jail

here they had to salute me.

We mixed

ordered beers

an outdoor cafe on the square, which had a

at

clientele of spahis (cavalry in Turkish-like uniforms)

who were

barracked there, colon families drinking Orangina, and robed and

turbaned Arabs sipping mint anges and

little

cakes, but

eran of Indochina and called sell

tea.

Arab children came up

all

natives "Viets."

"Once

I

was driving an auto -mitrailleuse" in back),

kill you,"

he

said.

gun

jeep with a machine

"and two gamins jumped in the back to dismantle

the machine gun, but the jeep behind

was the

(a

a vet-

"The same ones who

you oranges with a friendly smile are out to

mounted

selling or-

Lavigne waved them away. He was

baker's helper

who

mine shot them. One of them

sold us bread every day."

From Medea, we headed

south through well-tended orchards and

vineyards. Every few miles there appeared a pretty village with redtiled roofs

and a church

except that most of the

steeple. It did

seem

like the

south of France,

women carrying shopping baskets were veiled.

Soon we reached the Chiffa Gorges, over

a picturesque one-lane

blacktop flanked by the steep sides of the ravine. Below us the waters

of torrential rapids roared.

The

ravine, six miles long,

was famous

for

the tribe of monkeys that nested in small caves and shrieked at tour-

when

ists,

there were tourists. Lavigne stepped on the gas.

monkeys up there now," he Champlain was too Bleu.

said, "It's fels" (fellaghas,

insignificant to be

At one end of the unpaved main

not

or rebels).

mentioned

street, a

"It's

in the

Guide

few gnarled olive trees

enlivened a drab square, which was overlooked by the town hall and the school,

now

occupied by the third company of the

of the Colonial Infantry.

The

pay out the money orders that Arabs working to their families, cafe.

The

1st

Regiment

post office remained open, mainly to in

France sent home

and there was an Arab-run grocery store and a

small church was abandoned, since the colons had

Behind the ochre cubes where the villagers

fled.

lived, a tent city for the

troops had sprung up.

The each,

third

company

consisted of four platoons of about 30

armed with no weapons heavier than

a mortar,

men

and provided

THE BLED

IN

61

The men were mostly Senegalese and the noncoms were mostly French, though we did have one from Pondicherry, a French enclave in southern India. The Senegalese had cheerful dispositions and were known as highly disciplined soldiers who stuck to the letter of the law. The oft-told tale has with a few jeeps and trucks for transportation.

Napoleon crossing a footbridge during the Russian campaign, when he

is

who

stopped by a Senegalese sentry

he doesn't

know

The Senegalese

the password. "But utters the

I

refuses to let

him

pass, since

am the emperor," Napoleon

says.

immortal words, "Tu ne passer'as pas" using

the familiar tu in addressing the commander-in-chief.

Our Senegalese in the third company were Moslems, and I wondered why they had no objections to fighting Algerian rebels, also Moslems.

It

was explained

who had been

Arabs,

iosyncrasy, which

were etched with

sion.

They wore amulets

me

As

slavers.

was cutting

faces

that black Africans detested the

fighters, the

colonial infantry

Senegalese had one id-

off the ears of the

maybe from

was known

as

a

Their

a fierce expres-

the twigs they chewed.

Varme poubelle ("the garbage

and drunks,

officers

promotion, and noncoms with a stain on their

was commanded by

killed.

around their necks, and

called gris-gris

pail corps"), attracting misfits

enemy

which gave them

tribal scars,

they had perfect white teeth,

The

to

with no hopes of

blotter.

Our company

major and his chief of staff, a captain, while the

platoons were led by second lieutenants like me.

Upon

arriving,

with a metal bed, a building, I

was shown and a

to

my

chair.

pup

tent,

which was furnished

We did our washing in the school

where the major and the captain resided and had

their offices.

went over to report to Captain Henri de Lastours, the chief of staff,

whose

office

shal Foch,

What cle,

was decorated with a

struck

me

War

I

hero Mar-

about Lastours* was that he wore a mono-

stick

in the bled.

On

his desk lay

an ivory-

and a pack of Players, one of which he was smoking

have followed French army usage, which

name.

portrait of World

and the stuffed heads of an antelope and a boar. first

which seemed out of place

headed

*I

I

table,

is

to

in

drop the particle when mentioning the

TED MORGAN

62

an ivory holder. Other

officers,

disdaining the Troupes, which tasted

sawdust mixed with horse manure, smoked Gauloises or

like

Gitanes.

Lastours rose to greet me.

The parchmentlike

He was

about

seven and wiry.

five foot

brow were

skin of his face and his creased

me

mated by blue eyes so narrow that they reminded medieval helmet. Over thin

lips

there protruded a nose with a

of

and a mustache that ended

knob on

it.

slits in

air,

but not of a

monk from one

in points,

ing for a train that was always

As

I

man

wait-

stood at attention before him, he stared

me

at

De Gramont,

with those

de Gramont

mor two?" "One

the

a

late.

strange narrow eyes and said, "At ease.

one

him

of the contemplative orders,

conveyed an impression of restless energy, that of a

for he

a

His graying hair was cut

short enough to reveal a tonsurelike bald spot, which gave

monkish

ani-

m,"

I

said.

"The two-m Grammonts are

arrivistes

name quite recently." "I knew a due de Gramont, Armand, who invented

Lastours "He's

a

who

bomb

took

sight,"

said.

my

uncle,"

I

said.

"His brother, Louis-Rene, always shook hands with his

left

hand."

"He caught some shrapnel

at

Verdun,"

I

said,

"and lost the use of

his right hand."

"Well, here in the premier

RIC

[our regiment]," Lastours said,

"we have mostly troops from Senegal, good boys,

they like their

if

officer." I

was

what the French

call

else.

in you, Captain. Since childhood, I

of

my

family,

I

pays de connaissance, that tiny principality

where everyone knows everyone

ders.

knew members

realized that since the captain

in

I

So

I

said: "I

hope

I

can confide

have always disliked giving or-

shy away from any relationship in which one

human being

constrains another."

"Then why did you go rowing his narrow brow.

to officers' school?" Lastours asked, fur-

IN

THE BLED

"To avoid being sent to Algeria,"

63

said.

I

Lastours jumped out of his chair, and his monocle

hung by

eye and

its silk

cord.

"And you come from

France two marshals!" he boomed. "A

you see that the job of an

officer

is

fine

fell

out of his

a family that

example you

What

to give orders?

essary to say, 'Feu a volonte!'

"And some people plied, realizing that

superior

I

still

if

the im-

it is

believe in the divine right of kings,"

my

was overstepping

that he

I felt

We must complete

was humoring me.

"For some reason,"

said, "I feel

I

need people

it. I

re-

I

limits in speaking to a

"Don't be absurd," he barked. "That has nothing to do with

have a mission.

nec-

[['Fire at will!' J."

At the same time,

officer.

Don't

are!

perative mood was removed from our grammar? Sometimes

gave

I

it.

We

can count on."

can speak to you frankly.

I

I

probably should have asked to be an ambulance driver or a stretcherbearer,

something

like that."

"Good God," he exclaimed. "We

He paused and

this regiment."

your uncle,

see

I

don't have stretcher-bearers in

then went on. "Well, since

we have an opening

I

and jeeps."

thanked him and saluted, prior to making

ly, I

will speak to

of Saumur [the

said.

cavalry school]

,

am

still

forty-eight, stuck in a hole like this. In 1942, in Syria

when

the Gaullists

refused to join them, so

returned to

But by 1950, rank,

my 1

I

came

in.

wife and children and

I

I

me

a captain at the I

was

a

that

I

age of

young captain

refused to fight

my

frank-

a graduate

I,

them and

I

list. I

property in the Gironde.

asked to be reinstated, at the same

would never be promoted."

Despite his affectations, his monocle, his walking

stick,

brusque manner, Lastours had the simplicity of the wellborn. ferred garrison

but he

exit,

asked to be placed on the inactive

was so bored

knowing

my

"Since you spoke to

you frankly. You are wondering why

elite

know

for a transportation officer.

You'll only have to give orders to trucks

stopped me. "Wait a minute," he

I

life

to his vineyard in the Gironde,

and

his

He pre-

which provided

100 cases of Saint-Emilion a year, and to his wife, a pious Catholic devoted to good works. His passion was the hunt. "The woods around here are teeming with partridge and rabbit," he said, "but there

is

an

TED MORGAN

64

my

appalling parallelism in

lack of success with animal

and human

game. "Now," said Lastours,

me

"let

take you to meet the major. Don't

be surprised by anything he says. His favorite saying the

same boat and we must row together or we

is

will

'We

are all in

go around

in

"

circles.'

Major Fourcade was

puffy dewlaps and no neck.

all

and

tiny red rivulets traced their deltas, liver spots.

glass eye

A

his

On his cheeks,

hands were covered with

Gauloise hung from the corner of his mouth, and his

was noticeable because the other eye was bloodshot. He was

an old soldier

who belonged

another war, reminding

in

Napoleon's paunchy generals,

who had

me

of one of

to be pulled in carriages be-

cause they could no longer ride a horse. "Ah, our

new

transportation

tours had introduced me.

"The

the major, after Las-

officer," said

last

one knew nothing about

vehicles,

wasn't capable of reading a map, on his cot most of the time with his ear glued to his transistor.

He was

don't have a transistor,"

a partisan of the least effort."

I

said.

"And remember," the major

said,

"I

don't

command

because of your stripe; you

presence, even in your bathing that a conscript

wagging an index

army

suit.

command

finger,

"you

because of your

At the same time,

I

never forget

a republican army, a reflection of the civilian

is

society."

"There may not be the same army,"

I

said,

level of

competence

in a conscript

while thinking, Level of enthusiasm.

"Very true, very

true," said the major, and,

man may

he added, "This young

chamberpot, but

he's far

from

turning to Lastours,

not have invented the two-seated

stupid."

"As for me," he went on, putting out his cigarette against a pock-

marked drawer of

his desk, "I fought in 1940.

pointed to his glass eye.

"I

fought in Indochina.

this

time not to be wounded. But

this

war

as

at all. It's the politics

General Navarre used to

lose the war."

I

I

I

was wounded." He

was wounded.

confess that

I

I

hope

don't understand

of the dead dog bobbing on the water,

say.

We'll win battle after battle until

we

THE BLED

IN

"This

win

it

is

Lastours interjected, "but we'll fight

a dirty war,"

"If

I

you say

my

so,

dear captain," said Fourcade, lighting up an-

when

was young,

I

who knew how

had a good horse

him think he was running

the race.

It's

was

I

a steeplechase

to take the obstacles.

the

same thing

to

it's

We don't want

their decision.

change our

habits.

When

shake hands with them.

ers,

sure people. slogan.

The

trick

is

You know, those

them

you are out on

all

hating

us.

I

let

We have

here.

to convince these people that they should help us by letting

think

and

it

to preserve the idea of France."

other Gauloise. "You know, rider.

65

them

We

have

patrol, talk to the villag-

We must create a climate of trust,

to keep repeating

it

like

reas-

an advertising

showing the

billboards in the Paris metro

four Mariannes with their Phrygian bonnets, and the slogan 'The

Republics pass, but Ripolin paint remains.'

"And what's out slogan?"

I

"Army equals peace equals I

asked. prosperity," the major said.

could see that Lastours was covering his lower

mustache

to suppress a smile,

and

thought, If only

I

with his

lip

we were launch-

ing a brand of paint. "All right," the

major

not a mind-reader, but

said. "I'm

what you're thinking. I'm sure they gave pany because no one wanted five

years

I

can

retire.

But

I

it.

me

this

I

godforsaken com-

I'm a fifty-five-year-old major, and in

still

know how

to draft victory reports."

Fourcade gazed off into the distance. This was the French atavistic facial expression, a

men

known as "looking at the Germans had repeatedly invaded.

in the courtyard,

dard disquisition to every arriving I

Lastours said: "That's his stan-

officer."

spent an hour walking around Champlain. saluting me, which

I

I

had to get used to

potions.

I

out

still felt

found a modest open market

fering old clothes, dates and oranges, kohl for

unnamed

I

found faintly embarrassing.

of place in uniform. In a vacant lot

various other

officer's

faraway gaze

blue line of the Vosges," where the

Once we were

can see

A barber and

women's

eyes,

of-

and

tooth-puller stood be-

hind his chair, next to which lay a cotton cloth where he displayed the rotten teeth he'd pulled.

TED MORGAN

66

That evening

my

attended

I

popote, in the lobby of the mairie

meal

first

(town

in the officers' mess, or

hall)

One

.

wall was covered

with a fresco often seen in provincial mairies, representing a scene

from the war of 1870,

a desperate

La

by Germans, called

band of French

soldiers

surrounded

Derniere Cartouche (the last cartridge), exalt-

On

ing heroism in hopeless situations.

make-

the right there was a

long table bearing an assortment of aperitifs, wines, and

shift bar, a

cognacs. About a dozen junior officers sat at square tables, which

between meals were used

When tional

I

walked

propose a cile,

I

they

in,

song of welcome,

ter is a cuckold").

Then

"II it

am happy

all

and chess.

stood up and began to sing the tradi-

Est Cocu

was

my

Raising

toast.

for playing cards

le

Chefde Gave"'("the stationmas-

my turn

to offer a

glass of Pernod,

to find myself

among

I

round of drinks and

said,

equals."

"Being an imbe-

They applauded and

rousingly sang another classic: "Et on s'enfout, d'attraper

on s'enfout, pourvu quon

catch the clap, as long as I

we

heard a booming voice

(Marsouin, or porpoise,

The

voice

back

hair, a

came from

un coup" ("And

tire

we

la verole, et

don't give a fuck

if

we

get our rocks off"). call,

"Hey, marsouin, over here. Sit down."

was the nickname

a burly lieutenant

for

men

of the Coloniale).

with thick blond brushed-

handlebar mustache, heavy-lidded blue eyes, and a face as

round and rosy as

Bayonne ham. His name was Boris Dourakine.

a

His parents had fled Russia during the 1920 famine and settled in Paris. Sitting with

him was Lucien Cossard, smaller and

sparer,

long-faced, sallow-skinned, with a high forehead and chestnut hair

parted in the middle.

Crushing

my hand with his great paw, Dourakine said, "I've heard

about you. You're an exile like me.

America.

We are both

had been born His

I

had to leave Russia, you went to

air plants, rootless." Actually, as

I

learned, he

in Paris in 1925, five years after his parents'

depar-

father,

once an important czarist bureaucrat, had started out

as a taxi driver

and saved enough money to move to the rue Daru,

ture.

the heart of the Russian colony, where he opened a shop selling specialties

such as blinis and borscht.

"Can you imagine me, Boris,

They

lived above the shop.

a shopkeeper?" he asked.

"And

Paris,

IN

THE BLED

67

Not

that city of gagne-petits [nickel-and-dimers] ?

steppes in

my

for me.

I

have the

blood."

"And Pernod

your veins," the morose Cossard interjected.

in

"Better than the Vichy water in yours," Doukarine responded.

At the age of 25 he had enlisted and been sent

to Indochina. "Ah,

Saigon," he recalled as he wiped his mouth, "from the terrace of the

Pagoda, rue Catinat, you saw the prettiest girls in Cochin China wiggle their asses as they strolled

down

And

and whores

Cholon, with

taxi-girls

its

Arc-en-ciel, with the best girls of

to the river in their high heels.

all,

three piasters, and the

at

from Shanghai. Their

slit

dresses revealed golden thighs and small breasts like ripe apricots.

was so much bigger

I

fucked them standing on the floor with the girl

I

standing on the bed."

"And when you

on her she died from the smell," Cossard

fell

said.

"Don't confuse

When

I

me

with your donkey," Dourakine bellowed.

mentioned that

on the table and

his fist

I

had met the major, Dourakine slammed

said, "I hate all hierarchies."

"Then what are you doing "I "I

don't

want

want

Do

army?" Cossard asked.

a life of routine with wife

and

kids,"

Dourakine

said.

surprises."

"Routine left.

in the

is

just

you think

what

I

want

Cossard taught math

were waiting "Well,"

I

for

him

I

want," Cossard said. "I've got two weeks to get killed in

and

in a lycee, in

said, "the

my

days of service?"

last

and four-year-old son

his wife

Lyon.

major told

me

to be

good

to the villagers

and

create a climate of trust."

Dourakine snorted and emptied talk to

no purpose and

like to give

his glass.

sermons.

"Too many people here

I

answers of the good student with his hand up. "I

don't I

want the correct

want

to win."

don't give a shit about winning," said Cossard, scraping the

metal chair he sat on along the

tile floor. "I

want

to

go home

to

my

wife and son."

"Ah, you filthy petit bourgeois," Dourakine said, grabbing the

nape of his neck. "Let

me buy you

a Pernod. Lucien

is

our intelligence

TED MORGAN

68

officer,"

way

is

he explained, "though

north.

As

me,

for

my

lead

platoon to glory."

want bananes [decorations] on your

"You just

"Like Napoleon,

He saw

I

we all wonder whether he knows which

despise those 'scraps of silk,'

I

Cossard

said.

Dourakine

said.

chest," "

much

himself as a leader of men, though he didn't think

of his Senegalese troops. "As far as I'm concerned," he said, "they're

good enough

my

to shine

shoes."

"But are you good enough to shine theirs?" Cossard asked.

"Look,

I

know how

to handle them. Last time out, there

was one

who was running ahead of the others. Let's calm him down, I thought; let's give him the machine gun. With the tripod, it weighs eighty pounds. He wasn't running ahead anymore." "What about the Algerians." I asked. "After all, it's their country." "I

can't stand the

Arabs

either,"

jackals, always looking for the

pugnant!

Arab

When

work.'

anyone

Anyway,

in

my

Dourakine

how and

"They're

said.

all

the why. Christ, they're re-

platoon fucks up,

I

tell

them, 'That's

The masses

there's only a handful offels.

are

pro-French." "I

guess

that's

why we have

four hundred thousand

men

here,"

I

said.

"And

my

sister's

his expression for

hand

in a zouave's pants,"

he roared. That was

showing extreme disgust.

Dourakine was mercurial, leaping from to follow his associative process.

He

topic to topic.

said that all the

platoon were Indochina hands and then burst out,

It

was hard

noncoms

in his

hate the

smug-

"I

ness of these Indochina hands," even though he was one himself.

needed a

little

anger-management

thing to hate. At the same time,

I

training.

along. Perhaps anger

was the

There was always some-

found him immensely

cause he was completely uncensored, while exile's

He

I

tried to

likable, be-

go along

to get

form of regret, a way of mourn-

ing a lost society.

The

officers at the popote

were a hard-drinking bunch. After beer

and wine with our chicken and French

fries, it

was Pernod and co-

gnac.

Dourakine and

I

walked back to our

tents, past a

grove of euca-

IN

He

lyptus trees.

stopped for a

THE BLED

moment

69

to

watch their branches wav-

ing in the night breeze and said, "Don't those branches remind you

when

of a woman's hair said. "I

was

want

to

she's

taking her bath?

show you something."

a locked trunk.

Come

with me," he

In the corner of his tent there

He opened it and pulled out a Colt revolver. "She's He spun the cylinder. "This is the way to

a beauty, isn't she," he said.

find out if you have the baraka" Baraka, the

Arab word

for luck,

was

perhaps the most important word in the platoon leader's vocabulary, for

meant luck

it

in battle.

have one cartridge in the chamber.

"I

the barrel against action to words.

you want

temple, and

There was

I

spin the cylinder.

I

I

place

pull the trigger," he said, suiting

a click. "Aha," he said. "I'm

still alive.

Do

to try it?"

"Hey,"

I

that a truck

"My

my

said, "I'm

only the transportation

officer.

My

worry

is

may break down."

dear Gramont," he said,

"life is

not worth living

if

you do

not take risks." It

seemed

tivities

to

me

there were enough risks in our day-to-day ac-

without asking for more, but

somewhere

In any case, I'd read

that

I

didn't

want

when you

to get

As

I

lamp, on

drop down,

it

barrel.

returned to

my

excited.

spin a cylinder loaded

with one cartridge, the weight of the cartridge makes

away from the

him

first

my lumpy

metal

night in Champlain,

cot, I

under a tent

lit

by an

oil

had that rare feeling of hav-

ing found a friend, a feeling of recognition. Although Dourakine had

been in the army for six years, his was the exact antithesis of the conventional military mind, expressing the contradictions and excesses of an anarchist. His

not emulate.

didn't

I

want

was

like

my

I

any feathers or be singled

mother's words on

my

first

out.

I

day of

to

Dourakine could not only survive but reach

was an

admired but could

make yourself remarked." It was in a sense a French army, known as the great leveler, that someone

"And try not

tribute to the

temperament

to ruffle

retained like a mental amulet school:

a

officer

who

officer rank.

Here

He was

reck-

hated authority but led a platoon.

lessly brave, not for self-advancement, but out of a

deep personal

TED MORGAN

70

need to express to stay alive.

He

ipice.

his disregard for all conventions, including the

He had

wish

to be always testing himself, staring at the prec-

held the military in contempt, but hated the constraints of

civilian life

even more

boulot, metro,

wretched triumvirate that turned

dodo (job, subway, sleep)

men

into

—

that

lemmings, as he put

it.

His sense of the tragic was turned inward and became a line of conduct.

The next morning drinking bad

somewhat hung

at eight,

the popote,

at the side

of my table.

I

coffee,

over,

was alone

I

when Lastours rapped

at

his stick

rose to salute him, but he said, "Repos" ("At

ease").

"There

is

"One of the

something

I

neglected to

tell

you yesterday," he

duties of the transportation officer

me

to lead all convoys

moving troops and

out of Champlain in a jeep. This includes

and one other matter. Permit

is

to read

"I

haven't

Unless

it's

month

come

the

have sexual

in the nearest available military brothel.'

across one in Champlain,"

company

itself,

The

cost

is

"

while thinking,

said,

"pandemonium."

"The army has traveling

"Precisely" the captain said.

madam who

I

bordel being slang for

called bordels militaires de campagne, or

and a

supplies

you Article 46 of the Colo-

nial Infantry regulations: 'Colonial troops are entitled to

relations once a

said.

BMCs. Usually

brothels,

four whores

keeps the accounts, under contract to the army.

two francs

fifty

[50 cents]. But since

garrison town of Medea, which has

its

own

we

brothel,

are close to the

we

take one pla-

toon there each week to comply with the regulation. Today

is

Medea with fifteen men

in

Wednesday, brothel your jeep with

day.

You should

by two trucks

a driver, followed

each truck. Here

is

your ordre de

leave in an hour for

in

route.

"Oh, one other thing," he added. "The officer in charge of a convoy

must remain standing

in the jeep

kilometers, which this

is."

"I'll

lation.

find Diallo,"

I

said,

on distances of less than twenty-five

while thinking, Another senseless regu-

IN

My

driver, Diallo,

and

soldier. Tall

who

him

sent

was

athletic,

a Senegalese sergeant but not a regular

he was the son of a cocoa broker

in

Dakar,

to study at a commercial college in Paris. Diallo en-

rolled but rarely attended. at the Folies

THE BLED

He was

a talented dancer

Bergere, in the corps de ballet.

"getting paid to

"It

was

and found

a job

paradise," he said,

and carry those sumptuous beauties each night,

lift

not to mention after the show." But after a year, his student defer-

ment was canceled and he was conscripted. After graduating from sergeant's school, he

As

it

happened,

it

was sent

to

Champlain.

was the turn of Dourakine's platoon

he was not interested in going and

ing, but

the

left

men

that

morn-

charge of

in

two hard-bitten sergeants, Lavigne and Laroche. Because Diallo was the only Senegalese noncom, they kidded called

him Banania,

showing

him

mercilessly.

They

after the popular children's drink that ran ads

a caricatural, thick-lipped black saying, in

West African pa-

"Ya bon, Banania."

tois:

"Say, Banania,"

truck, "is

it

Lavigne asked Diallo

as he

herded his

men

into a

true you've got three wives back in Dakar?"

"Banania

tells

you

to

go fuck

yourself," Diallo said.

Lavigne laughed and asked, "Say, Banania,

is it

true you've got

pink balls?"

"Nah,

got balls like coconuts," Laroche chimed

he's

in.

Diallo

drove the jeep out of Champlain and headed north on the road to

Medea, followed by the two trucks.

We passed

told.

I

stood in the jeep as

I

had been

through the Chiffa Gorges, over that one-lane road

flanked by high stone walls. In the middle of the winding, six-mile stretch, shots

be damned

if

were I

When we

fired

from above.

I

sat

down,

stand while we're being shot

telling Diallo,

at."

reached Medea, the trucks parked on the main square

near the brothel, a nondescript whitewashed house on a side

The men were

my

led in five at a time.

ordre de route

women

and got

in loose slips, easily

had a free hour square.

I

"I'll

in front of

I

went

in to

have the

street.

madam

sign

a glimpse of five or six opulently large

between 250 and 300 pounds.

me and

I

I

figured

I

decided to have a beer on the

asked Diallo to join me, but he said,

"I

think

I'll

join the

TED MORGAN

72

men." They were lined up by rank, and as sergeant he would have first

pick with Lavigne and Laroche.

It

was

a

warm September day, and the blue bowl of the sky cupped

the copper sun overhead.

sat at a table,

I

observing the

square, Arabs standing in clusters chatting, fatmas

and smelling the melons boys looking sipped friend

my I

at

your

in the stands of the

feet as

Kronenbourg,

(women) feeling

table to table.

my name called.

It

was

epaulets.

Our

Washington

with a

spahis,

first lieutenant's

fathers had been posted to the

before the war.

On

As

in the red

two bars on

his

French embassy

weekends they took us

I

a childhood

had not seen in years, Andre Bayens, resplendent

cap and cape of the

on the

open market, shoeshine

moved from

they

heard

I

life

to the

in

Chevy

Chase Club, and while they played golf we swam and played Chinese checkers.

I

had seen him from time to time since then, but

startling to run into

of our former

him

in a place so

was

it

completely out of the context

lives.

Husky, with oily black hair brushed back, merry blue eyes, and thick eyebrows that joined over his turnip nose,

dency to put on weight, even on army rations.

Andre had

a ten-

"My God, what

are

you doing here?" he asked. "As you can see, I'm a second lieutenant in the colonial infantry, stationed near here, and I'm escorting

[Arab

for "whorehouse"^].

What

my

Senegalese to the bousbir

about you?"

"I'm in the Third Spahi Regiment in Blida, but we have some men here," he said. "We're armored now, no more horses. Last week we mopped up a band offels. Spotted them in a riverbed marching single file, called in the T-6's for strafing runs, then moved in for the kill

—twelve

dead, five wounded, five prisoners."

"Were you

in

on

it?"

I

asked.

"No, I'm at headquarters, but

I

was

in

on the planning, and

probably get a citation. I'm going to join the Quai d'Orsay when out, in

and

my war

record will help.

Washington, with

Andre was

a

jump

in

I

could be

named

I

I'll

get

military attache

rank to captain."

binational like me. His

mother was an heiress from

San Francisco, and he was well connected on both

sides of the Atlan-

THE BLED

IN

73

He had the convivial, back-slapping manner of the born politician. To demonstrate his cosmopolitan nature, he liked to tell bilingual jokes, which were understood by only a few. One was about tic.

a

famous racing car called the S-car. During a

shouting, "Look at the S-car go."

French, escargot means

And

race, a spectator keeps

therein lies the humor, for in

"snail."

His self-assured account of a battle in which he had not taken part annoyed me.

Maybe

I

was

a little bit envious that his future

so well planned. Partly to provoke him,

I

was

said: "I can't see the point

of this war, since eventually we'll have to leave, just as

we

Indo-

left

china."

Andre put on

his serious expression, the

ams when we were both "Don't you understand?

march, after our loss

The Arabs want

Now

I

was

"These fucking

at the It's

French lycee

one he had during exin

New

the crusades in reverse.

in Asia.

It's

York, and said:

It's

Islam on the

reverse racism, reverse expansion.

to take back all the lands they lost to the colons"

really

annoyed with

colons.

On

my

old playmate, and

I

said:

the beaches working on their tans while

we're risking our necks."

"They're not on the beaches; they're trying to save their farms."

"Making

the burnous sweat,"

I

said,

which was a

common

expres-

sion used to describe the exploitation of the Arabs.

At

this point, Diallo joined us,

being one of the

first

out of the

To put a stop to my argument with Andre, I told Diallo: "I know how you were able to fuck those three-hundred-pound

bousbir.

don't

whores." "Well," he said,

"when you've been fucked, you know you've been

fucked."

Andre laughed was what he

said,

heartily and said,

more

"Look

to himself than to

at that

anyone

S-car go."

else,

Which

when he heard

something funny.

When we

got back to Champlain,

porting to Captain de Lastours,

I

I

told Diallo that before re-

was going

to ask

Dourakine what

he thought of the standing-in-the-jeep regulation. "Dourakine," Diallo said with disdain, "hes just another moujik."

TED MORGAN

74

He

me

told

One

that he had served in Dourakine's platoon.

when they were out on

a

night,

two-day operation, Diallo was caught nap-

ping on sentry duty. In front of the entire platoon, Dourakine announced: "There

is

a shit-head

among

out of the

us. Diallo, step

ranks. Last night on sentry duty, you were sleeping. Let

me show you

what could have happened." He stepped behind Diallo and took out hunting knife and placed

"Now you're

it

dead," he said.

"The way

is clear."

"Dourakine reported me," Diallo recalled, "and that cost annual leave back I

to Dakar."

stood in the jeep. "You're over six

I

good

target.

Pay no mind

worth getting

It

asked

me

was hard

Dourakine

is

if I'd

it

he

said.

to these idiots. Just ask yourself,

a brothel.

Look

at

"You make

my

For

a

'Is it

money,

at Lastours."

seen the stuffed head of the wild boar.

to miss,

I

said.

said Lastours

when he spotted some

and took

feet,"

killed taking these apes to get laid?'

whole company

He

est

me my

found Dourakine in the popote and told him about being shot

while

this

home

a

under his chin and made a slicing motion.

had been out on an operation

boars.

He

in the for-

called in the Alouette helicopter

up with a bagful of grenades.

Two

boars, frightened by

the chopper, trotted into the open, and Lastours dropped grenades

on them. "One

"Now

for

you and one

land and help

me

for me," he told the disgruntled pilot.

load the beasts."

aboard, and the pilot said, "You've gotten

"Don't bust

company

my

balls,"

that we've got

Lastours

game

said. "I've

all

the boars

bloody."

already radioed the

for dinner."

"Do you think he was following "In any case, the boar

They hauled

my cabin

regulations?" Dourakine asked.

was so tough you could hardly

eat

Boar has

it.

to be marinated for at least a week."

The

following

Wednesday

I

had the brothel run again, with

different platoon. In the Chiffa Gorges,

almost vertical

cliff

on our

left,

there

was

a

a steep,

of gray stone with deep horizontal cracks, out of

which thorny bushes poked.

On our right, the ground

sloped

down

to

the torrent below, and across the torrent stood the far side of the ravine.

As we passed an abandoned

military post perched on the

THE BLED

IN

other side of the ravine, firing

75

came from men hidden

bend of the

in a

slope that dropped to the stream.

Of

course,

know our Wednesday

thought, they

I

schedule and

they're waiting for us with automatic weapons. I

on

told Diallo to step

it.

was worried they'd cut the

I

The men

truck behind us followed.

inside

road.

The

were firing and throwing

grenades.

But where was the second truck? I

it

didn't

found

Its driver, a big,

know, had panicked and braked, and itself crosswise in

door and jumped that the truck

the road.

was

sliding

his truck skidded so that

The corporal had opened

The Senegalese

in a ditch.

lumpy corporal

sitting next to

the cab

him saw

slope. He grabbed The men in the second at the fels, who retreated

backward toward the

the steering wheel and pulled the hand brake.

truck

jumped out and directed

down

the slope.

My jeep and

ters past the site of the

more

firing.

a hail of fire

the

ambush.

truck had driven about 50

first I

All this had taken no

There was no

told Diallo to stop.

more than

five

me-

minutes.

We recon-

noitered the slope where the fels were hidden and found patches of

blood on the ground, but no bodies. Amazingly, single dead or

wounded. Diallo counted

and the second truck had two blown

we

did not have a

five bullet holes in

tires

and

our jeep,

a bullet in the gas tank

and would have to be towed. I

asked the driver of the second truck

jumped I

told

my place,"

"Put yourself in

out.

him

that that

was

difficult for

he

why he had braked and

said.

me to do. I had to report him,

and he served 30 days of prison ferme (no time I

men

told Diallo to ask the

would they rather return

to Champlain.

that "they said if they have to

Medea with our

if

they were

go back,

disabled truck.

A

off). still

minute

they'll riot."

"We

up

for

later,

Medea

or

he reported

So we limped

into

had the baraka today," Diallo

said.

Back for a

in

Champlain,

I

reported the ambush to Lastours and asked

change of assignment.

said. "Diallo

can do

you've got to

mix up the

it.

He

"It

doesn't take an officer to do this,"

likes his

I

weekly outings to Medea. But

schedule, or they'll be waiting for us."

TED MORGAN

76

"Either that or

I

could order some protection," Lastours said, "a

couple of half-tracks or auto-mitrailleuses.

Medea

Or

tanks.

The

spahis in

are armored."

"Tanks

for the brothel run,"

I

said.

the regulation," he said. "However, sometimes

"It's

improvise."

He

sat at his desk, across

his chin with his

hand

as

if it

be more useful somewhere "Give

me

a platoon,"

I

from

we have

his boar's head,

was sandpaper.

"It's

to

rubbing

true that you could

else."

said.

"All four platoons presently have officers.

However, Cossard

leaving at the end of the week, and you could replace

him

is

as qfficier

de reuse ignement" ("intelligence officer").

"Anything

Cossard

is

better than

sat

what I'm doing,"

at his desk.

The

face.

One

wall was lined with

said.

rays of the late September sun

shone into the windows of his

waxy

I

office, file

giving some color to his

On

cabinets.

the wall behind

him, there was a snapshot of his wife and a drawing of a steamship by his

young

son, the ship that

puffs of smoke "It's fairly

letin

would bring Cossard home, with big

coming out of its three simple," Cossard said.

stacks.

"Each day

I

get the

BRQ

[bul-

de renseignement quotidien] from sector headquarters in Medea,

listing actions of the previous

day with enemy losses plus a summary

The BRQ relies on human intelligence and aerial photographs." He showed me a couple of photographs with white arrows indicating a camouflaged camp or changes in the look

of recent intelligence.

of a forest or village.

He got up from his desk and paced ing his said,

class. "I also

the room, like a teacher lectur-

have some sources;

I'll

leave you the

files,"

he

pointing to the cabinets. "As you saw today, the fels are active in

They chop down telephone poles and set fire to isolated They collect taxes from the Arabs and protection money from

the area. farms.

the colons.

One of my

best sources

shows you the complexity of the

is

a tax collector for the

situation.

FLN. That

You know Morin, who runs

THE BLED

IN

When

the bus service to Medea.

bus was torched. ies

The

rebels

11

he failed to pay his monthly tax, his

ambush our

bod-

patrols, booby-trap the

of their dead, and hide their weapons in

Moslem

cemeteries."

Cossard went to the window, stood there with his hands folded behind his back, and looked out

He

square.

at the

two stunted

olive trees in the

then turned, bent his head, and joined his hands as

prayer against his brow.

He seemed

had to say next. Finally he

knows

that a

If that

happens, you

to be trying to phrase

said, "Let's say

you take

if in

what he

who

a prisoner

farm will be attacked and the farmer will be murdered.

may wish you had

questioned him more force-

fully." "I

hope

I

never have to

"Yes, but you

make

I've

I

said.

may have to decide which is worse." Cossard paused,

frowned, and shook his head. things

that decision,"

had to do

"It's

really funny," he said, "with the

in this job, that I've

enthusiastic about the war. All

can say

I

been criticized for not being is

'Thank God

it's

over.'

The

dogs bark, the caravan passes."

A

couple of days

later,

I

took over from the departed Cossard.

Lastours looked in on

me

what was new. "A

named Legros had

I

colon

as

I

was reading the

BRQ

and asked

me

his livestock slaughtered,"

told him.

"Oh

well, he

was about

way of dealing

due," Lastours said. His

with the horrors of war was to brush them off as fated.

whether some of the Koranic mektoub

("it is

I

wondered

written") had rubbed off

on him. "Anything else?" he asked.

"Two

What

jeeps collided on the Chiffa road and a spahi

a stupid

"Death

is

way

killed.

to go."

always stupid," Lastours replied.

That afternoon, Dourakine, who'd been out on tion,

was

brought in a prisoner, a kid

who

didn't look

dly and narrow-shouldered. Part of

my

a

two-day opera-

more than

15,

spin-

job was to interrogate

prisoners.

"He's the brother of a section chief

most of his band," Dourakine

said.

we

killed this

morning with

TED MORGAN

78

The and

prisoner wore khakis that

was matted with

his hair

"How

old are you?"

hung

loosely on his small frame,

dirt.

asked.

I

"Seventeen," he said.

"What

are you doing with the fels?"

was

"I

in school in

write reports.

He

Medea.

My

brother needed a secretary to

can't read or write.

I

can write French and Ara-

bic."

offered

I

him

glass of water

"My

a cigarette, but he

and asked

his head.

I

handed him

a

he'd been armed.

if

me

brother gave

in at night,

shook

a

uniform and a

The

pistol.

supplies

came

by mule."

"How many were you?" "About twelve. This morning we heard the French coming, and

my

brother and

I

They would never

hid in a cave near the riverbed.

my brother

have found us but, when they walked by the cave, didn't

want

to be caught like an animal in its burrow.

said he

He jumped

out

and the French killed him. One of them came into the cave

firing,

and saw

me and

said,

not a

'it's

man

"He's a boy, but he's a rebel,"

—

" it's

a boy.'

Dourakine

"Maybe we should

said.

have shot him."

The boy was chewing rebel,

I'll

send you to a

his

lip.

"Look,"

I

said, "if you

want

to be a

POW camp. If not, you can be back in school

tomorrow."

Next

was back

day, he

in

Medea.

One drawback of my new assignment was day

my

in

office,

and

I

was

at the

that

I

usually spent the

mercy of Lastours, who popped

in

half a dozen times a day to find out, to lecture, to question, and to advise.

He had

all

the instincts of a pipelette, a concierge in Paris

who makes it her business to know everything who are expected to call out their names when

apartment buildings about the tenants, they

come

in at night, after the curtains of the concierge's loge are

drawn. Malraux exacted his vengeance on

Mans

Fate,

when one of

his characters

all

gossipy concierges in

brought

the carriage entrance and yelled, "Cheval!"

in a

horse through

THE BLED

IN

One

79

afternoon as usual, Lastours burst in and said, "We've got to

do something about Ouakrim." He was the fellow who ran the produce store and was giving information to Cossard, while suspected of being a tax collector for the its

FLN.

I

had been over to his shop, with

bags of dates and orange crates piled helter-skelter, to introduce

Ouakrim was

myself.

a

compact man with

and a

a lean face

mop

of

coarse, black, disorderly hair. His deep-set eyes had crows'-feet at the

corners, and his smile, skewed to one side, revealed yellow teeth.

When came in I

at a

low

table,

noon, he was eating couscous from a big clay bowl

at

and we ate with our

He was

clearly

him.

He poured

harissa sauce,

fingers.

making an

"The one before you," he full

me to join

and he invited

said,

effort to be

welcoming and

"he was a grosse

tete" (fathead,

friendly.

meaning

of himself). "I

hope we can work together,"

"I

am

suffered

attached to France,"

many

I

said.

Ouakrim

said, "even

though

have

I

humiliations. Imagine I'm in line to buy a train ticket.

A Frenchman cuts in

front of me as

if

Frenchman who

I

don't exist.

When

did exactly what

I

had a job

did

was paid

at the

post

office, a

more.

My

brother wanted to enlist in the air force, but

I

Moslems

weren't allowed in their air force or in officers' school." realize that

"I

Arabs have not been treated

dered where his real loyalty

Ouakrim, who played both I

also

lay,

sides,

fairly,"

I

said.

or whether he had any.

had nothing

wondered why he was laying out

left

I

won-

Men

like

but their cunning.

when he pro-

his grievances

fessed attachment to France.

As

if

divining

my

thoughts, he said,

"I

only want to help you un-

derstand the situation here. You will go from surprise to surprise.

Nothing

is

simple. Before the French left Champlain,

schoolmaster.

One day he came around crying

had been shot

at.

There was

that his

a colon

403 Peugeot

a bullet hole in the trunk. 'The bastards,'

he told me. 'They did that to me, to

What

we had

me who

he didn't say was that in the

teaches their children.'

summer when

there were no

classes he supervised the seasonal laborers during the lentil harvest,

when

entire families

worked

fifteen

hours a day for three francs."

TED MORGAN

80

And now, Lastours was in my office and seemed agitated. "We know something about the way he operates," he said. "He collects taxes in a series of villages. He supplies the rebels with food and reyoung shepherds,

cruits choufs [sentries], usually

He

katibas [large units of rebels]. bills.

to protect passing

travels with a briefcase filled with

He's deeply involved with the fels."

"But he says he's deeply attached to France," "That's his game.

He

said he

would work

names of Moslem notables who pay taxes ance. In any case,

I

meant

we found

searched and

to the

to tell you, this

fifty

crate. Soiled bills that didn't

I

said.

for us.

He

FLN

morning

gives us the

buy insur-

to

had his shop

I

thousand francs hidden in an orange

come from

bank

a

teller.

We

embezzling some of the funds he collects for the FLN.

think he's

I've

got him

locked up in the shed."

"And then what?" "We'll keep sleep

on the

him there

for a

few days, feed him once a day.

He can

floor."

When we went in to question him a couple of days later, Ouakrim was

rolled

up on the

brown burnous. Lastours kicked the

floor in his

huddled form, and Ouakrim turned over, bleary-eyed and unshaven.

He

looked at

me and

said, "I

thought you were

my friend."

Lastours kicked him again and said: "Will you talk,

my

lascar

[thief], ouiou merde [yes or shit]?"

Ouakrim flat

knelt before us, with his head

on the ground, as

my

knife to

"We

and

bowed and both hands

said, "Kill

kill

me. Put a

to give

you cous-

me,

throat."

don't

cous and a

if in prayer,

want

warm

"France

is

to kill you,"

I

said.

"We want

bed."

good,"

Ouakrim

said.

"We'll be back tonight," Lastours said.

Back doesn't

in

want

with the

my to

office,

was found

said,

"He won't

solution

is

to release

him and

We let him go the next morning,

in his

because he

talk,

admit taking the collection money. He's

FLN. The

care of him."

Lastours

produce store with his throat

let

the

in trouble

FLN

and two days slit.

take

later,

he

IN

"You

THE BLED

Lastours told me,

see,"

"I

was

81

right.

There

aren't

percent collaborators. They're either for us or against

"There are degrees,"

who do

those

I

the fighting,

"Some do the

said.

some

fifty

us."

fighting,

some

collect the taxes,

any

some help

act as look-

outs."

"No,

it's

all

the

occurred to

It

enemy

clared

is

same

me

outfit

with different jobs," he

that the true nature of

war

is

said.

that your de-

not your only enemy. Your superior officers,

who

place you in high-risk or reprehensible situations, are also your en-

emy, and so are some of the soldiers you have to work with, like the corporal in the Chiffa

who jumped

You had

in the ditch.

to be

on

your guard against everyone.

Our platoons were out every day hunting

fellaghas,

times they brought back intelligence that

Medea. One morning

ters in

Amand, and tub,

for

a Marseillais

making

ambled

in

mid-October, platoon leader Robert

in

who was known

for singing

Tino Rossi ballads

a credible facsimile of absinthe in the

with his customary greeting:

or are you catching a train?"

He

fellagha bands. But

"Alors,

town

hall bath-

are you fucking

map and showed me the (mountains). "We were near there

unfolded a

location of a village in the djebel yesterday," he said, "and

and some-

sent to headquar-

I

some informants

we couldn't get

told us

there. There's

it

was

a passage for

no path, just masses

of huge boulders." "I

wonder how the fels do

"They've got goat blood," but they didn't get

far. I tell

it," I

said.

Amand

you,

I

said. "I sent a

was so disgusted

couple of men up, I

lost

my appetite

for dinner." "I'll

see

what

quarters, and

I

I

can do,"

I

said.

I

radioed the coordinates to head-

soon received a reply that they were mounting a

copter operation with black berets, and that since the

commandos would It

was

pick

me up

in Algeria that the

in

it

was

heli-

my bailiwick,

Champlain.

French army discovered the combat

uses of helicopters. In a mountainous and roadless landscape, the

TED MORGAN

82

choppers could reach places that no other units could. In the Indochina War, choppers were used only to evacuate the wounded. Finally,

some bright general figured out

that they could also carry troops

into combat. In 1956, the black berets, or airborne

formed,

all

commandos, were

volunteers, and already they had a reputation as hood-

lums. In their Sikorskys, the the big bumblebee) and the

H-34

H-19

that could carry 12

men (known

as

that could carry six, they conducted

lightning raids in terrain that was inaccessible to the infantry.

"Ah

yes,"

Lastours said when

an H-19, "helicopters are the

The next morning, H-19 picked

me

its

I

told

him

I

latest fad, aren't

was going they?"

town square, the

rotor whirring over the

up. Five seats

for a ride in

were taken, and

I

dropped into the

commandos had placed me so that I would be the first to jump, in case we were fired at upon landing. So often in these encounters, everything depended on who fired first. I had my map and my sidearm, a 7.6-mm automatic. The black remaining

seat.

I

realized later that the

armed with

berets were

MAT

49 submachine guns and hand gre-

nades. Their leader, a swarthy sergeant

who wore dark

glasses, said,

we flew south toward the djebel: "I like grenades, they don't take up much space, and in case of trouble, it's not a weapon you leave

as

behind."

Soon we reached the Arab

village,

on

scrubbed mesa,

a high,

seven or eight bedraggled mechtas (houses), with coops where they kept their chickens and goats, surrounded by thorny hedges.

Sikorsky hovered about four feet above the ground, dust,

and

was the

I

first to

The

rotor raising

its

jump, followed by the other

five.

I

had a

sinking feeling that this was a wild goose chase.

"Search the mechtas" the sergeant told his men.

He

the door of a shuttered house, and in the half-light

young woman

"Maybe groping

her.

sitting cross-legged

she's

on some blankets

I

kicked open

could see a

in the corner.

hiding a weapon," the sergeant said, and started

"Look

at the layers she's

wearing.

Good God,

it's

an

entire wardrobe."

"Hey,"

want me

I

said, "that's

to report

you?"

enough. She's not hiding anything.

Do

you

IN

"Make me

THE BLED

83

laugh," the sergeant said.

The conduct

of the black berets was founded on the rationale that

since they were doing highly dangerous work, they permitted

them-

selves every excess.

heard shouting and stepped out into the bright day.

I

I

saw the

four other black berets gathered around an elderly Arab, turbaned

and robed. the

him

pulled

I

Arab greeting, "La

aside.

bess?"

Trying

to put

("How goes

him

it?").

at ease,

I

gave him

"Chouia" ("All right"),

he automatically replied, then added that the black beret

who had

searched his mechta had taken 300 francs he'd received that month

—about

from

social security

beret

who had conducted

and pointed

at a

$6.

1

asked the Arab to point to the black

the search, and he raised a quivering finger

swaggering, bushy-mustached commando,

who threw

man and started slapping him, punctuating his words with each slap: "Call me ... a thief. you son ... of a whore." I pulled the old man away and said to the sergeant: "All right, search your man and see if he has the money." himself at the old

.

"There's going to be trouble

geant

if

we

.

don't find anything," the ser-

said.

Before he could be searched, the accused his pocket I

commando

reached into

and threw a handful of change on the ground. "This

have on me," he shouted.

"Is this

what

I

is all

took from you, you filthy

liar?"

At

two other black berets grabbed the Arab and

that,

"You're

coming with

that led

away from the

a run for

it,

He had gone fired a burst

his

him along the path

with panic, the old

man made

arm straight up with index finger extended, do when they are being replaced during the game.

about 20 feet when the black beret accused of stealing

from

his

fast for

me

should have handled to be searched,

man:

started pushing

MAT. The Arab

still

ran, his

burnous flapping

turban unraveling, but a few feet further he

pened too

to

They

village. Seized

holding one

as soccer players

and

us."

told him:

"If you

I

to react.

it

I

wondered what

I

fell. It all

hap-

should have done.

I

differently. Instead of ordering the black beret

should have taken him aside and talked to him

have the money, give

it

man

back to him and we'll say no

TED MORGAN

84

more about

But would that have worked? These black berets had

it."

regressed beyond constraints.

was

I

wondered whether

a criminal record

a condition for their recruitment.

On

commandos were laughing

the ride back to Champlain, the

and joking. "Did you see that old guy with his arm up?" guess he was waving good-bye."

"I

They

liked to reminisce about their feats of battle the

way mara-

thon runners constantly check their stopwatches for their times.

"Remember

that twelve-year-old boy?" the sergeant said.

we'd give him one hundred meters.

And

gave him

And we

weapon.

told us he'd never fired a

gave him a

rifle

"He

and said

francs for every beer bottle he hit at fifty

We

this kid could really shoot, like clay pipes at the fair.

five

hundred francs and

good spanking."

a

It

seemed

to

me

he told the story to show that sometimes they acted in a humane

manner.

"You must be proud of your work,"

told the sergeant.

I

He shrugged. "Why should terrorists be spared if it means our men will be killed?" To him, every Arab was a terrorist. Back

in

Champlain,

reported the outing to Lastours. "And so

I

the result of our brilliant helicopter operation ian,"

I

concluded.

"No report

I

said

and

said:

wanted to

"What

I

me

life

you

riled,"

I

"You cannot

to the popote,

ideal,

risk

is

He was

in

rapped his stick on the

We

Lastours

where

I

high

the chopper operation, so

said. "It's

it

bad for

was time

let

for a

my

arteries."

sundowner, so

found Dourakine, already on his

spirits, I

a sport."

your own."

Pernod (according to the saucer on the

leave."

fight a guerrilla

when war was

table,

"Over here, you revolting paper-pusher," he

my

civil-

"At least in a sport like mountain-

said.

was feeling disgusted, and

went over

one dead Arab

has war become but a sordid butchery?

"War was never a sport," climbing, the only

is

a report.

principles." Lastours

have completely lost the chivalric

"Don't get

file

will be filed," he said.

war with humanitarian table

I

that

and

I

I

first

one with each drink).

called. "I'm

back from

didn't feel like talking about

him pour

it

out.

He had

blackmailed

IN

THE BLED

85

Lastours into giving him a 48-hour pass by threatening to reveal

some of his hunting "I hit

"I

the gong" (a French expression for extravagance), he said.

went to Algiers and took a room

woman

every week,

"Easily,"

"In the

at the Aletti"

(one of the two

along with the Saint-Georges). "You know,

class hotels,

a

forays to divisional headquarters, or so he said.

I

I

go

nuts.

Can you understand

if

first-

don't have

I

that?"

said.

army

men

you're constantly around

—you yearn

for the

company of women."

One of his favorite

topics,

which he began to expound upon again,

was the connection between sex and call the

male orgasm

la petite

death. "After

mort [the

little

death].

he

all,"

said,

"we

You know, when

you have trouble coming because you've drunk too much, but you

work hard

at

pletely spent

it

and you shoot your wad, then you

and you

your body. But

left

there in total stillness, as

lie

it's

we're surrounded by death,

and the antidote

night,

is

we smell

your soul had

if

spasm that gives

a deathlike

over com-

roll

Out

life.

here,

we breathe death, day and

death,

sex, the affirmation of

life,

the procreative

urge."

"Well,"

I

said, "did

go well?"

it

"You know, whores depress me. your dick over the sink like

so predictable.

doing the laundry, and then

found one

I

I

liked,

young and

pretty,

and

I

she said, 'Listen, you, I'm not your fiancee.' That's Aletti.

I

night, again at the bar,

I

fat

my

took

why

I

good

hair,

wanted

'It's

to

too bad

On

the second

I

went by

their table

I

didn't

at the

want

good

in

skin,

on the way to the I

picked

it

up,

and

Maillot hospital."

to interfere with the flow.

buy them a drink, but the bar was

we

went to the

old Aletti whores.

They were nurses

didn't say anything.

"I

and

saw these two French gonzesses [broads]

smoking Camels.

started talking.

time,

first night,

men's room, and one of them dropped her lighter.

said,

feel

the

bar.

their late thirties, not bad, not beauties, clean-looking,

I

I

On

was looking for an opportunity. In the

nothing, just two of the regular

we

They wash

have to hurry up because I'm wasting their valuable time. Years

I

ago,

like they're

It's

can't have a nightcap.'

One of the

closing,

and

I

nurses, the one

TED MORGAN with the tight chestnut curls covering her head like a helmet,

'Why

don't

you come and have one

of cognac' Well,

knew

I

in

said,

our room? We've got a bottle

the nurses at Maillot were barracked in

dorms, so they must have taken a room for a

We got

recreation.

little

room, a big room with twin beds, and the other one, the

to the

reddish-blonde with a fringe across her brow, went straight for the

bathroom, and when she came out she was naked as a worm. Not

much

astonishes me, but

I

sat there astonished.

Then

went into the bathroom and she came out naked

Are you

too,

I'm no sissy,"

said. "I pulled off

I

my tie and

uniform, and the blonde said, 'Come on. Help

Remove

beds together.

Good God,

that night table,

it

was

legal.

my

Then they

'Come

said,

we

morning, humping them both. They

was glad

to see

up

like a tire

let

some of the from

I

and we went

at

it,

stayed there until four

said,

'We'd been

for usually

and ready to

in that

he was pumped

burst. In Algiers, he'd

pay him with

he

said, "in a

douar four

Arab carpenter

to build a

one-room

my own

Sometimes you have

money, and

I

gave him a gun

to trust these bastards."

At dawn the next morning, he

left

with his platoon for the douar,

where he found the schoolhouse torched and the carpenter and wife riddled with automatic

of SOfellaghas had fire to

fire.

The

villagers told

come through only an hour

the schoolhouse he had labored for

penter tried to stop them. wife,

the

"

my pet project,"

visiting

here. I've hired an

schoolhouse. just in case.

air

hold and

air out.

"Tomorrow, I'm klicks

much

I

at a

up.'

Dourakine so relaxed,

with too

for the lamp.'

the bed and started go-

on,'

didn't do.

bar since ten, waiting to get picked I

took off

get these two

head to get a good look

three of us, and there's nothing in the

said:

the referee at a wrestling match, walking

felt like

I

around the bed, dropping

me

and watch out

They hopped on

she was bossy.

ing at each other.

see if

and she

a sissy or something?'

"No, madam,

my

the second one

and when she

fell,

One

him

before.

months

that a

When

his

band

they set

to build, the car-

of the fels grabbed the carpenter's

he dragged her by the feet into an

carpenter pulled out his handgun and shot the feL

The

alley.

The

carpenter and

THE BLED

IN

his wife

were taken to the village square and executed and the children

villagers

leader then

warned the

for

whom

the school had been built. Their

men

from the

off into the hills.

led his platoon in the direction the villagers had

Dourakine

showed him and

hoping to catch up with the fels.

set a brisk pace,

kilometers farther, the point

trail into

in front of the

villagers against accepting help

French, before marching his

Two

87

man saw

footprints going off the

the brush and followed them. "There's a bush moving," he

called out.

"Take

five

men and

search the bushes," Dourakine told Sergeant

Lavigne. "If you find anybody,

They found a

weapon.

a

I

want him

wounded fellagha,

He was

left

alive."

behind by the others without

the one shot by the carpenter, hit in the shoulder

and bleeding profusely. The medic patched him up and gave him

some food and "We'll use

water.

him

as a guide,"

The Senegalese

point

man

Dourakine tied

said.

slowed them down, stopping every 100

any

mule dung.

When

walk."

still

one end of a rope around thefel's

neck and looped the other around his waist.

prints and

"He can

The

prisoner-guide

feet or so to

look for foot-

the ^/complained that he couldn't go

man poked him in the back with his rifle. "You wounded man this way," the fel called out to Dourakine.

farther, the point

can't treat a

Geneva Convention."

"I'm protected by the

"Write them a

The

trail

letter,"

Dourakine

replied.

narrowed into a corkscrew goat path, steeply rising to

the top of a 100-foot-high

cliff.

After reaching a eucalyptus grove at

the top, the platoon stopped to rest.

Some

of the

men

on the

sat

ground, cradling their weapons. Others leaned against the scrawny eucalyptus trees.

The

prisoner stood at the edge of the

down, with the rope around he jumped.

He would

his neck.

man was

looking

Then, without saying

a word,

have dragged the point

had the other end of the rope point

cliff,

sitting with

tied

around

two Senegalese

man

with him,

who

his waist, except that the friends,

who were

able to

cut the rope, even as the weight of the fallen y£/ pulled the point

toward the edge of the

cliff.

still

man

Luckily the fel weighed about 130 pounds,

TED MORGAN

88

while the Senegalese was a big, husky man. "You can't trust these bastards for one second," Dourakine said, "but what should

—

my report

that he

Moving off the

jumped

top of the

a scrub-covered plain.

To

I

write in

to his death or that he hanged himself?" cliff,

the trail meandered downhill into

the right of the scrub, cascades of boulders

were surmounted by slabs of

flat

rocks with overhangs like huge

upside-down frying pans with no handles. The point

man saw some

movement on top of the flat rocks and cried out, "Embuscade! PlanquezTake

vous!" ("Ambush!

cover!").

From the slabs of flat rock came heavy automatic fire. Dourakine and his men were caught on the plain. In the bedlam of battle, a mix of machine-gun bursts, rifle shots, grenades exploding, and men yelling and cursing,

way

led the

known

my

Dourakine called

across the open

for standing while the bullets

hands

dirty,"

Most

of the platoon

When

ground

he

out,

"Regroup, regroup," and

to the

were

woods beyond. He was

flying. "I don't like to get

said.

made

it

to the

woods, running or crawling.

Dourakine surveyed the open space through

he saw two Senegalese lying there.

One was

hit in

his binoculars,

both legs and

couldn't move, while the other had crawled near a boulder at an angle

was out of the

that

risk further losses least

one

from above. Dourakine did not want

to

by trying to retrieve the two men. Thefels had

at

line of fire

50-mm machine gun

trying to reach the wounded.

up there and could cut down anyone

He

told Lavigne:

"I'll

some

call in

choppers." In the meantime, he ordered the platoon to start the descent back to Champlain. the Senegalese, for

leaving

whom

There was some angry muttering among there

wounded men on the

precious

commodity

pick up the

was no worse military blunder than

field.

As

turned out, choppers were a

it

French army, and none were available to

in the

two wounded men, whose bodies were never found.

That evening,

I

went by Dourakine's

count of the day's events.

I

asked him

tent,

if

"Yes," he said, "but not at the popote. Let's

the Spaniard, for

some reason marooned

and he gave

me

an ac-

he wanted to get a drink.

go in

to the Spaniard's."

Champlain, ran

Pepe

a cafe

THE BLED

IN

where you could get tapas such

89

as olives, chickpeas,

and anchovies,

and the usual drinks.

When we old bullfight

down at a table in the small room decorated with posters, we saw, a few tables away, Lavigne and Lasat

roche, both Indochina veterans.

Dourakine

sat

with his back to them,

but they had a good start on us in terms of drinks, and as soon as sat

down, they raised "There's

all

one who pulled

was

their voices to

make

sure

we

could hear.

kinds of officers," Lavigne said, "good and bad.

me

Mekong

out of a rice paddy in the

we

I

had

when

Delta

I

hit in the knee."

"And bearers

I

had one," Laroche

when

said,

"who found some

Meo

stretcher-

had two ribs and a leg broken from shrapnel

I

Hong, and took me through the jungle for three days

until

at

Bong-

we reached

the hospital at Pleiku."

Dourakine,

silently

working himself into

hand

a fury, placed his

crosswise against his chest and said: "The mustard,

here,"

it is

mean-

ing that his anger was rising.

"And then there was that captain into artillery fire

and we had fourteen

Dourakine's face was beet red. said,

at

"The mustard,

it is

He

It

Dourakine holster,

Me

killed,"

Thuot who

Lavigne

sent us

said.

put his hand to his throat and

here."

"Yes," said Laroche, "and that night

into his tent.

Ban

someone lobbed

a

grenade

could happen again." leapt out of his chair, pulled his .45 automatic

lunged over to their

table,

and

from

said: "Let's settle this right

its

now."

"Lieutenant," Lavigne said, smiling broadly, "we were just talking."

"About the rain and the sunshine," Laroche "Get out of here right now," Dourakine at

your ugly

faces.

I'll

settle

your

bill."

said.

said. "I don't

want

to look

They slunk off, cackling under

their breaths.

"God's whore," Dourakine roared, died following

my

blow their noses.

combat

unit."

orders. But I'm I

want

"I'll

running

to transform this

never forget anyone a platoon.

who

I'm not here to

bunch of ragtails into a

TED MORGAN

90

"Good

luck,"

Three days

I

said.

later,

into a report in

Dourakine took

my BRg

Baba had been spotted

for

I

commissar nicknamed Ali

that a political

in a

warren of caves

came

the late afternoon, Lastours to tell

his platoon out again to look

my

into

in the Chiffa ravine. In

and

office

you that your friend Dourakine was

killed."

I

said, "I'm felt

sorry

bewildered,

had convinced myself that he had the baraka.

"Dourakine was leading

men

his

into the ravine," Lastours said,

"when zfellagha emerged from behind Dourakine beat him

a tree, shouldering his rifle.

and the fellagha dropped

to the draw,

spun around, and leaned both hands against the

tree.

another round into the man's back, and his hands

fired

bark of the tree and he they thought

fell,

folded in two.

at first that the fellagha

had

Dourakine was shot

thing. Like the fellagha,

Dourakine

slid

down

Then Dourakine

hit

his rifle,

fell,

the

and

him. But here's the odd in the back."

own men?" much we can do. They

"Are you saying that he was shot by one his "Well,

suspicious, but there's not

it's

brought his body back, but even

weapons they

man

Holy

attitude:

hell,

I

Don't rock the boat

lost a friend,

vitality,

can't

examine every

rifle

of every

—

it

as a

will

own men.

make

the

company look

my main

bad.

fascinating aspect.

It

stork,

I

me

clumsy and ungainly.

purpose was to survive. Although

war

is

I

the natural state of man,

heightened and magnified the knowl-

edge one had of oneself and of others,

extreme

That's the

and love of strong sensations. For

was not the eagle but the

did not take the Hobbesian view that its

his

form of self-expression, of his valor and

his pride

was also deadly, and saw

by

officers

though our views of the war were miles apart.

and also of

the bird of war

I

retrieve the bullet, the fels have

thought, he doesn't really care enough to investigate

murder of one of his

Dourakine saw the war

It

We

us.

we

in his platoon."

the possible

had

from

steal

if

all

caught and observed in

situations.

"In any case," Lastours said, "the

Laroche, took over.

Two men came

They found

a cave

two sergeants, Lavigne and and threw

in

smoke grenades.

out firing, and they were killed. Inside the cave they

THE BLED

IN

91

We

found another man, coughing and teary-eyed, with his hands up.

think he's the political commissar, but there were no papers on him. I've

got him in the shed, tied to a beam. We're going to interrogate

him.

We need to know who he is and what operations he has planned

in

our

an important catch, and

sector. He's obviously

find out

why

it's

vital that

we

he's here."

The fellagha had been strung up with zontal beam, so that

his wrists tied over a hori-

his feet didn't touch the

He wore a khaki

ground.

uniform without rank or insignia. His coarse black hair was cut short,

and he had a bushy beard and than

mustache. His gaze was more defiant

a

fearful.

asked him his name, but he did not reply. "Ask him the location

I

of his base camp," Lastours said.

"Ask him a

bit

more

punched him hard

I

started to lose

it.

I

choreographed. his line.

was It

Lastours

said.

in the stomach.

man

again. "Hakarabi. Makache."

cesses broke down.

asked him, and he did not reply.

forcefully,"

"Hakarabi. Makache," the

him

I

said. "I

I

don't know."

Then something happened

an altered

in

was

swear

state,

as if the scene

my

where

I

hit

to me.

I

mental pro-

had been rehearsed and

My role was to punch him, and his role was to repeat

This went on for about two minutes, and then he stopped

repeating.

Lastours I

I

was

felt

his pulse

horrified by

what

had not intended to

kill

and I

said, "He's dead.

had done.

I

And

he didn't

talk."

had killed a defenseless man.

him, but that didn't

make him any

less

dead.

"Place

me

under

arrest,"

I

said.

"Don't be ridiculous," Lastours said. [steambatfr] you sweat, and in ,

things.

I'll

find a couple of men to

Now that self that tell

I

losses.

to the

It's

hamarn

the logic of

bury him."

reconstruct the event almost 50 years

later,

I

tell

my-

nothing was simple, that there were wheels within wheels.

myself that

I

was blindly striking out

at a

war

I

hated, that

I

I

was

my friend, that I was assaulting my mirror image man who was giving me orders as much as the prisoner. But

sick over the loss of

and the

"When you go

war there are

TED MORGAN

2 then

I

Am

ask myself,

judge and jury find extenuating circumstances?

judge and jury, and said, "I refuse to

had to

do

I

Would a been my own

looking for excuses post facto?

I

can't let

this." It's

myself

off. I

I've

never protested.

I

never

a form of inner disfigurement that

I've

live with.

Later,

told

i

like to take

Lastours,

"I

can't

do

over Dourakine's platoon."

risks a platoon leader takes,

though

OR job

this I

my main

anymore.

I'd

the need to take the

felt

concern was not to lose

any of the men. "Well," Lastours said, "Dourakine

must be replaced, so

it

might

as well be you." It

was

in the first

kine's platoon.

I

week of November 1956

had to take stock,

sit

that

down and

I

took over Doura-

think, assess

what

I

had learned. With his blustering assurance, Dourakine had scorned the rebels,

who were

not to be scorned.

They had

a better

of the terrain, and most of the time they picked the

Their

officers lived the

same way

as their

men.

ished. Austerity prevailed.

handful of dates.

They

The fellaghas

site

severely pun-

could march and fight on a

carried out surprise attacks on small detach-

ments, to raise our body count and retrieve our weapons. mutilated our dead,

it

of battle.

No popote or weekends

Smoking and drinking were banned and

at the Aletti.

knowledge

was not an

When

act of rage but a directive

they

from the

FLN high command, to spread terror in the ranks of our troops. The rebels routinely executed pro-French Arabs, even (or particularly) if it

was an

elderly veteran

his burnous.

They

who wore

his

World

W ar r

I

decorations on

cut off his ears and his nose and put out his eyes

pour Vexemple. Their aim was to capsize the colonial order by getting rid of the beni oui-ouis

Arab

villages

(Uncle Toms). That way they could control the

and name tax collectors and

gave them the names of those

The

1st

RIC was

a

who

political

commissars who

didn't play along.

combat regiment, not part of the

quadrillage,

the grid of occupation units that protected farms and roads.

toons were sent on missions of various kinds

bondage

Our

pla-

et ratissage

THE BLED

IN

93

(search and destroy), ambushes, visits to outlying villages to keep

them pro-French, and verify

ID

Medea

patrols on the road to

One

off.

men spotted a suspiwoman as she climbed

of our

ciously muscular and hairy leg on a veiled

When

he approached

and stabbed him for

God's sake!"

off,

her, she

pretended to trip toward him

afatma" he shouted.

in the stomach. "It's not

A burst dropped

her,

and

as she

fell,

"Fire,

her veil slipped

we had to open a road Sometimes we visited the few re-

revealing a bushy black beard. Sometimes

with frying pans (mine detectors).

maining

colons.

As platoon ported from delicacy.

I

leader,

West

I

was given

Africa,

kept them under

a

monthly ration of kola nuts im-

which the Senegalese considered a great

my bed

in a locked

out like decorations, for valorous conduct.

about the size of a big walnut, I

and

cards. Just the previous week, a patrol had stopped a bus

and asked the passengers to get

down.

to stop buses

tried one,

and

it

was so

was candy. They had and

at

The

reddish kola nut,

one of the ingredients of Coca-Cola.

is

bitter

box and handed them

I

spit

it

out, but to the Senegalese

with meat and hot sauce,

a special diet of rice

meals they lined up with their gamelles (mess

the roulante

(field kitchen),

of their menu.

it

kits) in front

of

and never complained about the sameness

They were good

soldiers, well trained

and easy

to get

along with, as long as you didn't fuck them over.

My first assignment was to win over the sergeants, Laroche and Lavigne. Noncoms,

own

who knew

they would never be officers, had their

me

like

They had seen combat and had a it. They viewed conscripted officers

abrasive style and mentality.

chest full of decorations to prove

with bemused detachment

They knew

at best,

the routine, the army's arcane

tions. In

combat, they could save your

them on

my

life

at worst,

web of

rites

contempt.

and obliga-

or get you killed.

I

needed

side.

Both men were

in their forties

and had served

and Indochina before Algeria. They had dies,

and

and their wives.

said: "It's habit.

When

I

I

World War

II

bud-

why he stayed in, he life?" I knew it was more

asked Lavigne

What would I do in

than habit, though

in

lost their health, their

civilian

wasn't sure what

it

was. Lavigne looked a

little

TED MORGAN

94

bit like actor

blue eyes.

Jean Gabin, sandy-haired and fleshy-faced, with hard

He was

same

blunt and crafty at the

time. Laroche

and lanky with a dark complexion that hinted

at

was

tall

Caribbean origins.

His face was mottled with acne scars, but a carefully tended mustache gave

him

a veneer of urbanity.

Since they weren't allowed at the popote,

where we

took them to Pepe's,

I

pimento mustard that raised

ate grilled brochettes with a

down with liters of Medea red. way of showing me what they had

beads of sweat on the brow, washed

They wore

their decorations, as a

been through, row upon row of campaign ribbons studded with metal stars for citations.

frame.

It

Laroche had a purple one encased

didn't look French,

Distaignwish" he

and

asked him what

I

He'd served

said.

in the

in a gold-colored

it

was. "Ca,

French battalion

in

c'est la

Korea

and had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by the Americans.

"Look,

I

know

I'm a novice,"

I'm going to have to rely on the

I

never been in combat.

said. "I've

two of you."

"We'll do our jobs," Lavigne said.

was

"I

ing.

at

Dien Bien Phu," Laroche

"And now

I

a rifle fired off the target range.

doing

my

fifty klicks a day.

"Of course drill.

not,"

I

said.

When

Of course, "Look, you

he stared

said, as

have to take orders from

I

little

boys

at the ceil-

never heard

they were in diapers don't

know

mean

I

was

you, lieutenant."

the men.

You know the

You've got to teach me."

"Dourakine was arrogant," Laroche blurted

knew

who

out.

"He thought he

it all."

"And look where he ended

As

up,"

Lavigne exclaimed with disgust.

the evening wore on, they loosened up. Lavigne took the posi-

tion that just as in Indochina every native

Arabs werefels. "After

all,"

he

was

said, "they don't

a Viet, in Algeria all

wear uniforms, they

choose the hour, the day, and the place, and they ambush you and shoot you in the back." "After

all,"

Laroche chimed

in, filling his glass,

ing terrorism, mutilating corpses and to fight according to the rules of the

all

"they're practic-

the rest, and we're supposed

marquis of Queensberry."

IN

THE BLED

could sense that their mistrustful

I

started

war

to tell

adversary.

The

wasn't yet an equal, but

I

it

they

was also the

was no longer an

conversation revolved around battles fought and ve-

nereal diseases caught.

back pocket," Laroche detail a strain

I

mood had changed when

was partly the wine, but

stories. It

beginning of inclusion.

95

"We

always carried a vial of penicillin in our

said, "just in case."

"unknown

in Europe,"

He

described in gruesome

which they dubbed "the cock's

comb."

"What

the Viets were

good

at

tinued after pausing for thought.

was

Laroche con-

inflicting pain,"

"When

they caught you, they

made

small cuts in your back and chest and rubbed the cuts with wild honey.

Then they

you to a

tied

and soon the red ants came,

tree,

at-

tracted by the smell of honey."

"On the beach low

tide

came

in

at

Da Nang," Lavigne recalled,

and sank you

in

it

"they

dug

a hole at

so only your head showed, and the tide

and covered your throat, your chin, and

your head." Lavigne and Laroche were

finally

went over

one-time visitors to a

like

foreign country reminiscing about points of interest, such as the ro-

manesque churches of France or the

Uffizi in Florence,

and recalling

the experience with evident relish.

Our

time out, our mission was to

first

visit a

supposedly friendly

village in the hills about 10 miles south of Champlain.

the platoon to a point where

we had

to start walking,

Trucks drove and

it

took a

couple of hours to reach the douar over a treeless and rocky terrain.

When we came down

the single dusty street, skinny chickens ran

across our paths and children in rags scurried like clay

douar smelled strongly of olive

armed with About

a

your

a

was

oil.

On

megaphone, summoned

dozen appeared,

The women It

down

alleys.

The box-

houses had small windows covered by blue shutters, and the

all

the square, our interpreter,

all

the

men

over the age of

15.

of them either very old or very young.

stayed out of sight behind their blue shutters.

my job

village, but

to give the villagers a

you must help

us.

pep

talk:

"We want peace

in

Keep us informed. Confide your

anxieties and suspicions."

A

heavyset

man

in his fifties

approached Lavigne,

whom

he

TED MORGAN

seemed

know, and said

to

vigne ignored him. believe

"I

swear

it's

Lavigne

The

I

you when you

believe

man

said.

"Why

don't

La-

you

you hadn't seen any rebels?"

said

said.

village elder, a white-bearded

came up and gave me

man

"I

white bur-

in a spotless

a military salute.

Medea?" he asked in Arabic.

ID

true," the

rebels.

me?"

"Didn't

nous,

had been stolen by

his horse

me

"Can you take

need to see a doctor.

I

to

don't have an

card."

"Ask him

how

old he

told the interpreter.

is," I

"He says he doesn't know. He's

lived like a pebble in a stream."

"Type up an ID card for him," age on

I

said. "Just

put an approximate

it."

The old Arab bowed in thanks and said to the interpreter: "Look how things are here. There's no school. The road is in such bad shape vehicles can't use

town

it.

Why

build a road for Arabs?

for supplies; the rebels stop us

We

go

can't

to

on the way back and take what

we've bought."

"When you see rebels, you should tell us," "How long are you here for?" the old man "What

he's really saying,"

information and then

we

Laroche

I

said.

asked.

said, "is that if

they give us

leave, the rebels will kill them."

We had brought along some buckets of whitewash and brushes. was under orders

to paint

walls of the houses: plied the

Lavigne

Major Fourcade's

said:

"This reminds

me of the Viet

President Ho.'

"The way "is

we used to see on French Colonialists. Long Life to

"

this works," said

jobs with the fels.

They

their cellars, or there

be neutral.

in stony silence,

slogans

Laroche, as he slapped a

that there are always a few villagers

a safe distance.

on the

the Senegalese ap-

whitewash and the villagers looked on

the walls in Hanoi: 'Death to the

cheek,

favorite slogan

arm y= peaces prosperity. As

I

Our

on

fly

his

who have marginal

serve as mail-drops, or they store supplies in

might be one who

objective

is

to

can't resist firing at us

show them

We have to come by and

show the

that there

is

from

no way to

flag so they will

know

THE BLED

IN

we

are in control.

you

bla-bla-bla,

You give

97

the standard speech,

and the village elder

replies

we

are here to help

we only want peace

bla-

bla-bla."

Some kicking

children had rolled up scraps of cloth into a ball and were

it

around on the other side of the square. "You see those

how many men

kids?" Lavigne said. "They count us, to see

When

and what weapons we're carrying. friendly.

we've got

seem

we're here, they

But when we're gone, they help the fels cut down telephone

wires and dig trenches in the road."

And

so

I

some

into a routine of patrols,

fell

hours and some several days.

When

lasting only a few

you're out on patrol, time be-

comes warped, slow motion when marching under forward when shots are

fired,

a leaden sky, fast

and space becomes four-dimensional,

the fourth dimension being the palpable expectation of death. to avoid high-risk situations, it

and the sergeants agreed with

I

tried

me

that

wasn't always wise to seek contact with the rebels. Sometimes, in

an exposed position, we

few bursts in the hope that the noise

fired a

would scare them off if they were close platoon was resting behind an

ing feet and twigs breaking. "Djib

said

them.

el

mas" ("Give

by.

Once on night

embankment when we heard marchI

could

me some

make out what one of them

water").

There were too many of

We stayed put.

Another time,

in the

bed of a dry oued

(river),

Lavigne

getting the ticklish feeling that I'm in someone's sights."

onds

patrol, the

later, firing

came from the

far bank,

men

yelling,

A

few sec-

and the din was stomach-

churning, the bursts of gunfire and exploding grenades,

running,

said: "I'm

men

hit,

men

"Where's the lance-patate?" ("potato thrower,"

or grenade launcher). "Where's the medic, where's the sergeant?"

was

afraid that

much

when

the time came,

I

I

might panic, but there was too

to think about, the correct orders to give for the

deployment of

the platoon, the correct tactics to adopt, whether to call in aerial support, finding the coordinates It

was

like

slaloming without hitting any gates. In the end,

more of our In the

on the map, attending to the wounded. it

was one

inconclusive encounters.

week between Christmas and

New Year's, my platoon was

98

in its first big battle.

The

rebels were on the

did not abide by the holiday season.

Our

Moslem

calendar and

intelligence told us that a

in the El Habous mounwhen we left at dawn, The trucks, tains southeast of Champlain. took us past the last colon vineyard. The rows of vines were as neatly

band of about SOfellaghas were entrenched

aligned as the strands in an Arab rug and the spotted trunks of

eucalyptus trees lined the road.

The sun

sherbet, giving no warmth,

pale light flickering between the

its

rose, a

scoop of orange

trees.

At the base of the mountain cork trees grew. trees.

I

The

was armed with

effective

also had

up to 20

two 24-29

narrow valley where groves of

patrol advanced on the stunted, thick-barked

with few moving parts.

was

lay a

a

MAT 49 submachine gun, a reliable weapon

feet,

FMs

single shot or in bursts,

handle also held the 24-bullet

Its

though

it

clip,

and

tended to swing to the right.

(fusil-mitrailleurs),

which could be

it

We

fired in

from the hip or lying down and lowering the

attached tripod, as well as a

30-mm machine gun and two 81-mm

mortars.

Coming up good

order,

to the cork forest,

and

I

I

wanted

to see if my

clump of

fired a burst into a

MAT was in

laurel bushes.

The

bushes fired back, and the platoon ran for cover in the trees, returning

fire.

About

six rebels

made

El Habous ridge, and one was

a

run for the path that snaked up the

body. "Be careful," Lavigne called out.

The fel had pulled him so that when he was

rolled over

lese

dragged him by the

feet so that

was

still

dead."

search the

completely

the pin from a grenade and held

it

under

would explode. The Senega-

it

when

the grenade exploded

it

under him. Nonetheless, the Senegalese caught some shrap-

nel in his legs.

do

man out to "He may not be

sent a

hit. I

"It's

an old

trick,"

Lavigne

said.

"The Viets used

to

it."

Laroche,

were

who was

in position. Before

operating the radio, told

we shoved

out,

I

me

the field guns

had asked for artillery prep-

aration.

"Orange

gunnery

to green, are

officer.

you receiving me?" Laroche asked the

THE BLED

IN

"Five out of five" ("Roger").

"We're under

"We

Hard

fire.

how many." mountain. Maybe twenty

to tell

can see activity on the

or thirty."

"Are you ready to fire?" "Affirmative."

The 105-mm howitzers fell

end of the cork grove, where there was an an-

short, at the other

cient,

started blasting away, but the first shells

untended Moslem cemetery with moss-covered graves.

"You're hitting the

Moslem

cemetery," Laroche told the gunnery

officer.

"Today,

it's

the turn of the dead," he replied.

"They can only After the

I

Laroche

said.

guns had hammered the rebel emplacements, we

field

started up the

mountain.

die once,"

narrow track cut into the

side of the sun-scorched

already had one wounded, and

I

thought of T. E. Law-

who said that the art of war lay in getting as few as possible of your men killed. The sundry ways of seeing a landscape also crossed my mind. The geologist saw strata; the geographer saw meridians; rence,

the naturalist, flora and fauna; the painter, a picturesque cork forest

with a pretty stream winding through

it

and a mountain

in the back-

ground; and the soldier saw firing zones and places to take cover, a

drop cloth

Up

for battles.

we marched, in single file, at Laroche, who was right behind me with

the steep, four-foot-wide incline

ten-foot intervals, except for

the field radio strapped to his back.

At a hairpin turn

with an almost vertical wall of rock on

yawning void a rebel burst,

to the

armed with and he

fell,

ground 100

a

rifle. I

fired first.

I

feet below,

had the

dropping his

Nazi eagle on the stock.

my

right I

and on

came

my

rifle,

a

World War

was shaken by

a

left

the

face-to-face with

MAT in firing position. II

fired a

I

Mauser with

wave of relief

at

a

having

That body on the ground with the thin stream of blood

coming out of its mouth could have been mine. The in the least dramatic. It street,

in the path,

except that

quicker than

his,

was

casual, as if bumping into

we were armed and my

and

I

incident

had a better weapon.

reflex

was not

someone

was half

in the

a second

TED MORGAN "You've got the baraka, Lieutenant," Laroche said, as he pushed the body off the path with his feet to the ground below.

think he was the lookout for the main bunch,"

"I

I

said.

"They're dug into holes up there behind the rocks," he said, "and

FM."

they've got at least one

"Lob some mortar

shells up,"

gradual, "and bring up your

said, as the slope

I

in cross fire,

highest point you can reach, a ledge

at the

move

FMs

men through

the

if

grew more

and the machine gun

you can find one, and

the thorn thickets. Don't follow the path."

The Senegalese scrambled

up, looking like

armed mountain-

climbers, grabbing at bushes and slabs of rock, protected by the

heavy

fire

of the

FMs, mortars, and machine guns.

above a boulder to aim his

him backward, and

rifle.

I

saw

a rebel rise

A burst from one of our FMs knocked

his rifle slipped

from

his

hands and bounced from

boulder to boulder.

We above

reached a kind of clearing, with the rebels dug in 30 meters

at the

top of the ridge. "The high

command

sends us out on an

operation after looking at a map," Laroche said. "They have no idea

what the terrain looks

The

like."

platoon took positions in the clearing, which was like a nar-

row, sloping Alpine meadow, with no grass, just bare earth. sniper hit a Senegalese five feet to fell

my

left.

He

A

rebel

cried out in pain and

behind a clump of bushes as the medic tried to reach him. La-

vigne ran past me, saying, "I'm going to get that bastard." fine shot

and carried

his bolt-action

He was

a

MAS 56 with a scope.

Lavigne crawled from bush to bush

until he could see,

80

feet

away, a small square of khaki, about six inches wide, in the space

between two boulders. He aimed and

fired twice

and the khaki square

disappeared.

Shaken by the

artillery

barrage and our automatic

fire,

the rebels

we approached. One wounded Senegalese chased him down and shot

started climbing out of their holes as fel,

limping, tried to run.

him.

He

turned out to be their

dished the

meant

A

FM

a citation.

FM gunner, and the Senegalese bran-

above his head, knowing that a weapon recovered

IN

Another rebel lay on

his

THE BLED

10,

back with blood streaming out of an

ugly gash in his stomach. Lavigne stood over him. "Don't the rebel said. "I'm a lieutenant in the

Army).

"If

you evacuate

me

information." Lavigne gave

ALN"

by helicopter,

him

I

me,"

kill

(National Liberation

can give you important

the coup de grace.

"He was too

far

As

for

gone," he said. "He'd have died before the chopper got here."

the rebel sharpshooter between the boulders, Lavigne found his body

slumped backward with two bullets

We recovered

in his chest.

seven bodies, which

we

down

carried

to the clear-

ing and lined up, for a chopper to evacuate for burial. As they lay on their backs, their faces

squeeze one

Back

in

last

had the contorted look of men trying to

breath from their lungs.

Champlain,

I

reported to Lastours,

who

warmly. "What a splendid tableau de chasse" ("hunt

greeted

tally"),

he ex-

claimed, rubbing his hands. "Seven dead! This will improve

weekly report immeasurably. I'm putting you "Don't forget that "In any case,

I

don't

a citation.

my

in for a citation."

we have two dead and one wounded,"

want

me

What I want

is

I

said.

to get out of this

hole for a few days."

"Granted," Lastours said. "A forty-eight-hour pass in the

week of January

1957."

first

PART

II

Introduction:

from

Why

the

How the War Moved Bled

to

Algiers

did the rebels turn from war

in the bled to the

urban terrorism that became the Battle of Algiers? The

brunt of the war had been borne by the peasant masses.

The

FLN

had to get the apathetic and divided urban population in-

volved to show world opinion that they represented

November

1955,

Abane Ramdane, known

rebellion for his intransigence,

years in French prisons.

in the

Casbah

acres.

after four

Abane was

distributing pamphlets in bas-

kets of vegetables that said "Arise, people of Algiers."

man

By

of the highest popula-

— 80,000 Arabs on 45

commandos and

the people.

as the Robespierre of the

The Casbah had one

tion densities in the world

recruiting teams of

was back

all

Abane was

a

who won the respect of by going on a 40-day hunger strike. He was tenacity made well as a fatalist who predicted that he would never see inde-

small, sinewy

with a deeply lined face

his jailers flesh, as

pendence, for he would be dead by then*

*In

December

the movement.

1957, he

was murdered by other

FLN leaders in a struggle for control of

TED MORGAN

106

Abane

recruited Yacef Saadi, a child of the Casbah. Yacef worked

he was 25 years

in his father's bakery. In 1955,

old,

with big brown eyes in a face where one could

ble,

dapper and volusee the mis-

still

chievous child, despite his mustache. Yacef was a bit of a posturing braggart, but he had organizational

ability.

He was

a

proponent of

urban terrorism and told Abane he wanted to turn the Casbah into a fortress

and send teams of bombers into the European

One bomb

in the rue Michelet,

bled.

he

said,

was worth

But for the moment, he focused on the

city.

five battles in the

political cleansing of the

Casbah.

known

Yacef recruited Ali Amar,

as Ali-la-Pointe, because he

came from the beach town of Pointe Pescade. the Casbah streets.

who

as yaouleds

tined

tall

sold single cigarettes

him

to

and

who

carried

athletic,

and

his

and chewing

little

children

gum

die,"

known

by the stick

wooden shoeshine

boxes. Ali

good looks and wavy hair predes-

pimpdom, with the required brutal streak and

Tais-toi ("shut up")

("March or

schooling had been

He was one of the semiabandoned

or lottery tickets or

grew up

Ali's

on the top of his

left

tattoos:

hand and Marche ou

creve

the motto of the Foreign Legion) over his heart.

Arrested for pimping in 1954, Ali was sentenced to two years in

Barberousse prison, located above the Casbah. Since common-law criminals were thrown in with politicals, Barberousse became a recruiting

ground

for the

who told him his name with an

FLN.

militants

it

signed

X.

When

Ali's fallow

mind was

fertilized

was because of colonialism that he

he was released in 1956, he met Yacef at the

flea

by

still

market on

the Boulevard de Verdun outside the prison, and said he was ready to help. Ali

was

ers in the

a catch.

He was

violent by nature, and he

knew

Casbah milieu of pimps, gangsters, and drug

the play-

dealers, their

names and hangouts, and which ones were informers. In late 1955 and early 1956, urban terrorism

Arab

police informers. Yacef s next

move was

was limited

to declare

—

He became the strict enforcer of Islamic morals no alcohol, drugs, or movies. The tactic was intended to bring

pegre (gangsters).

smoking,

to killing

war on the

the Casbah population under the control of the

FLN.

INTRODUCTION:

HOW THE WAR MOVED FROM THE BLED TO

ALGIERS

107

Yacef had informers inside Barberousse, an ancient fortress with high, thick, whitewashed walls and a great entrance door painted black. In

mid-May

1956, he

was

told that a

van had brought sealed

cases into the prison containing the parts of a guillotine: the blade,

the scaffolding, the basket. In the basement of Barberousse there

two rows of narrow

a death row,

cells

doors.

Word

rebels,

would be guillotined on June

One

got out that two of the

near Oran in the a cave

men on

death row, both

1954.

The second man,

the Mitidja plain.

A

Ferradj Abdel-Kader,

was

stolen.

Trapped

in

in the temple,

He

and sentenced to a

farm worker

in

neighboring farm burned down, and soldiers

found an old bicycle in a ditch. Ferradj admitted

had been

captured

eye without touching his brain.

hospitalized, then tried by a military tribunal,

death.

officer,

and wounded twice, Zabana had shot himself left

FLN

19.

month of the war, November

first

but the bullet exited from his

was

with tiny openings in the

men was Ahmed Zabana, an FLN

of the

was

He proclaimed

it

was

his but said

it

his innocence before a military court.

Although there was no other evidence against him, and although he

was not given

a lawyer to defend him, he too

In France, of which Algeria

tence was rarely carried out.

was sentenced

was supposedly

When

to death.

a part, the death sen-

the executions were announced,

the highest religious authorities in Algeria

—the grand

mufti, the

Protestant pastor, and Monsignor Duval, the archbishop of Algiers

pleaded with the governor-general, Robert Lacoste, to exert his in-

Rene Coty, who could pardon the two. Lacoste

fluence over President replied,

"Blood must be answered with blood." Privately, Lacoste told

his aides that if he

to

wanted cooperation from the

throw a few Arabs

On June

19,

the shutters of

ultras,

he would have

to the wolves.

guards walked down the death row corridor, closing

all

the cells, so that none of the inmates would

who was

being removed. As soon as the

ters they

began

men

to shout, "Tahya el-Djazair"

Zabana was taken out ing a shirt with no

collar.

the guillotine, with

its

first,

know

heard the clap of the shut-

("Long

live Algeria").

manacled, with ankle chains, wear-

Guards

led

him across the courtyard

scaffolding, slanted blade, pulley system,

to

and

TED MORGAN

108

basket for the head to

fall into,

where a hooded executioner waited

with the prison warden. At the foot of the guillotine, he cried, die,

but Algeria will

circle

live."

He

knelt and placed his neck in the semi-

below the blade. The executioner pushed

The heavy

will

"I

his torso forward.

blade dropped, and the basket with his head in

was

it

removed.

A

few minutes

quietly.

later

He screamed

it

was the turn of

that he

who

Ferradj,

was innocent and

did not go

himself go limp,

let

and had to be half-dragged, half-carried into the courtyard, as the

women

you-yous of the Casbah

rose like rolling thunder.

In ordering the executions, Lacoste broke the unwritten compact

FLN

that the

men on

would not

kill

any Europeans

death row were spared. Yacef Saadi was

out reprisals.

On

long as

in Algiers as

now

its

obliged to carry

June 22, handguns were distributed to his teams of

young men. They were

told to place

on their victims' bodies a

flyer

saying, "Zabana and Ferradj, you are avenged." For three days the reprisals continued,

and there was blood on the sidewalks of down-

town Algiers. In the summer of 1956, Algiers was no longer European

capital. In July, there

tions that they

daring rebel

mer

were so many attacks on police

were ordered to place sandbags

Yacef was running

who

five

armed teams under Mokta Bouchafa,

The day

a

sum-

Barberousse were being beaten with iron

bars and given salt water to drink. the head guard on his

sta-

at the entrances.

received information that in the swamplike

heat, the politicals in

the head.

a serene

The

way home and

after that,

next day his

killed

men ambushed

him with two

two other guards were

killed,

more. Conditions inside the prison quickly improved, and

bullets to

then four

life

became

bearable for the dozens of FLN inmates. It

was Bouchafa who had the

as couriers.

idea of recruiting

Moslem women were

that they did not arouse suspicion

young Arab

girls

kept in such a subservient state

and could move

in

and out of the

Casbah without being searched.

Now eration.

Timsit,

that he

had couriers, Yacef launched his bomb-making op-

He found a 24-year-old Jewish Communist chemist, Daniel who was an intern at Mustapha Hospital, in his fifth year of

INTRODUCTION:

HOW THE WAR MOVED FROM THE BLED TO

ALGIERS

109

medical school. Timsit had been radicalized by the anti-Semitic decrees of the Vichy government, which forced his expulsion from school.

He knew something about

explosives,

and Yacef found him

a

European suburb of Birkadem, where he worked on mak-

villa in the

ing fulminate of mercury for detonators, of which he produced 300

grams. Despite his precautions, such as carrying his

on August 3

in a routine search

came three days

when

later,

MAT 49 under his

Moktar Bouchafa was arrested

armpit, fixed by thick rubber bands,

on the rue Marengo. Another blow

the police raided the villa in Birkadem,

though Timsit was not there

at the time.

Then, on the night of Au-

gust 9 came a harsh ultra reprisal in the upper Casbah. Four houses

exploded on the rue de Thebes, and 60 bodies were found in the ruins.

Firemen did not arrive

until

two hours

after the explosion,

and

the police did nothing to find the bombers.

Later that month, Abane Ramdane,

FLN

other

leaders, left to attend the

20 to September

who was

Soummam

in Algiers

with

Congress (August

Enraged by the rue de Thebes massacre, he

10).

urged that the war be brought to the capital with the use of bombs in

The FLN leaders approved the formation of and made Algiers an autonomous zone apart from

the European quarters.

an Algiers front

the wilayas and headed by Ben M'Hidi, one of the top five leaders,

who was

already in the Casbah.

was

It

to use

matter.

after the

bombs

in

bombing

downtown

The personnel

at the

rue de Thebes that Yacef began

Making bombs was no simple welders to make casings, artificers to

Algiers.

included

connect the detonators to alarm clocks, chemists to prepare the explosive, transporters to

agents to place them.

Mustapha

convey the bombs, and European-looking

The

lab

Hospital. Yacef s

equipment came from sympathizers

bomb team worked

a 24-year-old chemistry student,

Arab

girls

at

10 hours a day, led by

Taleb Abderrahmane. Three more

were recruited, Zohra Drif, the daughter of a caid (Mos-

lem judge) from Tiaret, blond and pale-skinned; Samia Lakhdari,

a

22-year-old law student; and Djamila Bouhired, green-eyed with light

brown

hair.

All three could pass for European.

TED MORGAN

110

On

September 30, 1956, a Sunday, the

first

bombs were

ready,

nine-inch-long cylinders with heavy cast-iron casings. Yacef sum-

moned

Drif, Lakhdari,

and Bouhired,

all

French-speaking and wear-

ing European clothes, and carrying beach bags.

was

still

what could be more normal? He gave them

in Algiers, so

nations.

It

The

Cafeteria and the

Milk

summer

their desti-

Bar, both near the university

and popular with students, and the Air France terminal. The looked nervous.

Who wouldn't be?

"But in those places," Samia Lakhdari said, it's

women and "Look

at

it

"it's

not just soldiers,

children." this way,"

thousands of our

The

girls

"Any questions?" Yacef asked.

Yacef said, "the French have killed tens of

women and

era of suicide

children, through famine

bombers was yet

were always deposited

and

disease."

to come. In Algiers, the

bombs

by couriers who

before

in public places

left

they exploded.

The

timers were fixed for 6:30 pm. Zohra Drif arrived at the

Milk Bar on the rue

The

terrace

d'Isly at 5:00,

with an hour and a half to

was crowded with young people, and she entered

narrow room.

Inside, she

found a

paid as soon as she was served.

little table,

When

she pushed her bag under a chair and

The

a long,

ordered a sherbet, and

the clock on the wall said 6:15, left.

Cafeteria on the rue Michelet, across the street

university,

kill.

was packed with the golden youth of Algiers. In

from the a breach

of security, Samia Lakhdari brought her mother with her for comfort.

They

sat

near the jukebox to the right of the entrance and stuck

the bag between the jukebox and the wall. At the Air France counter in the

Mauritania building, Djamilah Bouhired asked for a

schedule, sat across the waiting

bag beneath

room

in

flight

an armchair, and placed her

it.

The Air France bomb failed to detonate. The casualties from the two other bombs were 2 dead and 10 seriously wounded and requiring amputation, their ages 13 to 20.

A

French sympathizer told

Abane Ramdane on the night of September 30 on

civilians

that

random

attacks

would only deepen the divide between the two communi-

INTRODUCTION:

don't see any difference between a girl placing a

ties. "I

Milk

HOW THE WAR MOVED FROM THE BLED TO

Bar,"

Abane

lage or firing

The

said,

napalm

ALGIERS

bomb

111

at the

"and a French aviator bombing an Arab

vil-

into a mechta £house]."

colons of Algiers

were badly shaken.

If a car backfired,

people

jumped. Samia Lakhdari told Yacef that her fiance didn't want her carrying any more bombs. She got married and

left for

Switzerland.

Daniel Timsit was arrested on October 22. Ben M'Hidi, a short,

man who wore wire-rim glasses and had a scar over his uptook command of the Algiers Autonomous Zone. He was a

slender

per

lip,

man

of the people, willing to take the same risks as his men. Algiers

was now

r

a super-wilaya.

Where

else could so

many enemies

of the

French be found crowded together?

Ben M'Hidi's strategy was

to

make

European population. They had

for the

to think twice about taking

the bus or going to a cafe. In November,

from Morocco, came into the Casbah,

They

more weapons, smuggled

in fruit

to the size of a

pack of cigarettes.

Ben M'Hidi asked Yacef

to carry out

some targeted

assassina-

Spreading fear in the population was not enough. Colon leaders,

who shaped

the anti-Arab mentality that filtered

had to be held accountable as

well.

down

Yacef drew up a

notables to assassinate." At the top of the

list

74-year-old

tence for

all

Amedee

Froger,

who clamored

arrested rebels. In Boufarik, he had a

who hunted down FLN

militants and tied

to the masses,

list

of "French

was the number-one

reactionary, the head of the Federation of Mayors and farik,

in

and vegetable trucks.

included plastic explosives, powerful enough to reduce the

bombs tions.

as unpleasant as possible

life

mayor of Bou-

for the death sen-

gang of bodyguards

them

to trees

and shot

them. Froger kept an apartment in Algiers, at 108 rue Michelet.

December 28

at

9:50 am, he

left

chauffeur-driven 403 Peugeot.

On

the building to get into his gray,

An Arab

approached and

fired three

shots at close range. Froger, sitting next to his driver, slumped over,

and the

killer fled in a

of the status quo on

waiting

car.

The

funeral of this rabid enforcer

December 29 turned

pieds-noirs ("black feet," as settlers

were

into a riot. called,

Crowds of young

supposedly because

TED MORGAN

112

the Alsatians arrived in Algeria with black shoes) vandalized

Arab

and beat up or shot Arab passersby. The police did nothing

stores

to

decrease the body count of 4 dead and 50 wounded.

By December

1956, Yacef had 1,400

armed men

in Algiers

and

suburbs. Lacoste complained that "we're fighting terrorists, and

its

The war had spread to Algiers, and the police were ineffective. They could not penetrate the FLN networks and rarely made an arrest. Lacoste realized he had to put the army in charge of security in the capital. He wanted an Indochina veteran who had fought the Viets. The job went to a 58-year-old five-star general, Raoul Salan, we

don't

whose

know

how."

had been shaped by the wars that France had fought

in the

twentieth century. Born in 1899, the son of a tax collector, he

grew

up

life

in the

southern city of Nimes, with

its

Roman

ruins and Spanish

bullfights.

Salan's career

was spent

in colonies that

in a succession of costly efforts followed

personality in large part were an

the French protectorate of Syria, rebels.

At

It

lost,

His mentality and

failure.

amalgam of those experiences. In he was wounded fighting Islamic

Sent to Indochina in 1924, he ended up spending 17 years

broken up by other assignments.

there,

Salan

by

France eventually

that time, the enemies

commanded

wasn't a bad

life,

were smugglers and

pirates, not Viets.

troops but also administered a Laotian province.

and

were tempted to go

it

was certainly picturesque. French

native. Salan

officers

smoked the occasional pipe of

opium, a pleasantly harmless form of relaxation, which earned him the nickname

Le Chinois, according to the malicious

smoking made your skin turn yellow. He took law wife,

who bore him

When desk

at the

his wife.

Bouguin,

a Laotian

opium-

common-

a son, Francois, in 1932.

he went back to France in 1937, assigned to the Asian

Ministry of Colonies, he took his son with him, but not

On the whom

boat going over, he met a young

He joined

woman, Lucienne

he married. His career advanced, but not by leaps

and bounds. He was promoted to captain 1940.

tattle that

de Gaulle as a colonel in the 10th

and

to

major in

Armored

Division

in 1929,

INTRODUCTION:

HOW THE WAR MOVED FROM THE BLED TO

ALGIERS

113

of the famed "King Jean" (Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny). In 1945,

he followed de Lattre to Indochina, where the Viets had taken over

from the Japanese occupier and a war was on. Salan stayed 1953, and

was

until

commander-in-chief, during which time he or-

briefly

dered a counterattack on a strong point captured by the Viets, called

Dien Bien Phu. He had

left

Indochina by the time the counterattack

took place and thus had nothing to do with the final battle, except for contributing to Dien Bien Phu

becoming ingrained

s

in

French mili-

tary thinking.

Three years soldier in the

of

medium

white

hair,

brown

later,

now

a five-star general

French army, he was summoned to Algiers. Salan was

height but stood ramrod straight.

eyes,

to stay

and the strong nose of a

known

a full

head of

large, deep-set

Roman proconsul. His years in He was courteous, elegant, re-

as a political general.

But though he had learned

on good terms with the revolving-door

lieved, as did the other its

He had

which some said was blued, thick brows,

Asia had given him an oriental calm. served, and

and the most decorated

politicians,

he be-

Indochina hands, that the military had done

job there but the politicians had not. Now, in Algeria, he would

not

let that

happen again.

Salan arrived in Algiers on of him as the

been there

man who had

at the end.

mason and an opium

They

November

15,

lost Indochina,

1956.

The ultras thought

even though he had not

revived the rumors that he was a Free-

addict, not to be trusted,

and that he was so

vain that he slept with his bananes (decorations) under his pillow.

who had fought in a dozen countries since 1917, always honorand who carried scars seen and unseen, did not at first grasp the

Salan, ably,

dimensions of the Algerian dilemma, though he continued to believe that France without her empire

was not France.

Lacoste went to Paris on January

He had

picked up rumors that the

4, 1957, for a

FLN

cabinet meeting.

planned a general strike in

Algiers later in the month, to be timed with a debate on Algeria in the United Nations.

The

week, to show that the to be stopped.

strike,

FLN

intended to paralyze Algiers for a

controlled the

Moslem

population, had

TED MORGAN

114

Three days

later,

back in Algiers, Lacoste

commander of

Jacques Massu,

the 10th Paratroop Division, and

asked him to take over the security of the

from the

Morocco

city.

Recently returned

Suez expedition, Massu was 49, a fourth-generation

failed

who had graduated from Saint-Cyr

soldier

summoned General

as a second lieutenant in a

1930 and been sent to

in

regiment of colonial infantry. In

1940, he joined de Gaulle and served under General Philippe Leclerc

Armored Division

de Hautecloque, whose 2nd gust 25, 1944. ber,

liberated Paris

on Au-

on Avenue Kle-

into the Hotel Majestic,

which was occupied by the German high command, with a single

soldier,

50

Massu walked

who was

officers

killed in the street

by

and 300 men surrendered.

a sniper. "I

He yelled

"Raus," and

didn't even have to take

my

Colt out of the holster," he recalled.

One of the nurses and ambulance drivers

in the division, Lieuten-

ant Suzanne Rosenberg, was attracted to the strapping, no-nonsense six-footer.

She was married

to a

much

older man, the well-known

Paris lawyer Henri Torres, but she divorced ried

him

1948 and mar-

in

Massu. She helped smooth the edges of this rough diamond, one

maxims was "When you're not fighting, you're training." Massu followed Leclerc to Indochina, where the French were us-

of whose

ing tanks in the

Mekong

Delta. But in this kind of guerrilla war,

He tried his first jump at the age of 39, and soon took command of a para regiment. It was

paratroopers were the answer.

landing clumsily,

then that he came to the attention of Salan,

when he

established or-

der in a French neighborhood of Saigon, after a Viet massacre.

Massu

left

men were

Indochina in 1951, convinced that his

fight-

ing without the backing of the government or the people of metropolitan France.

From

the ministries, he 1955,

still

1951 to 1954, having ruffled

was relegated

a colonel,

he was

command

his general's star

in place, the division

To Massu's

Africa,

and

in

and was transferred

of the 10th Paratroop Division, which

he had to create from the ground up.

ments

West

feathers in

sent to Tunisia.

That June, however, he got to Algeria to take

to staff jobs in

some

was given

A

year

its first

disgust, the Suez expedition

later,

with four regi-

assignment: Suez.

was aborted,

for he

was

INTRODUCTION:

HOW THE WAR MOVED FROM THE BLED TO

convinced that

if

The

have

"I

full

FLN

with funds and

10th Division returned in December, just in time to

On

take over police powers in Algiers.

Massu:

115

they could remove Nasser, the war in Algeria could

be quickly won, since Nasser was supplying the

weapons.

ALGIERS

am going

to entrust

With your

powers.

January

you with order

division,

you

1957, Lacoste told

7,

You

in Algiers.

will get this city

will

under

control."

Upon returning to Massu told his chief of

his headquarters at the Orleans barracks, staff,

Colonel Yves Godard:

"I've just

been

given police powers." Seeing Godard 's glum expression, Massu said:

"The news doesn't seem "It's

to please you."

not our job," Godard said. "We're paras, not cops."

"We've got to do

it,"

Massu

said. "That's all.

We've got carte

blanche to get rid of the killers and the bombers."

Massu thought

it

over. Obviously, Lacoste,

back from Paris, had

Guy Mollet. Obviously, many ultra connections.

acted with the blessing of the prime minister, the Algiers police were a flop and had too

Obviously, they needed a para division, with experience in guerrilla warfare.

Massu went to

to see Salan,

who

congratulated him and urged him

The key to success, he said, chain of command would lead to

conduct night patrols in the Casbah.

was

intelligence.

One

link in the

another.

Serge Baret, the prefect of Algiers, was a prudent man, thought of as too passive. ers,

He was

relieved to sign over the delegation of pow-

the most important of which were the power to detain those ar-

rested instead of having

power

them arraigned before

to search without warrants.

remained undefined, but as he put

two appointments

a judge,

The methods Massu

it,

could use

he had carte blanche.

for "special tasks" outside the chain of

Lieutenant Colonel Roger Trinquier had spent so

and the

He made

command.

many years behind

Viet lines that he looked Vietnamese, with slanting eyes and a tea-

colored complexion. His mazelike Asian

mind saw enemies every-

where and sometimes seemed on the verge of paranoia. He was

named head of the

DPU (Urban Protection Disposition), which drew

TED MORGAN

116

up a census of the Casbah and was denounced by

GPU. Major

as

its critics

Paul Aussaresses, a veteran intelligence officer

worked with Trinquier

in Indochina,

Massu s

who had

became the head of the torture

teams.

Massu had formed four regiments that

the 10th Paratrooper Division by grouping

came from other corps

who wore

de Parachutistes Coloniaux),

manded by Colonel Marcel 1st

the 3rd

RPC

(Regiment

red berets and were com-

Bigeard, were in charge of the Casbah.

Colonel Fossey-Francois and the Colonel Meyer of the

—

RCP

1st

RPC

took

downtown

Algiers.

(Regiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes,

mountain troops, or blue berets) and Colonel Jeanpierre of the

REP

1st

(Regiment Etranger Parachutiste, the Foreign Legion, or green

berets) divided the suburbs. If

you added the

and the 9th zouaves, already implanted roughly 6,000 tained

its

men under

Casbah, Massu had

command. Each para regiment main-

his

autonomy and had

gendarmes

police, the

in the

its

own

intelligence officers

and inter-

rogation centers.

Of the a

four para colonels,

all

veterans of Indochina, Bigeard had

legendary reputation, compiled from the hardships he had suffered

and survived. At 40, he was a chain-smoker, angular

face, a

hair cut short. to

win

tall

and

lean,

with an

high brow, a jutting nose, sharp blue eyes, and sandy

He despised desk-bound

his respect.

officers,

and

his superiors

had

His legend was the armor that insulated him from

the chain of command.

His feats of arms

promoted

was

to battalion

in

Indochina were such that he was quickly

commander and called upon whenever there March 1954, Bigeard commanded

a troublesome assignment. In

one of the two airborne battalions that were dropped on the encircled fort of

Dien Bien Phu.

The Viets in the village opened fire while Bigeard and his 650 men were still in the air, and 11 died and 52 were wounded. The planes had dropped flak.

fort

them from

a high altitude to avoid

General Giap's

But such was Bigeard's reputation that the 10,000

and

its

men

in the

strongpoints took heart. Bigeard had walked out of tough

spots before.

HOW THE WAR MOVED FROM THE BLED TO

INTRODUCTION:

In the checkerboard plain, the French fought for a

an area the size of a single rice paddy. veloped the

commando

Small units

in night raids

tactics that

It

was there

ALGIERS

month

117

to hold

that Bigeard de-

would serve him well

in Algeria.

climbed steep slopes after an artillery bar-

and one company equipped with flame-throwers torched Viet

rage,

By

bunkers.

named

April, Bigeard

after girls, Eliane 2,

was holding one of the

five

strongpoints

and using the piled-up bodies of Viets as

sandbags. Giap burrowed under the French barbed wire and dug a

network of trenches. Stethoscopes hung around the necks of French officers as they picked

On May

up the clank of picks and shovels.

1954, Dien Bien

7,

Frances colonial reign

Phu surrendered. That was the day

in Asia ended.

Bigeard was one of the 8,158

survivors taken prisoner at Dien Bien Phu, after burning his personal papers and rolling a silk escape

The

Viets asked

bunker with eraman.

his

him

hands

up, so that

"I'd rather croak,"

He almost did croak on jungle to the prison

map around one

to reenact his surrender

camp

he

of his ankles.

by coming out of his

he could be filmed by a Soviet cam-

said.

the nightmare 45-day

march through the

of Tuan Giao, walking with his hands tied

behind his back with telephone wire. Dehydration and dysentery

were

fatal to

many, and Bigeard dropped 80 pounds.

At the camp he had criticism.

What did

to appear before a people's tribunal for self-

he think of American aid to France, he was asked.

What

did they think of Chinese aid to the Viets, he replied. His rice

ration

was

cut.

Bigeard noticed that the Algerian prisoners were sep-

arated from the French and congratulated for their fighting

spirit.

Peking-trained Algerian "instructors" then told them, "Since you're

such good soldiers, the occupiers?

why don't you

fight for yourselves?

Why fight for

Why don't you take back your country?" Here among

the captured prisoners of Dien Bien

Bigeard also learned from the Viets.

Phu were

He

his future enemies.

learned ruthlessness and

brainwashing techniques, both of which were useful when he arrived in Algeria in 1955.

At

first,

ern Algeria.

commanded He developed

he

a para battalion in the a

mountains of east-

combat mystique, according

to

which

TED MORGAN

118

each danger you survived gave you a reserve of capital to survive the

He led The man

men unarmed on

operations, with faith in his

next one.

his

baraka.

standing a foot away from him would be shot, but

not him. In July 1956, in an operation near the port of Bone, in the

Nemencha Mountains,

his luck ran out.

He was

shot in the chest just

above the heart. Evacuated by chopper, he was operated on in Constantine.

A month later, he was in the port city of Bone, recuperating,

jogging every morning along the oceanfront, unarmed and without an escort.

On

September

5,

three

young Arabs lounging against

wall across the street fired as he passed and shot

Although fled.

hit twice,

Bleeding

his liver,

down

he spun around and lunged his back, his right

he stopped the car of a

said, "You'll stain

my

seat,"

colon,

and drove

arm who off.

him

at the

a

in the back.

Arabs,

who

shattered and a slug near

took one look

at

him and

6

The First Battle of Algiers

n January in

my

giers I'd I

1957,

7,

I

left

Champlain with a two-day pass

pocket, took the train from Medea, and reached Al-

around noon.

found a small hotel, the Oasis, where

I

been told they gave soldiers a discount.

I

didn't

know

a soul, but

had a connection. The American consul, Lewis Clark, had been a

friend of

1939,

my

when

I

parents from before

my

was seven,

World War

II.

father rented a house in

where the Clarks also summered, and

sachusetts,

curly-haired daughter, Ann. That

was the summer

ard Johnson's 57 flavors and Marvel comics, but the start of World

When

I

War

II,

and

my father left for

called the consulate, Clark

lunch the next day.

One of his

I

went out to get

harbor,

it

seemed

inhabitants, one third of

largest city, bigger than

I

played with their

discovered

How-

was interrupted by

France.

me to

me directions on how

to get

It

was

a feel of the city. Built

to be sliding

I

cordial and invited

was

aides gave

to the residence in the hills of El-Biar.

and

it

summer of Marion, Mas-

In the

a mild

on

and sunny

a slope

from

day,

hills to

toward the ocean. With nearly 900,000

them Arabs, Algiers was France's second

Lyon or Marseille.

I

walked up a ramp from

the deep harbor once so friendly to pirates. Sheltered from the sea

TED MORGAN

120

winds and protected by a breakwater,

modern

city,

nean, had

hemmed

grown

east

in

it

smelled of brine and

The

tar.

between the mountains and the Mediterra-

and west along a narrow coastal

where streetcar lines were extended

until year

land

strip, flat

by year, the

city spread

and Hussein Dey to the

to the suburbs of Pointe Pescade to the west

east ... a city all in length.

Along the ramp,

I

stopped in a hole-in-the-wall bistro that fea-

tured grilled rouget (red mullet). in the

window: Le patron mange

fresh, its still

the

wagging

ramp stood

its tail,"

What drew me ici

in

was

("The owner eats

the

Arab waiter

a small sign

here"). "It's so

At the top of

said.

the majestic Square Bresson, with the opera house at

one end, flanked by balconied buildings of cut stone.

A magnolia gar-

den lined with palm trees adorned the center of the square. The

summer eve-

flower beds surrounded a gazebo where bands played on nings.

Behind the opera house was the Place de market, and behind that the Casbah began.

I

strolled over to the rue

its

open

could see a jumble of flat grillwork.

Bab-Azoun, an arcaded

street with

square pillars and old paving stones, rolls

Lyre and

windows covered by

rooftops and small cone-shaped

When

I

la

I

saw that one end, closed with

of concertina wire, was guarded by steel-helmeted zouaves.

Un-

der the arcades were rows of shops that smelled of coffee beans and olive oil

hands.

and tourist traps that sold brass tables and

The 80,000

silver

fatmas

inhabitants of the Casbah were wired in like

chickens in a coop.

On

the other side of the Square Bresson

Government,

a square bordered

I

came upon

the Place du

on three sides by arcaded buildings

and opening on the equestrian statue of the due d'Orleans, made

in

1845 from the melted-down bronze cannons of the Turks. Every-

where there were reminders of the occupation. The Great Mosque,

Djama

el

Kebir,

cathedral. This

which went back to the tenth century, was now a

was not the usual orderly French

branching out from

dropped

his

circles,

Pick-Up

Sticks.

it

was

The

was surrounded by the modern

a

city

hodgepodge, as

with streets

if a child

had

ancient city of the subject people

city of the occupier.

Once encased by

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Casbah borders were now boulevards, Gambetta

fortress walls, the

to the south, Valee to the north,

Wandering

121

and Victoire to the west.

in another direction,

Avenue of Algiers, with the aud, the frowning marshal

found the rue

I

and

chic shops

who had There

office.

On

d'Isly,

the Fifth

the Place Buge-

devised France's scorched earth

policies stood in bronze, in front of the

General Salan had his

cafes.

I

army headquarters where

saw the

first

paras, red berets,

guarding the building.

crowded with young people and listened

sat at a cafe terrace

I

the conversations.

The

were

girls

still

and the guys talked with their hands

tanned, though like

Arabs.

it

to

was January,

They were

chatting

about the bombs, as in normal times they would have talked about the weather. The bomb that went off and the bomb that failed to go off. The friend in the cafe who was hit and the friend in the other cafe who wasn't. What made them choose that cafe, they wondered. The man at a bar who saw the man next to him shot in the back. Why him? Life

was

the

a lottery.

The bombs had become a mnemonic device ("it was the day bomb went off in the Milk Bar"), or a way to give directions

a little

And

going to

prize I

("it's

shop around the corner from the restaurant that blew up

week"). still

after

yet,

I

were getting on with their

reflected, they

cafes, still shopping. If their lives

was not getting went back to

killed or

my

were a

last

lives,

lottery, the

maimed.

hotel and showered.

Dourakine had

told

me

about a bar near the harbor called the Perroquet Rouge (Red Parrot)

where legionnaires hung

out.

have a look in the evening.

I

thought

When

might be interesting to it

had swinging

two bouncers were

in the process

I

doors, like a bar in a western, and

it

found the place,

of throwing a drunken green beret into the street.

one

last push,

and he

fell

They gave him

into the gutter in a clump.

"Hey, what's going on?"

I

"The salaud pilthy bum]

asked. tried to

pay for a drink with a hand

grenade," one of the bouncers said. "All these asshole legionnaires think about

other one said.

is Jiouss'

(money), the

TED MORGAN

122

I

went

me

beside

he

said,

and ordered a

to the bar

He

wasn't that

out,"

all alike."

young

man, and

a

my third tour," he said.

is

DerAlte [the old one].

I

beret sergeant

I

asked him

how long

he'd

in.

"This

a

The green

That guy they threw

He was Hungarian. My name is Thomas." a thick German accent. "I know they say we're the dregs

of Europe, but we're not

was

beer.

said, "prosit.

"he wasn't a German.

He spoke with

been

and

raised his glass

came home from the eastern

I

POW in the French zone, so I

said,

why

now

naries, but "I

I

I

ki\\

fellaghas"

also risk

my

Thomas

I

nodded

He

has the soul of a

he's on. said,

"and they call us merce-

life."

know what you mean,"

Gorges."

figured,

I

not fight with them?"

while thinking,

mercenary; he doesn't care whose side

"So

front in 1945,

enlisted in the legion.

I

fought against the French in 1940,

"That makes sense,"

They call me

"I'm forty years old.

to the

I

said. "I'm stationed

barman and

raised

two

near the Chiffa

fingers.

"Give us

another round." "I

have nothing against them, except they smell,"

"And when "In

my

Thomas

said.

they're dead, they smell worse." unit,"

I

said,

"we were responsible

for a sector, so

we took

prisoners to get information."

"We're an intervention about prisoners," do.

We

unit, in

Thomas said.

"In

and

we

a

who with

banned.

And

to a girl, since

you know they're

in."

The

mentality of these legion-

elite units did the

brunt of the fighting, was

"The misfortunes of war," other

disturbing to explore.

that's

douar where none of the Arabs speak French,

and some of the boys help themselves not going to turn you

don't give a fuck

combat you do things you shouldn't

used flame-throwers in the caves, but

sometimes we go into

naires,

out, so

The

I

said.

legion had a proud tradition, but beneath

the veneer of panache they were rapacious brutes, trained to

kill, like

pit bulls.

"Always remember,"

That was

Thomas

said, "there's

their rationale. Since they

no justice

were trapped

in

in the army."

an unfair system,

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

why fels,

should they abide by the rules? So they sold their weapons to the

and deserted when they had the chance,

the reputation of heroic daredevils

"One time a

I

gion of Honor]. So mortars,'

said.

I

'I

I

captain told

decided to

me

I

said,

'You

said he

this police

than the

bled.

had to

work

mean

—

it

was on

armament from

a ser-

didn't get

I

my citation."

Himmel! Now that we have

we have

You can duck out and get

like us. Well, bonne blessure."

"and

advice on wearing pants

it

leave. "Gott in

in Algiers,

said,

a suggestion. 'We're short

without a belt or suspenders?' That was

do

Thomas

don't need advice on our

geant,' the captain said.

Thomas

tight discipline.

touch the red £get the Le-

I'd

make

the while maintaining

all

bound by

recovered a machine gun,"

German make. The

to

123

a curfew. Still,

a beer,

and the

it's

girls

better

seem

to

"Bonne blessure" or "have a good wound,"

was the way legionnaires greeted each

other.

The next day at noon, I took a cab to the consular residence. It wound up the El-Biar hill past the fine villas of affluent colons, their balconies overlooking the bay, and reached a Moorish mansion, with

keyhole windows, old

tiles,

cient eucalyptus trees.

The

fez

and led

me

columns and

and

a splendid

butler

garden planted with an-

who answered

the door wore a red

into an ornately carved library of faded red

shelves, covered with finely

worked

and blue

lattices.

pearl-inlaid chest of drawers stood a large bust of a turbaned

Lewis Clark,

whom

I

had not seen since Marion

a gray, button-tufted divan

and greeted

me

On

Moor.

in 1939, rose

warmly.

the

from

He was one

of

those cherubic elders with a pink face, a thatch of powdery white hair,

and rheumy blue a

eyes. In his red-striped seersucker suit,

walking Christmas tree ornament, a "This

who was

is

my

last post,"

getting foggy.

he

said. "I

He gave

life-size

he looked like

peppermint

stick.

stepped in to replace a consul

a press conference for the

correspondents on the Algerian economy.

When

American

he was asked about

the nitrates, he said they were better than the day rates." I

said

I

was surprised

at the

crowds downtown behaving as

if

things were normal.

"Some of that cigarette

is

the presence of the paras," Clark said, lighting a

from a monogrammed box on

a

low Moroccan painted

ta-

TED MORGAN

124

"They've sealed off the Casbah. There's one on every streetcar

ble.

and bus searching packages. There's

movie, you can't leave before the show before you're seated. little

to

in front of the

over,

is

fitted for a suit,

go

to a

and you're searched

went to see

I

my

and the man standing next

mirrors was trying on a bulletproof vest."

seen their patrols in the streets,"

"I've

curfew. If you

people are being careful.

Still,

Spanish tailor to be

me

pm

a nine

I

barn-

said, "strutting like

yard roosters." Clark chuckled and

on the rue

making

said,

week there was

job. Last

d'Isly,

"They may

strut, but

they do a good

a daring daylight robbery in a jewelry store

and people

said,

'Thank God ordinary crime

is

a reappearance.'

Everyone wondered who the thieves were

on

this heavily patrolled street in the heart of

that risked being shot

downtown

for the sake of a

few diamonds.

It

seemed almost

like a

sign that things were back to normal."

"Almost,"

I

said.

"Bien entendu" Clark said, lapsing into the French that he spoke

so well. "Things will get worse before they get better. I'm told there's a

contingency plan to tear

project, but they'll never

do

down

the Casbah and build a housing

it."

Other guests had arrived, Clark's colleagues from the consulate, and as we chatted he looked honor yard.

is late."

at his

watch and

said,

"Our guest of

At that moment, we heard dogs barking

They were

the

in the court-

two wolfhounds of General Jacques Massu, who

got out of his Peugeot,

still

sand-colored from Suez. Pulling on

leashes held by an aide, the snarling wolfhounds stayed outside. "I

was ambushed on the way

trance. "It

was nothing.

I

up,"

Massu

said as he

pray you to pardon

Arabs, later caught, had fired a burst at his car as

curve

at

my it

made

tardiness."

rounded

a

towering and youthful 50, reminded

me

a face

a

a hairpin

of a giant lum-

berjack with exaggerated features in a children's book

—

Two

top speed.

Massu,

read

his en-

bony

made

Suzanne,

I

face, a

I

had once

beaklike nose, a black mustache, a granite jaw

to order for a warrior in later learned, called

him

any period of history. His "the

Cro-Magnon man."

wife,

In his

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS para

125

uniform, with the sleeves rolled up, he seemed to be saying,

field

"I'm just one of the guys

—

don't put

me

behind a desk."

man

Despite being Salan's subordinate, he was the most powerful in Algiers, in

command

of the

army and

the police, able to deal with

urban terrorism any way he chose. As Lewis Clark quizzed him

at

the lunch table on developments, his face changed from scowl to smile.

was

in

my

noticed that from time to time he scowled in

I

my brown

I

infantryman's uniform, with the single bar of a

second lieutenant on

was doing

direction.

my

epaulet,

in such exalted

and he must have wondered what

company. In the bustle of his

arrival,

I

I

had

not been introduced.

After lunch, Clark took

man

come from

has

was

over and said: "General, this young

the United States to fight in Algeria."

Massu asked what "I

me

a reporter

was doing

I

in

America.

on a newspaper, mon general"

standing

said,

I

at

attention.

"Ah bon" he said. "So you have

mon general"

"Yes,

to less than four

I

said,

some experience

in journalism."

not adding that my experience amounted

months on the Worcester Telegram before being con-

scripted.

Massu

scribbled on a notepad and said,

tomorrow and ask

Major de

for

The next morning told

me to

I

called Brissac,

get there right away.

bien, call this

number

I

who gave me an

address and

found the dead-end alley off the rue

and pressed the buzzer marked Compagnie Atlantique.

d'Isly,

walked up to the third

floor,

and Brissac opened the door, dressed

civilian clothes, a double-breasted

gray pin-striped

with gold cuff links, and patterned

man,

"Eh

Brissac. Repos" (at ease).

tall

and narrow-chested,

his

tie.

He was an

suit,

I

in

gray shirt

elegant-looking

head a half-size too small for his

frame, but fine-boned, with a longish face, lively blue eyes, a mustache, a high brow,

about town, tracks.

I

I

and wavy brown hair combed neatly back.

thought, debonair, at

home

at

A man

garden parties and race

kept expecting him to twirl his mustache.

He grasped my hand meet you. Massu

told

me

in

both of his and

said, "I'm

about you. You're just what

enchanted to

we

need."

TED MORGAN

126

"But for what?"

I

asked.

"Oh, no one explained? That's the army.

my

must give you

I

mini-lecture," which he proceeded to do in an office with

two desks

and two typewriters. The blinds on the windows were closed and the walls were bare, as

"Number

if

he had just moved

one," Brissac intoned.

in.

"When

I

was

in Indochina,

I

was

awestruck by the finesse of those so-called Third World people.

sometimes

felt

that if

I

had been Vietnamese,

Some officers came home with

minh.

I

I

might have been Viet-

a visceral hatred of Communism.

Others, like myself, were convinced that

was

it

a

war of nationalism,

to

which our mistakes as a colonial power contributed. Those who try to

impose the Indochina model on Algeria fail to see that

is

not

Com-

number

one: 'Understand

"Number two. The war has moved from the

bled to Algiers,

munism,

it's

your enemy'

Islamic nationalism. So, lesson "

found that out in the bled"

"I

where the or

this

Monte

classic

I

said.

methods of warfare don't work. This

Cassino.

Thanks

Verdun

isn't

to the idiotic fiction that Algeria

part

is

we are technically not at war, we are under French peaceThe police and the gendarmes are paralyzed by legal con-

of France,

time law.

straints, the court system,

way.

When

they had broken.

is

a

the Meharis fucked their camels in the ass and got

strange diseases, the

teriel.'

and so on. But the army always finds

army had

to find

an

They were charged with

So now they've brought

code

article of the military

'deterioration of army

in the paras,

ma-

because the regular army

about as adapted to fighting urban terrorism as a buzzsaw

is

to

you know the code,

is

an

operating on a cataract. Every uniform,

if

information bulletin. Legion of Honor, tailored

means one

that

thing. Tenue leopard, beret rouge, that

veterans of other terrorist campaigns. So, lesson

ing in the paras

suit,

is

the

first

positive sign. For

braided kepi,

means warriors,

number two: Bring-

Massu,

this

is

a

war

to

the death. His troops patrol the city as they would a conquered en-

emy

position."

"He's a

way

marked man,"

to lunch."

I

said.

"He was ambushed yesterday on the

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

"He knows

127

on his head," Brissac

there's a price

"When

said.

he

goes to mass on Sunday, the priest ends his sermon with a request to his parishioners that they

chance to

until the general has a

leave.

"Number youth.

remain seated

The

went

three," Brissac

defeat of 1940, the

on.

occupation, and the formi-

dable cavalcade of victorious armies that liberated Paris. teen in June 1940, and

des Ternes, and

'You

we saw

see, he's lost

he's still

I

was walking with

a soldier

the hope that

I

When

war was

I

want

to

don't give a

I

win

to avoid

over,

damn

To be

any further deterioration

began

to see Brissac as a

modern-day Manichaean who had

He

own

the integrity of the army. its

rection.

splendid It

The time

We

was up

The

army and to the

religion.

despised the government un-

won

der which he served but believed that the war must be

is

but

for the army."

doctrine was coherent in a way.

idea

rifle,

enlisted in

about keeping

deviated from the established faith and constructed his

serve

I

army, particularly after Indochina. So lesson number three:

in the

Its

six-

My mother said,

could help redeem the reputation of the army.

Algeria French. But

I

the

was

mother on the Place

on a bench crying.

very frank, I'm not a flag-waver.

Win

my

I

everything, his regiment, his officers, his

got his bottle of wine.'

my

"Three events marked

German

to save

spineless Fourth Republic did not de-

did not have the credibility to give

army

it

di-

to run Algiers, without interference.

of the leopards (as the paras were known) had come.

seemed, however, to be pissing around the pot.

why I had come here. I asked why I "We are losing the information war,"

I

still

had no

had been sent to him. Brissac said. "Radio Cairo

on twenty-four hours a day, brainwashing the Casbah population.

We must counter this torrent of FLN propaganda. You've heard that the FLN has called a general strike in Algiers for the end of the month. The strike will be the test. We have to do some serious perception management.

Massu has asked me

newspaper giving our

side. It will

I've

bring out a weekly

be called Realties Algeriennes. Al-

though funded and published by the army, osques with the other papers.

to

it

will appear in the ki-

found one fellow

who worked on

a

TED MORGAN

128

paper in Paris, and

I'd like

you

to join

our team.

will be just the

It

three of us."

"But do you really think the Arabs will read the paper?"

I

asked. "It's

from

in the nature of a colonized people," Brissac said, "as a refuge

their distress, to feel that there

is

something

them willing

in

be colonized. Just as the wife of an overbearing husband

something telling

in her that allows

them

army

that the

normal again.

We

FLN

"But the

a country of their

We

here to help them and let

make

the

their lives

FLN

take con-

hearts."

offering

is

feels there is

have to play on that and keep

cannot simply give up and

minds and

trol of their

is

it.

to

them independence and

own, without the French,"

a better life in

said.

I

"Many of them don't want independence," Brissac said. "They are still at the stage when they need our assistance. Our role will be to show them the benevolent these matters. terious about

face of France.

We

must demythologize

Take the mysterious' Casbah. There it if

mind, secretive,

we

see

it

is

nothing mys-

as a physical representation of the

resilient, resistant to

Arab

change, and teeming with a

thousand twisting passages. Now, what do you say? With you and the other fellow writing the articles,

week or two. Of course, you

in a

we can bring

can't discuss

out our

first issue

your work, or reveal

the address of this office. You'll wear civilian clothes, you will not

carry a weapon, and you'll find lodging in town. Are you in ac-

cord?" I

thought his reasoning was specious, and that putting out a pa-

per would not change any Arab minds. His motive for winning the war, to keep up the morale of the army, did not concern me, since

was serving

my

time.

My

length of service, however, had been ex-

tended from 18 to 27 months, meaning that until the

wear

civilian clothes, live in Algiers.

in the

Yale,

I

would be

in Algeria

end of 1957. Here was an opportunity to get out of the

of being a hired gun,

New

when

York I

I

office

I

It

was hard

would be a hired pen.

I'd

bled,

to pass up. Instead

written junk before,

of the Hollywood Reporter, the

turned out paragraphs of film gossip.

summer

after

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS told Brissac that

I

I

would be happy

129

work on the

to

paper. In spite

of his pronouncements, he did not have a conventional military mind,

and

found him

I

He peeled a store

where

likable.

off some bills I

from

his wallet

could buy a couple of suits.

and gave

in

know yet where you'll be

and then check back

me

occurred to

It

when one was given would be I

still

Take

said, "since

a choice,

my room

you

and

army

having been given one,

that,

buying a

suit,

I

at the

Oasis Hotel, and

me

started looking for

I

to look up

Don Davies

at street level,

narrow display window

with a facade that looked like

just high

enough

to place a few

books. Davies, a sunny and outgoing man, seemed glad to see me.

was

tall

sat

He

and bald, with a pencil mustache and brown eyes that looked

inquiringly out at the world without blaming

we

af-

had a couple of free hours. The American library

was on the rue Michelet, a pillbox, a

I

it.

United States Information Agency, and the next morning,

at the

of

a couple of days to settle

that there were few if any times in the

a boardinghouse. Lewis Clark had asked

ter

name

here."

a fool not to take

had

staying.

the

arrange to have your

"I'll

regiment ship your gear to Massu's headquarters," he don't

me

down

at

one of the reading-room

The

got coffee, and

tables.

"December was the worst month," he anti-American feeling over Suez.

He

it.

said.

"There was a

lot

of

press printed stories that doc-

uments found on Ben Bella proved that America was selling weapons to the rebels.

The

passed right by dow.

funeral for Froger [the ultra

us,

Then we had

and rocks flew through our big plate-glass wina couple of small

with bullet-proof glass. I

asked him

if

mayor of Boufarik]

Now

bombs.

I

put in a tiny

we're hopefully bomb-proof."

the paras were

making

a difference.

"Massu may help stop the terrorism," Davies

said, "but he's also

digging the ditch that separates the two communities a

by acting on the theory that every Arab cent.

mies.

window

is

little

deeper

guilty until proven inno-

For every terrorist he catches, he makes two more Arab eneI

have an Arab working for

me

here

who goes

out and buys

my

afternoon paper. Yesterday he came back shaking like a leaf because

TED MORGAN

130

He

he'd been threatened by other Arabs for buying a French paper.

them he was

told

asked

how

me

illiterate,

to please send

he was just running an errand, but he

someone

else in the future.

the two communities get along,

I

When

I'm asked

say they're like drawers in a

desk, at different levels and never touching." I

looked around and saw a couple of kids and three adults reading

magazines from the rack. "Attendance we've

still

trance?"

got our regulars. See that

He

pointed to a young

woman

is

down," Davies

woman

said, "but

sitting near the en-

with bobbed

hair,

wearing a

pink and gray jersey dress, with a single strand of grape-sized gray pearls around her neck. "That's Georgette Cohen. real estate.

When

Come on

—

I'll

Her

family's big in

introduce you."

Georgette stood,

I

saw that she was nearly

six feet tall

with heels. Her thin legs made her look storklike, but she was a stork of bright plumage that covered hefty hips, a wasp waist, and a bloom-

ing bosom. Her large, appraising eyes had pupils the color of bitter-

sweet chocolate, and her wide, full-lipped mouth was quick to smile. "Are you any relation to Rene de Gramont?" she asked, after Davis

had introduced me. "We're cousins and close friends,"

I

said.

Rene was about

my

age

but had been exempted from military service because of curvature of the spine.

"Rene

where

Paris,

told

the

is

me

I

most amusing man," Georgette

"He spent

"I

spent a year taking classes at the Arts Decoratifs.

when

I

it

a year lying

on

his

He

him

back on a board to straighten his

said.

brought back a husband from Paris," Georgette

Cohen

let

in

rained."

neer from the Ecole des Mines" is

met him

he refused to go into the army because they wouldn't

carry an umbrella

spine,"

said. "I

too, so

"You could redundant,"

I

kept

I

call

my

(a

said.

"An engi-

top engineering school). His

name

maiden name."

yourself Cohen-Cohen, though that would seem

said.

"Or Cohen Bis [Encore]," Georgette

said, laughing.

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

"He came here with you not long about the "He's

131

"We

ago," Davies said.

talked

they've found in the Sahara."

oil

down

there now," Georgette said, "in Hassi-Messaoud, on

the team that digs the wells." Addressing me, she asked, "And what are you doing in Algiers?"

"The same

"Why

as

your husband,"

"My

said.

I

military service."

aren't you in uniform?"

"I'm on Massu's staff, detached to a civilian office."

"How

Do

exciting!

you carry a weapon?"

"I don't."

"How I

can

be sure?"

I

my

opened

suit jacket

wide and

"That won't be necessary," she "Right now, "Don't be

at the hotel. I'm

silly,"

Georgette

"Search me."

said,

"Where do you

said.

live?"

looking for a boardinghouse."

said. "I'm

managing

a building for

parents at Square Bresson. They've gone back to France. top

floor, "I

and

don't

there's

want

an empty apartment you can

to be

any trouble,"

I

said,

I

live

my

on the

use rent-free."

while thinking, This

is

too good to be true. Georgette was the managerial type. She liked to take matters, and people, in hand. trary," she said. "I

my was

I

who comes

to clean

me

to

it."

I

will

She wrote

come by with

six.

walked out of the American library feeling almost giddy. Wow,

on a

roll!

First an assignment in Algiers,

on the prettiest square

band was

in town,

in the Sahara.

horse race to run out

At 6:00,

I

I

my

a free

apartment

with a gorgeous landlady whose hus-

string.

stood in front of a turn-of-the-century building with a

and balconies looking out on the palm

and the opera. Inside the courtyard,

concierge,

now

needed to find a high-stakes poker game or

high, arched carriage entrance trees

trouble. Quite the con-

her address and phone number and asked

things that evening at I

no

would rather have the apartment occupied.

ask you only to pay for the maid

down

"It's

I

announced

my name to the

whose loge was across from rows of waxed wooden mail-

boxes with copper nameplates.

I

walked up

five flights to

Georgette's

TED MORGAN

132

landing and rang the ("Punctuality

bell.

She came out and

I

on the square.

was furnished

It

des rois"

around the

in the

heavy late-nineteenth-century

with a high, mirrored armoire in the bedroom and twin beds

with caning

room and

at the base.

The

With

kitchen was huge, and so were the living

Monogrammed

the dining room.

the bathroom.

taste the French

hope

"I

a

in

had the kind of opulent bad

it

"Come over

dinner." Well,

was

I

army and

in the

and these were very agreeable orders.

and took

hung from racks

call cossu ("substantial").

you'll be comfortable," she said.

making

orders,

towels

overpadded armchairs, Asian rugs, and aca-

its

demic seascapes with breaking waves,

I'm

me

would be staying, which had a balcony looking out

apartment where

style,

"ha politesse

said,

the politeness of kings"). She showed

is

shower

in a big

on the balcony, looking

bathtub with

feet,

I

an hour.

in

was used

to taking

unpacked

I

and

I

my

gear

spent 20 minutes

around the garden and the

at the birds flying

people sitting on benches reading newspapers and chatting. You

wouldn't have

At

7:00,

1

known

that there

was

a

on.

crossed the landing and rang the

majestic in a golden caftan. She took

ing

war

room decorated

Empire

in the

my

bell.

hand and

style,

Georgette looked led

me

into a liv-

massive and bombastic,

mahogany-veneered divans with ormolu mounts, tables with wingedlion supports, and, in a corner, a pilaster with a

a

low table with

two

feet like hooves, there

and some

glasses,

was

sphinx

at the top.

pate.

thought we might celebrate your arrival in Algiers," she

"I

On

a bottle of Veuve Clicquot,

said.

"I'm overwhelmed."

"You

can't live constantly in a state of anxiety.

are taught to

Au

of the draw.

"When champagne

I

down

lie

all, it's

the luck

was

in the bled,

I

believed in baraka,"

I

said, clicking

her

glass.

communities I

they hear an explosion. After

school, the kids

hazard, Balthazar"

"I've lived in

ieme,

if

At

all

Algiers

my

all

life.

I

learned at an early age that the

judge one another. After passing

my exam

in the six-

had a choice between two languages, Arabic and German, and

my mother

said,

'What good

will Arabic

do you? Take German.'

"

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS "That's what mothers are

for,

to give us

133

bad advice,"

said as

I

I

poured more champagne. "She went on so about the Arabs that when I

saw one, I

was

a little girl

and

started crying."

I

asked

I

if

she had any Arab friends at school.

"There was a

Georgette

girl in quatrieme"

pate, "but the professor told her that in

said,

digging into her

view of her family background

she would have a hard time following and should quit school."

"Nothing

like a little

"Even

it

telling

was

so,

me

easy,

was

encouragement."

a wonderful

have wrinkles

I'd

at

life,

hours on the beach,

twenty, and don't go out too

and we counted our blessings. There's nothing

that's dried in the sun,

ors, bright sun.

The

my

mother Life

far.

like a sheet

or the taste of fresh sardines, or intense col-

colon

world

is

world without nuance.

a

ways struck by the names of the seaside cottages

I

was

al-

Douce France

£Sweet France] Notre Bonheur [X)ur Happiness] Aile d'Ange [An,

gel's

,

Wing], while

the Precipice. sieur de

.

.

.

in fact they should all

have been called Edge of

Well, enough of this depressing conversation.

Gramont, dinner

Hanging from

is

Mon-

served."

the dining room's high ceiling

was

a chandelier of

Murano glass. The candlelit Louis XV table was set for two, with monogrammed silver, china, and glassware. Georgette served a daurade with beurre blanc, washed down with a floral Meursault, a Pommard with the Reblochon, and a glass of Chateau d'Yquem with

blue

the tarte tatin. After a year of military nourishment,

I

thought

I

was

drinking and eating what they serve in paradise.

We talked about her year in Paris, and how happy she had been to leave behind the troubles of Algiers.

were selling off their Julien, at a party.

real estate holdings.

He had come

—she wanted

stupid fight

Her parents had moved

She had met her husband,

with his girlfriend, and they had a

to leave; he

wanted

to stay.

She

and Georgette got him on the rebound, and a month married. Since he was being sent to Algeria, she settle the family business. live in Paris.

When

there and

left in a huff,

later they

were

came with him

to

he got out of the army, they would

TED MORGAN

134

After dinner,

There was

a

followed Georgette back into the living room.

I

phonograph on

a table

and

a collection of

albums on

a

She put on Charles Trenet's "La Mer" threw

shelf against the wall.

out her arms, and said, "Let's dance." She kicked off her heels and

"Take off your shoes. This

said,

fussy about

it."

And

right, so that her

my

neck.

when

I

came

I

are

barefoot on the carpet, and the

fit

cheek was against mine, and she began kissing

stood there, wavering and wondering what to do next,

she said: "Well, are

She led bed.

we danced,

so

was

my parents

an Aubusson, and

is

me

to her

we going

to stand here all night?"

bedroom, and a few minutes

like a shot, for

I

hadn't slept with a

later

woman

we were

in

since the pre-

vious August in Paris, before shipping out to Algeria. "Sale cochon ("Filthy pig"), Georgette said. "Just give

"What

me

a few minutes,"

I

said.

really like," she said, "is

I

starts off playfully

and builds and

De

builds,

and

Brujo!

It

at the end, there's

She had a phonograph next

this crescendo, this explosion of sound."

to her

Amor

Falla's 'El

and then

bed and put the record on. She aroused

me

with her mouth,

began to explore her body, thinking of it as a summery day on

I

the Mediterranean,

its

musky warmth,

the pliancy of the curved

beach, the taste of salt in the crevices.

"Now, come into me," she

said, "but

go

slow."

thought of

I

my

cock as a baton, following the pulse of the music, which gathered intensity until the explosion came,

shuddered and lay It's

odd how

still.

in the

she said, "C'est bon"

Dourakine,

who had

nationalities.

because sex

"The

fits

I

and she

midst of passion one's mind can wander.

was reminded of

sensible

Frenchwoman," he

mia,' the said,

women

and bicycle

races.

An

is

Spanish

girl

I

met

is

good food in Seville

the vocabulary of momentum, as

Italian girl in

Naples

language of the family, and a black American

Teed me, feed me,' which

of many

said, "says, 'C'est bon

into her concept of general goodness, as in

A

When

had with

a conversation I'd

a wide-ranging experience with

andd [go, go], which

in bullfights

"Now," and we both

'Vest bon" Georgette said.

or good furniture or good curtains. said, 'Anda,

said,

said,

'Mamma

girl in Paris

the language of nourishment." Doura-

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

135

kine said he was working on a thesis to be entitled "Linguistic Varia-

Orgasmic Phonation."

tions in

Georgette was dozing, and an

affair of convenience.

well,

that

was

was thinking. Maybe we could have

I

whom

Her husband,

in deepest Sahara.

she did not

Marriage had revealed

was deeply conjugal. She needed

know

that

to her a nature

a day-to-day life with a

man and

the nightly comfort of the nuptial bed. Since her husband was absent, I

was serving

as a proxy,

which

I

was glad

to do.

Georgette wasn't one

of those tanned hard-bodies I'd seen at cafe terraces. She was

Duchess of Alba than Modigliani, opulent and deeply

was not only

It

wanted

that

I

more

satisfying.

found her physically appealing and that

to continue living in her apartment.

I

I

admired the way

also

she was capable of gaiety and enthusiasm in difficult times. She had

an eagerness to connect, to please, and she was never withdrawn or sullen. Also, as

I

learned, she

was

caring.

She put fresh flowers

in

my

apartment every other day. Three or four times a week, there was a note with the flowers that said J'ai besoin ("I'm needy"), and

go

over. After a couple of weeks,

bed, which

was too

short.

broke the caning

I

When

I

and

at

if you slept

would of my

apologized and offered to have

repaired, she said, "It costs a fortune. I'd have to send

would be much simpler

I

at the foot

with me." So

I

it

to France.

moved

it

It

to her bed,

night she played "El Amor Brujo" and once she observed: "As

the Comtesse de Sevigne wrote,

we make

love like animals, but a bit

"

better.'

n the morning of January Brissac introduced

me

12,

I

was back

to the third

Bernard Brodin. In some ways he

still

member

in the office,

of our

little

and

team,

looked like a small boy, with a

round, pink-cheeked face, straight blond hair that tended to drop

over his brow, eyes of a pale and humid blue, and black-framed glasses.

He had

the disconsolate air of a child lost in a railroad station, and he

stammered

a bit.

"I'm happy to

only victim."

meet you," he

said. "I didn't

want

to be the

major s

TED MORGAN

136

"I

know he

enough

doesn't look old

to vote," Brissac said with a

been writing articles for three years for a Catholic

cackle, "but he's

weekly."

"Our

editorial position,"

—

Chardin

the

human

Brodin

condition

is

"was based on Teilhard de

said,

much

very

way of

like the

the

cross."

"Surely,"

I

"Of course

said,

"we don't

Brodin snapped. "What we mean

not,"

fering of millions

is

all die crucified."

more important than

is

that the suf-

tallying up venial sins."

He

had the odd habit of squeezing his eyes shut when he spoke to you. "We're not here to discuss philosophy," Brissac

said. "I

saw Massu

yesterday at his headquarters in Hydra [in the hills of eastern Algiers].

The

'We have

strike

is

set for

strike

its

agenda

a great heresy at the

invest their capital to

"Massu and the

is all

He

told me,

timed to get the attention of the United Nations,

is

which has Algeria on is

2.

"

to act before they do!'

"The ism

January 28 until February

lift

in February,"

UN.

Brodin

said. "Colonial-

In their eyes, colonial powers

fail

to

the colony out of underdevelopment."

too conscious of the connection between the strike

UN debate," Brissac said. "His strategy

is

to use the paras to

He told his colonels, 'Gentlemen, I want you to recapture the night. The Casbah with its eighty thousand inhabitants, is the key. Conduct night raids and fire at all those who are breaking the curfew. We must show the FLN that we are as ruthless as they break the

strike.

"

are.'

"But

how can

they find their

"especially at night?" like the

From

the

way around little I'd

the Casbah,"

seen, the

I

asked,

Casbah seemed

Minotaur's maze.

"Aha," Brissac burst out, pacing from one end of the office to the

other like a caged animal. "Colonel Trinquier has formed a unit that will conduct a house-to-house census of the

of the inhabitants. sure there

is

"He got

German

They

a street

that

will paint a

Casbah and draw up

lists

number on each door and make

name."

from Napoleon," Brodin

said. "In his

conquest of

towns, he always began with a census and a street map."

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

"Can you believe officers actually

Brissac

it?"

137

"One of Massu's

exclaimed.

argued against a census. 'You might as well count

him

the grains of sand in a dune,' he said. Well, the general put

in his

place."

Lieutenant Colonel Roger Trinquier, the head of the grab-bag

He was an

Disposition of Urban Protection, was Brissac's boss. logue, convinced that he

was defending Western

civilization against

the heathens. His expertise in guerrilla warfare

command lines.

in

commando

Indochina of a

Massu described him

unit that

ideo-

was based on

his

worked behind Viet

as having "a complicated

and sometimes

unfathomable turn of mind, a tortuous craftiness well attuned to the job at hand."

"When

is

our

first issue

"Massu wants sac said. "I

it

in the

hitting the stands?" Brodin asked.

kiosques the day before the strike," Bris-

"Any ideas?"

could talk to some of the leaders of the

Workers' Union] to see

if

[Algerian

they approve of the strike."

"You must be joking," Brissac and are helping prepare the of the Arab community,

UGTA

said.

strike.

who

"Half of their leaders are

FLN

No, we have to appeal to the needs

will suffer hardships because of the

strike."

"They want

to shut

down

the Casbah schools,"

urge parents to send their kids to school?

Why

I

"Why

said.

not

should the children

be involved in the strike?" "That's

it,"

Brissac said. "That will be our front page, with a big

headline that says 'Tous a L'ecole.' We'll prepare other articles on

how and

the vital services will not be affected by the strike, such as gas electricity

"What

if

and transportation."

they are affected?" Brodin asked.

"Massu has assured me they won't

As we got our

make

itself felt.

first issue

be," Brissac said.

together, the para presence

The deployment

began

to

of the four regiments in the city was

intended to create a psychological shock in the Arab population.

regiments were actually battalion strength, around 800

and Algiers was divided into four

men

The

each,

sectors. Colonel Bigeard, with his

TED MORGAN

138

rather bombastic style and contempt for civilian government, had the

Casbah

sector. Bigeard's experience told

good

one side was as that there be a

The

as another.

winner and

a loser.

him

that in a moral sense,

only thing that counted was

What

he wanted was the success,

not of his country, which was governed by corrupt politicians, nor of

whose superior

the army, most of

officers

3rd RPC,

merit, but of his unit, the

he saw as rivals of small

who were

the red berets,

Casbah ever made, based on census

lists

drawn up by

aerial

quar-

maps of the

tered in a villa in El-Biar. Bigeard had the first accurate

photographs, in addition to the

Trinquier. Houses that were found to have

frequent comings and goings were marked.

At midnight on January ments were briefed

combat teams from

14,

in front of a

huge map of the

city.

four regi-

all

They had 250

names and addresses, marked with red tacks on the map. At 12:30 main Casbah

the sand-colored trucks drove to the

exits

—rue de

la

Lyre, Square Montpensier, Boulevard de la Victoire, Boulevard de

Verdun,

Rampe

Valee,

entered the badly

and rue Bab-el-Oued. In single

file,

the paras

alleyways, and by 12:45 they had verified the

lit

addresses of suspects.

Those

in the

a flashlight in

lower Casbah zeroed in on the red-tack houses with

one hand and a

doors, bursting

in,

MAT

and making

screamed and the arrested men

in the other,

arrests, as

said,

breaking

women and

"You have no

inhabitants,

who

The number next day that

it

to roof,

children

right." In the

per Casbah, the paras went in from above, vaulting onto

and jumping from roof

down

which had a dramatic

flat

up-

rooftops

effect

on the

hid in the basement.

of arrests was not released, but Brissac told us the

was over

1,000.

and the ants are scurrying," he

"The paras have kicked the said.

anthill

The problem was what to do

with the arrested. Normally, they would have been turned over to a public prosecutor and taken through the court system, arraignment, investigation,

and

trial.

But the paras, and particularly Bigeard, did

not want "exasperating measures" such as search warrants and ar-

raignments, which were "a waste of time." After

and

it

could not be fought

if

all,

this

was

a war,

suspects disappeared into the snail-like

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS judicial system.

There was, however, the

139

useful provision of "assigned

residence." Instead of being arraigned in front of a judge within

48

hours of their arrest, the suspects could be detained by the paras for a week.

The

requests had to be signed by the secretary general for

who

the police, Paul Teitgen,

dreds that came

got writer's cramp signing the hun-

in.

Teitgen was a devout Catholic

during World

War

II.

tured and sent to Dachau.

He

who had been

was an experience he never discussed.

It

arrived in Algiers in August 1956,

state of siege,

He

hand.

in the Resistance

Arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, he was tor-

when

the city

was already

in a

and was told that the rebels were gaining the upper

could see why.

The

Corsican mafia, notable for

Algiers police were in the hands of the

its inactivity.

the thugs and the paper-pushers.

They

There were two

categories,

rarely ventured into the Cas-

bah, which they called "the aquarium."

When

the paras were given full police powers under Massu,

Teitgen was ambivalent.

They were

an improvement over

definitely

the police, but the detention of suspects bothered him, though he had

no choice but to sign the requests. At

many had been other

civil

Massu was

detained.

servants

who had been

the Nazis were comparing to see

German

to Brissac,

least,

told that Teitgen

paras. Teitgen

some of the

he was saying, "I'm not a cop.

in.

After the

first triage,

tion centers. Eventually, every

own

I

was shocked

don't like this work." to find

became known

that he

was

to

company

in ever

para regiment had

was drowning some of the

its

RPC. The

suspects,

who

as crevettes (shrimp) Bigeard.

After work on January ican library

camps

those held were sent to interroga-

interrogation center. Bigeard had his team at the 3rd

rumor went around

It

and several

dirty work. According

There were so many suspects that the paras had put them

how

traumatized by deportation under

them with the

legionnaires doing

he reasoned, he knew

17,

1

went

to see

Don

Davies

at the

on rue Michelet, which was a prolongation of rue

close to seven,

and

an icy rain

from the Milk Bar to the other

was beating down.

side of the Place

As

I

Amerd'Isly.

crossed

Bugeaud, the yellow

pavement surrounding the fountains was wet and

slippery.

TED MORGAN

140

As

a

church clock struck

7,

there

was

a thunderous explosion.

Waiters with white napkins over their arms came out of the Milk Bar

and pointed

worked and second

the military headquarters, where General Salan

at

lived with his family.

floor,

There was

a

gaping space on the

where one of the long windows partly hidden by palm

trees had been,

and billows of white smoke poured

was buzzing:

below, as the ambulance sirens sounded, the crowd the fellouzes [fellaghas] for sure."

As

it

turned out,

it

was neither the

Communists who were known

It

was

FLN

to set

my

first

A

bazooka had been

directly across the street.

nor the handful of mili-

bombs.

It

fired at his office

Twenty minutes

I

explosion.

was

a right-wing

underground group who had mistakenly believed that Salan was on Algeria.

"It's

smell the cocos (^Communists] ."

"I

stood there like a statue, dumbfounded.

tant

out. In the street

from

earlier Salan

soft

a building

had been

The generals aide and close friend, Major Rodier, was sitting at Salan's desk when the shell struck. Salan's 10-year-old daughter, Dominique, who was doing her homework in a room directly above the office, ran downstairs and saw Rodier slumped over, thinking at first the dead man was her father. By the time Massu arrived, a furious Salan was stand-

summoned

to the office of Governor-General Lacoste.

ing in his office in the debris. police powers," he said, "if this

Across the

"Why is all

street, the police

in the

world did

I

give you

full

you can do?"

found the bazooka tube and the elec-

The wire came from the admiralty arsenal. The welder who had made the tube worked there and led them to the instigators of the plot. One was Philippe Castille, a right-wing hoodlum tric detonator.

and former noncom. Another was Dr. Rene Kovacs, a Hungarianborn ultra intriguer with

political

connections in Paris.

rested, they said they considered Salan the

Indochina.

They

did not

want him

in Algeria.

When

man who had

arlost

Salan was in shock

and found these accusations deeply wounding. He had been ordered by his superior, General Paul Ely, to preside

hand-over of Indochina to

Ho

time that this was a poisoned

Chi Minh. gift.

at the

He had

ceremony of

not realized at the

The handover ceremony

contin-

ued to be held against him. Castille was tried and sent to prison.

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Kovacs

141

Spain and was later sentenced to death in absentia.

fled to

Salan remained convinced that highly placed politicians

were behind the

As

for

in Paris

plot.

me, the attempt to murder the general commanding

French forces simply showed what a many-headed monster Algeria

You never knew who was going

was.

—

fact

it

only

made things worse

both

... for

In a war, the difference between

timing and luck.

would be dead. sooner, he

my

life

with

my

If

was senseless and

and death was

death.

I

safely.

false,

was swept by the

I

which

I

lift

to a stroke of luck

I

I

it

scene," she said.

matter of

a

office,

he

feeling that

that he could fight the

was the

occupier, at

was now

a

I

war with

a

noncombatant, thanks

did not deserve. off,

telling Brissac

research on the schools in the Casbah. that

in

had gone to war out of a sense of obligation

their shackles.

took the next day

war and

—when

dimly perceived had to do

memory. But he had joined de Gaulle so

people trying to

both sides

sides.

father had flown into his base a few minutes

Germans who occupied France.

I

life

for

All you could

had not been called away from his

would have landed

my father's

to his

If Salan

whom.

to shoot

be sure of was that killing was the answer

made me

I

told

sick in the head.

She offered to drive

pasa, overlooking the sea,

me

had to do some library

I

Georgette

I

"You need

to the

Roman

40 miles west of Algiers.

detested the a

change of

ruins of Ti-

We

strolled

through the remains of a thermal bath, the broken rows of a semicircular theater, and the vestiges of an early Christian church with a

mosaic inscription dating back to the then Roman,

now

French,

reminding us that pires,

I

fifth

century. First Phoenician,

thought, one era piled on top of another,

all civilizations

are mortal.

"Oh trampling em-

and mine was one of them." Only the sea remained

intact, its

green-blue waves rippling on the sand below.

Georgette

sat

on a fragment of Roman

pillar

and threw her head

back, lifting her face to the sun, the worshiper of a

pagan god. "This

summer resort for the Romans," she said. "Do you think they knew how to swim? Do you think they swam in their togas? When do you think swimming came in?" was

a

TED MORGAN

142

"After the first shipwreck,"

took her hand and asked

I

"How husband

can

is

I

said.

I

she was happy.

if

in the

Sahara? I'm divided, I'm

"A kiss in the ruins of Tipasa

bent

down and

if I

selfish,

I'm lustful."

and the sun as the answer to everything,"

"Just think of the sea said.

"I

my

be happy," she said, "when I'm here with you and

is

I

not a kiss in the Paris metro."

I

kissed her.

prefer the Paris metro," Georgette said. "Listen

could read you one of Julien's

letters,"

—

it

would help

taking an envelope out of

her handbag.

So now,

thought,

I

it's

not enough to be her husband's proxy

—

also have to be her accomplice in sympathizing with his absence.

flashed back to the bled, the bodies of

young

soldiers

mortar rounds. Her destiny was sunbathing, her

Why should

sun.

I

I

blown up by

flesh yielding to the

have to go along with her whims and listen to her

husband's observations?

But she was already reading:

"It's

an unfortunate coincidence

The

that the discovery of oil coincided with the insurrection.

Algeria

is

in ruins, but in the

Sahara there

seismic and geographical teams have

is

come

in,

sight lines.

use small explosive charges to auscultate the ground.

well

is

dug,

it

and we bring

down

supply fresh water and fresh

fish.

movie. There's enough

spells

is

The

oil in

pipeline

a

Then come Once a

feet.

routes,

when

there's a Brigitte

to supply

Bardot

France

for

dotted line on maps, but what

it

'Keep Algeria French.' There are rumors that France will

sell oil to

yesterday.

the Americans, but

From

the

air,

why

should we?

I

flew over the desert

the Sahara looks like a great red

with undulating waves." "I'll

We

and refrigeration. The planes

Hassi-Messaoud

is still

in

Here the Moslem workers drink

beer alongside us and shout with glee

forty years.

twelve thousand

must be protected, with housing and supply in generators for light

The

and surveyors

broad-brimmed hats are planting stakes and taking the drilling teams that can go

rest of

unlimited wealth.

spare you the love and kisses," she added.

"I feel as

though

I've

been peeping through a keyhole."

swamp

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

143

"Don't think of it that way. Think that for a while you are shar-

ing

my life, and don't want to exclude you from any part." When we got back in the late afternoon, Georgette 'sfatma was in

my

apartment cleaning. She always arrived veiled and cloaked but

I

down

stripped

round-faced

married

and

to a cotton sweater

woman

skirt to work,

an overweight,

with crinkly graying hair and

to a dockworker.

They lived

in a

five children,

two-room apartment

in the

Casbah. I

asked her

if

her husband was going on strike on the 28th. "For

sure," she said. "There's a lot of pressure

to

come She

to

work

as usual.

Someone has

working

said she liked

need

I

wouldn't

a little extra, she gives let

woman who

me eat

French from France,

I

me when those who

I

was

I

good

for another

worked

a little late.

Jew who

for a

The

to me.

Spanish

best are the

are working for the government."

treat their fatmas like

One

next to nothing. glass, as if

work longer

worked

is

the petits blancs" (lower-class colons)?

"Some of them same

I

"They say the Jews are

Georgette

bread on the Sabbath, and

yelled at

"What about

Madame it.

try

I'll

to feed the family."

for Georgette.

the hardest and pay the least. But If

on the dockers. But

I

of them wanted

was

mangy dogs and pay them

me

to drink always out of the

Another one

dirty.

set

back the clock so

I'd

hours."

asked her

if

she was taking a risk by coming to work during the

strike.

"In the Casbah, they instructed us not to work. a militant,

my

and

I

said,

'You want

me

to stop

might miss

I

working

was accosted by

—

are you going

to

pay

to

The fatma had to juggle her loyalty to Georgette, her obedience the FLN, and her need to support her family. In this urban war-

fare,

salary?' We'll see.

I

a couple of days."

with the entire population of the city involved, like

matters were never simple or clear-cut.

how how to

As

or not,

it

the strike approached,

even Brissac began to wonder

the paras would handle

never taught at Saint-Cyr

supply a city the size of Algiers

with fruits and vegetables," he tion a suspected terrorist."

said. "I

it.

was never taught how

"I

was

to ques-

TED MORGAN

144

When

told

I

him there was abundant evidence

were using torture, he sition or a

said:

"Are we talking about the Spanish Inqui-

form of third degree? The

when one

FLN uses a cell system, so that

arrested, the paras have to act fast to find the other

is

members of the

cell.

Of course sometimes

vilian authorities refuse to clearly define is

it

goes too

what

is

far,

but the

ci-

permitted and what

prohibited, leaving the paras to act without directives."

Saturday, January

26, was one of those springlike sunny days

drew the crowds

that

who wanted it

that the paras

buy

to

to

a picnic

downtown Algiers. I was with Georgette, hamper

for the outings she

planned when

got warmer. (This was one of the ways of pretending that

normal.)

It

was

after 5,

it

We

we

French

later learned, a 17-year-old

tank above the

room, where she placed

and

toilet,

a

European-looking Arab

it

under a table

juice,

passed a popular student hangout, the

Danielle Minne, was finishing her Orangina and went

stairs to the ladies'

ter

and

left.

in the

left.

a small

bomb on

Across the street

girl, Fadila,

down-

the wa-

at the Cafeteria,

placed her bag with a

bomb

at the

Around post

the corner on rue Peguy, at the

office,

When a young man When Georgette and

race.

line in a

in

back room, near a window, finished her tomato

Coq

Hardi, a

who

popular brasserie, Djamila Bouazza, a 19-year-old Arab girl

worked

a

was packed.

Just around that time, as girl,

was

and we were on rue Michelet, looking for

place to have an aperitif.

Otomatic, but

life

ordered tea with lemon

at the

tried to pick her up, she I

crowded

ter-

left.

walked by the Otomatic,

I

noticed a head-

newspaper someone was reading on the terrace: "Princess

Grace has given birth to

was an explosion

inside,

a daughter, Caroline."

A

minute

later,

there

and we saw the waiters bring out an elderly

woman, her dress covered with

blood.

Then

there

was

a second,

more

powerful explosion at the Cafeteria, across the street, followed by a third at the

Coq

Hardi, where the glass-encased terrace blew up and

the heavy glass shattered, throwing out shrapnel-like splinters.

There was the usual post-bomb bedlam, with people screaming,

si-

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

145

rens blaring, body brigades forming outside the cafes to remove the victims,

two of whom were

there,

were

and young men chasing isolated Arabs who happened killed.

The

total casualties

dead and forty wounded, twenty-two of

five

amputated on the operating

The

table.

arm and I

said,

I

whom

had limbs

to the colon population that

were about to be seriously disrupted.

that instead of helping out,

from the bombs

general strike was two days

away. This was the overture, announcing their lives

to be

am ashamed

I

to say

complied when Georgette tugged on

my

"We've got to get home."

later learned that Danielle

Minne

Algiers after the

left

bomb-

ing and joined a rebel group in the Constantine area. She married an

FLN

officer

and was captured

mother was married

in a shootout in

November

1957.

Her

group of Commu-

to Dr. Hadjeres, the head of a

bomb-makers. Danielle Minne was the French version of a red-

nist

diaper baby.

The

other two were part of Yacef Saadi's

On me out of a sound

Sunday, January

ened

27, the

sleep at 8

day before the

am and

told

bomb

team.

strike, Brissac

me

to

come

awak-

to the office

The first issue of our paper had been printed and was in the kiosques. He had a stack of them in the office and wanted me to take at once.

them over the Casbah

in a

banner headline, "Tous a

chopper and drop them

L'ecole,"

The chopper was waiting on above the Casbah, and

I

hope that the

would make an impression. the parade ground of a barracks

got in with

ter for the bougnouls" (an offensive

in the

my papers.

word

"A

little

reading mat-

for Arabs), the pilot said.

We

hovered over the Casbah, and the people below in the narrow alleys scattered.

I

started throwing the papers out, but a gust of wind

up and most of them blew out to

sea.

I

watched them

fly off,

came

the pages

flapping like pelican wings. I

went back

that said:

to the office

"The Algerian Communist Party

useless, since the

dence.

and found Brissac composing

It is

a leaflet

says no to the strike.

It is

United Nations will demand Algerian indepen-

unjust because

it

will starve the people.

The

FLN is lead-

ing the Algerian people astray." "Just a little disinformation," he said. "We'll get these printed up,

and

they'll

be

all

over the city this afternoon."

TED MORGAN

146

sewn with white thread poo obvious],

"It's

if

you ask me," Bro-

din said. "I didn't

ask you."

At dawn on January

chopper dropped another set of Brissac's

28, a

FLN demands

flyers

over the Casbah: "The

FLN

wants to starve the inhabitants of Algiers. Have

forces of order."

the closing of stores.

Massu had warned storekeepers

The

faith in the

that closed shutters

would be forced open and that stores would not be protected from looters.

The worked

FLN

had also made preparations. Longshoremen who

in the Algiers

harbor were asked to leave the city to avoid the

expected para raids. Every street in the Casbah had a strike committee of three or four to

make

Massu's entire division

sure the strike was observed.

was mobilized

to get

men

to

work and

keep stores open. By 7 am, thousands of paras were in the Casbah

banging on doors, with

lists

of names from the census.

They

paid

particular attention to employees of essential services, gas and electricity

and public transportation. Brissac had asked

events,

and

I

was

a loudspeaker in the

The

with

Randon, the widest

trucks are waiting." street of the lower Casbah, stood

of empty trucks, ready to take strikers to work.

men

to observe

back that alternated Arab music with the mes-

sage "Everyone to work. In rue

me

in a jeep full of white-helmeted military police

The

rows

paras pulled

out of their homes and threw them into the trucks. "Does so and

Mohammed, put your bus Those who showed the slightest

on and

so live here? Okay,

driver's hat

come with

resistance, a look in

us."

the eye, a "take your hands off me" gesture, were arrested and taken to the triage center in the

to collect the

Saint-Eugene stadium. Others were drafted

Casbah garbage with donkeys. In the harbor, when the

longshoremen didn't show up and ships waited

to be unloaded,

Massu

ordered hundreds of suspects in the Beni-Messous detention center to

work on the dock

day.

at

The harbormaster

worked twice

gunpoint. said he

They were

wanted

as fast as the regulars.

paid at the end of the

to hire

them because they

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

147

many neighborhoods,

store shutters

were closed

ras fixed a steel cable to the

bottom of the

shutter,

In

the back of their jeep tore

it

shut.

The

pa-

and the winch on

off like a sheet of paper. In

some neighbor-

hoods, young colons looted shops broken open by the paras, taking

everything from shoes to radios, and sometimes the cash register. In the Casbah, the produce market

carrot or orange available. to requisition vegetables

was

The paras

and

fruits,

There was not

closed.

a single

sent trucks into the countryside

and by afternoon a

trickle

began

to arrive.

In the cafes and restaurants of

day of the

strike, there

downtown

were no waiters.

On

Algiers, on that first

the buses and streetcars,

the conductors were European. In the Clauzel open market, with

200 stands, there was one Brissac

was

were arrested

told that

in the

its

elderly fellow selling birdseed.

on the

Casbah

in

first

day of the

strike, 1,000

Arabs

cordon-and-capture operations.

Two

additional triage centers had to be opened to process them.

On

the second day of the strike, January 29,

patrol of red berets into the Casbah, which that the houses streets lanes.

seemed

to be

was

I

built

accompanied on an

were steep stone stairways, leading to a tangle of

Sometimes one came upon

a fountain

secret garden, a tiny cemetery, or a wall

incline, so

Many

on top of one another.

a

of the

and

alleys

adorned with mosaics, a

pocked with

bullets.

Many

of the houses had inner courtyards and private wells, good hiding places; the arabesques screening the

windows were designed so

women could look out without being seen. The patrol leader, Lieutenant Meric, brisk, banged on a door, and a man answered. "Why aren't you at work?" Meric asked. "It's

short,

that

and sinewy,

a strike, Lieutenant."

"Did your union

tell

you

to strike?"

"Not the union, the instruction."

"Where

did you get this instruction?"

"Everywhere, Lieutenant. Everyone said obeyed."

it

was

a strike, so

we

TED MORGAN

148

"If

you were told to throw yourself

would you

in the ocean,

obey?"

"You

can't say no, Lieutenant, or they

"Come with

us,"

Meric

your throat."

slit

and took him down

said,

one of the

to

trucks.

In the door-to-door check,

if

women and

door open, usually to find only

was opened by to

work on

a

my

the strike, and

I'll

me forcibly,

take

man who

own," he

said he

said,

worked

I'll

be

into the street to

all right. I'd

it

tell

them

Later in the day, school,

post

office. "If

will say

go

I

didn't follow

I

grab me, Lieutenant, and

work and pick up

rather go to

my

scruff of the neck and pushed

look credible.

he told me, "and one even cut off his of bed and

at the

if you

him by the

make

children. But one door

"my neighbor

get in trouble. But

paycheck." Meric grabbed

him

no one answered, Meric forced the

finger.

"Some say

The

they're sick,"

sick ones,

we pull out

to get dressed."

we were

in

rue Ben Chenab, near an elementary

and saw the band from the 9th zouaves, who were stationed

When

the Casbah, followed by about 10 children.

in

they weren't play-

ing their marches, the zouaves passed out candy. "Some of them are

coming back

one of the zouaves

to school,"

said.

We came to the rue de Lyon, a busy commercial street, and Meric pointed out that most of the shops were open. "They can say to the

FLN

tax man,

'How can

The fatmas were doing kets,

I

pay

their

if

my

store

is

looted?'

shopping as usual

"

in the

he explained.

produce mar-

and the only disturbance came from the constant noise of the

loudspeakers on the jeeps, playing their music and slogans.

By

the third day, January 30, Algiers

In the morning, on rue

Randon and rue de

lined up waiting for the paras to take

the gasworks, to the post offices. for a

was almost back

them

la

to normal.

Lyre, workers were

to work,

on the docks, to

Most of the shops were open, except

few that tried to finagle with a sign on the shutter that said

"Closed due to a death in the family." Street vendors reappeared and

markets were crowded. In our office, Brissac claimed victory for

"The big mistake the

FLN

made," he

said,

Massu and

the paras.

"was to announce the

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS strike too

soon and make

We

last too long.

it

149

had plenty of time to

prepare, and after a couple of days the workers wanted their pay-

And

checks.

Bernard,

can

tell

paras got to

in the process, the

who had

you that

in

know

Dey

Hussein

Second

in military trucks

wonder how

"I

"Of course,

said.

defender of Arabs'

why

civil liberties]

in strictest confidence that

that

Duval

should

all

Moslems

forcibly

infraction of their liberty."

they call Archbishop Duval [a steadfast

you

is

for rebels.

went over with the parishioners," Brissac

that

that's

was an

RPC to leave

Mass looking

then, in his sermon, the priest said that taking

work

"I

on January twenty-

[a suburb],

the church, where they had burst in during

to

."

close connections to liberal Catholics, said:

eighth, the parish priest ordered the paras of the

And

the Casbah

a troublemaker.

Mohammed Ben

Massu wrote

He

got a

Duval.

I

can

tell

the pope to complain

namby-pamby

we

reply that

use the gospel as an example."

Later that day, ions sometimes

I

went

to a cafe with Bernard,

annoyed Brissac but whose

whose candid opin-

ability to

turn out a thou-

sand or more words on any topic in record time made him an essential

component of our trust me, even

editorial trio.

though he

felt

Bernard said he had decided he could I

had not formed a mature

political

opinion about the war.

Had

I

read Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth?

had

not.

"

'The Arab woman's

I

admitted that

I

protection against the pillaging of the French,'

he

case,

said,

Temoignage

Chretien, his I

paper

in

"We

told

him

I

name

for

former employer, which took a strong anti-

wrote the occasional piece

my

old

out,"

he

for

news-

Worcester, also under a pseudonym. could be in serious trouble

"Bouche cousue" ("My

He

symbolic

he quoted. In any

he was writing articles under an assumed

war

stance.

veil is a

"

told

me

if

army found

the

lips are sealed"),

that his next article had to

I

said.

do with a doctor he knew,

Hassan Manour, who had been arrested during the ing to work at the Mustapha Hospital.

He was

strike for not

taken into a

the police station, where a para officer told him: "Look,

game. You played the

down your

cards."

FLN card

and you

said.

lost,

so

now

it's

it's

go-

room

like a

in

card

time to lay

TED MORGAN

150

Dr. I've

Manour

sat there in silence,

always found

it

idiotic to

FLN killed the big boys,

I'd

shoot

and the para

down

said,

"Personally

people in the street. If the

admire them. The governor-general,

for

instance."

The para

stepped outside for a minute, and the cop guarding the

doctor told him that one of his children was sick and asked him for advice.

Manour took

out a prescription pad and scribbled something,

while thinking, First they arrest me, and then they want a free consultation.

Dr. the

Manour was

same para

held in a cell and awakened during the night by

officer.

"Enough fooling around," he

said. "I

want

to

He had with him a husky who banged the doctor around a bit. When he didn't talk, the para officer left again, and the cop who hit him said, "I've got liver trouble. Can you recommend anything?" Manour gave him the name of a medication, thinking, I'd like to prefinish

with you;

I've

got other cats to whip."

cop in shirtsleeves with a nightstick,

scribe cyanide.

The para officer came back and said, "Take a look at one of our prisoners." He was led to another cell where a man was lying on the ground. He was so badly burned that his undershirt was stuck to his skin. He screamed when Dr. Manour tried to pull it off. His back was a raw and bleeding wound. Dr. Manour asked for some ointment. The para officer said to the injured man, "A poil" ("Get naked"). "My religion forbids me to be naked in front of others," the man said,

"even before

Dr.

my

Manour was

wife."

released the next morning.

What happened

to

FLN tried

to

the other man, he did not know.

Even though the strike was a tactical give tion.

it

a positive spin

failure, the

by pointing to the United Nations resolu-

When the Algerian question came up on February 4, the French

argued that the

UN was

not competent to judge a situation taking

place in a part of France. Nonetheless, Algeria

February

15,

was discussed, and on

the General Assembly passed one of

its

stale declara-

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS tions, calling for the peaceful resolution of the conflict,

the recognition of the

FLN as

which implied

independence movement.

a legitimate

In terms of the Battle of Algiers, the true importance of the strike

was

that

provided the paras with an opportunity to arrest thou-

it

sands of Arab

men

in

cordon-and-capture operations. They detained

hundreds and quickly obtained tematic torture.

The

that suspects will tell

you what you want

The para methods

Algiers.

immediate

results.

thanks to sys-

tactical intelligence,

notion that torture

is

counterproductive, and

to hear, did not hold true in

of arbitrary arrests and torture produced

February was the month when bomb networks

were dismantled and rebel leaders were captured. Those leaders who escaped arrest fled to the countryside.

Spearheading the para operations was the 3rd led

by Colonel Bigeard,

who gave

his

men

RPC

directives

above the Casbah, on the heights of El-Biar:

"We

(red berets)

from

his villa

are operational

twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, with patrols, arrests, ambushes,

and interrogations." He had four billboard-sized charts against the wall of his cell

by

office,

cell,

showing the organization of the

with blank rectangles that were

were arrested. Intelligence, Bigeard start pulling

The

first

on a thread, and the

FLN in the Casbah

filled in

said, "is like a coil

cause he was carrying a copy of the

his

You

of yarn.

when

the paras

Hamened Abderrahmane

FLN

be-

newspaper, Moujahid.

ran a metalworks in the suburb of Saint-Eugene.

accompanied him to

rebels

coil unravels."

thread was pulled in early February,

raided a housing project and arrested

officers

when

One

He

of Bigeard's

shop with a police inspector,

who

found some blueprints of metal boxes that looked like casings for

bombs.

"And what's this?" he was asked. "I

don't know, Captain.

It

belongs to a fellow

who comes

in after

hours."

They took Hamened back

to the regimental interrogation center,

put a hood over his head, and poured water

down

his throat until

he

gave them a name, which led to another arrest, and then another, until they

had the address, 5 impasse de

la

Grenade. They raided the

TED MORGAN

152

place at 3 in the

morning on February 8 and found Mustapha Bouhired, and two other young women,

a city hall employee, his niece Djamila,

who

objected so strenuously at being roused from their sleep that the

paras

left.

When

women were

they came back the next day, Bouhired and the

gone, but they

left

behind snapshots of the

women aim-

who was none other than know it at the time.

ing submachine guns at the photographer,

Yacef Saadi, although the paras did not

Meanwhile, the rebels struck

thrown

daily.

On

left

two dead and

Sunday, February

9, a

grenade

wounded.

12

the minister of defense, Maurice

10,

Bourges-Maunoury, who was

February

on rue Tanger on the edge of

into the Joinville restaurant,

the Casbah,

On

visiting the

war zone, went

to see Bi-

geard in the afternoon and asked him about interrogation techniques.

"The torture room

down

is

take a look." That was in

the hall," Bigeard said, "if you'd like to

Bruno

—he wanted

to rub the minister's nose

it.

Their conversation was interrupted by a phone

"Two

call for Bigeard.

soccer stadiums have been bombed," he was told.

Yacef Saadi, the chief terrorist, knew every corner of the Casbah, but he cursed the paras for turning their house-to-house searches,

dress every few days.

He

it

into a concentration

camp with

which obliged him to change

his ad-

could hear their trucks arriving in rue Ran-

He

don, which separated upper from lower Casbah. silhouettes on the rooftops.

He

could hear the

rifle

could see the

butts banging on

doors and spent hours hiding in a closet-sized space three feet deep.

And

yet he

still

had

a store of

bombs

in various hiding places.

problem was getting them out of the Casbah,

for

now

The

the paras

searched the girls and their beach bags. But the paras didn't

know

about the bakery whose entrance was on the Boulevard de Verdun,

with a back door inside the Casbah.

One was

thought, to

of the few things the colons and the Arabs had in

a love of soccer.

common

Yacef Saadi was a soccer player himself, and he

Why not bomb the soccer stadiums in the middle of a match,

show the

colons they aren't safe

or watching soccer?

He

anywhere, whether sitting

recruited four teenagers,

in a cafe

two boys and two

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

girls,

153

and sent them out with two bombs through the bakery, on Feb-

The sky was gray, but the day was mild and the stadium was packed. One couple sat in the bleachers of the El-Biar stadium and nuzzled each other. The bomb was in the pocket of the boy's tweed jacket. At halftime they got up and left. The boy left his jacket behind as if to save his seat. The bomb went off at 4:30 pm. The secruary

10.

ond pair went to the Belcourt municipal stadium, and their booksized

bomb exploded

both stadiums were

a bit later, also at the half. Total casualties for killed

1 1

and 56 wounded. Six of the dead were

the Casanova family, husband, wife,

two

children, sister-in-law,

and

nephew. It

didn't take long to catch the teenagers. In the

wreckage of the

El-Biar bleachers, a police inspector found a scrap of tweed with a

dry cleaner's the

name of

He

tag.

down

tracked

the client,

Mohamed

who

the dry cleaner,

looked up

Belamine, in his stub book. Be-

lamine was arrested and gave the names of the three others. All four

were sentenced to death by a military tribunal.

Even though Brissac,

walked up rue

and the ships shore.

I

it

was

who wanted

saw

d'Isly,

a Sunday,

I

could see,

and

in the harbor,

a

woman

I

a special issue

I

was summoned

to the office by

on the stadium bombings. As

down

the cross streets, the ocean

could

feel a

breeze coming off the

holding the hands of her two small children as

they crossed the street, and people at the cafe terraces, and

seemed so normal. And yet

I

knew

that at

was bewildering

and death became Georgette and

I

that

you could get

a part of

all

women scream-

to the point

where violence

your daily routine. Only that morning,

had driven to her tennis

with the handles of our

it

any moment there might

be an explosion, with broken windows, flying limbs, ing. It

I

club, the

Club des Pins,

bag

in the backseat,

rackets sticking out of a

and we were stopped by paras

at a

checkpoint

—they thought we were

carrying guns.

She was expecting

When

I

got

me

for dinner, but

home an hour

later,

called at least," she said, even

want me

to

make personal

I

was held up

at the office.

she was fuming. "You could have

though she knew that Brissac didn't

calls

from the

office.

"De Brissac?" she

TED MORGAN

154

"What about me? You only think of yourself.

shouted.

You're just a

sponge." "At least I'm a cut-rate sponge,"

She burst into

where you

are.

I

said. "I don't cost

when

tears. "It's just that

Everyone

is

you're late,

scared and acting crazy.

car next to a sweet white-haired grandmother

under her breath.

them

all.'

Again

street-cleaners

I

'Excuse me?' and she

said,

I

said,

and

I

you much." I

don't

was on

know

a street-

who was mumbling

said,

'We've got to

kill

'Excuse me?' and she pointed to some Arab

said, 'Kill

Even Georgette, so

them

practical

all

"

before they kill

us.'

and businesslike, so eager

to con-

now liquid-eyed and upset, but at least we had bedroom, where we could forget the outside

nect and to please, was the sanctuary of her

world for a while. In the meantime, Ali Boumendjel, an

rested on February 9 after a

His arrest by the

to him.

Arab VIP, had been

handgun used by

men

of the 2nd

a terrorist

ar-

was traced

RPC (red berets) led by Col-

onel Albert Fossey-Francois raised the question of how

Massu would

He

handle a well-known

Moslem lawyer with

was taken

to the

RPC

in El-Biar,

and tortured so severely that he had to be hospitalized on

February 12

FLN

2nd

headquarters, a building with two wings,

for "attempted suicide."

and heading

in the rare cases

a

political connections.

He

admitted belonging to the

group of lawyers that defended arrested

when they were put on

trial instead

rebels,

of being liqui-

dated.

When

Boumendjel was returned to the 2nd

RPC

on March

4,

know what to do with

him. Boumendjel was the FLN's

unofficial minister of foreign affairs,

with links to Third World lead-

Massu ers

did not

and

influential deputies in France. If he

were to be put on

trial,

the courtroom would turn into a debate on the war, which would trigger anticolonial demonstrations in Paris.

Francois: 23,

"I

forbid

you to allow him

told Fossey-

to escape. Compris?"

Boumendjel was told he was going

him across

Massu

to court.

Two

On March

paras escorted

a sixth-floor footbridge that connected the building's

wings. "Jumped or

fell

to his death"

was the euphemism

two

in the papers

the next day, for he had been pushed. In Paris, his death prompted a

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

155

debate in the National Assembly. Rene Capitant, an eminent law professor

and Resistance hero, suspended

his course at the

Sorbonne

saying that Boumendjel had been his student. In Algiers, Paul Teitgen, the police prefect

who

signed the detainment requests (by the

end of February he had signed an astonishing 24,000) sent a resignation on

March 24

to

Guy

Premier

Mollet, in which he said

Beni-Messous and Paul-

that he had visited the triage centers in

Cazelle and seen on the detainees the that had been inflicted

The

on him

same marks of torture

in the cells of the

triage centers were holding pens

Gestapo

it

having repercussions

in

in

was scandalous

pare the French army to the Gestapo and refused to first

as those

Nancy.

where suspects were held be-

fore or after torture. Mollet replied that

But Boumendjel's death was the

letter of

let

to

him

com-

resign.

sign that the para tactics were

France that could spark an antiwar move-

ment.

On

February

12,

Fernand Yveton, a young Communist

1957,

whose bomb had been found

in his locker at the

gas and electricity

company, thus causing no victims, was nonetheless guillotined. Bernard Brodin was friendly with an officer on Massu's staff tended the execution. officer,

One

of the

men greasing

who

at-

the blade told the

"Don't get too close. You could be splattered."

The officer

said

the entire ceremony, the guards in black gloves, the chaplain with his

nose in a prayer book, Yveton's head pushed onto the lunette and then dropping into the basket, had turned him against capital punishment. 'And this was the clever machine invented by Dr. Guillotin to

end suffering," Bernard

said. "Killing a

into the notion that the Algerian rebellion

French Communist plays is

inspired by

Moscow

in

the hope that an independent Algeria will join the Soviet camp. Yve-

ton had to be executed in order to give more weight to this thesis."

"Yveton was killed because he was a pied-noir the other side,"

I

said,

While writing

who went

over to

"and the pieds-noirs wanted his head."

articles for Realties Algeriennes

on the prowess of

the paras, Bernard was also researching their misdeeds for Te-

moignage lice,

Chretien.

Our jobs gave

us entree to the paras and the po-

and Bernard had seen the police reports and taken notes: "On

TED MORGAN

156

Feb.

her

55-year-old Aisha Daoui charged that 10 red berets searched

8,

home

6 rue Henri Brisson and stole 150,000 francs and two

at

gold bracelets while arresting her husband." "At 2 in the morning on Feb. 9, several blue berets broke into the store of a shoemaker, 9 rue

Medee, opened the

They threw

safe,

and

stole

450,000 francs and some jewelry.

the key to the safe into the street, where

it

was recovered

by some children." I

had one for Bernard.

litical

I

had gotten to know Hans Imhof, the po-

counselor at the U.S. consulate, a gemiitlich Viennese who'd

America

war and joined the Foreign

gone

to

lived

on a dead-end street off rue Michelet,

a gated

Moorish

after the

was standing with Hans on

said, "I

end of which stood

estate with a large garden, the Villa Sesini, taken

over by Foreign Legion paratroopers I

at the

He

Service.

—

the 1st

his balcony

one

REP, or green afternoon

late

can never find a parking space. These legionnaires

him

berets.

when he all

seem

were stolen from the Arabs

to have cars."

I

told

they arrested.

It

had not occurred to him that French soldiers would

that the cars

behave like hoodlums.

While Bigeard's red berets were

heros, the green berets had a

bad reputation. They prided themselves on obtaining actionable intelligence faster than other units.

It

was

there was a burial ground. Their told his

men,

"If

Rene

ported by the

Germans with

Nazi

Gille, a police

for a transfer."

him:

"We

Major Roger Faulques, the green

body was

will.

one asked

him an album of

berets' chief torturer,

had

He knew how

to

Thin, gnarled, barely 30, with pale blue eyes, his

a welter of scars.

Cao Bang and

No

have to start somewhere."

learned interrogation techniques from the Viets.

break a man's

consulate)

commissioner who had been de-

Jeanpierre, brought

atrocities. Jeanpierre told

the flower

commander, Colonel Jeanpierre,

you have qualms, ask

for a transfer.

among German

said that

beds of the Villa Sesini (which had once been the

He'd been riddled by

hit in the head,

a

machine gun

at

stomach, arms, and legs. General Giap

had sent him back to the French, saying, "He deserves to die among

own people." But he survived. His friends said that his suffering made him "a little odd," although they praised his intelligence. He his

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

157

used dialectics as well as the baignoire (bathtub) and the gegene (portable generators with the electrodes attached to various parts of the

suspect's body).

He

set traps

by letting suspects talk and picking up

discrepancies. In the cells of the Villa Sesini basement, each cell had a nameplate, but

plate thought,

some

No

cells

were empty.

A

suspect seeing the

name-

point in protecting him; he's already been caught.

Faulques bugged the interrogation rooms and

suspects alone to-

left

gether so they could talk to each other.

Bernard had a theory that the suffering of the para Indochina gave them ity to

make

leaders.

He

(in their

others suffer.

own minds)

the right and the author-

same might be true of the

said the

I

officers in

FLN

said no, they used terrorism as a policy, while the paras

validated the use of torture with their past experience. ras used torture as a

method of counter terrorism but

I

that

said the pait

could not

be condoned.

Talk of torture was

in the air.

Father Delarue, the chaplain of

Massu's para division, released a letter defending torture "since lized nations have

maintained the death penalty

.

.

civi-

the painful inter-

.

rogation of arrested criminals in order to protect innocent civilians is

also permissible.

What

act to the obstinate

is

worse

—

to subject a bandit caught in the

harassment of interrogation, or to permit the

massacre of innocents

who

could have been saved

if

the suspect had

talked?"

"Of course," Bernard tion will be Brissac,

'If

said after reading the letter, "the para reac-

a priest says

who had gone

latest issue, burst into

our

it's

okay

to Massu's headquarters to

office in a state of animation. "Hey, bidasses

[slang for "soldiers"], you won't believe your ears. his office

show him our

and no one could

tell

me where

he was.

I

Massu wasn't

in

ran into Godard

pVIassu's chief of staff J, who's a friend of mine, and he told me, 'He's

trying out the gegene!

"

"That's a joke," Bernard said, "He'll try

won't turn up the juice.

go through. And it

away from

also,

It

it

for a minute,

and they

has nothing to do with what the suspects

Massu has nothing

his private parts."

to confess.

And

they keep

TED MORGAN

158

Brissac

and stood with

a cigarette

lit

him, bending backward, a

many

generals do you

la

von Stroheim

know who would hand

that?" he asked. "For Massu, a free as the ability to shoot.

who have "I

to

doubt

do

in

hands folded behind

Grand

it

any the worse

Illusion.

"How

put themselves through

in interrogation

But he realizes that morally

so he tried

it,

he's

his

it's

is

as crucial

risky for those

himself." for

it,"

Bernard

said.

"Don't forget," Brissac said, "the politicians told him, 'Do what

you have to

"Maybe

Guy

do.

We don't want to know about

" it.'

the politicians should try the gegene,"

I

said, "right

up to

Mollet."

"Oh, Bigeard's

I

almost forgot," Brissac

men

said. "I

picked up a

bit

of news.

arrested bachaga Boutaleb."

Bigeard had kept pulling on his thread. x\bderrahmane the metalworker, after another round of water torture, had given the a

name of

mason, Hassan Rabah, who was picked up and admitted building a

hidden room in the

home

was the go-between

in secret talks

He worked

of Boutaleb, on impasse Kleber. Boutaleb

between the French and the FLN.

closely with cabinet ministers in

France and with Colonel

Schoen, the head of Moslem affairs in the cabinet of Robert Lacoste, the Algiers governor-general. Boutaleb

racy and

owned

a

Moorish palace

an apartment in the European

was part of the Arab

in the

sector,

aristoc-

Casbah, though he also had

Boulevard Bru. The

chaga meant that he held a position of importance in his

title

ba-

home town,

Bou Saada. Hassan Rabah

led the paras to Boutaleb 's palace, with

gling fountain in the center of an arcaded courtyard.

its

gur-

By following

the design of the wall tiles in one of the reception rooms, he found an irregularity and pressed a

room with

a cot

and a

tile.

A panel swung open, revealing a small

ventilator, as well as nine

bombs.

Boutaleb was in Paris, where he saw the French president, Rene Coty.

Thanks

to the

mason, Bigeard was on

a roll.

Rabah

led

them

to

the address on impasse de la Grenade, where the paras had previ-

ously found Mustapha Bouhired and the three

young women. This

time they found a hidden room and some bombs. Bouhired was ar-

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS rested and shot "while trying to

Bigeard's

flee."

I

Between February

14

and

19,

men found 61 bombs.

Bigeard was hearing from Colonel Schoen that Boutaleb was a special case; he

had been helpful to the French

by the hijacking of Ben Bella. Bigeard rest him." in the

He was

in secret talks

aborted

damn. Ar-

said, "I don't give a

bomb network

starting to realize the extent of the

Casbah and the amount of preparation that had gone into these

hidden rooms, carefully constructed by skilled masons and carpenters.

When

Boutaleb returned form Paris on February

21,

rested and brought to Bigeard's headquarters. Boutaleb

he was ar-

was wearing

a white gandoura (robe) with his Legion of Honor pinned to told Bigeard's chief of staff, Captain Allaire: "I insist

it.

He

on being ques-

tioned by an officer of the Legion of Honor."

"Legions of Honor are a dime a dozen," Allaire

noncom with in

the Medaille Militaire"

said. "Here's a

A tough-looking red beret came

with a blackjack that he kept slapping against his palm. "I

know nothing about

were placed there by Algiers in Paris."

the room," Boutaleb said.

my political

And

enemies.

I

am

"The bombs

fighting the battle of

he dropped names, including that of Francois

Mitterand, the minister of justice (and later president). Boutaleb es-

caped torture but was sentenced to

five

years by a military tribunal.

Under questioning, Boutaleb confirmed leaders had been in the safe houses in the

Casbah before the

European section

that the top five

strike but then

FLN

moved

to

to avoid being caught in para

The five were Larbi Ben M'Hidi, who planned the strike; Abane Ramdane, the advocate of urban terrorism; Krim Belkacem, the vet-

raids.

eran Kabyle warrior; Benyoucef Ben Khedda; and Saad Dahlab. These five constituted the tion).

Boutaleb,

said that

(Committee of Coordination and Execu-

liked to

show

Ben M'Hidi had stayed

also gave the

The

who

CCE

name

off his connections

at his

sides,

mansion on impasse Kleber. He

of the liaison agent,

paras arrested

on both

Hachemi Hamoud.

Hamoud, who was tortured

so severely that

he died. Under torture, he gave the address of a safe house, an apart-

ment building on rue Debussy,

in

downtown

Algiers.

On

the evening

TED MORGAN

160

of February 23, a team of paras showed the concierge of the building a snapshot of Ben M'Hidi. "That's

"He works floor."

at city hall.

Very

Monsieur Antoine Perez," she

polite.

Very

Ben M'Hidi answered the door

discreet.

in his

No

visitors.

said.

Third

pajamas and offered no

resistance.

The next

press conference, which

top

I

FLN leader and mastermind of the strike.

Salan,

was

who was not averse to publicity, gave a attended. He announced the capture of the

day, Bigeard,

who had

there.

much

noticed that General

I

since the bazooka hit his office,

struck up a conversation with Captain Allaire, Bigeard's

I

genial chief of corder.

not been seen

"We

staff,

found

it

known in

as Tatave,

Ben M'Hidi's

who showed me

a tape re-

studio," he said. "I'm using

it

in

interrogations."

The

story that was put out in

committed

March was

suicide, but the real story, as

not that simple.

The drama

that

Ben M'Hidi had

passed on to Brissac, was

of Ben M'Hidi's capture and death be-

gan with an improbable friendship and ended with

a transparent

cover-up.

When Ben

M'Hidi was

first

brought before Bigeard, he was

in

handcuffs and ankle chains. Bigeard proposed that they be removed.

Ben M'Hidi if

I

told him: "If you

remove them,

I

will try to escape, even

throw myself out the window." Bigeard admired

which was equal to his own.

He began

to consider

an enemy but as a worthy opponent, a warrior In the next few days, the into the night.

his fearlessness,

Ben M'Hidi not

as

like himself.

two men had conversations

went on

that

There was no animosity between them. They

dis-

cussed the war in a detached manner, like two chess masters analyzing

game strategy. Bigeard felt that they had in common

origins.

Ben M'Hidi was the son of peasants.

"I

their

modest

was promoted from

the ranks," Bigeard told him. "I'm not an imperialist.

I

want the Ar-

abs to remain in the Western camp."

Ben M'Hidi

said he understood the para

methods and that they

were "the only valid methods, since the French legal system allows terrorism to spread with impunity."

They

said tu (the

French familiar

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

form

for "you") to each other, as if they

161

were old

friends.

But there

were limits to their mutual understanding. Bigeard asked, "Aren't

you ashamed "Give

to place

bombs

in the baskets of your

me your planes Ben M'Hidi ,"

women?"

replied. "I'll give

my bas-

you

kets."

And

so the apostle of peasant socialism, modest, stubborn, and

incorruptible, conversed with the

embodiment of French might, proud,

stubborn, and incorruptible. Bigeard explained that he too had been a captive, of the Viets,

and that despite the

loss of Indochina, "I

still

believe in a greater France."

"You survived will die, but

when

Algeria will be but

am

I

those

captivity,"

am

I

free.

"I

know

that

I

gone, someone will replace me, and one day

You

are above

beneath you and

who have done

Ben M'Hidi responded.

I

me and you

can see under you.

can see beyond me,

The

the fighting will not be those

sad thing

who

is

that

take power."

Bigeard and Ben M'Hidi spoke in the interrogation room of the

RPC, but

3rd

the usual methods were not employed, and for 10 days

there existed something akin to the medieval Truce of God, and the rebel leader spoke voluntarily. But the situation could not last.

want

did not

M'Hidi had

Massu

a public trial with international repercussions.

Ben

to disappear.

Aside from the regimental interrogation centers, Massu had a secret torture unit under the

which

little

resses,

until he published a

a

in 2001. in the

Aussa-

newspa-

longtime secret service officer recruited by Massu for his

willingness to torture and assassinate. the

book

whose name and photograph never appeared

was

per,

was known

shadowy Major Paul Aussaresses, about

Massu asked him

to handle

Ben M'Hidi problem.

On

the evening of

March

4,

Aussaresses arrived at Bigeard's

headquarters in El-Biar with a dozen men, some jeeps, and a pickup. sion

Dodge

Ben M'Hidi was removed from Bigeard's benevolent supervi-

and pushed into the cab of the Dodge. They drove to an isolated

dairy farm 20 kilometers south of Algiers. In the barn, Ben M'Hidi

was hanged from

a

beam, and a milking stool was placed next to his

TED MORGAN

162

Massu and

body. Aussaresses called ted suicide."

"Ben M'Hidi has commit-

said:

Massu grunted and hung

up. Aussaresses continued to

use the farm for executions and dug a ditch to bury the bodies.

At

Realties Algeriennes

learn the truth until

we

printed the official version.

didn't

we had our doubts. I had never seen "Anyone who knew anything about Ben

later,

Bernard angry before.

but

M'Hidi knows he would never

Moslem and an example

We

kill himself,"

to his people.

he

said.

"He was

We're peddling more

a

devout

shit

than

Goebbels."

"We're not alone,"

number-one

[the

at least

have said

I

said.

"Look

at the

daily]: 'Chief Terrorist

Tound Hanged.'

headline in VEcho d'Alger

Hangs Himself They could

"

After the arrest of Ben M'Hidi on February 23, the four other rebel leaders fled Algiers.

Ben Khedda, who wore dark glasses and

had grown a mustache, had an ID card

and

a studio

in the

name

of Albert Molina

on Boulevard Saint-Saens. He went by rue Debussy and

saw two paras standing

outside.

One

him

of his aides drove

to Blida

that day, with Saad Dahlab.

Dr. Pierre Chaulet, a

Communist sympathizer, was

Abane Ramdane and Krim Belkacem

drive

was having lunch with

as he

his

to Blida.

On

pregnant wife Claudine

apartment on the heights of Algiers, the paras burst

As he

him.

dezvous."

an hour

recruited to

February 25,

in

in their

and arrested

kissed his wife good-bye, he said, "Don't forget your ren-

The

later,

paras assumed she was seeing her gynecologist. Half she picked up

Krim and Abane on

street corners

and

drove them to Blida. All four rebel leaders made their way to the

mountain hideout of Colonel Sadek, the commander of wilaya In the Casbah, the departure of the leaders

bombs

FLN

left

went

the militants demoralized. Yacef Saadi was angry at the

leaders,

remaining

4.

and the seizure of the

who had

forces.

It

fled

was

without warning.

a miracle

out, he dressed as a

he was

woman, with

He had

still at

a veil

to

large,

regroup his

and when he

hiding his mustache.

The

paras were under order not to search veiled women. His office

was

his briefcase, filled

with false ID cards,

and half a million francs.

seals,

FLN

documents,

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS Yacef started over, practically from scratch. aides

He had

Zohra Drif and Djamila Bouhired, and

man, Ali-la-Pointe, and

his girlfriend,

163

his

his

two

loyal

number-one

hit

Hassiba Ben Bouali. Slowly, he

gathered the remnants of his former teams and there rose from the

new

ashes a

and

in the

political

and military organization. But that took time,

wake of the January

Every family had been their

normal

long lines

activities.

of women

raids,

in the

Casbah was

low.

and people preferred to return to

affected,

Men

morale

went

to work, children to school,

stood in front of

and

Barberousse prison with ham-

pers of food for relatives.

Outside the Casbah, Colonel Jeanpierre's that ferreted out a

1st

REP

followed leads

network of French sympathizers of the FLN. They

searched the apartment of a 35 -year-old social worker from Besancon, Denise Walbert, and found hundreds of

eograph machine. After a workout

FLN flyers

at the Villa Sesini,

and a mim-

Walbert gave

names: Andre Gallice, a member of the Algiers city council, whose

apartment had been used tron, a schoolteacher

for

from Annecy, who had come

and found friends among munists

at a

when her agreed.

made

meetings of FLN leaders. Eliane Gauto Algiers in 1948

the Algerian militants and French

Com-

student center. She married baker Jacques Gautron, and

friends asked her to hide

When

wanted men

in their

home, she

they were arrested, the reputation of the Villa Sesini

torture unnecessary.

They gave more names, and on March 6

the green berets arrested a lycee professor, a trade union leader, a

salesman, a stationer, several female social workers, and a priest,

French. Father Barthez was a worker priest in Hussein

been helping the rebels for years, particularly hard-to-get medication.

When

he arrived

in

all

Dey who had

supplying them with

at Villa Sesini, a Catholic

para officer objected that they should not arrest priests. Roger Faulques, the chief interrogator, said, "He's as guilty as the

throwers." Faulques took said,

him

into a

"Father Barthez talked as

There was consternation

if

in

room, and when he came out, he

he was in a confessional."

Massu's entourage

at the extensive

networks of French "liberals" assisting the terrorists

French

women and children.

bomb-

Brissac

came back from

a

who blew up

Massu

briefing

TED MORGAN

164

and

said, "Really,

incredible."

it is

Bernard

said,

grasp that political loyalties cross national believes in a free Algeria as fervently as

"The military cannot

A man

lines.

Massu

like Gallice

believes in a

French

Algeria."

Massu had been given some letters found

Brissac bristled and said

among the social workers. "They're a gang of gouines" (lesbians). The one Massu most wanted to find, Brissac said, was Raymonde Peschard, who was said to be a militant Communist deeply involved in bomb-making. Peschard, an uncommonly pretty girl, pink-cheeked and pigtailed, had vanished after the three bombs exploded in September 1956. The network had parked her in the convent of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa. But when the mother superior saw an

article

on her

activities,

with her photo-

graph, in L'Echo d'Alger, she decided to pass her on to a Carmelite

where newspapers were not allowed.

order,

Brissac

was given the assignment

to leak to the Algiers

newspa-

pers the false news that Peschard had been arrested, in an attempt to flush her out.

about

it,

When

the item was published, the Carmelites heard

and Peschard

left

the convent and

was evacuated

to

an

FLN

maqnis (camp) in the Constantinois, near the Tunisian border. There, she worked as a nurse and was said to have married an

On November

26, 1957, she

was

killed in a

gun

FLN

battle with

officer.

French

forces.

In France there

only

among

was growing concern over the use of torture, not

antiwar

leftist

elements but in government

circles.

The

concern was fed by rumors that a renowned para general serving

in

Algeria had condemned Massu's tactics and asked for a transfer. Jacques Paris de Bollardiere, a general at 48, had arrived in Algeria in July 1956, to

command

a sector southeast of Algiers.

Saint-Cyr classmate of Massu's, with officer in Indochina.

whom

He was

a

he had served as a para

But there the resemblance ended. In 1944, Bol-

lardiere had been parachuted into a maquis in France. In their battles

men were captured, tortured, killed, ditches. When his men seized a Nazi prison camp, his officers hanging from a butcher's hook. From

with the Germans, some of his

and thrown into he found one of

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

165

then on, he rejected torture as a dishonorable method used by totalitarian regimes. In Indochina, his

noncoms shot

where he had commanded a coolie in the

exhausted to carry a

Bollardiere had the

dreamed of empire and French

The

lardiere did not share.

World and

prestige, but

loss of Indochina

destiny.

its

anticolonial general Algeria

one of

back of the head because he was too

field radio.

Most of the Indochina veterans who were

martialed.

the Third

a para brigade,

He was

it

was

noncom in

a

court-

Algeria

still

dream Bol-

had made him aware of

a curiosity in the army,

an

was another interminable and useless

war, he thought, sapping French lives and resources. In his sector, he had a great

many unhappy

reservists serving

who were thrown into operational units without He thought it was wrong to fight the war for the

their second tour,

proper training.

and against the Arabs.

colons

tras

would be better

It

up the

ul-

and negotiate with the FLN. He refused to carry out an order

to search

mosques

He wrote

weapons.

for

18 rejecting torture in his sector. All

of rebels. if

to lock

you

The anthem

fall,

it

did

a directive

on February

was increase the number

of the Resistance buzzed in his head: "Friend,

come out of

a friend will

the shadows and take your

place."

Shortly after that, he raids.

He saw Massu,

Massu

said he

was

him: "Let Massu's

On March

7,

to

whom

he

said,

"Your methods disgust me."

He saw

Lacoste,

who

told

accomplish their task."

Massu ordered

Bollardiere in writing to give prior-

over pacification, since he was getting reports

that Bollardiere's sector

was overrun by the FLN, and

in building roads

he was in fighting the rebels.

command and

to Algiers in the midst of the para

just following orders.

men

ity to police actions

more interested

came

that he

was

and digging irrigation ditches than

On March

8,

Bollardiere resigned his

asked General Salan for a transfer. Salan agreed, on

condition that he keep his reasons to himself and refrain from writ-

ing

articles.

News

of the Bollardiere resignation, however, leaked out and sent

tremors through political circles in Algiers and Paris. Thus, on

TED MORGAN

166

March

10,

Governor-General Lacoste wrote Premier

Massu had done an

that

proved, "but

I

effective job

my

Mollet

and that the situation had im-

I am deeply apprehensive concerning Max Lejeune ^secretary of the army]

must admit that

the conduct of his troops.

shares

Guy

feelings.

I

would

quickly as possible, but

I

like to get rid of these [j>ara] troops as

cannot

let

them

leave until

trained police and gendarmes to continue their

I

have enough

work dismantling the

FLN in Algiers." Having encouraged Massu Lacoste was

rity in Algiers,

to use "all

now

methods" to restore secu-

covering his

Bol-

ass, in case the

lardiere resignation should lead to a court of inquiry

on the conduct

of the war.

On March

11,

Massu wrote

his

pier re regarding the recent arrests

own CYA

letter to

Colonel Jean-

and torture of French fellow trav-

"Certain European networks have interpreted charity in an

elers:

abusive and unpatriotic manner, but you must employ tact in arrest-

ing them, since

The

ers."

among them

subtext was: "I'm getting complaints from Archbishop

Duval and other to arrest

influential figures."

The

sub-subtext was:

"It's

okay

and torture Arabs but not native French."

On March giers.

are genuinely disinterested social work-

13,

Massu

told Bigeard his

regiment must leave Al-

Massu admired Bigeard, but he was too much of a lone ranger

and glory-hound. He didn't want him around any longer than was strictly necessary, particularly

torture, about

went back geard,

with this firestorm of protests over

which Bigeard had spoken too candidly. The 3rd

to the bled,

who was

and many of them were glad to go. As

in the habit of talking

RPC

for Bi-

about himself in the third

"I know Bigeard is a pain in the ass, and I know Bigeard will be a lieutenant colonel for life, but I wanted to show those who wanted Bigeard to stumble that he is still here." Then, on March 21, General Salan was summoned to Paris for a

person, he wrote Massu:

meeting with several cabinet ministers. Bourges-Maunoury, the minister

of defense, told

him

that the brutality of para interrogations

was

unacceptable and that he was getting reports of thefts committed by

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

"My men would

the paras during searches. Salan replied,

go back

As

and not have to do

to fighting in the bled

upon

for Bollardiere,

be happy to

this work."

his return to France, he self-destructed

by breaking his word and writing lished in the antiwar

167

weekly

a letter

on March 27 that was pub-

He

['Express.

underlined the "terrible

danger, under the fallacious pretext of immediate results, of losing sight of the

moral values that

until

now have guaranteed

the great-

ness of our civilization and our army." His indiscretion resulted in his

being placed under arrest and sentenced to 60 days' imprisonment in the fortress of La Courneuve, outside Paris. His career

he

left

army

the

was

over,

Bernard was practically

in

shock

at the

news of Bollardiere 's im-

prisonment. "If a general gets sixty days just for writing a

imagine what we would

he

get,"

wanted us

in the

said to have saved her

colon

too

who thought

the topic

was

sensitive to the

husband from

misery of Arabs and

falling completely into the

many Arab families without a father and rags, she launched her own charity, which

camp. Having seen too

many Arab

children in

included an orphanage and an employment office for

women. The Massus had Arab

own. He

"She has the heart and soul of a social worker."

Suzanne Massu was indeed

was

his

an issue on how to be polite to Arabs. "He's

being pushed by his wife," said Brissac, frivolous.

said.

I

meantime, was on a small crusade of

to bring out

letter,

said.

"He should have used a pseudonym," Massu,

and

in 1961.

sister,

for lunch

who soon had an One day Massu came home

a daughter, Veronique,

Malika, adopted by Suzanne.

and found

young Arab

a small

Arab boy

sitting at the table.

"He was

picked up by some of your soldiers, wandering the streets," Suzanne told her husband.

"He doesn't know

name, so they called him

his

Rodolphe." Once Rodolphe had learned a

zanne asked him about his parents, and "Yavait beaucoup de sang" ("There

"Madame Massu does tells

her

was

own

little

all

broken French, Su-

the boy could say was,

a lot of blood").

shopping," Brissac said, "and then

the general about the vulgar colon housewife

who

insulted the

TED MORGAN

168

Arab vegetable merchant by accusing him of using crooked

Now

she's

become

on the

fixated

tu" (the familiar

scales.

form of address

used in French with one's friends and family, as opposed to the more formal

vous).

Suzanne Massu had noticed when she went fices that

When

and their veterans' decorations. French

officials at their

he

felt

that

said,

they brought in the mail, the

was

it

just another

out, with an appeal

to treat the

as

we do

Arabs

to de-

.

.

.

Give up

Moslem

Brissac agreed. "Well,"

I

"It's

said, "the

now

the

form of language and re-

this

May God

help each one

friends."

"This doesn't sound like Massu," Bernard

toiement

from Massu to

as equals. "In particular,"

France, for our friends.

in

of you to find several

go

way

"you must renounce the tutoiement, which was until

habitual form of syntax. it,

came

22, our issue

European population

serve

of-

spotless gandouras

the Arabs.

On March the

government

to

desks spoke to them brusquely, using the tu

form, like saying "boy." She

mean

who wore

the ushers were elderly Arabs

said.

pure Suzanne."

very fact that

we can put

out an issue on tu-

shows that things have calmed down. Soon

we'll be able to

to the beach."

"You go

to the beach,"

Bernard

After work, Bernard asked

Auvergnats, where he

know

it's

an

knew

said. "I've

to join

said, "but

I

got better things to do."

him

who

the owner,

Bernard

illness,"

me

at the brasserie

sent over

two

Aux

beers. "I

cannot bear not knowing

what's going on." "It's

a professional deformation,"

forget about the

war

in

my off hours,

I

so

said. "In I

go

my

to the

case,

I

prefer to

American

library

and read magazines." "That's a fantasy world," Bernard said, "although

I

confess that

I

know nothing about America except what I've read of one of my favorite authors, E. M. Forster, whose Passage to India, by the way, is a brilliant dissection of British colonialism. In

Lewis, he wrote that America

is

an essay on Sinclair

a very large apron, covered with a

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS pattern of lozenges, edged with a

frill,

lt>y

and chastely suspended by a

boundary tape round the ample waist of Canada.'" "That describes

its

shape, not

content."

its

"In any case, right now, I'm fixated on finding out feel

about the work they're doing," Bernard

say,

'We were

Of course,

trained to

jump out of planes, not

they're not altar boys,

and they

like

to

and some of them behave badly. So they

choice.

It's

any

"In wartime, there's a

I

talk to

do police work.'

being admired by the

locals,

a mission like

what the paras

"The ones

said.

say,

'We have no

"

other.'

Hyde

in

every Jekyll,"

said.

I

"I'm expecting a Foreign Legion officer who's agreed to talk

about the Villa Sesini," Bernard

why

"He says he knows you. That's

said.

asked you to come."

I

At

that

walked

moment,

was Jean Berger,

in. It

among He gave me

only one

after all,

a short but sturdy green beret second lieutenant

who had

us a

hug and

my dorm

mate

at

Saint-Maixent, the

asked to be a paratrooper in Algeria. said,

you species offaineant"

"So you ended up in this shit-hole ("loafer").

"And you got what you wanted,"

I

replied.

"Not exactly. I'm running one of the interrogation teams Villa Sesini.

saw Jeanpierre yesterday and

I

come

tinue, that I'd

by nature, but even

ment

I

the

couldn't con-

to Algeria to fight, not to torture. I'm obedient I

have limits. So I'm being transferred to a regi-

in the Aures."

"When

did

it

start?" Bernard asked.

"After the strike," Berger said.

gence, and

we

imagine what

"We

needed operational

started using the gegene. I'm here to

it's

like.

The guys

are paid bonuses.

got the toughest job, but they get used to "I

him

told

at

it.

ears and his cock.

changes

You

in his breathing.

The

We tell them they've said.

suspect has electrodes attached to his

notice the

You

you, you can't

They have no qualms."

hear they drink as an anesthetic," Bernard

"You're in the cellar.

tell

intelli-

way

his eyes are

moving. The

lose all emotional reactions. You're like

a surgeon who's whistling while he saws a

body

in half.

You take

a

TED MORGAN break, a cigarette, and a glass of wine, and you talk about the soccer

matches

coming weekend."

this

"How do you justify

it?"

asked.

I

"We're told that we're saving

guy

brought

is

in.

We make him

lives. It's

take his clothes

a terrible humiliation for an Arab.

ing water

down

We

at night.

A

Being naked

is

always done off.

have various methods. Pour-

their throats with a funnel, or using a soddering iron

on the soles of their

feet,

or a

cigarette on a nipple.

lit

The

gegene

with one of our boys turning the handles faster to turn

works

best,

up the

juice.

There's no risk of electrocution.

We call

the gegene the

machine afaire parler" ("the machine that makes people talk").

"Do you

torture

women?" Bernard

"Of course," Berger a message.

said.

"A few weeks ago a

was supposed

The

cellar, sniffling like a child.

German

to leave

it.

was caught with

girl

She said someone she didn't know gave

forgot where she

the

asked.

it

and she

to her

She was brought to the

sergeant that day was Hans, one of

legionnaires."

"There's been a lot of talk about your

Germans using the same in World War II,"

methods the Nazis used on the French Resistance Bernard "It's

said.

true that our regiment

said, "but they're

virgin,

not

you won't be

all alike.

for long,'

thirty percent

is

This one he

tells

likes his

the

girl.

German," Berger work.

He

'If

you're a

tells her,

A poiV

C'Get naked'^]. She removes her clothes, except for her bra and panties.

'I

said, "A poil"'

Hans

tells her.

She pulls off her bra and raises

her hands to cover her breasts. She's tied to the bed with her legs spread and a wire in her vagina.

The

juice

is

screams, and in less than a minute she shouts,

turned on, and she

Ask me

questions.'

Hans

says, 'You could

have talked before the striptease, you

cunt.'

Her information

led to the arrest of a dozen

most of them "But

why

still in

didn't

school

—

liaison

and weapons

dumb

young women,

carriers."

you do something to stop Hans?" Bernard

asked.

"You don't get a system,

it.

This

is

the Foreign Legion in wartime. There's

and you're either inside the system or outside the system,

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS but you can't change the system. That's a

why

171

asked for a transfer to

I

combat zone."

knew

I

that

Bernard wanted a tete-a-tete with Berger, so

cused myself, but

my

told

I

jotted

down my

When

I

address and phone number and

me up anytime. He had now thoroughly disillusioned.

me I had a call from Jean DariHotel. He was a lawyer I knew in

got home, Georgette told

who was

Paris, tall

staying at the Aletti

and distinguished, with long sandy hair swept back on a

diagonal and a voice like one of the heralds in the

He

Iliad.

told

who were brought days away.

I

than to the

—

was surprised, since left

of center.

knew him

Most of his

to be

more

was two

to the right

were corporate types,

clients

the Jardin des Tuileries.

"What possessed you asked him on the phone. "I still It

I

his first case in Algiers

apartment on the rue de Rivoli had one of the best views of

his

Paris

and that

to trial

to get involved in this hornet's nest?"

occurred to I

me

that the trial could

make an

article for Brissac.

scratched our heads each week to find topics that

weren't the obvious catechism and yet advanced the cause to four pages. His refrain

was

"It's

credentials,

it."

Brissac agreed and gave

and on the morning of the

Aletti for breakfast with Daridan. Algiers

trucks mingling with civilian

traffic,

ing to slide along the sidewalk,

book bags. The

light

trial

I

outdoor

our

me

walked over to the

was up

early, the jeeps

and

the fatmas in their robes seem-

men with

briefcases, children with

shimmered between the buildings, and

could hear the waves beating against the admiralty

was an

fill

hard work being a whore," to which

responded, "But you get used to

their

I

believe in the Declaration of the Rights of Man," he said.

Bernard and

I

me

Arabs

that he belonged to a lawyers' collective that defended those

and

ex-

Saint-Maixent classmate to look

yearned to be a warrior and was

dan,

I

oasis; its terrace smelled of jasmine.

I

pier.

The

I

Aletti

joined Daridan at an

table.

my client yesterday at Barberousse," he said. "His name is Mohammed Slimane. He is accused of throwing a grenade into a cafe "I

saw

and wounding

five persons.

I

asked him to

lift

his shirt,

and

it

was

TED MORGAN

172

evident that he had been tortured.

back

could see long brown lines on his

by the flame of a soddering

left

hope you

iron, other

burn marks

still

un-

and black-and-blue marks."

healed, blisters, "I

I

realize,"

I

said, as

I

dipped

my

croissant into

my cof-

these trials before a military tribunal are preordained, and

fee, "that

that the death sentence

is likely."

"We'll see," he said.

The military tribunal, consisting of three army officers, sat in a drab room in the Orleans barracks. Daridan conferred with his client, a weary-looking Arab, slight of build and stooped, who kept craning his neck as

One

if

he had on a tight

collar.

of the judges banged his gavel, read the charge, and asked

the accused to give his

name and

age.

The

prosecutor, clad in a black

robe and a white jabot, his hands clenched in the folds of his robe, then strode up to face the accused.

"You claimed before the examining magistrate," he

someone you did not know handed you moved, wrapped fore

it

"It

in a

a

said, "that

grenade with the pin re-

newspaper, and that you had to get rid of it be-

exploded, so you threw

it

away, and

it

landed

in a cafe."

wasn't me," Slimane said in a barely audible voice.

"How You gave

can you say that?" the prosecutor asked. "You confessed. all

the details.

And you

waited until

now

to

deny your con-

fession?" "I

was

beaten," Slimane said.

"They would have

killed me.

But

I

had nothing to do with the bomb."

One

of the judges said, "The tribunal takes note that you have

retracted your confession." "This," said the prosecutor, "is the final attempt of a guilty

man

clutching at straws while overwhelmed by indisputable evidence, and hopefully, by the horror of his act." I

knew

that these trials

nesses were called.

The

were nothing

if

not expeditious.

No

wit-

prosecutor questioned the defendant, the de-

fense lawyer stated his case, the tribunal retired to deliberate, and

minutes

later the verdict

was announced.

20

:

THE FIRST BATTLE OF ALGIERS

173

Daridan rose and addressed the tribunal. "How can we be sure

when or

the defendant told the truth?" he asked.

now? And

Was

we must be

it

after his arrest

sure beyond a doubt.

was

there any evidence of guilt beyond his confession? There

As

not.

yet to convict him,

"Was

for the confession,

it

was obtained by

violence."

Daridan described Slimane's condition when he had seen him his cell.

He

was reminded of the Gestapo

said he

cells

in

during the oc-

cupation.

The missible!

prosecutor rose in high dudgeon and shouted: "This I

"I will

The

protest!

defense

show you what

is

is

is

inad-

going beyond the bounds!"

inadmissible,"

Daridan thundered. Turn-

ing to Slimane, he said, "Remove your shirt and show the tribunal

what was done

to you."

Slimane took off his stained tan T-shirt and turned his back to

was only

a few feet away, and

when they saw

the welts and burns.

the judges. In the small courtroom, he

they tried to hide their revulsion

"A French tribunal," Daridan went on, "cannot base confessions extracted by torture, particularly

when

its

verdict on

the judges are

wearing the French uniform."

The judges unusually long.

retired

When

and deliberated

for half

an hour, which was

they returned, they pronounced the verdict of

not guilty. told

I

Daridan afterward that what he had accomplished was

highly unusual. "Cases like this don't often

"When an Arab

is

come

arrested by the paras, he's taken

to trial,"

I

said.

away by them and

never enters the court system." "I

know," Daridan

said, "but this

one was arrested by the police

before the paras took over, and there are

still

hundreds

like

him, rot-

ting in Barberousse." "I've

seen the lines outside."

"Entre nous, I'm sure Slimane

him

was

guilty, but I'm pleased

I

got

off"

When

I

got back to the

said, "I don't

think

it's

office,

for us."

I

described the

trial to

Brissac and

TED MORGAN

"Why

not?" he asked.

"It

shows that an

FLN

terrorist can get a

fair trial before a military tribunal." "It also

shows that torture was used to extract a confession."

Brissac grumbled under his breath, a la Massu, imitate,

and that was the

last

I

heard of it.

whom he liked

to

7

Between Battles

March was

a quiet month, without explosions

town Algiers and with fewer paras

were breathing at the

American

library.

easier.

Don

I

in the streets. People

had time to

Davies told

down-

in

idle

away the hours

me attendance was up and He took me over to her

he'd hired a pied-noir female receptionist.

desk and

said,

would bring lips

"This

is

Genevieve Zimmer. As you can

in customers."

were the same

a faintly fishlike look.

wore no makeup, and her blond hair was pulled back ing a

in a bun,

She

fram-

a high brow, a straight nose, and shrewd,

round face with

full,

she alone

Genevieve smiled. Her upper and lower

which gave her

size,

see,

appraising blue eyes. There was something of the gendarme about her,

but the kind of gendarme

who

pats school children on the head

at street crossings.

"Don has spoken

to

me

about you," she

said.

"You

live in

Massa-

chusetts." "I

did until

"Can

I

I

came

get you

here."

some

coffee?" She

came back with two

spent a year in Massachusetts, at Smith College.

They have

a

cups. "I

French

TED MORGAN

176

house there and

all

the girls have to speak French.

had

I

a scholar-

ship to converse with them."

"Did you learn any English?" "Yes,

I

These American college boys

boy.

"What

don't court you; they

Some

for their age.

paw

a

you."

They had very

little

knowledge

of them had never heard of Algeria."

"They study the history of French

went out with

I

did you think of Smith girls?"

"They were young of history.

when

learned 'Keep your hands off for

their

own

country, just as the

do."

Genevieve

sat at her desk,

where she was

out

filling

file

cards by

hand. She didn't want to be just chatting. Idle hands do the devil's

work. "The paradox of their history," she said as she wrote,

"is that

they pretend to be a democracy while owning slaves and slaughter-

ing Indians." "Yes, but they freed their slaves,"

Genevieve looked up thing

I

liked about

dislike of Arabs

at

me and

Smith College

was such

a

—

I

replied.

"One

said with a radiant smile:

there were no Arabs." This open

common pied-noir reflex

that

I

should not

have been taken aback, but coming from this intelligent, urbane

young woman, something must have shown on

my face.

"Have you been outside Algiers?" she asked. farm you

I

me

in the Mitidja. It

like to

this

to the colon cause.

colon family.

a

I

I

began

for

you

father

to see

it.

owns

a

Would

weekend?"

sensed that she had the missionary

Pasionaria, but

was

might be interesting

accompany me

"My

spirit

to think of

and wanted

to convert

Genevieve as a pied-noir

welcomed the opportunity

to be introduced to a

She said she went out every weekend because her father

widower and needed company.

We could drive out Saturday for

lunch.

On

Saturday morning, she picked

me up

in her

Peugeot and we

drove out of Algiers, encountering only one checkpoint. Genevieve chatted with the paras and flashed a big smile to

admired them, and vivacity.

in her slacks

Then we came upon

a

let

them know she

and suede jacket she radiated

group of Arab children playing

colon

in the

BETWEEN BATTLES street,

and she

women

the

said,

"They multiply

birth control.

The

177

like rabbits.

only thing

It's

useless to teach

we can count on

is

infant

mortality."

The

children were playing in front of a housing project that had

been built by the liberal mayor of Algiers, Jacques Chevallier. Genevieve pointed out the whitewashed six-story buildings with balco-

and

nies

said:

"We

them apartments with

build

running water, a kitchen with

months I

like

later they've

kept

my mouth

brought

in their chickens

shut because

I

wanted

an ethnologist exploring the strange

evieve found the

and

a refrigerator

and

electricity

a gas stove,

and

six

and goats."

to hear the full spiel.

beliefs of a lost tribe.

I

felt

Gen-

main road heading south out of Algiers, and we

crossed the long Mitidja plain, the masterpiece of colon enterprise,

drained from malarial red-tiled "I

swamps and now transformed

farm and vineyard

grew up believing

after

that the

into

farm

manicured vineyard.

Arabs were the ones who

live in the

slums," she said. "There's a hierarchy that can never be broken.

among

the shoeshine boys, there are those

tomers with a rag and those

after

who have

who pursue

a chair

Even

their cus-

and pegs to put your

feet on."

"There's also a hierarchy in prison,"

law and the

I

said,

"between the common-

politicals."

Genevieve snorted. "In prison, they're better fed than our poor

tramps who've committed no crime.

And our

very adroit archbishop

defends them in his sermons."

We reached Boufarik, capital of the Mitidja, one of the rare towns that had

more

colons than Arabs. Its streets

plane trees, and

we passed

were lined with majestic

the statue of Sergeant Blandon,

killed in 1841 with 12 of his 17

who was

men when he was surrounded by 300

Arab horsemen.

On

a one-lane dirt road 10 kilometers out of town,

high wooden gate that said

Domaine Zimmer. The

we came

to a

gate was locked,

and Genevieve honked the horn.

"You love

this land,"

I

said. "I'm

surprised you didn't stay on

it."

"Oh," Genevieve said, flipping back a stray strand of spun gold,

"I

TED MORGAN

178

was engaged

to a

landowner

said that

seemed

"That's the

way

father approved

enough hectares/

told me, 'You don't have I

my

of,

way of putting

like a coarse

but one day he

"

it.

pieds-noirs are."

"Did you love him?" "I

never got the chance to find out. Unmarried

give themselves easily.

Palm

Sunday.'

What we

is,

here don't

'Don't celebrate Easter before

"

An Arab worker unlocked by,

say

women

the gate and doffed his hat as

we drove

up to the ochre farmhouse, where her father stood waiting

in the

doorway, wearing suspenders over a blue workshirt and denim trousers.

He was

a big,

heavy man, with

a belly that the pieds-noirs called

His curly hair had gone white, and

Voeuf colonial (the colonial egg).

over a boxer's broken nose he had the same appraising blue eyes as

His biceps bulged from the rolled-up sleeves of his

his daughter.

and he gave

me

shirt,

a bone-crushing handshake.

"So you've come to see

how

the horrid colons

live,"

said Francois

Zimmer. "Papa, he's on Massu's the

wrong

staff,"

Genevieve

led us into a big

room with

me on

the back.

"Come inside."

a stone fireplace, a couple of couches,

and a low table carved from the trunk of a It's

"Don't start off on

foot."

"I'm just joking," he said, clapping

He

said.

tree.

"Have

a glass of rose.

the best in the Mitidja," he said, as he filled three glasses from a

drink a

liter

every morning for breakfast, but

took a swallow and said:

"It's

rose, but

bottle

on the

table. "I

only in the summer." I

"I like.

have nothing against Massu,"

Zimmer

it's

got a punch."

said. "It's his

She doesn't understand the Arabs. She gives the

machines, and the next day they

When

sell

them

in the

wife

girls

I

don't

sewing

Casbah markets."

we'd finished the bottle, he proposed to take

me on

a tour

of his farm while Genevieve prepared lunch. "I've got a thousand hectares," he said, "half in his jeep

and drove down

wheat and half in

a dirt road

vines."

We jumped

into

where the wooden, metal-rimmed

BETWEEN BATTLES wine vats stood, under

An

a big shed.

179

elderly

Arab was

fixing

some

loose boards in the shed.

"There's no wine in the vats;

not the season,"

it's

Zimmer

said.

"See that Arab in the shed? He's been here for forty years, since he

was

a kid.

Once he

fell

into a vat after harvest,

him on

and

I

pulled

him out

stomach and stuck

with a rope under his shoulders.

I

two fingers down

he coughed up the wine and started

his throat until

lay

his

breathing."

He I

built

pointed to a small whitewashed cottage and said, "After that,

an infirmary for

my

workers.

Some

of them had never seen an

aspirin."

He seemed his

to

want

Arab workers

well.

come

to

across as a humanitarian

"The smell of grapes fermenting said.

"We don't

ers so they can I

even bottle

mix

it

it.

in the vats

We send

it

to

—

France

I

who

treated

live for that,"

in

he

metal contain-

with their anemic vintages."

couldn't resist asking,

"What do you pay your men during

the

harvest?"

"Ten francs a day" (two 1957

dollars).

"In France that's the hourly wage," "If

I

said.

paid them more, they'd disappear after a few days."

"You could give them a bonus "I'd

I

after the harvest."

never see them again."

This was colon

logic:

The Arabs were

so undependable that pay-

ing them a starvation wage was actually doing them a favor, in that it

kept them steadily employed.

It

was the same kind of

logic that

Anatole France derided when he wrote: "The rich as well as the poor are forbidden from sleeping under bridges."

We

drove on, past endless rows of vines and irrigation ditches,

and came upon a grove of ancient trees,"

Frangois said.

of taking

German

"My

parents

nationality in 1870 or leaving behind all they had

for the sole benefit of feel

"My father planted those were Alsatians who had the choice

olive trees.

remaining French. You can understand how

when anyone dares

to tell

me

I'm not really French."

I

TED MORGAN

180

wonder

"I

your parents

if the

feel

Spanish and Italians and Maltese

same way,"

the

"My father called them what

it

I

the sixty-centime French, because that was

cost to get a naturalization application.

when scolding

don't dig the rocks out.

a foot to plant

at the

bottom.

"My

Zimmer

said.

"Arabs are poor farmers.

if

wheat with

father had great stands of

The Arabs have meager

you plant on

flat

at

stands meander-

They

don't even

land you get a better return than

rocky slope."

Maybe there a

ground and

father cleared the

ing around rocks they haven't bothered to remove.

understand that

"

My father turned the earth at a depth of

My

thick clusters in tight rows.

a

My wife used

wheat and cotton. The Arabs scratch with their hoes

a depth of three inches.

on

frank, there's al-

across a shallow, rocky stream, and on the other

of winter wheat.

used the rocks to build walls,"

They

To be

the children, 'Even the fatma would understand/

The jeep bumped side lay fields

after

said.

ways been a pecking order, with the Arabs to say,

who came

all

that flat land

was no point

in

dozen times a day:

was

stolen

arguing with the

How

from them,

classic

thought, but

I

sermon

that one heard

can you say we stole their land when we

were the ones who dried the swamps and planted the brought

in vines

and

fruit trees

and

irrigation,

country with fine harbors, good roads, sparkling bridges, so all

I

can say

is

long

fields

and

and now we have a and sturdy

cities,

live colonialism.

Genevieve had prepared her

father's favorite lunch,

an Alsatian

choucroute with four kinds of sausage. Since he had told

harvest time he had a couple hundred Arab workers,

I

me

that at

asked him

if he

spoke any Arabic. Francois went into another room and came back

MAT submachine gun.

gripping a

"This

is

my

Franco-Arab

dictio-

nary," he said.

With went to I

the choucroute there were copious rounds of rose, which

my

head, so that

I

ventured onto conversational ground that

should have avoided, as Francois continued to expound on the back-

wardness of Arabs.

"Why

not at least give them the right to vote?"

Francois slammed his

fist

I

asked.

on the heavy oak dining

table,

shaking

BETWEEN BATTLES

181

the glasses, and said, "You're proposing the death of French Algeria.

They

same way

will use the vote the

throw us

rifles, to

their grandfathers used their

out."

"Can't you respect their beliefs and leave

"But

I

mistake to

it

at that?"

asked.

I

don't respect their beliefs," Francois shouted, "and

them they can be good Frenchmen.

tell

can't have three wives.

And what

Moslem

about the

A

it's

a

Frenchman

practice of send-

ing their wives out to be prostitutes?"

That one

really

threw me.

I

wondered whether the rose had gone

head as well. But Genevieve didn't say anything, so

to his

I

assumed

she agreed with her father.

thought they sequestered their wives,"

"I

"They do I

I

said.

both," he said.

realized that colon

arguments were rational only up

to a point

and then erupted into grotesque diatribes that couldn't be rationally discussed, so

I

shut

my

mouth.

Francois had drunk more than a bottle of rose, and his head

dropped to

and said here.

his chin in a stupor.

in a

low voice:

"If you

But then he raised

want

Have you heard the phrase

to

know

la valise

ou

it,

opened

his eyes,

the truth, we're finished

le

cercueil" ("the coffin or

the suitcase")? I

had heard

it

many

times.

It

was the

colons'

worst-case scenario,

the one they were desperately trying to avoid.

"We "They

FLN

are being betrayed by our

own government,"

behind our backs. As Maurras used to

France today,

it is

Francaise movement, was Francois's rant

been given

full

said.

We

order to love

powers

who founded

much admired by

was so

that her father

"

(Charles

the Action

the colons).

off target, at a time

in Algiers, that there

Even Genevieve realized said, "It's

say, 'In

necessary to hate what she has become.'

Maurras, the monarchist and profascist

excuse

Francois

don't give a shit about Algeria. They're negotiating with the

when

the paras had

was no more

to be said.

was over the edge,

for she

time for your nap, Papa, and we'd better be going."

drove back to Algiers, and Genevieve

my

father.

He

gets a

little

overheated."

said, "You'll

have to

TED MORGAN

182

"He has strong on

But

his farm.

I

convictions,"

said,

I

agree that France

"and he's worked

all his life

not going to win the war"

is

"That's the rose speaking," Genevieve said. "In his heart, he

I

wanted

go

to

Le Rowing,

to

ticed sculling in the harbor. colon point of view for

March

Sunday, said she

30,

No Arabs

begged

off.

I

had had enough of the

I

to lunch at the

Club des Pins, which had ten-

pool, a small beach,

allowed. She ordered

and a good restaurant.

champagne and gave me my

had taught

I

where the men prac-

a chic colon club,

I

if

my birthday. was 25 years old. Georgette

was

swimming

ancient toast that

me

one day.

was taking me

nis courts, a

knows

She put her hand over mine and asked

that he will never leave."

"To our horses,

her:

family's

our women,

to

and to those who mount them." "By the way," she

said, "Julien is

coming home on

leave next

weekend. You'll have to move back to your apartment. But

you

to

come

was surprised

I

loper.

But

I

how angry

at

tried not to

"He knows he'll

I'd like

to dinner with us."

show

it

was. After

I

and

I

was the

inter-

said, "I'd rather not."

gave you the apartment, and

I

all, I

if

I

don't introduce you,

be suspicious."

"My problem

is

that

I

might

like

sleeping with the wife of someone

We

left it at

I

don't

want

to be

like."

swim on

that and had a

since childhood that lying

I

him, and

the beach.

I

had thought

on the sand under a hot sun was barbaric,

but Georgette was a sun worshiper. Her favorite saying was "The

sun burns, but over

my

face,

it

also energizes."

later

I

"Calm Has Returned entire military

was

fic

down

my mouth

I

beside her with a towel

felt

the lower part of the

being kissed. "Let's go home,"

said.

Four days

it

lay

dozing, and sometime later

towel being lifted and

Georgette

I

and

safe again.

in the office

to Algiers."

civilian staff

working on an

article entitled

Governor-General Lacoste and

Because

in the

it

his

had visited the Casbah to show that

Spring brought back the street crowds and the

to the beaches.

vanced to 1:00

was

traf-

was Ramadan, the curfew had been ad-

morning

to

accommodate Moslems who had

BETWEEN BATTLES fasted during the day.

so

when

she did

bing.

my

Brissac

I

was

call

would try

But

there's

no explanation." She was sob-

to find out.

able to reach an officer in Julien's unit in Hassi-

Messaoud, who told him that Julien had been killed but his driver got away.

gave

me

this account:

I

Halfway

He and

Julien

an ambush,

were taking a truck

to a depot

some machinery.

to the depot, the piste (unsurfaced road)

was blocked by

One

of them told Ju-

three uniformed Arabs with submachine guns. lien,

in

spoke to the driver over the radio, and he

kilometers outside Hassi-Messaoud to pick up

five

me at work,

hand. Julien has been killed en service com-

line of duty].

told her

I

had asked Georgette never to

I

thought, What's going on? Georgette said, "I'm

I

holding a telegram in

mands [m the

183

"Get down from the truck."

"Why

should

The fel fired

get

I

down?"

a burst in the

Julien asked.

air,

and Julien and the driver got down.

"Why aren't you carrying anything in the truck?" the Arab asked. "We are on our way to pick up some machinery," Julien said. "You could have asked me before. I would have told you that the truck was empty."

The fel whipped

the barrel of his

requisitioning this truck," he said.

he couldn't start

it,

MAT across Julien's face.

He

got into the driver's

which made him angry.

He

seat,

told the other

"I'm

but

two

Arabs, "Tie their hands behind their backs with wire and throw them in the

back of the truck."

lowed the desert

He

finally

got the truck started and

trails.

Julien told the driver, "They're taking us to a

they will shoot

They were

fol-

us.

Our only chance

is

to get

palm grove, and

them before they get

able to get the wire off each other's wrists.

Then

us."

the truck

got stuck in the sand and they could hear the three fels cursing in the cab of the truck.

The fels got

out of the truck, and the leader said, "Get down, you

French dogs." Julien

and the driver looked out and saw that the fels were

huddle about three

feet away. Julien yelled,

from the back of the truck

at the fels,

in a

"Now," and they leaped

who swerved and

fired as they

TED MORGAN

184

jumped. Julien was killed

in the first burst, but the driver hit the

ground without being shot and was the stomach and

make

run for

a

Hassi-Messaoud, dehydrated but

The

driver told me:

the other

way

When

I

"I

He made

it

back to the base

at

alive.

wanted

my officer

to live, but

it

happened

around."

got back to Square Bresson, Georgette had regained her

composure, and said. "Just as

repeated the driver's account.

I

they were about to strike

"And

a couple of months later.)

on

it.

advancing^/ in

able to kick the

in

oil."

"What

(They did

a shame," she

in fact strike oil

one more day, he was to come home

leave."

Georgette was already in mourning, in a pleated black skirt and

cashmere cardigan. She asked room. the

"I

must respect

his

same way. You can

me

to

move my

memory," she

things out of her bed-

said, "so

we

can't continue in

stay in the other apartment, and we'll remain

friends." I

reflected

on the ironies of life: not only that Julien had not lived

long enough to see the gusher but also that Georgette had become

posthumously vided, but

it

faithful.

would have been crude of me

She would make a

On became

had come to appreciate the comfort she pro-

I

lovely, chaste

to try to

widow.

April 12, that excellent reporter Eugene a friend)

wrote

in

change her mind.

Le Monde

Mannoni (who

that the Algerois

were

the patrols were less frequent, and there were fewer arrests. that Massu's transit tice,

with

its laxity,

camps were paroles,

full, for

I

The

and transfers. Those arrested, he

The

felt,

camp

civilian authorities, with the exception of

Teitgen, said, "Let the paras handle it."

knew

he did not trust civilian jus-

should be treated as prisoners of war, and assigned to a transit for interrogation.

later

relieved,

paras had handled

it

it;

we

don't

want

to

know about

so efficiently that by mid-April, there

was only one of Massu's four regiments

left inside

the

city.

Jean-

REP) were gone, as were Fossey-Francois's RPC), who had handled the "suicide" of Boumendjel

pierre's legionnaires (1st

red berets (2nd

and arrested 200 suspects. There remained only the

1st

RCP

berets) under Lieutenant Colonel Mayer, with headquarters

(blue

on the

BETWEEN BATTLES

185

Boulevard de Verdun, above the Casbah. Inside the Casbah, Captain Sirvent's zouaves continued to patrol.

Word

leaked out from

Massu s

office that there

zarre incident in the Casbah on April the information

came

9,

had been

a bi-

which we pieced together as

in.

Yacef Saadi had a hideout on rue du Nil, which was so narrow

from the fourth

that

numbered

side.

Yacef s team

at the

social

jump from

the odd- to the even-

time consisted of Ali-la-Pointe and three young

women: Hassiba Ben from

floor he could

His bomb-maker, Mourad, was on rue Porte-Neuve.

work

Bouali, 19, a pretty, blond

to terrorism;

Zohra

Arab judge, long-nosed and with

Arab who advanced

Drif, 23, the daughter of

close-set eyes,

who had

an

attended

who was already a veteran, for she had dropped off the Milk Bar bomb on September 30, 1956; and Djamila Bouhired, who had on the same day left the bomb at the Air France terminal that did not detonate. law school, where the colon boys called her "dumb Zohra," and

Djamila was 22, hot tempered and foul-mouthed, but she could look pretty

when she wanted

and curly chestnut

hair.

idolized by his fans; he Yacef,

too

whose

warm smile, Her father Omar was a to,

with a

wanted

his

liquid

brown

eyes,

star soccer player,

daughter to get into couture.

instinct for survival

was well honed,

felt

there

was

much traffic between rue du Nil and rue Porte-Neuve. He had to new hideout. There were still zouave patrols 24 out of 24. A place

find a

was found on the rue du Sphinx,

offered by a supporter,

Yacef decided to move his

brown

office,

Mafoud.

which consisted of

imitation leather briefcase, on April

The curfew

9.

a single

lifted at 5

am, and the Casbah quickly became animated as dockworkers walked

down in the

to their jobs in the harbor

European

quarter.

and dozens offatmas went to work

Among

those veiled fatmas that morning

were Yacef and Ali-la-Pointe, who started out

women,

a point

his briefcase to

MAT under his robe and wanted to

free.

They walked a

5:30 with the three

man, Alilou, and Mafoud. Yacef gave

Djamila Bouhired, for he had a keep both arms

at

in single file at intervals of

few blocks to go. Mafoud took the

lead, to

60

feet.

They had only

show them

his place

on

TED MORGAN

186

rue du Sphinx.

When

rue Porte-Neuve, he

he got to the intersection of rue du Sphinx and

came upon

a zouave patrol. Instead of

walking

calmly ahead, he abruptly about-faced and strode rapidly away. zouaves cried, "Halt," and fired in the

The

Djamila Bouhired, who was

air.

behind Mafoud, ran toward the zouaves, gesticulating wildly, in an attempt to draw their attention away from Yacef. Thinking that the zouaves had fired at his group, Yacef fired a burst in their direction,

but hit Djamila Bouhired in the

left

shoulder.

She

fell

in a heap,

drop-

ping the briefcase, which contained 800,000 francs, fake ID cards,

FLN

documents, and Yacef's address book. Intrigued by the

case, the zouaves let

The

Yacef and the others escape.

zouaves took Djamila to the Maillot Military Hospital, where

the captain of surgery examined her. left

The

bullet

had gone through her

shoulder without breaking the collarbone, nicked a lung, and exited.

He had

to decide

whether to operate to avoid a possible hemorrhage,

which meant cutting open her chest and leaving a long put

brief-

it

to the officer

had a chest

like the

who

As he later

interrogated her, Captain Jean Graziani: "She

Venus de Milo.

Normally, Djamila,

scar.

who had

I

could not

maim

this marvel."

a record as a placer of bombs, should

have been transferred to an interrogation center, where she would have been tortured and probably vened. She had a desire to help to find out lion. In

killed.

But Suzanne Massu inter-

young Arab women, and she wanted

more about those who played an

view of the traditional role of

active part in the rebel-

women

in a

Moslem

society,

hidden behind veils and relegated to household tasks, she wondered

what drove these young women and

risk arrests

to take

Not only did Madame Massu engage her

in

on dangerous assignments

and worse. visit

Djamila

in the hospital

and

long talks but she also asked her husband to have one

of his staff officers question her rather than turn her over to the torture mills.

The

officer chosen,

Captain Graziani, was the assistant head of

Massu's military intelligence bureau.

charming man

in his thirties,

He was

a

good-looking,

with a relaxed, nonthreatening man-

BETWEEN BATTLES ner.

187

After four years in Viet captivity, he had reached the conclusion

that there

were better methods than torture to make suspects

He now had

a chance to test his conviction.

Captain Graziani went to Djamila's beside

and introduced himself. She spat whore.

talk.

He gave

her a hard slap

at

him and

aller-retour.

at

Maillot Hospital

called

him

a son of a

She quieted down. He

looked through the snapshots in her wallet, which included a particularly unflattering

one on her ID card. "Tomorrow we'll release

photograph to every newspaper," he to,

said.

he saw that she had a coquettish

When

side,

this

him not

she begged

and he agreed to use an-

other photo.

On

April

17,

her lung having healed, Djamila was transferred to

Massu's divisional headquarters, where Graziani proceeded to turn her interrogation into a courtship.

and took her to the

were

in

mess

officer's

He

found her some

for dinner.

The

new

dresses

other officers,

who

on the stratagem, came up to their table and asked to be

in-

troduced. Soon they were holding hands and kissing. Brissac, back

from Massu's

briefing, said: "It's Heloise

and Abe-

lard over there."

"But

she talking?" Bernard asked. "Sometimes

is

it's

hard to

tell

between the cat and mouse."

She talked on April 20, giving away the bomb cache on the rue Porte-Neuve, where the zouaves found 13 bombs and two

though bomb-maker Mourad had

fled.

She also gave away her friend

Djamila Bouazza, who had placed the January 26 bomb Hardi and was arrested

One thing

25. like

at the

that had escaped

FLN flags,

post office

at the

Madame Massu's

notice

was

that girls

Djamila Bouhired did not have the discipline of veteran

When

Coq

where she worked on April

rebels.

Graziani had finished questioning her at the end of April,

Djamila Bouhired was transferred to the womens' dorm rousse Prison to await

trial.

in

Barbe-

There, she helped turn the ward into a

hotbed of FLN propagandists. the

women

took up the cry

On days when the guillotine was busy, "Assassins." When the guards, to punish

them, took away their sewing baskets, Bouhired organized a hunger

TED MORGAN

188

As

strike.

combat

for Graziani, her

at the

romantic interrogator, he was killed in

head of his company in Kabylie

early May, Georgette was

In

hardly a recluse, and she asked

a

show by

as

in

still

me

in 1959.

mourning, but she was

to escort her to the

a local painter, at the Libraire des Colonnes,

an art gallery. She knew the

artist,

opening of

which doubled

Sauveur Galliero, one of the

rare eccentrics in the polarized communities of Algiers, she said,

who had been At the shorts,

boyhood friend of the writer Camus.

was easy

gallery, he

and

Georgette

a

open-necked

a short-sleeved

wore sandals, khaki

to spot, for he

shirt. "That's his

said. Galliero's black curly hair

uniform,"

and leathery face made

gypsy, but a dispirited gypsy, for he had downward-

him look

like a

cast eyes

and the mournful expression of a basset hound, as well as a

pronounced

overbite.

liked his pointillist watercolors of the beaches

I

and the Algiers street duced

us. "I

think

it's

your watercolors as "But that

is

if

there

exactly

my I

slowly and deliberately, as

I

wanted

if

on."

he

said, "I

continue to live as

in Algiers, there are

chewing at

intro-

you can circulate with

two

his words,

odds with the

know. In a

city

He

spoke

and he emanated

mood

I

categories,

refuse to belong to either one."

to get to

daily,

said, "that

attitude,"

was completely

shooting each other

I

him so when Georgette

was no war

Today

did before these events.

was someone

told

I

remarkable,"

paras and suspects, and

serenity that

and

life,

of the

city.

a

He

where people were

he was painting them.

I

asked him where he lived and he said Bab-el-Oued, the working-

class

neighborhood on the water's edge, known as the proletarian

Riviera. "I used to live in the Casbah," he said, "but that's

asked

come and

become

see him, and he told

me

impossible."

I

meet him

6 the next day at the Cafe de Provence on the Place des

at

if

I

could

to

Trois Horloges.

Sauveur and

I

became

friends.

the rest of my stay in Algiers. I

was with him,

I

He

We saw a lot of each other during

helped

me keep my sanity,

forgot about the war; he

for

when

was easy-going, unde-

BETWEEN BATTLES

189

manding, and operated by the power of suggestion. Sauveur came

from

and Spanish stock. His father was a coachman and

Sicilian

mother was a cook. Aside from French, he spoke Spanish, Arabic. first

Born

war

in 1914,

I

me understand the importance of the "When I was a kid," he said, "there was a

veteran who'd been hit by shrapnel at the

Dames. He opened

and

he helped

for the colons.

World War

Italian,

his

a furniture store

on Avenue de

Chemin des

Marne called Au

la

Mutile.

He

among

the millions of dead, there were one hundred fifty-five thou-

room

sold dining

sets like petits pains.

Don't forget that

sand French and Moslem Algerians.

"When

grew

I

lage outside the

had

oil

lamps.

up,"

he

with

city,

They

said, its

"we thought of Bab-el-Oued

own customs and

language. People

made fun of those who

electricity

Everybody knew everybody, Francis the barber, Marcello the

shoemaker, the Lopez grocery, the Perez bakery, chant,

still

refused to have electricity because the nights

were so short. But those who had didn't.

as a vil-

all

on one block, rue des Moulins

—

chickens hanging from hooks, the fruit on

"Everyone lived

he

in the street,"

Omar the coal mer-

the fish on stone slabs, the

wooden

stands.

said. "I started

We didn't

playing soccer

belong to any clubs,

we

in the street

with apricot

swam

The water was like warm piss. There was a lot and dunking to make you boire la tasse [drink a cupful of

pits.

so,

in the harbor.

of splashing

dirty seawater].

I

went onto the rocks with gloves on

to catch sea

urchins."

When

he went to school, he

said, "there

were boys of

grounds, even a few Arabs, the sons of the big tents.

I

all

back-

remember

still

the history book, the Malet-lsaac. 'Before the arrival of the French,

Algeria was prone to anarchy/

and asked

The

for his son.

'When he comes

said,

would not be

helpful,

in,

One day

teacher said he wasn't there.

I'm going to

and the father

kill him.'

said,

Til

The

kill

him, but

tells

But the violence

mostly verbal, on the order of 'Hold

fore

I

is

do something

exaggeration."

I'll

a lot

regret.'

The

in

father

teacher said that

out his eyes.' That

you

barged

in class, a father

I

won't put

about the Bab-el-Oued mentality.

The Bab-el-Oued

me

back be-

personality

is all

in

TED MORGAN

190

Venturing into Bab-el-Oued that

had the impression of being

time to meet Sauveur,

first

I

where hundreds of boister-

in a stage set

ous extras chattered furiously in a colorful argot. Families in chairs

on sidewalks, the wives

in bathrobes with floral designs,

ing in garbage cans, the laundry drying on balconies.

dogs foragI

found the

Place des Trois Horloges, at the center of which stood an iron candelabra with three white globes that told the time.

At the zinc counter

of the Cafe de Provence, Sauveur was talking soccer to the owner,

Marcel,

who had

a face like

melting wax,

pouring from the

a glass of anisette," he told me,

know

all in folds

and jowls. "Have bottle.

"Did you

that anisette cures malaria?"

Marcel brought kemia, saucers with

red

olives, anchovies, little

on the

mullets, grilled sardines, and snails in hot sauce, all lined up

counter and free with your drink.

"My father

sold

wine from barrels with wooden

He

"twelve hours a day for twenty years.

knew everyone enough so

I

in the

faucets,"

he

said,

said hello all day long.

neighborhood, that was his

life,

and he

left

He me

could open this place."

Marcel interrupted our conversation to greet arriving customers with the usual banter: "Drunk again

last night, Paul.

should be! Hey, Georges, how's your sister?

No

one took offense.

"They don't

Still

If Marcel insulted you,

it

spreading her legs?"

meant he

talk about the colons stealing the land,"

own any

land. I'm fighting for the sun

Ashamed, you

liked you.

Marcel told

and the

us. "I

sea; I'm fighting

not to have to wear an overcoat ten months a year."

Sauveur ter off

said,

"A friend of mine told me, 'Go to Paris. You're bet-

being the worst painter in Paris than the best painter in Al-

giers.' " I

said,

dirty. It's full

'What about the

what about the

sea,

of pigeons and dark courtyards.'

"And now they want about self-determination.

to

throw us

What

out,"

light? Paris

Marcel

said.

"They

talk

about us? We're people too. Can you

imagine the people of Marseilles being thrown out of their city? there'd been ten million of us,

want

it

would be

different, but

we

to have eight or nine children."

"Have you had any bombs

is

"

in the

neighborhood?"

I

asked.

If

didn't

BETWEEN BATTLES

191

"There are no bombs here because we keep our eyes open," Marpouring another round of anisette. "But look

cel said,

man, Grabagnati, murdered on

was

working

apolitical,

Can you

tell

"There

class,

his

at that

Vespa outside the

young

He

hospital.

he was a goalie for the Sporting Club.

me why?"

is

no why," Sauveur

said. "That's the

method. To

kill

peo-

ple at random."

"The Arabs are never

satisfied,"

Marcel

said.

"The shoeshine

Madame Massu sends to school complain they're being persecuted. What the Arabs really want is a fig tree with some shade to sit boys

under."

Sauveur told Marcel he wanted to show he pulled out his wallet Marcel wouldn't

down

me

let

the sights, but

him

pay.

We

when

walked

the Avenue Bouzarea, and he said: "You can't change the

way

—

know the proverb and it applies to both sides " 'When you want to kill a dog, you say he's got rabies.' "What they don't realize," he went on, "is that they're a lot like the Arabs. They want complete control over their wives and they wish they had more than one. When their daughters have jobs, they're they think. But you

supposed to turn over their salaries to their parents." I

asked him

when he had met Camus.

working with a theater troupe and

I

"In 1934,

was painting the

when he was sets,"

Sauveur

"What you have to understand about Albert is that he never knew his father. He was born in 1913 and his father Lucien left for said.

France a year ave,

wearing the blue vest and red trousers of a zou-

later,

and got himself

much

—

a bit of shrapnel in the

mother was an

October on the Marne.

killed in

illiterate

arm

cleaning

It

didn't take

that turned to gangrene. Albert's

woman. They

lived in a stinking

hole in Belcourt, without running water. Albert

is

self-made en-

tirely."

Their friendship was partly based on having broken out of their familial poverty. "In 1934,"

sastrous decisions. a year

younger

"Was

He

Sauveur recalled, "Albert made two

got married

—and he joined

his wife a

the

Communist?"

at the

age of twenty-one

Communist

Party."

—

I

di-

was

TED MORGAN

192

"Worse. She was a drug addict, cheated on him. She finally

'They

him, and he got fed up with the party.

left

on proclamations,' he

live

and out of rehab, and she

in

Of

said.

course he never sold The

Class Struggle in the streets." "I

veur

think

said.

Camus

me

liked

because

I

didn't talk all the time," Sau-

"There were long silences between

us.

Later on, he pre-

tended to the world that he was somber and ascetic, but he loved dirty jokes and the low

life,

card games and anisette.

was, he didn't have the stamina.

He was

The

trouble

already spitting blood."

We were walking along and came up to a long wooden one-story building painted blue, right on the water. "That's the Padovani bathhouse," Sauveur said, "the poor man's Cannes. There's a

of yellow sand, a row of dressing rooms on cafe that sells fried fish.

"Oh,

we played poker

we

checked out the

Camus hang

'mouette [seagull].

on a

out?"

little soccer,

floor,

and a

asked.

I

we played boules on we went to the beach and

and when you saw a pretty one you'd shout,

At night, we went

and

clerical collar

kling them with wine.

He had

to the Bas-Fonds, a bar in the

The owner was

harbor with whores and pimps. liked to put

dance

dice at the Provence,

played a

girls,

a

has a certain Belle Epoque style."

It

"So where did you and

the esplanade,

stilts,

narrow band

'baptize' his

dwarf who

a crazy

customers by sprin-

a cigar-cutter that

was

a miniature

guillotine."

We were on Avenue Durando, ley rails? They're a frontier.

Oued, and on the right "So when did

Italian

Camus

war seemed absurd

ary 1940. losis,

He was

said,

"See those trol-

you have Spanish Bab-el-

left

Bab-el-Oued." I

asked.

was the editor of Le Soir Republican, and

to him,

turned

and Sauveur the

leave Algeria?"

"Let's see. In 1939, he

the

On

and the paper was shut down

down by

in

Janu-

the army, because of his tubercu-

and he didn't have a job, so he

left for

Paris in

March and got

hired on a paper there."

"Did he stay in France?" "Well, in 1942, The Stranger thing.

He

didn't

come back

came

out,

and that changed every-

until after the war,

and by then he'd got-

BETWEEN BATTLES ten too big for his britches. tell

me

main

that the

Meursault had a bad

You had

to wait in line to see him.

character, Meursault, attitude.

193

He was

indifferent to the conventions

on her grave, sobbing. Neither did

I.

I

He didn't throw him-

suppose

it

was

of hedonism and low-level nihilism that he saw, although

an Arab.

killed

want

I

remember

to be paid back.

"Was "No,

owe you

'I

that the last time

I

a

The Plague, and he oven,'

I

never

owed him money, but he

didn't

he

lot,'

said."

last year.

He was

By then

he'd written

want masterpieces out of me

like loaves

thought was a mite self-glorifying.

weighed down by the question of Algeria, as swer.

mixture

you saw him?"

said, 'they

which

a

I've

saw him when he was here

I

from the

that

did

was based partly on me.

of society and insensitive to his mother's death. self

He

if

He was

only he had the an-

torn between his pied-noir upbringing and his sympa-

He told me, 'I can't accept an independent Can you imagine me needing a passport to come to the land

thy for the underdog. Algeria.

of

my

birth?'

we

realize that It

I

said, 'There's a

shadow on the

We've begun

was through Sauveur

on the rue

that

I

discovered Algiers, for

d'Isly.

I

had delib-

between Square Bresson and

With Sauveur

I

got to

know

He was

a

walker in the

city,

my

other neighbor-

hoods, Climat de France, Saint Saens Park, Belcourt, Notre d'Afrique.

to

can't win.'

erately limited myself to the area office

sun.

"

Dame

so detached (although acutely

And everywhere he went, people, both pieds-noirs and Arabs. He taught me to see the Casbah in other than military terms. From the rue d'Isly we climbed up the Rampe Bugeaud, where a florist was arranging a galaxy of

observant) that he attracted no attention.

he

knew

roses and

lilies

d'Isly, still

alley

and

had

said,

eight stools,

on wooden shelves. Rue de Tanger, parallel to the rue its

share of cafes and bistros. Sauveur pointed to an

"There used to be a place there called Bitouche, with

where you

ate the best kidneys in Algiers.

I

can

still

down with a bottle of Tanqui rose and olive oil. The last virgin in Algiers, Bi-

smell the brochettes, washed

an onion salad with virgin touche

said.

Europeans and Arabs

Once we took the

still

mixed

then."

streetcar to the Barberousse Prison above the

TED MORGAN

194

Casbah, with walls,

corner watchtowers and

its

tile

fringe on the outer

and walked down through the tangle of iron-banistered

cases and blind

seemed

to

me

stair-

The Casbah

houses almost touching.

alleys, the

not picturesque but decayed, the crumbling walls of

the houses shored up with

wooden

garbage piled

waiting for the donkeys. Sauveur pointed

Pearl,

in the streets

names

out street

Red

A

knew

the owner,

in.

What

said business

was

terrible.

days. "I got a little tilt

bonus

for every save,"

sat

he

down

said.

tea.

Why

"And

I

Man

a

with the

me

took

Ahmed,

a pleasure.

you know who," he whispered. He

into the

former soccer

Ahmed

greeted

we

see you

don't

have to pay taxes

to talk about the old

Sauveur

lit

Gitane with

a

of the head and hands and lost his hangdog look.

seemed content. "You know," he everybody pitched

in if there

dispute between neighbors."

was

said,

Most of the houses

still

"when

a fire or a

When we

ticed a line of children, waiting to wall.

He

few elderly Arabs sat drinking mint

more often?" He

a

alluring past:

Sea, Lion's Bath, Street of Honey.

Sauveur warmly: "Come

to

more

that evoked a

Cafe du Sport, where he goalie.

supports, the smell of urine and

fill

left

I

He

lived in the Casbah,

woman

giving birth or a

the Cafe du Sport,

I

no-

buckets from a spigot in the

didn't have

running water.

Sauveur loved the beaches outside Algiers but had no way to get to them, since he didn't drive,

and the tram service out of Algiers had

been interrupted for security reasons. Since to find a guide

who was

also a friend,

I

I

had been lucky enough

bought

llCV

a beat-up

Citroen, the black model used in French movies by both the police

and the gangsters.

named paid

Jian,

It

who was

belonged to a Jewish garage owner

I

knew

selling everything and leaving for France.

$300 of the money

I'd

saved from

despite Jian's pushing a car on

taken advantage, as had

were leaving and had to

many sell at

me

that

I

my

Telegram

articles,

only half wanted,

I

I

and

felt I'd

others, of the distress of those

who

rock-bottom prices.

Sauveur had a fisherman friend

at

Pointe Pescade, a steep

jutting into the sea, with sandy beaches between

From Bab-el-Oued, you continued west along

its

cliff

indentations.

the shore road to

BETWEEN BATTLES

195

Saint-Eugene, and another six kilometers to Pointe Pescade. Farther

on was the Bainem Forest of eucalyptus, Aleppo pines, and casuarina trees.

We drove out there on the third Sunday in May. Sauveur's friends had

a cottage at the top of the

cliff,

with a fine view of the Mediter-

ranean, a deeper blue there, thrashing and less welcoming than on the city beaches. Sauveur had

warned me

that his friends, Jules

and

Dolores, both of Spanish stock, were an animated couple. "They've

been married a long time and they've fallen into a routine," he

said.

"She's very experienced."

"Experienced

what?"

at

"Household disputes," he

We

came

to a

said.

wooden cottage with

a scalloped sign over the

door that said Notre Port (Our Harbor) and a porch overlooking the

we could hear Dolores shouting, "You goodfor-nothing, you walking calamity. Madre de Dio, throw him into the harbor with forty pounds of lead around his neck." But when she saw sea.

us,

As we walked

in,

her tone changed and she said, "Sauveur, we've missed you, you

mule-headed calamar"

"How

can

(squid).

be a mule and a calamar?" Sauveur asked.

I

"And who's the big asparagus you brought with you?" she asked.

"That's

"Why "It's

my pal.

isn't

his

He's in the army."

he in uniform?"

day

off."

"The army," Dolores Dolores was a stout

said.

"Fat lot they're doing."

woman

in

her forties with a small but wide

nose, intense dark eyes, a single heavy

eyebrow straight across her

forehead, and black hair tied in a braid around her head. She

dark blue apron over a cotton dress with a short,

brawny man with

a big bald head,

wore

a

was

a

floral print. Jules

deep lines

in his forehead,

blotches on his cheeks from the sun, and crow's-feet around his re-

markably bright green

eyes.

He

kept wiping his brow with his hand-

kerchief and saying, "Que color" although

7

it

wasn't that hot.

TED MORGAN Dolores was saffron. Jules sat

one of his "It's

at the oven,

preparing her famous

fish

soup with

by the window with a needle and thread, repairing

Sauveur told him he looked preoccupied.

nets.

our son, Raymond," he explained.

"A son should do what his father does," Dolores interrupted. "But this one, since la

mort de

he came back from France, he's turned his back on us, (death to his bones).

ses os"

"Be quiet for one instant," Jules so

him

sent

I

to

an agronomic college

coming back, he met

the boat

same age

as him,

"He wanted

said.

in

France for two years.

in

Oran. But when the boat

And

landed, she didn't go to Oran; she stayed with him.

hard to believe.

The

girl is half Arab

"We've never met veil."

her,"

Addressing me, she

Dolores

On

woman, the

a twenty-two-year-old

married to a dentist

run a farm,

to

on her mother's said. "I

wonder

here's what's

side."

she wears a

if

about the same age; what do

said, "You're

you think?"

"The woman must have been desperate that,"

I

to leave her

husband

"Desperate!" Dolores shouted.

"May Allah

give her eczema and

shorten her arms so she can't scratch. She got her hooks into

and

like

said.

he's

running up debts, spending

his

money on

my son,

clothes like a ze-

bra." "I

now he

never expected him to be a fisherman," Jules said. "But

wants to go back to France with the

girl.

Sauveur, what do you

think?" "You've got to give the grass a chance to grow," Sauveur said. "He's got a stone

where

his heart should be,"

Dolores

brought the steaming cauldron offish soup to the Jules

opened

said, as she

table.

a couple of bottles of rose. "I disapprove of disor-

derly lives," he said, "and

sometimes

I

wonder

if his

disorder

is

con-

nected to the disorder of the country as a whole. There's something

wrong with our way of life.

I've

been a working

man

all

my

life,

but

there's never

been a real working class here, since the Arabs aren't

The

usual class struggle that we've seen in Europe never

citizens.

BETWEEN BATTLES took hold at

—

197

erupted as a full-blown revolution.

it

How

did

we

arrive

such an imperfect society?" "All colonizers are

here,

I

think

it's

bound

already too

to be oppressive," Sauveur said, "but

late,

and that partition

is

the answer."

"You mean give them the desert and keep the coast?" Jules "No,

split

"This soup ries of

what

down

it

to

is

said.

the middle," Sauveur said.

really marvelous,"

I

said, tired

of listening to theo-

do about Algeria.

—someone who

"Finally

"Good God,

this

woman

appreciates

my cooking,"

Dolores

said.

exasperates me," Jules said.

Dolores raised her thumb to her

lips

and pretended to be biting

off her nail, then flung out her arm. This

was the ultimate gesture of

contempt

In

in

Bab-el-Oued.

early May

there had been an incident that could be called ap-

palling even by the standards of the Battle of Algiers.

On chemin

Polignac in the eastern suburb of Le Ruisseau, two paras were killed,

and their bodies were found

in the street

by

men

of their unit.

The

enraged paras raided a Moorish bath nearby that served in the eve-

ning as a homeless fired bursts

from

shelter.

their

They barged

MATs,

in,

lined up the Arabs, and

leaving 80 dead. Governor-General

Lacoste was incredulous: "Eighty dead to avenge two paras? These paras are assassins.

And

yet they are essential to the security of the

city."

There had been no

FLN bombs since February, but the Ruisseau

massacre opened a new chapter.

The Casbah

population was up in

men and you do nothing? Where is the FLN?" He had to respond. He was, in fact, reconstituting his bomb network for the third time. The head of his bomb team, Hattab Reda, made a proposal. He knew a sympathizer who worked for the EGA (Electricity and Gas of Algiers) and who could supply them with four of the company's blue uniforms and arms. Yacef Saadi was asked: "They massacre eighty of our

one of the special keys that opened the bases of the streetlights when

TED MORGAN

198

they needed repairs. If bombs were placed inside those hollow, castiron bases, they

would explode

like artillery shells.

All this took time to arrange, and four

men

explode

in

at

afternoon.

EGA

was not

it

uniforms, carrying three small

bombs timed

6:30 pm, appeared in downtown Algiers

No one paid

June 3 that

until

any attention when they saw

to

3:00 in the

at

EGA repairmen

squatting at the base of the streetlights that were also trolley stops.

They seemed

to be tightening a few bolts:

Grande

Alfred-Lelluch, near the

One

was on rue

light

Poste; one on rue Hoche, near the

Air France terminal; and the third on rue Sadi Carnot, in the heart of downtown.

At 6:30, when crowds were lined up

home from work,

the

directions, hitting

at the trolley stops to

bombs exploded, and

Europeans and Arabs

the shrapnel flew in

alike,

to Bab-el-Oued, schoolchildren, shoppers,

and

go all

workers going home strollers.

On

the rue

Moslem woman sat on the sidewalk holding her dead child in her arms. Georgette, who was out shopping, told me she was on a ramp above rue Hoche and looked down and saw bodies lined up covered with blankets in front of the Cote pharmacy. The total casualties were 8 dead and 84 wounded. Once again, the colon population was badly shaken. But because there were Moslem casualties, Yacef Saadi was scolded for his choice of targets. He was already planning another spectacular bombing, but this time he had to make sure that

Lelluch, a

no Arabs would be

hit.

In the meantime, there 21,

Guy

was no government

Mollet was overthrown.

to play out musical chairs

It

in France, for

on

May

took the politicians until June 12

and invest Maurice Bourges-Maunoury as

prime minister. General Salan took advantage of the vacuum to bring back a regiment of paras from the

June 9 was Pentecost Sunday,

bled.

a

major holiday

in Algiers, usher-

ing in the summer. Sauveur proposed a day at Casino de a popular establishment

Pointe Pescade. area, have a

We

on

a

la

Corniche,

rocky spur between Saint-Eugene and

could go to the beach, one of the finest in the

swim, and then walk up to the casino, where there was

garden with stands that sold food. Then we could look

a

in at the ca-

BETWEEN BATTLES sino,

where from 4:00

to 8:00 there

was

199

a matinee dansante, featuring

the band of Bab-el-Oued's own Lucky Starway. He was Sauveur's, and his real

name was Lucien

"He was

Seror.

and he sold everything to start the band," Sauveur

trade,

When we

got to the beach around 2 pm,

it

a friend of

rag

in the said.

was crowded and the

sun was high. Sauveur took out his sketchbook and

said: "Is there

anything better than this? The deep blue of the Mediterranean, the cloudless sky, the honey-colored sand, the intense light, the gulls

young men preening, and the

circling, the

notice I

—

it's

all

there for the rich and the poor."

didn't particularly like sitting

mixed

pretending not to

girls

on the sand, so

for

me

was

it

a

blessing, with radios blaring, the occasional beach ball land-

ing on us, and the elaborateness of their picnics; folding tables and parasols and tablecloths and silver and glassware. a paper lost a

page that the breeze sent tumbling along the beach.

small boy retrieved didn't bother to ing,

One man reading

and casting

it,

and when he returned

thank him. Girls walked

by,

side glances to see if they

it,

smiling, the

A

man

giggling and whisper-

were being noticed.

"In Bab-el-Oued," Sauveur said, "a girl isn't beautiful or ugly, she's mettable" ("doable").

When those

I

told

who jump

him

was going

I

into the water.

It

takes

centimeter by centimeter, hands and until I'm

up to

my neck. And

swim, he

for a

said, "I'm

me fifteen

feet,

not one of

or twenty minutes,

then legs and shoulders,

never more than ten minutes.

The

true

lover of the sea prefers brief and repeated immersions."

In the late afternoon,

under acacia trees

We

drinking Oranginas. the casino.

we ambled up

to the casino

garden and

sat

at a picnic table eating mergues (spicy sausage) and

"Why

could hear the strains of the tango inside

do we remain

asked. "Because of

beauty.

its

On

not the worst. There was a time

now

population. Hopefully,

in this turbulent land?"

that

Sauveur

the catastrophe scale, this

when it's

war

is

the plague knocked off half the

summer, everyone

will

go

to the

beach and things will calm down."

As he

spoke, there

out the windows.

We

was an explosion

ran inside,

down

a

inside the casino that blew

long hall with a red carpet

TED MORGAN

200

covered with splinters from the broken mirrors, and up the steps

gaming room, where

leading on one side to the

croupiers had just

been calling out roulette numbers, and on the other side to the dance

The bomb had gone off under the bandstand, which had been torn to pieces. The dance floor was littered with body parts, dancers lying in their blood, piano keys, mangled saxophones. Some dancers, floor.

those farthest from the bandstand, were hold each other up, as in for fox-trots

standing and trying to

still

some grotesque marathon. Instead of music

and tangos, the dance

was

hall

filled

with the screams

of the wounded. Sauveur picked up a woman's shoe and the foot was still in

"I can't

it.

take this," he said. "I'm going to be sick."

we can do something Georgette,

I

to help,"

I

thinking that the last time with

said,

had walked away.

A call went out for those with cars wounded

casino and take the

on the shore road. joined the girl, in a

ders,

"Maybe

line.

I

to the

to line

them up

in front of the

Mustapha Hospital, which was

ran to the parking

lot to get

my

Citroen and

Sauveur helped a young couple into the backseat. The

skimpy beach

was bleeding from the back and shoul-

outfit,

and her boyfriend had deep cuts on

took off his shirt and tore

it

his

neck and

face.

Sauveur

into strips to staunch the blood.

As we

took Route Moutonniere to Mustapha, the boy kept repeating, "Filthy Arabs, filthy Arabs," while the girl wept.

We

learned the next day that the casino

wounded

85.

There was not

a single

dansante was barred to Arabs.

age of 25. Lucien Seror, lost

both

Moslem

Most of the

who was

38,

was

casualties

killed.

and his dancer, Paul Perez,

feet,

bomb had

escaped into the

young

girl

Two

bled.

who

left

Sauveur gave

lost

His singer, Josy Ley, both legs.

The

a

four-

a 17-year-old

the casino after placing

me

and

were under the

pound bomb had been placed under the bandstand by dishwasher, Imaklal Lounes,

killed 9

casualty, for the matinee

it

and

pen-and-ink drawing of a

dancing with a skeleton: Sex and Death.

days

casino dead.

later,

It

on June

11,

came

the funeral procession for the

started solemnly, with a

crowd of mourners walking

slowly behind black hearses. Soon they were joined by a phalanx of

200

students,

marching 10 abreast and singing the

Marseillaise.

They

BETWEEN BATTLES

201

were flanked by young men on scooters. From our Bernard and

d'Isly,

The mood

to overturn cars that

Arab names on the windshields. Others, toward the church

to take a look.

said:

had ID stickers with

as the procession progressed

Bab-el-Oued where the funeral service was

in

to be held, broke into

Arab-owned

"Don't you see

how

shops.

As

the decibel level rose,

stupid these pieds-noirs are?

think with their lungs. Don't they the

rue

quickly turned from grief to anger, and students broke

away from the cortege

Bernard

down

heard the noise and went

I

office off

know

they're doing the

They

work of

FLN for them?" Policemen stood

at

every street corner but did not intervene.

We

asked one what was going on, and he said, "They're overexcited.

They're getting

it

out of their system."

an open-air market, young

doused the

and

said,

stalls,

starting

men

When

the procession passed

carrying gasoline-filled water cans

A

fires.

couple of ringleaders accosted us

"Don't just stand there; join

us,"

but

we

left.

Finally the

paras were brought in and arrested 200 demonstrators, but not before 5

Arabs had been

killed,

45 wounded, 20 cars

set

on

fire,

and 100

shops looted.

To

his credit,

Massu drafted

pean elements behaved rested on the spot.

The

a note to the troops: "Certain

in a foul

Euro-

manner and should have been

forces of order

the population, including the Moslems."

must protect

all

ar-

elements of

The Second Battle of Algiers

the beginning of June, General Massu was feeling the strain. He had not had one day off in five months. He rented

By

a villa

on the ocean

Every morning he rose and the deep sea quick

swim

at

in

Bains-Romain, near Pointe Pescade.

dawn and

listened to the cries of the gulls

swell, as he breakfasted

on the terrace, then had a

before the drive to his office in Hydra. In the late after-

noon on June

9,

when he heard

he was on the terrace of his villa having an aperitif the casino explosion. After being debriefed,

decided something had to be done.

He brought

Massu

back to Algiers a

regiment of red berets and a regiment of green berets. The blue berets

had already returned, so he had three out of the four regiments

in his 10th Division.

named tor.

He

restored the 9

a paratroop colonel,

With

his square jaw,

pm

curfew.

And

finally,

he

Yves Godard, the head of the Algiers sec-

husky

build,

and gruff manner, Godard re-

sembled an intelligent bulldog. Massu worried that he wasn't decisive, that he

was

before he

a ruminant,

chewing

made up his mind,

his

cud for days and even weeks

but at the same time obstinate and smart.

He was also intensely competitive and resolved that if Bigeard had won the first Battle of Algiers, he would win the second. By mid-

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS June he was installed

arm

Bruce Palace near the Casbah, with his

in the

bad landing

in a cast, the result of a

Just

with

in a training

jump.

when Godard had moved

into the

white marble staircase,

happened to run into him

its

usual circumstances. Since nings,

203

no longer saw Georgette

I

sometimes went to

I

I

sumptuous Bruce Palace in

un-

in the eve-

a private officers' club, the Leopard.

Instead of a sign on the laquered black door, there was a small bronze

vaulting leopard. Located on the top floor of a ing,

with a panoramic view of the bay,

Bar

in Paris,

with

its

the

although

my

me

of the Crillon

and small tables scattered around the room.

members were para

Brissac had gotten

reminded

office build-

long mahogany bar, high mirrors, wooden bar-

stools with leather seats,

Most of

it

downtown

me

in,

age gave

and

me

in

colonels, majors,

any

and captains, but

no one could

case,

tell

my rank,

away, for there weren't any 25 -year-old

captains in the French army.

The

drinks were expensive; this was a scotch rather than an an-

isette clientele,

pensive.

and the French hostesses were friendly and also ex-

Most of them were wives of noncoms

who needed

that there

were also a few

you could not approach

that

monthly allotment, but

to upholster their bare-bones

was rumored

though the rule was broken

stationed in the bled

officers' wives.

a

woman; she had

if

eye contact was made.

The

rule

to approach

it

was

you

The women

were attractive without being vulgar, and conservatively dressed.

They were women you might meet table

and you weren't

in the

your

mood, you might chat with her and

offer

her a glass of champagne. Only

was

that the barstools

down

at

at a party. If one sat

first

were reserved

names were used. Another rule for

the club only to drink and talk shop.

men. Some

The

officers

came

to

half-dozen rooms in the

back had modern, Scandinavian-type furniture and the indispensable bidet.

I

could not afford going there more than once or twice a

month.

One evening around June

22,

I

was

having a drink with a green beret captain voices at the other end.

It

at the I

bar of the Leopard

knew when

I

heard loud

was Godard, who was rumored

heavy drinker and was obviously

in his cups.

to be a

"This can't continue,"

TED MORGAN

204

he shouted. "The man's become a killing machine. All the Catholics,

and

lefties,

down and I

fairies,

sat

him

are raising a hue and cry." His friends quieted at a table,

wondered who he was talking about, and

story until a year

later,

when

told parts of the story as for the leaders of the

who were

it

I

I

did not get the whole

was out of the army, although

developed.

The

paras were

suspected of having a hand in the terrorism.

Georges Hadjadj, who was found ranking Communist militant.

him

until he

still

I

was

looking

Algerian Communist Party's Action Service,

police sergeant did a routine check

tortured

him

and he looked around bleary-eyed,

on

a big

On

June

10, a

sedan driven by Dr.

to be listed in police files as a high-

He was turned

over to the paras,

who

admitted that he was in charge of the antiwar

underground newspaper La Voix du

Soldat,

which was printed on a

press in the basement of his villa and clandestinely distributed to the troops.

The name

of Maurice Audin, a 25-year-old assistant math pro-

fessor at the University of Algiers,

was found

in the doctor's papers.

Again, under torture, Hadjadj said that Audin was also a Communist

and that his home was used as

a safe

din lived in the sector of the 1st

on June

11 at

ened from his

midnight sleep,

at his

RCP

house for wanted militants. Au(blue berets),

home on

who

arrested

rue Gustave Flaubert.

him

Wak-

he mumbled, "At this time of night?" and barely

had time to kiss his wife Josette and his three sleeping children before being trundled off to the triage center in El-Biar,

mendjel "jumped or

where Bou-

Teitgen signed Audin's "assignation to

fell."

residence."

When a suspect was arrested at home, the procedure was

to leave

behind a police inspector in case anyone turned up looking for him.

On

June

12,

Audin did have

a visitor.

He was one

of the most promi-

nent underground Communists, Henri Alleg, editor of the defunct

party newspaper, Alger Republicain. Unable to get Audin on his office

phone

at the university,

Audin

lived in a

Alleg had foolishly come to see him, since

housing project and did not have a home phone, and

was arrested on the two-winged building

spot. still

He

too was taken to the triage center, a

under construction, with iron rods

stick-

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

205

c

ing out of the masonry and a courtyard crowded with jeeps and trucks.

What happened to Alleg was not known until he published his book, La Question, in 1958. He was taken to a big living room in an unfinished apartment, furnished with a folding table and a gegene.

A

torture team of blue berets, headed by the bearlike Lieutenant Charbonnier,

welcomed him, saying, "Ah, here

is

our

client."

Pointing to

the gegene, Charbonnier told Alleg, "You've heard about

applied the to a finger

it;

and he jumped and screamed. "He sure

is

noisy,"

Charbonnier

down

to a plank

and ankles. an

When

epileptic, as

on the

floor with leather straps

on

He was

his wrists

they applied the pincer to his penis, he shook like

paras sat around watching and drinking beer.

Charbonnier

said,

"Go

get Audin. He's in the other building."

Audin, unable to walk, was carried in between two paras.

He had

been so badly beaten that he was unrecognizable. Charbonnier "Tell

said.

him."

Alleg found that biting the gag helped him bear the pain. tied

you've

now you're going to experience it." A para pincers, known as "crocodiles" because of their teeth, one and one to the lobe of an ear. They turned on the juice,

written articles about

"Gag

it,

him what

it's

Through swollen and bleeding Henri."

said,

like." lips,

Audin mumbled,

"It's

hard,

They took him away.

"You're going to talk, you son of a whore," Charbonnier told Alleg.

On gene.

the second day, there was another session with a bigger ge-

Alleg got to the point where he couldn't stop shaking, but he

didn't talk.

teach you."

One of the paras said, "Do you know how to swim? We'll They dragged him to a big sink, wound a cloth around his

head, and pushed a rubber hose that extended from the faucet under the cloth and

down

couldn't swallow felt

it.

his throat. It

went into

they turned on the water, he

his nose

and

all

over his face, and he

he was drowning. "If you decide to talk,

leg

When

was

suffocating.

He

move your

fingers,"

twitched his fingers.

Charbonnier

said.

Al-

The water was turned

TED MORGAN

206

off and the paras slapped his

stomach so he would throw

it

him

refused to talk. This annoyed the paras and they gave

still

water again until he lost consciousness. nier said:

"You almost bought

The next morning, he

it

When

he came

But he

up.

to,

the

Charbon-

that time."

was

realized that he

where

in the building

Boumendjel had been held before being led out to the passageway

and pushed

He was

off.

taken to the office of a blue beret captain,

—you must understand

who

said, "You're a journalist

When

to be informed."

he remained

silent,

that

we need

they gave him the gegene

again and burned his hands with matches, as the captain sat at his desk, calmly smoking. "You're thirty-six," the captain said, "too

young

to die."

Since Charbonnier was getting nowhere, the paras brought in the master interrogator, Captain

Roger Faulques of the green

berets,

the chief torturer of Villa Sesini. Faulques said he simply wanted to chat;

and Alleg obliged him, since he would be spared the gegene. He

talked at length about his newspaper, and without

knowing

it,

he

gave away the identity of an important Communist militant, about

whom

asked about the

man

man

my

never discuss the

knew only

the paras

that he walked with a limp. Faulques

with the limp. Alleg

comrades

at the paper."

with the limp had worked on the paper,

identify. In their

and Faulques

"You know, during Suez,

would sink

a

insist.

I

will

knew that making him easy to

I

kept wishing an

Amer-

French ship so we could go to war with

the Americans and clear things up." for

"Don't

wide-ranging discussion, they talked about Suez,

said,

ican submarine

America

said,

Faulques thus

The French

military

still

blamed

botching Suez.

In the meantime, the arrests of Audin and Alleg had had reper-

cussions in France, where committees were formed and articles were written. eral

On

Andre

June 29, two members of a commission of inquiry, GenZeller and Professor Richet, visited the blue beret triage

center where

Audin and Alleg were being

ated in time for the

Alleg was sent to the Lodi

summer camp

held.

But they were evacu-

visit.

Camp

near Medea.

for the children of railway workers,

It

was

a former

with showers and

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

a basketball court.

There Alleg drew up

207

a criminal complaint for the

prosecutor of the Algiers Court of Appeals, which was smuggled out

and released

This way

to the Paris papers.

where he wrote

Prison,

than a month when

it

his case

went

was transferred

instead of to the paras. In August, he

to the courts

to Barberousse

which sold 66,000 copies

his book,

was published

in 1958, before

in less

being seized by

the government. In June 1960, he went to trial and was sentenced to 10 years for "prejudice to the security of the state and reorganization

of a dissolved party."

He had

already served three and was trans-

ferred to the French city of Rennes to serve the rest of his sentence.

As

for

Audin,

it

was announced

that he had been killed while try-

ing to escape during a transfer by jumping out of a jeep.

where the comments of Godard that could be explained. For Brissac,

I

who

overheard

at

And

this is

the Leopard Club

received his information from

Massu's headquarters, was told what had really happened to Audin.

He was turned

over to Major Aussaresses, the head of the killing

teams, and taken out to a burial ground west of Algiers, near Zeralda. Before

One

he was shot, he

said, "It's a mistake. I'm

who agreed

of those

French."

blamed Aussaresses

for his indiscriminate assassinations

him transferred back

to France.

gotten along," Brissac said.

was commander of the his place. job.

He added

Godard

want him

doesn't

killing

1

july

goes back to 1948, when Aussaresses

and Godard pulled strings to take

insult to injury if

by offering him the number-two

Aussaresses

kills

Frenchmen, which makes

Audin was the proverbial

On

"It

and had

"Godard and Aussaresses have never

1th Choc

mind

Arabs, but he doesn't

a stink in France,

and

last straw."

2, 1957, at a

meeting of Republican

leaders, President

Eisenhower was warned that 40-year-old Senator John

nedy was about to make

who

with Audin was Colonel Godard,

a speech

on the Senate floor

F

Ken-

in support of

Algerian independence. The text of the speech had been sent to news outlets

on the previous

Cabot Lodge,

in

day.

Kennedy had beaten

Ike's friend,

Henry

Massachusetts in 1952, and after four years in the

TED MORGAN

208

Senate, he

was

member of the Committee on Foreign

a

chairman of the subcommittee on United Nations

Although he believed that the answer

Relations and

affairs.

for all colonial peoples,

including Algeria, was independence, Ike did not want to disrupt relations with France, a

NATO

key

member. And yet he

felt

that

Re-

publicans should not argue against the Algerian cause, "even though the people of Algeria

run their

lack sufficient education and training to

still

own government

in the

most

efficient way."

"Perhaps," Ike said, "Republicans might best just chide Mr. Ken-

nedy

for

pretending to have

the answers."

all

Later that day, Kennedy delivered his 5,000-word speech, entitled "Imperialism

—The Enemy of Freedom," before

ence of 14 senators.

background and Senate speech.

It

was an impressive

effort,

political perceptiveness, far

It

a

meager audi-

blending historical

above the usual windy

must have taken several weeks of research and

many hands, including those of Jay Lovestone, the eminence grise of the AFL-CIO, who was a passionate advocate of Algerian independence and sometimes advised Kennedy.

Kennedy opened by stating

that Algeria

was no longer

a

French

internal matter but "a matter of international,

and consequently

American, concern." Reasons for concern, he

were that the war

"has stripped the continental forces of

said,

NATO

to the bone.

It

has af-

fected our standing in the eyes of the free world, our prestige, our security, as well as

our moral leadership

in the fight against Soviet

imperialism in the countries behind the Iron Curtain.

It

has fur-

nished powerful ammunition to anti-Western propagandists throughout Asia and the Middle East. "Algeria

"nor will

it

no longer

is

a

problem

the French J

—

American military equipment

which the natives fear and hate

At

New

this point,

York,

for the

French alone," he

said,

ever be again. £This was one of the lines that infuriated

get the feeling

—has been used against

.

.

.

istration implied."

the rebels."

Senator Jacob Javits, a Republican senator from

the need to question

felt

particularly helicopters,

Kennedys motives: "One would

that there are overtones of criticism of the

admin-

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

"My

meant

criticisms are not

"The

209

Kennedy

to be partisan,"

replied.

essential first step," he continued, "is the independence of

Algeria along the lines of Morocco and Tunisia." This line also infuriated the French, as did the next line that "each identifiable rebel has

behind him the rians."

silent or half-articulated

support of many other Alge-

This was contrary to the colon precept that the Arab masses

supported France.

On

the nature of guerrilla warfare,

Orde Wingate, who

Kennedy quoted General

1943 ran a unit of guerrillas in Japanese-held

in

Burma:

"

resolute

and well-armed men can parlay

'Given a population favorable to penetration, a thousand for

an indefinite period the

"

operations of a hundred thousand.'

Another, more arcane quotation came from

Anne Robert Jacques

Turgot, the minister of finance under Louis XVI, from 1774 to 1776, for

Kennedy wanted

to use the

words of an admired eighteenth-

century French statesman against the French: fruit,

which cling to the tree only

"

'Colonies are like

until they ripen.'

Kennedy concluded by submitting

"

a resolution urging "that the

President and the Secretary of State be strongly encouraged to place the influence of the United States behind the effort ... to achieve a solution which will recognize the independent personality of Algeria

and establish the basis

for a settlement interdependent

with France

and the neighboring nations."

At

on July

a press conference

3,

main neutral between the two camps. a catastrophe if Ike's

we

let

it

Ike said: .

.

.

"We

are trying to re-

This situation could lead to

get out of control." Suez was

still

fresh in

mind, and he preferred to consider Algeria a French internal

matter. But the unspoken question

was

"Why

is

freedom

fine for us

but not for others?"

The French response

to Kennedy's speech

Governor-General Lacoste talking like someone

who

said: is

was not temperate.

"This young senator should stop

deaf and blind."

The

French, he said,

were no more ready to give up Algeria than the Northern

states

were

ready to give up the Southern states during the Civil War.

The

speech fanned anti-American embers, and the usual shibboleths were

TED MORGAN

210

trotted out:

had

America had designs on Saharan

us handle Nasser, the Algerian

let

American

a visiting

war would be

"Why

journalist:

don't

the Americans

oil. If

over.

Massu

told

you take care of your

Negroes instead of worrying about our Moslems?"

On

July

obscure the

whom

8,

Kennedy returned

fact,"

he

said, "that

Algerians will someday be

whom

will they turn, to the Americans,

rejected the issue as

none of our

.

.

.

The Algerian

while

affair,

nishing arms that help crush them

Peking?

"Nothing can

to the Senate floor.

situation

—or

is

to

a deadly

at

they the

may

free.

have

feel

same time

Moscow,

To

fur-

to Cairo, to

time bomb."

Although Kennedy's resolution was bottled up July 8 remarks further infuriated the French.

in the Senate, his

Even the doddering

75-year-old figurehead president, Rene Coty, awoke from his torpor to respond to the senator

who was

little

more than

half his age:

the people of civilized nations," he responded on July

9, "if you

ask

"I

had a

million of your compatriots established in Algeria, would you be so

cowardly as to abandon them?

Do

not count on us to sacrifice a

Alsace-Lorraine on the other side of the Mediterranean!

know who would

profit

.

.

.

new

We

all

from the chaos and misery that would follow

French abdication." In our office at Realties Algeriennes, Brissac decided to write the editorial himself.

It

began: "Algeria had become a

pawn on

the

Amer-

ican chessboard."

At

2

pm on

July 4, a

Frenchwoman

in her fifties,

appearance concealed her strength of character,

whose mousy

left

her

room

in

the Saint-Georges, a luxury hotel in the hills above the suburb of

Mustapha, with a fragrant garden and tennis courts. She was Ger-

maine

Tillion, the respected ethnologist

who had done

fieldwork in

Algeria and written extensively on the plight of the Arabs. She walked

down an

alley to the trolley stop,

where she waited.

It

was so hot

that

the tar on the road had started to melt and was imprinted with the tracks of tires that drove over

A young Arab

it.

When

the trolley came, she got on.

stepped out of the shadows and got on with her.

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Tillion

was back

a

Dutch lawyer,

those very

member of an international comand camps. The commission included

in Algeria as a

mission investigating prisons

heroine. Tillion

211

and a Norwegian World

a Belgian doctor,

War

was shocked by what she found. The Algerian

men who

II

elite,

could have formed the nucleus of a Franco-

Moslem understanding, were

either in jail or dead.

The

period of

colonialism had ended and the period of extermination had begun.

The commission's work was done, and Tillion was in despair, about to return to France, when an Algerian female friend gave her a verbal message: "They want to see you. You should take the trolley and follow the young man when he gets off." She went, not knowing

whom

she was going to meet.

The young man changed

trolleys

and buses three times before

entering the Casbah on rue Randon. At the outdoor market, they

took rue Caton. She was led into a house wait in an empty room,

its

It

rue Caton and told to

shutters closed against the heat. After

about 10 minutes, a dark-haired large eyes appeared.

at 3

man

was Yacef

with a mustache and unusually

Saadi,

who had read one of her woman who under-

books, and wanted to meet her, saying, "She's a stands our problems." Yacef, Ali-la-Pointe,

As they laxed.

He

civilians.

armed

to the teeth,

and Zohra

a

was

sick of ordering

MAT, was

with

Drif.

talked over glasses of mint tea, Yacef

said he

A

who was carrying

bombings

became more

re-

that struck innocent

pied-noir friend he had once played soccer with

was

a

casualty of the casino bombing, and he was deeply sorry that his friend had lost both his legs.

The

first

been reprisals against the executions

at

bombs

in 1956,

he

said,

had

Barberousse. "The guillotine

revolted us," he said. "I'm willing to stop the

bombs

if

the French

stop the guillotine." Tillion

found a

was taken aback. Instead of

man who seemed

She told Yacef Saadi that

message on

disturbed over the violence of his methods. if he

meant what he

to the cabinet ministers she

ning, she flew back to the capital.

Louis Mangin,

a heartless terrorist, she

who was on

One

said, she

knew in

Paris.

would pass

his

That very eve-

of her childhood friends was

the staff of Premier Bourges-Maunoury.

TED MORGAN

212

Mangin was it

what she had

interested in

to his boss.

On

act as a liaison

to say

and promised

to relay

a second visit, he asked her to return to Algiers

between Lacoste and the FLN. Tillion

willing to do that, but

I

want any dirty

don't

cef Saadi that there won't be any

tricks. If

more executions,

I

said: "I

and

am

promise Ya-

can't be an

empty

to accomplish

some-

it

promise." Tillion thing,

felt

might actually be able

that she

and reserved

a seat for Algiers

on a July 20 evening

flight.

That

morning, Mangin called her and said he needed to see her urgently.

She went

to his office,

where he

told her,

"On July

25, there will be

During the war,

executions." Tillion had been through other ordeals.

she had been deported by the Nazis. She rarely cried. But

Mangin's ful war,

office,

two

when she left

What was the true nature of this hate-

she was crying.

she wondered, but a series of lost opportunities? In Paris, the

government might prefer

to ask President

Coty

to exercise his right of

pardon, but in Algiers the military would object that they were not

allowed to do their jobs:

"We

catch

them and you

we maintain order when you undermine us?" Algiers and

left

that executions

On

their pact

can

she went back to

warn him

was broken.

July 25, there were not two, but three executions: Badeche

Ben Hamdi, who had confessed under torture murder of Amedee Froger. volved.

Still,

a note for Yacef Saadi at a post office box, to

were coming, and that

How

free them.

The two

It

was

to the

December 1956

later learned that

he was not in-

others had also admitted under torture that they

took part in the Froger murder, although they too were innocent.

Ben Hamdi's

last

pain they can

inflict

In our office,

words were on

a

"If they

can melt iron, imagine what

man."

we heard

that

morning

that the executions had

"When you've seen a head fall in He had never actually seen one, but

taken place at dawn. Bernard said, a basket,

it

makes an impression."

he had heard about

it.

Brissac said, "I'm going to form the Association for the Friends

of the Guillotine, which

is

getting a bad name. After

all, it's

We'll invite members to attend executions and give them

painless.

little flags

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

and

to wave,

we'll have a

them

we'll give

a

good

213

band playing Strauss waltzes. Afterward,

breakfast."

"Strauss also wrote a funeral march," Bernard said.

"Don't be so macabre," Brissac said. "Haven't you heard of the

murderer who had a beer cause he believed

to

Prior

I

had been sent to cover an important

one of the courtrooms of the military tribu-

11, in

nal building on rue Cavaignac.

with his or her

gallows and blew off the foam be-

was unhealthy?"

it

the executions,

on July

trial

at the

own

Ten

terrorists

were on

trial,

each

lawyer, but the three star defendants were

Djamila Bouhired, Djamila Bouazza (whom Bouhired had turned

and who had

planted the January

bomb

at the

Coq

in,

Hardi), and Taleb

Abderrahmane, the chemist who made Yacef Saadi's bombs. I

was surprised

to see

how uncrowded

the courtroom was.

The

defendants sat in the dock, with their black-robed lawyers facing

them across the room, and the three judges presiding on were a few reporters from the Algiers cused, including Bouazza's

As

it

I

whom

covered the

I

trial

would get

and

a dais.

There

relatives of the ac-

in the front row.

turned out, the real star of the

Jacques Verges,

when

mother

dailies,

to

trial

know

was Bouhired's lawyer,

rather well 30 years later

of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie,

whom he

also defended.

Verges was a

man

of small stature and oversized ego, with yel-

lowish skin and slanted eyes behind thick glasses. His father Ray-

mond came from an

old French colonial family on the volcanic island

of Reunion, in the Indian Ocean. Besides being a medical doctor,

Raymond Verges married

a

served as a consular

Vietnamese woman, and

twin brother Paul were born Asian

woman

the family a

in the

in

official in

Southeast Asia.

He

1925 Jacques Verges and his

kingdom of Siam. Marrying an

brought an end to Raymond's diplomatic career, and

moved back

to Reunion. In the thirties,

Raymond became

Marxist and founded the Communist Party of Reunion, which won

TED MORGAN

214

enough votes

Assembly

1946 to send him as overseas deputy to the National

in

in Paris.

Jacques Verges grew up an outcast as the half-Vietnamese son of a

Communist

Reunion.

in the stratified

He saw

and

forced labor in the sugar cane fields and native coo-

pulling French passengers in rickshaws.

lies

stop, they slapped the coolie

When

they wanted to

on the back with a cane. Jacques's child-

hood and adolescence taught him

came convinced

power structure of

racist colonial

and he be-

to loathe colonialism,

and

that the only solution for the pariahs of Africa

Asia was rebellion. In 1942, at the age of

17,

Verges

Reunion and joined the Free French

left

in

the oppressive latitude of

London. As a law student

in

Paris after the war, he formed a militant Association for Colonial

Students, which

Communists

was under Communist

control. Verges

embraced the

as the only openly anticolonial party in France, then in

the midst of the Indochina War.

He

held a meeting in the courtyard

of the Sorbonne, decorated with Vietminh flags. In 1950, the party

him

sent

Students.

to

Prague

He

to be the director of the International

what

later recalled

a jolly time he

Union of

had during those

years of the final Stalinist purges. In 1955, he passed his bar collective that took first

on

FLN

exam

in Paris

defendants.

and joined the lawyers'

The Bouhired

big case, the case that launched his career. Verges

trial

knew

was

his

that he

had no defense, since Bouhired had confessed without being tortured.

The evidence di's

against her included the documents found in Yacef Saa-

briefcase after she

chance was to employ

was shot and arrested on April

9.

His only

a deliberate "strategy of disruption" in the

hope of moving the venue from the military tribunal to the court of international opinion.

He

used the courtroom as a soapbox to attack

the colonial system and the army.

methods were permissible under

During a

a recess, he told

Self-assured to the point of arrogance, he

say,

I

will get

'What did you expect from

that all

crooked system where the courts,

the military, the press, and the colon public

no-lose situation. "Either

me

my

all

conspired together.

saw himself as being

client off,"

he

this corrupt system?'

said, "or "

I

in a

will

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

215

Verges told Bouhired that when she took the stand she should claim that she had talked under torture, which caused a commotion

courtroom. Verges had not anticipated that Bouazza was

in the

ous with Bouhired for turning her dant

s

Bouazza rose up

in.

dock and shouted, "Don't deny what you

to the guillotine,

When

I

want you

Bouazza

testified

had been tortured, she

said,

to

go

did,

in the defen-

you whore.

If

go

I

too."

and one of the judges asked her "Not

furi-

at all.

I

was not

tortured."

if

she

Then,

addressing Bouhired, she added, "Neither were you, you piece of garbage."

These histrionics, although za's

sincere,

were not spontaneous. Bouaz-

lawyer, Maitre Talbi, had advised her while she

trial in

was awaiting

Barberousse prison that her best shot was to act like a mad-

woman; she might get

Not

a mistrial.

realizing that her mail

was

being opened, Bouazza wrote a friend, Rachid Hattab, from prison, "You'll see to laugh

laughing,

what

a

drama the day of sentencing

When

and start dancing the samba. I'll

start singing

will be. I'm

supposed

the audience starts

and the judge will have to clear the court-

room."

The second day

of the trial was worse than the

first.

Bouazza

kept up her Ophelia act, laughing inappropriately and singing incoherently, while Verges constantly interrupted the defendant's testi-

mony with

points of order. Verges figured that

declared incompetent to stand dated,

which would help

trial,

his case

chiatric evaluation of Bouazza,

Its director,

He

with Bouhired.

Bouazza was

asked for a psy-

which the judges granted, and when

the trial was suspended that day she Psychiatric Clinic.

if

her testimony would be invali-

was taken

to the

Saint-Eugene

Dr. Valience, examined her and con-

cluded that she was entirely sane and responsible.

On tion

the third day, July 13, Verges asked for a psychiatric examina-

by an expert of his own choosing.

into a

tantrum and removed

When

this

was denied, he flew

his robe, saying that the trial

rade and there was no reason for him to stay any longer. out and went directly to the post

office,

telegram informing her that he was

still

was

a cha-

He walked

where he sent Bouhired a

her lawyer.

Then he went

to

TED MORGAN

216

the airport and flew to Paris to try to win the support of the French

order of barristers,

The

trial

who

opened on

him

told

its last

to settle the matter in Algiers.

day, July 14, without the provocative

when he walked in The judges ruled that he

Verges, and the summations had already begun

and stated that he was ready could

sum up

for

to proceed.

Bouhired on condition that she confirm that he was

her lawyer. Verges flew into another tantrum, shouting, "The

still

judges are not doing their duty" and "You will see blood on the

The

floor."

chief judge pounded his gavel and ordered the courtroom evacu-

ated.

The

was declared

trial

for Bouhired. After

more than four hours of deliberation, the judges

announced death sentences

When

chemist. cously.

The

Verges was kept from pleading

closed.

for the

two Djamilas and

for

her sentence was pronounced, Bouhired laughed rau-

chief judge told her, "Don't laugh. This

is

serious."

Verges's guerrilla tactics did not help his clients.

seemed

Taleb the

to be acting in their interest;

more

often, he

toward a larger cause, which could be called either

He

He

rarely

was working

a political ideal or

many cases that he became known as "Maitre Guillotine." He made a point of attending executions. In the case of Bouhired, he did manage to get her death sentence commuted self-promotion.

in

1958 to

life

lost so

imprisonment.

When

Algeria became independent in

June 1962, she was freed. Verges moved to Algeria to work for the foreign office and

became romantically involved with Bouhired. She

married her mouthpiece in 1963. Since Verges already had a wife and child in France, he converted to Islam so that he could have

than one wife and took the one"). Verges

more

name Mansour (meaning "the triumphant

and Bouhired had two children, and when they were

divorced a few years

later,

he

left

Algeria and she opened a couture

shop.

When

I

saw him again

in

Lyon

in

1987 and took him to one of

the fine restaurants he favored, Verges told disruption" had not changed.

"I

am

me

that his "strategy for

alone against

fifty,"

he

said, for

the families of Barbie's victims were also represented by lawyers at the

trial.

True

in Algeria

to his word, he claimed that the crimes of the

French

were as bad as the crimes against humanity Barbie was

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

217

charged with when he was the head of the Lyon Gestapo. Barbie was sentenced to

As for

once

life

and died

in prison.

my reportage on

for

the trial for Realties Algeriennes,

was not writing propaganda. The Verges defense was

I

sue of lies.

that

felt

I

a tis-

He was playing to that part of public opinion in France that

had turned against the war because of torture and was programmed to believe his falsifications. In this case, however, the tribunal con-

two

victed

wounded

terrorists

civilians.

government

planted

Verges had as

officials

Fearing

who had

who

little

bombs

concern for the truth as those

denied the existence of torture.

a reprisal of terrorism, Massu took the precaution of

bringing back from the bled Bigeard and his 3rd rets).

and

that had killed

They had

left

Algiers on

March

and upon

15,

RPC

(red be-

his return

on July

20, Bigeard declared that nothing had been accomplished since his

departure.

The

only thing that had changed was public opinion in

France, which was increasingly antiwar. "I've just about had police work," he told his

Bigeard was angry

it

with

company commanders.

at

being

summoned back

to Algiers, after all

the commissions of inquiry, the press campaigns, and the rest.

Now

he would have to do the same dirty job over again, and he set up shop near the Casbah with his charts of empty rectangles. In

in a school

addition, he

was not keen

and so he went

himself,

He remained great deal.

To only

his

tell

his

a

Brissac put

from Godard, a colonel

like

way, ignoring directives from above.

than two months but accomplished a

"Bigeard wants to be the lone horseman,

it,

good job, but

men, Bigeard

you

own

in Algiers less

As

and he does

to take orders

that's

not the

army

said: "I can't give

— do what you

way."

you written orders.

I

can

did in January. Interrogate the guilty

and use the well-known methods, which we find odious. Whatever you

do,

I

take full responsibility."

On July 27,

in reprisal for the July

25 executions, Yacef Saadi sent

out a team of nine bombers, but there were patrols on every Casbah street

and they could not find open

exits.

Of the

nine, only three

were

TED MORGAN

able to get their

bombs out

via the public baths on rue d'Anfreville.

Since the timers were already their

bombs anywhere they

the others hurriedly got rid of

set,

could, in

doorways or on windowsills.

Two of the bombers were blown up with did

little

damage. After

teers to carry

this fiasco,

was

and Algiers

cut off from the

east)

had come to a

ZAA (Autonomous

standstill.

Yacef found himself

FLN leadership in Tunis. Most of the taxes collected

Casbah were sent

"We

members

of its

into three sectors, the Casbah, Algiers cen-

to

Tunis to buy weapons, but when he ur-

gently asked for help, he got only blather:

and

in all they

Yacef had trouble finding volun-

in disarray. Actions in the

Zone of Algiers, divided

in the

bombs, and

bombs. The bomb network, with many

killed or captured,

ter,

their

"May Allah

protect you"

are all waiting for the great day of independence."

though the leaders had given up on him, and he carried on

It

was

as

his shoul-

ders the weight of impending doom.

By rets

early August, Bigeard

were back

in the

was on the warpath

again.

The

red be-

Casbah, patrolling alleys and staircases, posi-

tioned on terraces and rooftops,

making arrests, and using intelligence

gleaned from those arrested.

On

searched a

villa in

the night of August

man

El-Biar and found a

asleep.

6,

men

his

The only

thing

unusual about him was that the paras found a loaded .45 under his low.

He was

pil-

taken to Bigeard 's headquarters, to be questioned by the

OR (intelligence officer), Captain Chabanne. The suspect was a skinny young Kabyle with an angular

face

on

When Chabanne walked

a stool in

knew from

Chabanne's

the

files

office.

that the

and

light hair. Handcuffed, he sat

man was Gandriche

in,

he already

Hacene, head of the

Algiers east sector, code-named Zerrouk. Chabanne chatted amiably

with the man,

whom

he found articulate and well educated. In the

course of the conversation, he called the blanched.

Chabanne could

man

Zerrouk, and the

man

see his inner resistance leak out of him.

Chabanne asked Zerrouk how long he had known Yacef Saadi. "Since

we were both

same team," Zerrouk

He

eighteen-year-old soccer players on the

said.

pointed out that Zerrouk could avoid capital punishment by

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

cooperating. "Let's

work

together,"

Chabanne

219

said.

man

was, the easier

"How do you "Via

it

was

him

to get

in,

more evolved and

reinforcing General Massu's conviction that the intelligent a

Zerrouk caved

to talk.

get your messages to Yacef?" Chabanne asked.

my wife Latifa," Zerrouk said.

"She sings and dances

at

wed-

dings, and she's always on the move."

Chabanne

told Bigeard:

"We're holding Zerrouk, the chief of Al-

giers east. He's the link with Yacef. Let's keep his arrest secret so

communicate with

that he can continue to

Bigeard liked the idea so to declare that they

Zerrouk operation from

Massu or anyone

Zerrouk was moved lel

that he called a press conference

had caught Zerrouk but that he had escaped. He

also decided to keep the

did not inform

much

Yacef, under our control."

his superiors

and

else at divisional headquarters.

to a studio

on rue Tanger, which runs paral-

above rue d'Isly in downtown Algiers, under the guard of two

Chabanne visited him on August

paras.

letter to

I

and dictated Zerrouk's

Yacef since his capture: "Last night in El-Biar,

tured by the paras, but until

8

I

jumped

I

was cap-

and hid behind

off the jeep

first

a

bush

got a ride on a milk truck. I'm in hiding and can be reached

through

Latifa."

The

letter

"patriotic salutations."

was signed with Zerrouk's code words,

His wife's suspicions were not aroused, be-

cause of the personal details in the letters.

On August

9,

Colonel Godard scolded Bigeard for letting Zer-

rouk escape. Massu wrote Bigeard that "Colonel Godard called to tell

me

that in spite of his patience,

you are not acting

nate and that he has had enough, since he

is

like a subordi-

not accustomed to swal-

lowing squid [a French expression, "avaler des couleuvres" meaning "to have to

swallow unpalatable substances"]

to solve your problems;

I

have enough to do.

I

.

it

in

you to

haven't got the time

would

that if you cannot rein in your excessive pride,

leader you have

I

like

you to know

you will never be the

be."

Bigeard was laughing up his sleeve, for he was hot on Yacef's trail. "it's

But even

in the

midst of approaching victory, he worried that

not up to us to play Sherlock Holmes."

He felt

that his paras

were

TED MORGAN

220

poisoning their souls by doing dirty work for which they received the adulation of the Algiers colons, and he hoped for a quick return to the

djebel,

the mountains.

On August 11, Zerrouk received a reply from Yacef that said: "We are moving to the second stage. Until August 16, armed actions in the three sectors of the

armed

ZAA. From August

actions until September

bombs and

16 to 31,

15."

Captain Chabanne was gratified. They had the messages going,

message from Zerrouk

setting the trap for Yacef. Another

needed clothes and money. Soon

changed messages a

bad case of the

daily.

got to the point where they ex-

it

Yacef said

in a letter that

down with

he was

flu.

n the meantime, during the dog days of August, beach with Sauveur as often as possible. vited to a cocktail party at state legislator, Barclay

a

said he

Hans Imhofs

H. Warburton

ruddy complexion, tousled reddish

eyes of a yachtsman, he buttons. His stepfather,

wore

for a visiting

III.

hair,

I

On August

A big man

went 15,

I

to the

was

in-

Massachusetts with a

full face,

and the weather-beaten blue

a double-breasted blue blazer

with brass

William K. Vanderbilt, had circumnavigated

the globe in his yacht Alva in 1930. After serving in the navy in

World War

II

and graduating from Harvard

married Margaret

McKean

Read,

who was

in 1948,

a

Warburton

descendant of John

Quincy Adams.

Warburton bought an 18-acre farm

in

Ipswich that had belonged

Raymond Massey but spent most of his time aboard his brig, Black Pearl He was also elected to the lower house of the Massa-

to actor

the

chusetts legislature, where his pet issues were the patronage corruption in

Boston and the waste

in federal

programs.

Algiers that August, he was in his third term.

When he arrived in

He had come to see how

and what the French were doing, since he was thinking of running on the Republican ticket against John tion in the Senate in 1958.

F

Kennedy,

who was up for reelec-

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Warburton was

friendly and jocular, and

been following Massachusetts

politics,

Kennedys and the Fitzgeralds were

"a

221

we

hit

it off.

but he assured

me

hadn't

I

that the

bunch of crooks" who ran the

Boston Democratic machine, and that Jack Kennedy was "an emptyheaded cunt-hound" whose speech on Algeria verged on treason. I

asked him what he planned to see in Algiers, and he said,

movie Pepe Le Moko, and

that

but they

tell

any street after a

in

me

I've

"I

love

always wanted to see the Casbah,

I assured him it was as safe as knew your way around (I was showing off

too dangerous."

it's

Boston

if you

few scotches), and

I

offered to take

him on

a

guided tour the

next morning. Warburton could already see the lead sentence in his local paper: "I

walked

safely

through the Casbah with a young French

my only

lieutenant in civilian clothes as

The next morning

at nine,

the ficus trees with big

waxen

I

escort."

met him on Square Bresson, under

leaves

and swarms of squalling spar-

rows. Algiers that day was gray, with an August drizzle pushed by sea winds. "Are you sure

right?" he asked. "You know, I've got

it's all

five children." I

assured him

it

was

fine

and took him up rue Randon to the open

market, where melons were in season and he could see the bustle of the shoppers and the occasional para patrol.

We

stayed on rue Ran-

don, the Casbah's widest street, just in case. Sauveur had taken the cafe

duced "It's

Le Babar up

me

to. "Let's

the street,

try this

run by a former pimp

of the mattress."

I

who

cafe,"

in his

explained that the

to control the Casbah,

I

I

intro-

suggested to Warburton.

day was known as the Napoleon

FLN,

as part of their

campaign

had gotten rid of the gangsters and the pimps,

some of whom now ran

"Do you think

whose owner, Dede, he had

Arab

me to

cafes.

can get a gin and tonic?" Warburton asked.

"It's

hotter than hell."

"Only mint

tea,

I'm afraid,"

I

said.

"The

FLN

does not allow

al-

cohol or smoking in public."

"Goddam Puritans," Warburton said. who wore a blue-and-white-striped

Dede,

sailor's shirt

and a red

TED MORGAN

222

bandana around

was with

from America, he

where prostitution "I

is

legal

said, "I like

movie he

a

years ago,

was running

I

said.

saw."*

"In a way, he's right. In Boston, the

"Two

I told him I much America,

very

and the whores marry millionaires."

wonder where he got that?" Warburton

"Must be

When

his neck, greeted us effusively.

a visitor

madams pay

a string of

off the cops."

twenty

girls,"

Dede

now I'm reduced to serving mint tea." "What a humiliation," I said. I told Warburton the little I knew about the Casbah. How

said,

"and

architecture

by letting

was

in scant sun, but also to those of

the multiple

demands of the

a response not only to the

bedrooms around

a

Arab

the

climate,

society in terms of

courtyard required by polygamy

and the sequestration of women. "I

he

never understood this business of having more than one wife,"

said. I

"One

told

quite enough."

is

him about the Mozabites,

whose commercial shopkeepers in

skills

a Berber sect

had turned them into a close-knit tribe of

of Algeria's cities and towns.

all

Among other things,

they sold trinkets for tourists. Warburton asked

promised to bring Maggie afatma's hand again through Sauveur,

week he made the 20-hour bus

trip

from the Sahara

me

for luck."

who had impressed me by

if I

knew one. "I did know one, I

saying that each

back to the Mozabite capital of Gardhaia, a

ride, to see his wife

and children. He had

built a prodi-

gious inventory of curios and bric-a-brac over the years, and he once

showed me

We

a first edition of Madame Bovary.

strolled

playing, veiled

up a quiet

women

street, a cat

dozing

—postcard

chatting

in a

scenes.

doorway, kids

The shop smelled

of incense, and there were piles of rugs on the floor, rows of babouches,

and display cases of Berber necklaces and bracelets. Short and round,

wearing

a fez, the

shopkeeper

"Although Roses,

I

did not

know

it

—

"Come in, my friends not to buy He brought mint tea and suggested

said,

but for the pleasure of the eyes."

at the time,

there

was

a 1933

Gregory La Cava

film,

Bed of

with exactly that theme, starring Constance Bennett as one of the whores.

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

that

Warburton purchase the brass

a certain

223

table that the tea set

amount of palavering, Warburton bought

and the shopkeeper saw us

"You are

out, telling us,

was

on. After

his fatma's hand, kif-kif [same as]

my brothers." Warburton had seen

a peaceful Casbah,

though not thriving, was

still in

Kennedy

did not get far in challenging

who

lost

When

al-

he went home, he

for his Senate seat. In the

now-forgotten Vincente

1958 election, the lican candidate

evidence.

where commerce,

J.

Celeste was the Repub-

by 26.2% of the vote against 73.2% for Ken-

nedy. I

was glad

I

had met Barclay.

We

stayed in touch, and

I

kept up

with his deeds and misdeeds. Early in 1959, he was hospitalized after a fall in his Ipswich home.

and tonic

9

at

am was

I

suspected that anyone

who wanted

a gin

a round-the-clock drinker. Shortly afterward,

he resigned from the legislature. Later that year, on September

14, a

warrant was issued for his arrest after his wife charged him with assault

and

But since he was outside

battery.

territorial waters, sailing

the Black Pearl, the warrant could not be served.

They were divorced

after 14 years of marriage.

Sailing

England

was

his passion,

and

in 1972

for the training races for the

he took the Black Pearl to

Munich Olympics. He ran

popular restaurant in Newport also called the Black Pearl. His

ment of glory came visited Sail

New

York

in 1976,

when he hosted at

mo-

the "tall ships" that

for the bicentennial, as founder of the

Training Association. In 1981,

a

American

the age of 61, he died of a brain

tumor.

Warburton was Potemkin The placid Casbah washad shownmopping up FLN. On Aua

I

village, for

gust 20, his

men

Bigeard

the

busily

arrested Hattab Reda,

who under

questioning ad-

mitted making the streetlight bombs and gave away the names of four other bombers.

The

leader

was

a

mailman named Nourredine.

All four were sentenced to death and executed. In Bigeard's office,

Hattab Reda wrote his name in the empty rectangle on the wall

TED MORGAN

224

announce

chart. Bigeard held a press conference to

annoyed Massu and Godard, who saw him Apart from the red

his capture,

as a glory-hound.

new and highly original

berets, a

gathering unit had started operating in the Casbah. child of Captain Alain Leger,

which

who formed an

It

intelligence-

was the brain-

infiltration

group made

up of Arabs. Some were unemployed veterans of the French army, such as his bodyguard, nicknamed Surcouf, a large, violent a tiny

Vietnamese

go

Others were low-level

Beni-Messous triage camp,

in the

to

wife.

recruits

was

who had been

Alilou,

was

liaison agents because he a schoolteacher

Leger's

who had

after asking them:

do you want to work

to Barberousse, or

with

for

"Do you want

me?" Among

his

dismissed as one of Yacef Saadi's

drug

a

man

FLN that Leger found

addict.

lost faith in the

Another was Fares

Said,

FLN.

method was the opposite of Aussaresses', who questioned

suspects and then killed them. Leger questioned

them and then

re-

cruited them. In July, he took his plan directly to Colonel Godard,

explaining that he intended to use his recruits inside the Casbah like

hunting dogs, as spotters and retrievers. Godard gave him the green light,

and he

set

up shop

Emile Maupas, with

in a

a big

house

in the

clothes,

On August

were known as the

26

at

a cafe as the leader of an

armed but dressed

all

in

bleus de chauffe (blue overalls).

who recognized a young man coming out of armed group. They grabbed him and took

to their headquarters,

ter for

rue

9 am, Leger was on patrol on rue Abencerages,

with Surcouf and Alilou,

him

at 21

courtyard bordered by arcaded columns,

near the zouaves Klein Palace. His men,

working

upper Casbah

where they searched him and found

a let-

Ramel, who with Mourad was one of the two most wanted

bomb-makers.

"Where were you taking "To a cremerie supposed to give

it

to a

know his name." The cremerie was

shuttered lifted,

Leger asked.

on rue de

guy wearing

noon. Slowly the shutter in a leather jacket.

this letter?"

[clairy store]

a

la

Grenade. At noon, I'm

brown

leather jacket.

when Leger and

his

men

said, "He's

don't

arrived at

and out of the shadows came

Surcouf searched him and

I

a

man

got mail for

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Ramel and

He

of those

lists

lives at 5

paid their taxes and those

impasse Saint-Vincent-de-Paul.

and we've got the

The

who

was taken

ave headquarters where Captain

protect

me

fell

haven't.

not far from here,

It's

talk."

"Okay, but

make

to an interrogation

room

Chabanne happened

at the

zou-

to be. Fearing

and said to Leger, "Swear that you will

to his knees

I

if

who

keys."

liaison agent

torture, he

225

it Jissa"

Leger

("quick"),

"Ramel and Mourad are staying

at

my

said.

place.

They've got weap-

ons and bombs."

This was an important catch. Chabanne notified Bigeard, who

rounded up some paras and headed to the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul dead end with his ried there,

down

aide,

Major Lenoir. Chabanne and Leger also hur-

the rue de l'lntendance, past the Lavigerie Cathe-

dral,

and into the dead-end

came

to a

alley,

which was

They

heavy oak door decorated with metal arabesques and the

number 5 above

it.

Leger and Chabanne, who had picked up the way, got there stairs

six feet across.

first.

The two

and were met with

a

a couple of zouaves along

zouaves recklessly hopped up the

stream of automatic

fire that

wounded

both of them. Soon the paras arrived and took up positions in the building across the street, holding the terraces. Leger to get five

some of his men, while Bigeard,

left

the scene

Lenoir, Chabanne, and four or

paras entered the courtyard.

Ramel and Mourad were on the second a loudspeaker and called out: "Ramel, there. If you surrender,

prisoners of war."

you have

From

a

floor.

Chabanne grabbed

Mourad, we know you're up

my word

that

window, Ramel

you will be treated as

replied,

"We want

it

in

writing. We'll lower a basket on a rope." Bigeard wrote the note, and

Ramel lowered the pack, which the

basket.

FLN

It

contained a

bomb

the size of a cigarette

called a Gauloise, with a

two-minute timer,

covered by a newspaper. Chabanne and Lenoir moved under the win-

The basket was lowered so slowly that Bigeard sensed something was wrong and instinctively pulled back into a doorway. A noncom yelled, "Hit the ground!" and five seconds dow with

a couple of paras.

TED MORGAN

226

bomb exploded, wounding Captain Chabanne, Major Lenoir, and two other paras. They were evacuated to the Maillot Hospital. Sergeant Lepigeon asked, "What if we try an antitank grenade?" Lepigeon fired the grenade into the window from which the basket had been dropped. Moments later, two men carrying bombs ran down the stairs and were riddled with automatic gunfire and killed. The paras found 17 bombs in their refuge. Massu arrived a few minutes later to congratulate Bigeard and his men. "Getting armed men later,

the

out of a Casbah alley djebel"

he

Back

them out of a cave

a little like getting

in the

said.

in his office,

Mourad from

Bigeard crossed out the names of Ramel and

the rectangles on his chart. There were three

Ali-la-Pointe,

left.

is

Ben Hamida, the head of

finance,

names

and Yacef

Saadi.

Yacef and Zerrouk were

still

auspices of Captain Chabanne.

named Zerrouk

exchanging messages, under the

An August

military chief of the entire

28 message from Yacef

ZAA, which showed how

shorthanded he was. Captain Chabanne congratulated him on his promotion. Zerrouk wrote back that he would avenge the murders of

Ramel and Mourad by ordering the ilou,

who had been

assassination of the traitor Al-

spotted with the paras.

Just at that time, Bigeard and his 3rd

Algiers, robbing

of

him of his

final victory.

Ramel and Mourad, much of the

tain Leger,

RPC

Massu

were pulled out of

felt

that in the siege

credit should have

gone

to

Cap-

whereas once again, Bigeard hogged the limelight with

another press conference. Godard too found him impossible to work with.

So they sent him back

REP

to the bled

and brought

in

Colonel Jean-

(Foreign Legion green berets) to replace him.

pierre

and

What

they did not realize was that Bigeard was just as relieved to be

his 1st

leaving Algiers as they were to be rid of him.

courage and independent

spirit,

ferences in the line of duty.

rashness, but 2,

I

I

and

left,

admired Bigeard

s

attended most of his press con-

always found him blunt to the point of

liked that about him.

the day before he

I

I

to tell

him

I

went to

I

was sorry

his office

to see

on September

him

go.

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS "For me, every day.

I

it's

a stroke of luck,"

he

said. "I

was the hero of Algiers, and

During the

was on the

admit

I

227

went

it

to

front page

my

transition period, Jeanpierre took over the

REP, Captain "La Boulaya"

Allaire, a big burly

man

with a bushy

black beard (not to be confused with the Jacques Allaire earlier

been Bigeard's OR). La Boulaya

(a

Zerrouk

OR of the

mousetrap. Captain Chabanne turned Zerrouk over to the 1st

head."

who had

nickname alluding

to his

beard) soon realized that no one at 10th Division headquarters

full

knew about Zerrouk,

whom

turned

livid

the latter of

with rage and threw one of his famous

now

Captain Allaire was

announced that

Massu and Godard,

so he informed

fits.

dictating Zerrouk's daily letters.

his wife Latifa

was pregnant and

Zerrouk would name him Mourad. This

that if it

fine sentiment

cef,

who

nel

Godard, however, now that he had been

was

One

a boy,

touched Ya-

sent Zerrouk funds to cover the pregnancy and birth. Colofilled in,

worried that the

correspondence was dragging on too long. Surely, the day would

come when Yacef would ask Zerrouk then

all

bets

would be

off.

They

to

meet him

in the

Casbah, and

hadn't been able to follow the

still

epistolary trail back to Yacef.

On September

7,

Colonel Godard

summoned Captain Leger

to a

strategy meeting with Colonel Jeanpierre and Captain Allaire. "This

Zerrouk situation

can't last,"

have him lead us to Yacef."

Godard

He asked

said.

Leger,

"We must find a way to who patrolled the Casbah

daily with his bleus de chauffe, if he had any ideas.

"We

should go up the chain of transmission until

where Yacef 's

letters originate,"

Godard got up from

his desk

already figured that out?

I

Leger

we

find out

offered.

and shouted, "Don't you think we've

didn't bring

you here to

tell

us what stands

out a mile to everybody."

who

Leger,

There was

later

wrote a memoir, had to think of something

a blackboard in

Godard 's

office

fast.

with three names con-

nected by arrows: Zerrouk —Latifa —Yacef.

Leger

said:

"We know that Latifa gets

Zerrouk's letters at a drop,

and that she never sees him. But we don't know how Yacef's

letters

TED MORGAN

228

Why don't we insert one of my female agents in the chain

get to Latifa.

of transmission? Zerrouk can vouch for her and say she

who comes

to Latifa

from Yacef,

whom we

can

"Don't forget that Latifa works for the other

"We

my

can give

needed as

My agent may be able to identify the per-

an added security measure. son

is

tail."

side,"

Godard

said.

agent a letter from Zerrouk telling Yacef he

needs to bring another link into the chain." Captain Allaire was frowning and stroking his beard. "You're

going to blow the whole system," he

known by now "Not

said.

"Your agents are too well

in the Casbah."

Leger

this one,"

messenger. In any case,

said.

"And not those

I'll

use to

tail

Yacef's

worth trying, instead of watching the

it's

correspondence grow."

Godard agreed,

Up until then, move around tain

the

A

don't have any time to lose."

FLN had used young Arab women effectively to

first to recruit

The one he had

out by her

"We

the Casbah and central Algiers and deposit bombs. Cap-

Leger was the

French.

saying,

FLN husband.

few days

later,

Arab women

Leger had established her

Ouria, wearing a

called a cachabiah, arrived at Latifa's

gave her Zerrouk's

letter.

They

it

read the

to her

letter,

folded

in,

holding a

the girl at intervals.

Mahmoud, who

little girl's

dress,

in the street, tailing the

The young man was soon lived at

by the hand.

and pinned

Bouhired, the aunt of Djamila.

the routine for several days,

was hiding

at

number

young man and

identified as 17-year-

4 rue Caton, a house belonging to Fahira

The

it

went back and forth

little girl

between number 4 and number 3 across the

number

little girl

underpants with a safety pin.

Leger had three agents

old

hood, and a gray robe

veil, a

Casbah home on rue Kleber and

raised the

it,

reliability.

chatted, and a few minutes later a

teenager in a blue serge suit came

He

in the service of the

mind, 17-year-old Ouria, had been thrown

in

street.

seemed obvious

3 and getting his mail

to

After observing

Leger that Yacef

from the

little girl at

4.

He was

back in Godard's office on September 15 and announced

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS his results. "Yacef Saadi is hiding at

number

229

3 rue Caton," he de-

clared.

Godard was

incredulous.

known

Saadi was

to

and

flu

a

The whole

his

Leger was a touchy bleus de chauffe,

fellow,

down with

in.

and he didn't appreciate Godard 's caustic put-downs.

and asked

it,"

still

proud of himself for the success of the

miffed, but he couldn't

with

was

What

movements. Godard insisted on some sort of

confirmation before he sent the paras

hell

that Yacef

few days.

bad case of angina, and was running a fever of 104,

which restricted

He was

thing was too pat. Yacef

his hiding place every

Godard knew was

neither Leger nor

the

change

in nine months,"

he

show

it,

so he said to himself,

for a leave in France. "I haven't seen

said.

Godard

reluctantly gave

"The

my

kids

him two weeks.

On September 22, in a routine ID check in downtown Algiers, the gendarmes picked up a man in a raincoat. In one pocket, he had a receipt

from an optician

in

Tunis for a pair of glasses, and

in the other

pocket he had a plane ticket showing that he had just flown in from Paris.

The man was Hadj Smain,

was involved Paris and

in

who

a high-ranking

FLN emissary who

back-door talks with French cabinet ministers in

shuttled regularly from Tunis to Paris and Algiers.

The gendarmes turned Smain

over to Colonel Jeanpierre,

who

decided to question him personally, given his high station. Smain

was taken

to an improvised interrogation

They

rue Scipion.

sat in a disused

room

in a

bathhouse on

steam room facing each other, the

blond, lean, incisive para colonel, a veteran of 20 years in the Foreign

Legion, and the self-possessed, equally lean, almost haughty leader,

who thought

FLN

of himself as an important diplomat, and talked

without hesitation.

"Have you seen Yacef recently?" Jeanpierre asked? "I

saw him

this

morning," Smain

said.

"At 3 rue Caton?"

"No, at

4."

Yacef had apparently moved across the street to Fahira Bouhired's house.

TED MORGAN

230

An

This was the confirmation that Godard sought.

mounted by the 2nd company of the

REP, the

1st

operation was

and the

zouaves,

gendarmes. After midnight on the morning of September 24, these troops surrounded the rue Caton area and blocked off the street. At 3

men

am, Colonel Jeanpierre led his

rooms around door. Yacef,

now down

it,

into

number

and a staircase leading up

who once had more

than 100

to a

room with

men under

legionnaire with a pickaxe started banging on

room

at the

top of the stairs. Yacef opened the trap stairs.

He

arrived and took

command, saying he wanted Yacef

asked Yacef to surrender. Yacef said he wanted to talk to

General Massu.

"We don't

you will be treated

have time for

that,"

Godard

said. "I

his archives.

Godard

dered an explosive charge to be placed near the trap door. sive expert

long

his

render.

Godard

said.

explo-

"You have ten minutes." Yacef threw out

and came out with Zohra

He

An

didn't

Drif, their

hands raised

in sur-

need ten minutes.

Yacef said he was running a fever and needed medical care.

and Zohra were taken to the headquarters of the villa in

the

1st

REP,

a

He

Moorish

El-Biar where a doctor gave him some shots. In the Casbah,

word spread

that he had been captured without resisting, in

marked contrast with Ramel and Mourad, who fought Later that same morning, the press was quarters for a news conference, and the first time.

brown

or-

prepared the plastic charge. "We've placed a charge with

fuse,"

MAT

prom-

Smoke was escaping

as a prisoner of war."

from under the door. Yacef was burning

a

Jeanpierre

with shrapnel and had to be evacuated .*

Godard

ise that

was

A

door and flung out a grenade that rolled down the

alive.

his control,

companion, Zohra Drif, who was with him be-

the wall of the

hit

a trap

to his last

hind the trap door.

was

courtyard with

4, a

He was

a short

man

I

summoned

to the end. to para head-

saw the 29-year-old Yacef for

with slicked-back

hair,

wearing

a

sweater, khaki pants, and an expensive watch, striking a defi-

ant pose and half smiling behind his mustache. Zohra, pale and sul-

"Jeanpierre, the father of five girls,

border.

was

killed in

combat

in

May

1958 on the Tunisian

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

231

her head bowed, wore a red velvet skirt and a white blouse with

len,

red pinstripes, and was abundantly bejeweled a ring,

and a

bracelet. "She

must think

—

earrings, a necklace,

this is a fashion show,"

one of

the Algiers reporters said.

Yacef and Zohra did not take questions and were led away.

A

para spokesman described the operation that had led to their capture.

When

I

got back to the

Battle of Algiers

of Algiers/ "It's

is

office,

FLN in

the message that the

Our

over.

Brissac said: "Lacoste wants to send

the Casbah has been wiped out and the

headline will be 'The

End

of the Battle

"

not quite the end,"

I

"There's

said.

still

Ali-la-Pointe and a

couple of others." "If

Lacoste wants 'The End,' we'll give him 'The End,'

"

Brissac

said.

Yacef and Zohra spent 22 days

at

para headquarters, giving de-

positions that added up to hundreds of pages.

them.

The French high command came Massu

told

as a terrorist but as a combatant.

Yacef looked more

like a

He had

away the

let

him

Massu

laid a

to look, as if

that he left

soft.

hand on

Yacef were a

him but did

at

would not be treated

with the impression that

movie actor than a hardened

was no Ben M'Hidi. He seemed him.

one

came and stared

rare panda in a zoo. General Salan

not say a word. General

No

terrorist.

He

There was nothing heroic about

himself be captured, and in his deposition, he gave

location of

bombs and

the hiding place of a cache of gold

coins.

women like women could

In her deposition, Zohra described the role of young herself in the uprising.

wander with ease

With

in the

the patrols in place, only

Casbah.

It

was the Moslem world upside

down, where the men were cloistered and the women moved

During the January

strike,

she and her friends Djamila and Hassiba

had gone from terrace to terrace to organize a

women

in

freely.

silent

march of veiled

support of the strikers. Zohra confirmed Yacef 's meeting

with Germaine Tillion on July

4.

She found the French ethnologist

extremely annoying. They were holed up in constant fear of capture,

and Tillion was lecturing them, and saying, "The bombs, they are

TED MORGAN

232

wrong." Zohra finally lost her temper and told Tillion, "Shut up, you big baby." Zohra admitted drafting a leaflet saying that after every execution,

bombs would go

copy of the

One

off.

of the para officers showed her a

FLN newspaper El Moujahid,

in

which she had written a

signed report on torture. "Look what you are saying about France,"

he

shaking the paper

said,

at her.

She said she thought

it

was amazing

that they had held out so long against the massed forces of France.

On

October

6,

while

custody of the

in the

still

REP, Yacef

1st

received a visit from his mother, the grandmother of

who was

Yacef s 12-year-old nephew,

and

his girlfriend Hassiba,

was doomed, she

son. Ali

Omar,

hiding out with Ali-la-Pointe

and acting with

said,

little

Mahmoud

as their liai-

but could Yacef do something to save

her grandson? Yacef could, and gave away Ali's hiding place, 5 rue des Abderames. In mid-October, Yacef and Zohra were transferred to

Barberousse Prison to await

to death,

guards often woke him up tion.

trial.

After being tried and sentenced

Yacef was placed on death row, and he at

dawn

as if

it

later

claimed that the

was the day of his execu-

Both Yacef and Zohra were eventually pardoned.

Ali-la-Pointe, the illiterate one-time

pimp and hoodlum, was now

the leader of nonexistent combat groups, holed up in a small hideout

from which he did not dare emerge. The only other leader liberty (or so Ali thought)

correspond, using

whom

was Zerrouk, with

Mahmoud

he continued to

to carry his letters to Latifa.

was under surveillance by the

bleus de chauffe

den, confirming Yacefs disclosure that he

Mahmoud

and led them

was

still at

at 5

to Ali's

rue des

Ab-

derames.

On

the evening of October

7,

men

of the 1st

REP surrounded the

Porte-Neuve neighborhood. At midnight, paras were deployed into unlit alleys

and from terrace to

were evacuated. At

6, a

terrace.

At

5 am, neighboring houses

dozen paras entered number

was with them, wrapped

in a spacious

second

floor,

Yacef Saadi

hooded gandoura and hand-

cuffed to one of Captain Leger's aides (Leger

Lieutenant Joseph Estoup.

5.

They climbed

was

still

on

leave),

the stairs in step to the

and went into an apartment, where Yacef pointed be-

hind a couch, to a hidden door on hinges in a brick wall.

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS

The

knew

paras

that unlike Yacef, Ali

233

was not going

to surren-

even though he had with him, cramped in a space of 15 square

der,

Mahmoud, and

Hassiba,

feet,

and Mourad, ready

and knew he was facing the

want

didn't

to

little

guillotine.

He was

Ramel

like

impulsively violent

He'd spent time

and

in jail

go back.

The bushy-bearded Captain "Give up, Ali.

It's

over.

harmed." There was no

detachment

Omar. Ali was more

to fight to the end.

in the

Yacef

Allaire called through a here.

is

We

megaphone:

promise you will not be

Major Guiraud, commanding the para

reply.

absence of the wounded Colonel Jeanpierre, de-

cided to place an explosive charge against the hidden door.

They

used a couple of antitank mines in case the door was steel-jacketed.

Those At

inside

might be shaken

up, but they

been bombed from the

air.

The

number

5,

as if they

floor,

Screaming inhabitants, some of

dently, the

moved them

out,

had

walls of the building collapsed, and

beams followed them down. The paras on the second

themselves on the ground

the paras had

alive.

mines exploded, setting off a chain reaction that de-

6:15, the

stroyed surrounding buildings as well as

the

would come out

floor found

covered with debris and dust.

whom

had quietly returned after

were trapped under the rubble. Evi-

two mines, upon exploding, had

set off the

bombs

in Ali's

hideout. It

was

crucial that they find Ali's body, or the

nounce that he had escaped.

from the buildings and take

It it

FLN

would an-

took three days to remove the debris

away by donkey. Eight teams of 30 two days

legionnaires each rotated in three-hour shifts. In the

first

they found 17 bodies of bystanders, including 2

4 and 5 years

old.

On

siba,

October 10 they found the bodies they were looking

12-year-old Omar, and 18-year-old

Mahmoud

disfigured. Ali-la-Pointe had literally been identifiable

his feet,

girls,

from the tattoos that covered

blown

his body,

for.

Has-

were horribly

to bits but

was

even the soles of

where he reprised his favorite motto, the Foreign Legion's

own Marche

ou

When we

creve.

got the news at the

office,

Brissac drafted a leaflet that

was dropped by chopper over the Casbah: "Crime does not

pay.

TED MORGAN

234

Ali-la-Pointe

He was

dead!

is

killed in

an explosion on October 8 in

The

the Casbah. His crimes have already been punished. lost the battle.

FLN

has

Inform yourselves, and put an end to the terror that

has been imposed on you."

went

I

to look at the

damage, and

been what Dresden looked

I

thought that this must have

bombing.

like after the fire

couple of Arabs in the street

who blamed

I

spoke to a

the paras for blowing up an

entire block.

was assigned

I

to write the lead article

on the operation.

"We

have to destroy the myth of Ali-la-Pointe as some sort of Robin

Hood," Brissac

"He was

said.

essentially a gangster."

I

summed up

the career of this 27-year-old revolutionary who, before joining the

FLN, had been

arrested for larceny, rape, assault and battery, and

attempted murder.

He had been

fingered by the

man who

recruited

him, Yacef Saadi. As for Hassiba Ben Bouali, she was an educated 19-year-old social worker, sentenced to death in absentia for placing

one of the January bombs.

It

was sad

that a child like

Omar was

lost

as well.

Ben Hamida, large. laire,

charge of finances and propaganda, was

in

His only remaining contact was with Zerrouk. Captain AlZerrouk's handler, warned that they had to act

turncoat

s

fast, for

the

long internment in the rue Tanger studio was starting to

He had become

tell.

still at

was drunk much of

overly fond of anisette and

the time.

Shortly after the explosion on rue des Abderames,

Zerrouk via well.

Latifa: "I

am

alone and

I

don't

know

Hamida wrote

the Casbah that

We must meet and draw up a plan."

Zerrouk promptly quarter.

You

are

now

They arranged

replied: "I have a safe

in

to

house in the European

charge after Ali's death.

meet on October

15 at 3

I

can put you up."

pm on Rampe

Valee,

one of those uphill streets that connected downtown Algiers with the Casbah. Zerrouk wrote: "A black 203 Peugeot driven by a brother,

with a sister in the backseat, will pick you up." tain Leger's agent Ouria,

The

1st

REP ran

and the driver was

The

"sister"

was Cap-

a bleu de chauffe.

the operation, with jeeps on side streets leading

THE SECOND BATTLE OF ALGIERS into the in.

Rampe

Valee, ready to block the Peugeot as soon as

Ben Hamida was

stepped

in.

235

right

it

came

on time. Ouria opened the car door, and he

Two para jeeps mounted with machine guns roared out Rampe Valee. Ben Hamida, who was unarmed, stepped

and blocked

out of the car and gave himself up.

The the 1st

Battle of Algiers

was

over.

The

paras had won.

The men

of

REP went back to their base in Zeralda. A few FLN remained,

cut off from each other, demoralized and without leadership.

The city

was calm again. The people of Algiers could once again come Sunday soccer matches,

sit

in the

beaches and in the casinos without

outdoor fear.

cafes,

and

frolic

to the

on the

My End Game

On

October

8,

1957, Paul Teitgen resigned as secretary-

general of the Algiers police.

He was

the

man who

signed

the assignations a residence that allowed the paras to detain

suspects instead of turning

them over

to the courts.

A survivor of the

Nazi concentration camps, Teitgen was deeply disturbed by the para tactics,

but

when he

tried to resign in

Battle of Algiers, Mollet

Now, with the day

files

would not

let

March,

in the

middle of the

him, and so he soldiered on.

battle abating, he resigned again. His careful day-by-

showed

that he

had signed 24,000

assignations,

and that

3,024 of those suspects had "disappeared." Except for a handful of clerical errors, or other circumstances,

many

of them had been mur-

dered by Aussaresses or the para torture teams.

The Algerian

experience was a stain on Teitgen's conscience, but

he resigned quietly, without expressing his misgivings. Three years later,

trial

however, in September 1960, he appeared as a witness at the of

members of

transported

FLN

who and were known as

the Jeanson network, a band of couriers

funds from France to Algiers

"the carriers of suitcases." Francis Jeanson

was

a 38-year-old disciple

of writer Jean-Paul Sartre and a passionate champion of the Algerian

MY END GAME revolution.

He contributed

237

Temps Modernes, but

to Sartre's review, Les

deciding that words were not enough, he began providing material assistance to the

FLN. On February

members of his group were ing), for

French and 6 Arab

"endangering the external security of the

opened on September

many

24, 1960, 18

arrested (but not Jeanson

6,

who was

state."

in hid-

Their

trial

presided over by Judge Curvelier, and with as

lawyers as there were defendants, one of

whom was

Jacques

Verges.

This was another

trial that

became

a stage for the antiwar

move-

ment, in which the lawyers appealed to French and international opinion. Judge Curvelier

would not

let

the

word war be

used, since

Algeria was part of France, which could not be at war with

The

FLN

in the

were

itself.

French military were engaged

"terrorists," while the

maintenance of order.

My principal

interest in the trial, although

of Algeria and working for the

New

man, was Teitgen s deposition. He

I

was long

York Herald Tribune as a rewrite

said that while a high official in

home FLN, who had

Moslem nurses

Algiers in 1957, he had harbored at his

three

who were pursued by both

tried to

they could help the

the

wounded

since out

in the

grab them so

Casbah, and by the

colons,

who

wanted them arrested. For Teitgen, the three nurses represented that gray zone where those

who were

not emphatically on one side or the

other were in trouble with both sides.

and a

half,

He

took them in for a month

although their presence created a serious problem for him.

Teitgen declared that although he had kept quiet while in the moral questions that the

army perform being.

war

raised were critical.

police work, he said,

And what

was

to rob

about the conscripts? he asked.

it

of

office,

To have an

its

reason for

What were they do-

ing in Algeria but committing some of the same excesses as the professional

army? They began

some of them turned against "In

my

to ask themselves this

why

they were there,

undeclared war, and a few deserted.

soul and conscience," Teitgen said,

"I

must forgive them."

Judge Curvelier asked Teitgen: "Did you have any personal

knowledge of torture?" "Torture was the reason

I

resigned," Teitgen said.

TED MORGAN

238

Jacques Verges asked Teitgen tained

men had been

am

"I

if

he knew that some of the de-

killed while being interrogated.

under oath, and

must admit

I

that

I

knew of certain

disap-

pearances," Teitgen said.

He went

on:

concentration

"When

camp

I

was deported, there was

that said

'My

country, right or wrong.'

wrong country but

side of justice."

I

hope

between a right or

that the justice system of France will not choose a

a billboard in the

on the

will act with the certainty that they are

This was not a friend of the rebels talking but an es-

teemed French statesman who seemed to be saying that Jeanson and his

group were on the

The right-wing

side of justice.

War

ably deplored that "the spirit of the Q World

press predict-

II] Resistance has

been converted into a camp of French fellaghas." But Teitgen's

mony made

testi-

headlines and helped turn the trial into a triumph for the

antiwar movement.

On October me

16,

called to tell

for literature.

1957, Sauveur,

that

rarely used the phone,

Camus had been awarded

"Did you hear

it

from him?"

"No, the salaud [filthy bum]. he's the

who

youngest writer to win

I

it.

heard

I

the Nobel Prize

asked.

it

secondhand. They say

He's not quite forty-four." That

turned out to be off the mark. Rudyard Kipling had

won

it

1907

in

at

the age of 42.

"His twelve-year-old daughter asked him

if

there

was

a

Nobel

Prize for acrobats," Sauveur said.

a

"He should have

told her that novelists are acrobats."

While he was

Stockholm to receive

in

his award,

Camus spoke

to

group of university students and said the following about Algeria:

"I

have always condemned terrorism.

I

condemn

the blind terrorism

that strikes in the streets of Algiers, which could strike

or

my

family.

With team

I

believe in justice, but

I

will defend

my

my

mother

mother

first."

the end of the Battle of Algiers in mid-October, our

at Realties Algeriennes

outs. Brissac's instructions

little

stopped writing about bombs and shoot-

were that we should

sell

the loi-cadre

MY END GAME

239

("framework law") to the Algerian masses. This law, promoted by Lacoste, called for a single electoral college, with a bit of autonomy

here and a relaxation of strictures there.

was anathema saw

as

it

to the colons,

who

an open door to Arab

The

single college, however,

lobbied against

When

parity.

it

it

in Paris

came

and who

to a vote in the

National Assembly, on September 30, under the government of

Bourges-Maunoury,

it

was defeated by 279

Bourges-Maunoury resigned, which

to 253.

led to a five-week political

during which France once again had no government. Finally,

crisis,

on November

6,

the 38-year-old finance minister, Felix Gaillard,

named prime minister and

eventually

managed

was

to get the loi-cadre

passed, but only at the price of its emasculation. Promises to the Ar-

abs were balanced by assurances to the colons, in addition to the stipulation that the loi-cadre

would not become law

calm and order

until

were restored.

During the time of no government, Brissac assigned me search the loi-cadre and write about

One

late

its

afternoon in mid-October,

I

to re-

positive aspects for the Arabs.

drove over to the massive ma-

sonry building that housed the Government-General (GG)

offices,

which featured the famous balcony looking out on a vast esplanade,

where

the crowd and the data

I

make

history. Lacoste's offices,

needed, were on the top

at their desks. nails,

had and would address

a succession of high-ranking speakers

and the

One was reading third, a striking

floor.

I

where

come for the data on

went to

collect

found three secretaries

the paper, the second

was buffing her

Arab woman, was looking out the win-

dow. Lacoste had hired a few Arabs in an ecumenical "I've

I

the loi-cadre,"

I

spirit.

said to the

Arab woman.

I'm with Realites Algeriennes."

"That

crummy

rag," she said. "It's not even

"Somebody's got to write bled.

it," I

good propaganda."

said. "It's better

than being in the

What's your name?"

"Aisha," she said, "if

it's

any of your business." Aisha's clear-

skinned oval face was framed by lustrous black hair gathered behind her head, leaving her ears and silver-and-coral earrings uncovered.

Her

coal-like eyes

were

set a little too closely to a

nose that hooked

TED MORGAN

240

down

above a pretty mouth, and her voice had an appealing

slightly

hoarseness that was due to chain-smoking, as quick, nervous manner, disdainful, as

if I

learned. Aisha had a

I

was wasting her

time.

When

she spoke, her head darted like a bird's.

My

mother had warned

women, but today a drink

I

me

to stay

away from high-strung

wasn't heeding that advice.

I

asked Aisha to have

with me.

"I

don't drink," she said.

"I

meant mint

"I

don't drink mint tea."

tea."

"Then we can look She smiled.

I

"I've

was

each other across the table."

at

and

5 pm,

asked when she got off work.

I

I

like,"

she said. "I'm the token Arab, and they can't

don't

want

to be seen with

"Anytime me. But

It

got

my car downstairs,"

I

you

in a cafe."

"We can

said.

fire

drive to the

Bainem

Forest."

We

drove through downtown Algiers and

The

evening crowd. shine boxes

arm

cafes

the fountain, and the sat the voluble

glasses.

table to table,

on rue

palm

trees,

and

all

getting

stale,

and

I

in

passed Square Bugeaud,

at cafe tables

months! There was a pinpoint of light

On

and young couples arm

We

d'Isly.

on the pavement

young men with constricted minds behind

was

It

swarming

were packed, the yaouleds with their shoe-

roamed from

jostled one another

its lazily

longed to leave.

at the

their sun-

Two more

end of the tunnel.

Route Moutonniere, Aisha asked what had prompted

me

to

take her out.

you intriguing,"

"I find

"What do you "Your

I

said.

find intriguing?"

feet."

"What about my feet?" "The way you put one foot in front of the other." "Do you think that emotions are more important than

ideas?"

she asked.

"What

a question.

They both have

their place,

and they

interact.

MY END GAME Lets say you're committed or

is it

"So you hate

is

an

idea,"

movement

emotion, and the

all

that

it

is

"Hatred of the French

The French language

all

day

an

is

is

me

transformed for

ill

to hear

has become so hateful

it."

at the office."

know, but what to you

cartes

said.

a collective mentality."

is

makes me physically

it

"But you hear "I

Aisha

French, without exception?"

"Yes, including you.

me

an idea or an emotion,

to a cause. Is that

part of a collective mentality?"

"Independence

to

241

the language of Montaigne and Des-

into electric current, racist insults,

and

mass murder." tried to explain that

I

that

I

I

had come to Algeria as a conscript and

was against the war, even though

don't have the guts to desert,"

I

I

said, "so

plugged the French I

chose an easy way out."

we reached

"You're nothing but a coward," Aisha sneered as

edge of the Bainem Forest and parked on the It

was time

Setif,

She

My

it.

Aisha told

the

the bay.

and findings of fact, as

me she had grown up in

a village outside

the city in eastern Algeria where the rebellion erupted in 1954.

and blew the smoke out through her nose.

lit

a Gauloise

"It

was one of the few was the

father

villages that had a Koranic school for girls.

village ca'id [Koranic judge].

He was

blind from

He had nine children from At school, we had no desks; we

he knew the Koran by heart.

birth, but

three wives, and sat

cliff overlooking

to begin the period of discovery

the lawyers put

line. "I

I

was the youngest.

on the ground and used pens made of reeds to write on clay tab-

lets.

In the

summer we

first fruit to

In 1944,

was admitted

when she was

the French opened

came

seillaise.

12,

she passed her

to the lycee in Setif

we marched with banners tion

we

picked olives and cherries, and

offered the

pregnant women."

fire.

A year later, "when

the Call of Freedom.'

d 'etudes and

was

thirteen,

V-E Day, and

A few days later, when the minister of educa-

we sang "

I

calling for independence on

to visit our class of Arab girls,

Instead

certificat

we

refused to sing the

the scout song, 'From

Mar-

Our Mountains Hear

TED MORGAN

242

moved

In 1950, her family

to Algiers,

Her brothers and

a Koranic school.

where her father taught

in

were grown, but she con-

sisters

tinued to live at home, an apartment in the harbor area. She went to

and worked

secretarial school

FLN

in offices,

but she was recruited by the

1956 and swore Lil Fida ("ready for the

in

sacrifice").

At

first,

she was a lookout for a team that cut telephone lines in the suburbs.

A few months later, "they told me GG, and I

put

here

I

I'd

be more useful working for the

am."

figured that

if

she was confiding in me, she must like me, so

my arm around her as we sat in

I

the car watching the sun set over

the western end of the bay.

"Down

with your paws," she shouted in her salt-and-pepper voice.

"You're the enemy. You're killing

want

"I

don't

"I

would

you

—

I

feel like a traitor

was so emphatic I

to kill

that

I

my people."

want

to kiss you,"

I

said.

kissing a Frenchman," she said. She

sensed a trace of playacting in her behavior, so

"Do you go out with men?" Arab men."

asked her, "Yes,

"Do you

them?"

sleep with

"None of your

business."

After that evening,

want

to ask her to

accept,

my

I

started to see Aisha fairly often.

apartment,

and second because

I

first

because

was concerned

I

I

didn't

didn't think she'd

that the concierge

report back to Georgette. But she agreed to meet

me

would

in a cafe

near

Square Bresson. She was not the typical Arab woman. For one thing, she drank Pernods and smoked Gauloises, both of which had been

banned by the FLN. For another she wore chic Paris dresses rather than a

veil

was she

as

and a

djellaba.

much of an

For a third, she used Arpege perfume. Nor

extremist as she had

there would be a negotiated solution to the

first

seemed. She hoped

war and

that liberal

Euro-

peans would remain in an independent Algeria. In one area, she car,

was

saying that although

inflexible. I

When

didn't smoke,

tobacco on her mouth, she pushed

me away,

I

I

tried to kiss her in the

would

saying,

like to taste the

"Why are men

so

MY END GAME stupid?" Since

I

243

found our meetings of the variable but skeptical French

mind and stubbornly committed Arab mind

stimulating,

stopped

I

trying.

One day at the end her father. "He

man who

On

isn't as

likes to

me if I would like to meet

of October, she asked

anti-French as

I

am," she

argue points of Koranic

the following afternoon,

said. "He's a religious

law."

we drove over

to her sixth-floor

apartment above the docks and overlooking the bay, as

was the

that this

reading

my

out of sight

The

first

time

mind, Aisha

when

living

I

reflected

I

had been invited to an Arab home. As

said,

"You won't meet

my

if

mother. She stays

there are guests."

room was furnished with upholstered ottomans and

brass tables. Aisha's father, Abdullah, sat in a carved

mahogany arm-

chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl, near a window, for although blind,

he could sense the

light.

the beard on his chest

were

like oysters

Aisha introduced

made

on the

me

He wore

as

and a white robe, so that

a turban

a white-on-white pattern,

half-shell.

one of her

and

his eyes

He shook my hand warmly, and colleagues from the GG, "an ex-

pert on Algeria."

"Welcome," he

my

I

sat

down next

to

Aisha on a couch,

I

pondered the question.

had been raised a practicing Catholic during the war years

ington, and the year I

upper body rocking as he spoke. "You are

brother in the family of Allah. Are you a believer?"

As I

said, his

was an

and

I

Mass and

went to school with the nuns

On Sunday

altar boy.

took

I

my two

mornings,

younger brothers

held the tray for

them. But after

my

father's

that

after

Matthew's,

stayed in bed

to the cathedral

I

Wash-

and served

Mass George and

could not go

home without

death in 1943, the idea of an all-knowing

and benevolent deity eluded me. a blend of order

my mother

Communion, and

Pat played hide-and-seek, knowing

at St.

in

Human

nature, like the planet,

was

and chaos, replete with catastrophies, droughts and

floods due to disturbances in the climate, and

human-made

distur-

bances, such as religious wars (the Crusades) and religious persecutions (the Spanish Inquisition). In terms of cruelty

and violence, the

TED MORGAN

244

history of religion matched and coincided with the history of warfare.

My

experiences in Algeria did nothing to reinforce any faith

might once have had

"We

Guards' song:

where no religion

But

seek our

I

I

want

did not heart.

I

way

I

in the winter

Humans seemed

stars shine."

was one of those

Koran by sion, so

in a watchful deity.

I

thought of the Swiss

and the night,

in a

sky

devices,

and

man who knew

the

own

left to their

devices.

to

argue with a blind old

wanted, for Aisha's sake, to make a good impres-

said: "I believe in the natural piety

of man."

"Ah, that's a beginning," he said, as Aisha served mint tea and

cookies covered with powdered sugar, "and Allah

is

forgiving and

compassionate. But never forget that his word, as revealed by the

Mohammed, is infallible in all respects." "That is what we say about our Bible," I replied,

prophet

I've

while thinking,

never liked the promises, the table spread, the harps playing, the

loved ones restored

.

.

.

and

I

don't like the old man's

random

prosely-

tizing.

"There I

is

a fount of wisdom in the Koran,"

thought,

"As there alcohol,

is

One man's

religion

in the Bible." It

and

I

is

Abdullah

said.

another man's heresy, but

occurred to

I

said,

me that the Koran condemned

wondered what Aisha's father would say

if

he saw her

knocking back Pernods.

As Abdullah and

I

talked, Aisha snuggled

up to

me

had done when we were alone. She lay her head on raised

it,

and kissed

my

neck.

I

was puzzled, and

as she never

my

shoulder,

concentrated on

I

maintaining a normal conversational tone.

Abdullah was explaining that the outcome of the jihad was written in the Koran. But as he did, Aisha kissed is

me on

the mouth. "Here

the proof of our victory," Abdullah said, rocking in his chair, as he

recited,

"How

often a sparse

company. Allah I

is

was finding

since Aisha results.

I

with those it

company has overcome

who

difficult to

lost

my

"Shouldn't the state hold

pay

strict attention to

my pants,

train of thought, but all

numerous

endure."

was now fondling me through

had

a

I

what he

said,

with predictable

managed

religions equally in favor?"

to ask,

MY END GAME "That

tion of all religions I

felt

had to

I

my

a grave fault,

is

245

Abdullah

friend,"

said.

"Equal tolera-

Aisha,

who was smilwhy the Ko-

as bad as atheism."

is

and

leave,

moved away from

I

ing an enigmatic half-smile.

I

wanted

ran permitted four wives, and

why

to ask her father

husband could unilaterally

a

repudiate his wife, but that too would have been out of place.

must excuse myself but felt

that

it

had been

a great

said

I

honor to meet him.

I

I

completely out of my depth.

"We will meet again,"

he

"when the dead are resurrected,

said,

as

the rain revives the grass."

Why

not

him

let

believe

what he wanted,

healthy to have competition in religions as

hand signal

to Aisha,

who

are those

who

think that you and

we both know

each other, but

When had

felt

father,

the

got home,

I

just as

It's

in business.

gave a

I

it

in

both hands and

said,

I

"There

have just enough religion to hate

I

that isn't true."

reflected

on Aisha's strange behavior. She

compelled to act out taboo scenarios in front of her sightless

and

I

was simply

a bit player in

some

secret

drama between

When saw her the next day at the cafe, I asked for She told me she didn't quite understand it herself, as

two of them.

an explanation. it

I

it is

thought.

was staying home, and when

said she

shook the old man's hand, he took

I

I

had never happened before. But as she spoke, her face clouded.

"Maybe

it's

got to do with something that's never spoken of outside

the family," she said. until she blurted

my

uncle,

making

it

I

out:

it

could see she wanted to

"When I was fourteen

my

father's brother.

up."

She spoke

in

When

I

told

tell

me, and

in Setif,

my

I

father,

I

waited

was raped by he said

an oddly high-pitched voice, as

if

I

was

she had

reverted to the time of the incident. I

reached across the table for her hand, but she snarled in her

normal guttural

tone, "Don't touch me."

I

paid the

bill,

got up, and

went home.

That evening,

when it

there

was

a

I

was reading Stendhal's The Charterhouse ofParma

knock

at

my

door.

I

knew

it

could not be Aisha, but

might be Georgette, who sometimes dropped by to

chat.

I

opened

the door and saw Jean Berger standing there in a beat-up raincoat

TED MORGAN

246

and a slouch "I

hat, disheveled

snuck past the concierge.

When fer

I

had

and emaciated. "Can I

need

I

come in?" he

asked.

help."

seen him with Bernard, he had asked for a trans-

last

out of the Villa Sesini and had been sent to a regiment of legion-

Nemencha Mountains,

naire paras in the

a land of high plateaus

heavy combat near the Tunisia border. At the time,

my

who had

address. Berger,

were dorm mates ened.

hall) at

now seemed

when we assembled

that

had given him

I

badly wanted to be a para when

at officers' school,

remembered

I

and

we

utterly disheart-

amphi (lecture

in the

Saint-Maixent to choose our regiments, the gung-ho blue

beret captain on the stage had said as part of his spiel: "It to say,

'I

was

at

Verdun' to be told 'There goes a

to say,

'I

was

at

Dien Bien Phu' to be told 'There goes

be enough to

say,

'I

fought in Algeria' to be told

row behind me

a muffled voice in the

say,

hero.' It

." .

.

was enough

was enough

a hero.'

and then

I

It

will

heard

"There goes a fucking

fool."

"Come

in,"

"Let

said.

I

to get the scotch

I

"What happened

to

went into the kitchen

you?"

exclaimed. "You

I

looked so downcast

wished

I

I

who were all

had kept

my mouth

later,

wearing

my

of his short frame, he looked a

bathrobe, which

"I

bit better.

He sat on a couch

kept repeating to myself the reasons not

without intonation.

The

"I

to,"

wanted man

with his

he said in a voice

believed in the nation at arms, the citizen sol-

example and leaves a hole

for the rest of

death sentence.

And

yet

"What drove you

"When

I

was

to the

at the floor.

conscientious objector doesn't exist in French law.

serter sets a bad

a

shut.

hung down

elbows on his spread knees and his head bent, staring

dier.

and flame."

fire

gave him his drink and told him to take a bath and shave.

Half an hour feet

I

obtained from Hans Imhof at the consular PX.

"You of all people,"

I

a drink."

deserted," he said.

"I

He

me fix you

I

did

your

life.

in the ranks. It

If I'm caught,

I

A

de-

makes you

could get the

it."

to it?"

a kid,

my

father locked

me

in the cellar

when

I

was

MY END GAME bad.

didn't

I

Arabs

mind

liked

it; I

it

down

247

there.

I

went

after the rats.

aren't rats."

Then

it

came out

like

water gushing from a crack in a dam, a tor-

more than an

rent that lasted

hour, with digressions, parentheses,

backpedaling, and long pauses. His mind wasn't focused; all

over the place.

What

render here

I

Berger was a platoon leader

is

it

wandered

a feeble synopsis.

in a battalion that

bat with well-armed fellagha units.

One day

was

in daily

his platoon

com-

was am-

approached a densely populated Arab village, and he

bushed as

it

12 of his

30 men.

"My men were

enraged," he said.

"When

lost

their

become wolves."

friends die, the sheep

His company commander ordered him by radio to invade the lage,

But

which was said to be providing

vil-

make

a base for the rebels,

house-to-house searches, and liquidate the able-bodied men. Berger refused and returned to the para base.

mit murder," he

said,

That evening

him with

offal

ficers told cer,

on

"and

I

"I

couldn't do

was being ordered

to

com-

it."

at

the officers' mess, a plate was placed in front of

it.

"It's

the brain of a dead fel" one of his fellow of-

him. "Since you are so fond of them, eat

Another

MAT 49

standing behind him, pushed the muzzle of a

He ate it and threw up. The following day, Berger was broken

it."

offi-

into his

back.

ceremony before the entire battalion

in

rank

in formation.

in a

time-honored

As he stood

tention in the center of the courtyard, the colonel in

command

at at-

ripped

the second lieutenant's bars off his epaulets with a bayonet and an-

nounced that he was now endangering the

lives

obey an order and

of his men."

In the battalion, he

deemed

a private for "refusing to

was

a pariah, kept at the base because he

was

unreliable, in charge of loading water into the flying water

wagons, the two Sikorskys that brought

it

to the

men

in the field

and

flew back the wounded.

"You should have seen the kind of battalion of Europe." He'd once been

and sentences were

listed,

shown the

register

this

was

—

the

scum

where the infractions

including his own, and recalled a few:

TED MORGAN

248

"Eight days of prison for firing, without a valid reason, a burst

from

submachine gun out a window.

a

"Fifteen days of prison for refusing to pay a taxi driver while in a state of inebriety

and

gendarme who

for violently striking a

inter-

fered.

"Fifteen days of prison for throwing a grenade into a cafe in the

town of Tebessa on the grounds for

were exorbitant, and

that the prices

removing the refrigerator from the bar and trying

manager of the

officers'

to sell

it

to the

mess.

"Eight days of prison for a private while on leave in Algiers in order to

who wore

facilitate his

lieutenant's bars

approaches to young

women. "And

I

had

refusing to

my

lieutenant's bars ripped off me,"

commit murder." As

particularly liked the crime

a one-time

Berger

Communist

said, "for

militant, he

committed by one of the German legion-

naires, sentenced to eight days for singing the Internationale instead

of the Marseillaise. "I

don't

Berger

know whether you've

said. "

quest and

ever read the French Constitution,"

'The Republic will never undertake any war of con-

will never

employ

its

freedom of another

forces against the

"

people.'

"Very well put,"

The breaking their

hands

tied

I

said.

point

them

water.

He heard

going on the corvee de

bois"

a

noncom

captives with

had to do something," Berger

say, "At

("wood-gathering

The corvee de bois consisted of taking prisoners wood and shooting them in the back for "trying "I

FLN

behind their backs with telephone wire, in the pris-

oners' corral, and gave night, they're

came when he saw two

said, "even

I'll

be back

at ten."

two Arabs and

He knew

that the sentry shift

fire-

to escape."

though they'd been

said, "I'm

he planned to get there 10 minutes early and

detail").

out to pick up

captured with weapons in hand." That evening at seven, dark, he approached the

mid-

when

got

going to help you.

was over

tell

it

at 10,

and

the sentry he

was

taking the shift in order to question the prisoners, after clearing

it

MY END GAME

249

with his replacement. But then he thought, If the prisoners escape on

my watch, my

bacon

cooked.

is

I

might as well go with them.

In the dark, he untied their hands and told them,

have a three-hour

Berger I

"and after a while

said,

had done.

suicide.'

They hurried down

start."

remembered

I

But

it

was too

stopped in

I

a friend telling

late.

I

my tracks.

I

realized

me, 'Desertion

a turban "I

I

burned

and

my

uniform and

a djellaba

and

was passed from one

said,

FLN

"trying to get back to Algiers.

I

my

dialectician,

"Now you

what

form of for

two

announced tea.

a

In

are one of us."

unit to the next," Berger went on,

came

across a few violent fanatics, a

who was

a hair-splitting

and more than one apostle of Koranic morality. The

same mix of well-defined types found one

We

green beret, and they gave

few stunted Dantons, a political commissar

lievers

a

where we were given couscous and oranges and some

the village,

me

is

go back, and we walked

couldn't

days, without food or water, until the barking of dogs village,

time.

"It's

a path into the valley,

who was drawn

were camels

former Communist,

to

that one finds in our army.

Communism; he

said that

—when they walk, they nod I

had to agree;

Arab masses, no notion of a

there's

class war,

no

I

even

Moslem beAs a

their heads.

real proletariat in the

merely a generic hatred of co-

lons"

"Well, that might not be so bad," said? 'The French Revolution

were

I

said.

"Remember what

Carlyle

was made by writers who thought they

"

thinkers.'

"But they were only a few, standing on balconies and throwing out meaningless words like equality and fraternity,

when

the words

that counted were employment and wages" Berger seemed to be pick-

ing up. I

found some cold chicken and opened a bottle of Medea red.

He fore

lit

it lit,

a Gauloise, nervously striking the for his

match several times be-

hands shook. "These people don't need theories.

They know what they

want."

"And when they get

their independence,"

usual rush for ministerial chairs."

I

said, "there will

be the

TED MORGAN

250

was taught

"I

Berger

class,"

in the

party to believe in the international working

what

said, "but

I've

learned in Algeria

idea has to be adopted by one particular nation

—

that a

is

new

the Bastille for the

French, the Winter Palace for the Russians, and the end of colonial-

ism in French Africa

for the Algerians.

It's

nation by nation that

revolutions succeed."

Berger was

was collecting

how he had

asked

"It

was

made

finally

simple," he said.

me

and put

an engine that was idling too

like

at the corners

of his mouth. it

came

spittle I

"The

FLN in

Setif gave

me some clothes

aboard an Algiers-bound truck loaded with potatoes.

got to checkpoints. I

White

to Algiers.

There was a hidden compartment where

and

fast.

To calm him down,

The

truck

let

me

I

could barely

off at the rue

when we

fit

Randon market,

straight here."

"What now?" "You know, to test I

I

was never the victim of recruiting posters.

my courage.

wanted

I

wanted to belong to an

to be the best.

And now, where am

elite

that

is

I

wanted

branch of the army.

I? I'm in a no-man's-land,

wanted by the French, and the Arabs think I'm ing grace

I

crazy.

My

only sav-

saved two guys from being shot. At least

now

I

hate the military shit, the marching in step, the medals."

"As for the medals, you don't have to worry." "I

want

don't

to be a

quickly as possible. But "I

have a friend

tomorrow."

I

burden to you.

I

must get back

to

France as

need some flouss [cash] and an ID card."

I

who may

be able to help,"

hoped that Berger 's story would

I

"We'll find out

said.

strike a chord of

sym-

pathy with Aisha. "But

first,

ing with

was

me

in the

was not

The

I

have to get you some clothes that

my landlady,

duce you to

for a

Georgette.

few days. You'll

Corps of Engineers

listening.

He had

I'll tell

fit

so

see, she's a great gal.

in the

Sahara and got

fallen asleep

next morning, after doing

I

can intro-

her you're on leave, stay-

Her husband

killed."

Berger

on the couch.

my

shopping,

Square Bresson and called Aisha, who was

in a foul

I

went back to

mood.

MY END GAME

"Why

should

you?" she

talk to

I

251

said.

"You walked out on me

at

the cafe."

"This

an emergency that has nothing to do with you and me.

is

have a friend who's in trouble.

I

need your advice."

I

"Civilian or military?" "Military." "I'll

meet you

at the cafe at noon."

"At our table in the back."

Aisha was chronically tardy, and

VEcho d 'Alger, as

waited for

I

her.

read the colon mouthpiece,

I

There was

a

campaign

in

France

against the cost of the war. Gaston Deferre, the Socialist mayor of Marseilles, said the

war was costing 700 billion

francs a year. Lacoste

denied that figure "with energy," while pointing out that Marseille

was one of the wars its

maritime

principal beneficiaries because of the increase in

traffic.

Aisha pushed the newspaper

in

my face

standoffish, she asked, "So what's eating

"In a nutshell, a friend of

to signal her arrival. Still

you?"

mine deserted while helping two

prisoners escape, and he's staying with

me

at

FLN

Square Bresson. He

needs an ID card."

"Oh

sure," she said. "I'll just ask

my boss at the GG,

an ID card for a French deserter?'

And why

'Could

I

have

not a plane ticket to

Paris as well?"

"Good

idea,"

to turn to,

and

I

said.

had to get Berger off

I

You know how fond off

and drive you

ried to an

She was exasperating, but

to

I

am

my

had no one else

hands. "Let's be friends.

of you. If you want

Oran" (she had

I

to, I'll

take a few days

a sister she liked in

Arab lawyer who had only one

wife,

Oran, mar-

which was becoming

among educated Arabs). "Now you want to drive me to Oran, and you've never even shown

the rule

me your "I'd

apartment

at

Square Bresson."

be glad to take you there right

"I don't

want

"You have

a

to

meet him.

I

don't

now

so you can meet Berger."

want anything

chance to help someone

who

to

do with him."

saved the lives of two

TED MORGAN

252

FLN

combatants.

I

know you have

why you don't use them." With her customary turning on it

will cost you."

connections.

can't

understand

a dime, she said, "Very well, but

my plea

had no idea whether she was responding to

I

or whether she thought she had pushed

have some savings,"

"I

I

I

me

"What

said.

too

are

far.

we

talking about?"

"A hundred thousand francs [$200] for the ID card and two

hundred thousand francs argue, though

was

it

to take

all

I

had.

from Tunisia

railroad to and

was Berger's best

I

him

to Tunisia."

knew

for the

there

I

wasn't going to

was an underground

passage of men and weapons.

It

bet.

While Aisha made the arrangements, mustache and dye his sandy hair black. photo shop, and a couple of days

later

told Berger to shave his

I

took him to an instant-

I

he had his ID card, the eyes in

The

the picture looking severely at the camera.

card was

made out

to

Jean Dulac, 14 rue des Thermopyles, Paris 14eme, voyageur de commerce (traveling salesman). "It's

funny," he said.

"When we were

at

I

thought

I'll

pay you

Saint-Maixent,

you were a layabout. But you're really not a bad guy, and back."

"You're not so bad yourself,"

That evening, he had

to Tunisia.

We

I

said, "for a deserter."

a rendezvous at the

saw him again, but Aisha it

I

told

me two weeks

in early

who

no government

still

felt

in Paris,

no turning of the

which drew the

leaves.

ire

11,

a horde of right-wing students

of the

threw tomatoes

who was marching at the head of the World War He was a partisan of the loi-cadre and had been

stice parade. office

he had made

abandoned.

On November at Lacoste,

never

November, an Arabian summer, with winds

off the sea and foglike drizzles but

colons,

later that

I

breathed a sigh of relief.

were

There was

Randon market.

I

armi-

kept in

under the newly invested government of Felix Gaillard. Lacoste

had the leaders arrested and revoked their student deferments. They

MY END GAME

253

were posted to combat regiments, where they could throw grenades instead of fruits and vegetables.

The rumor mill ground out plots The name of de Gaulle was

in Paris.

his emissaries shuttled

overthrow the government

between Algiers and

governments minister of ardent Gaullist

to

who had

said to be

The

Paris.

Gaillard

Chaban-Delmas, was an

defense, Jacques

up an Algiers

set

Men

bruited about.

office

and was

in close

contact with right-wing colon elements. There was nothing you could pin down;

was

it

still at

the level of commedia dell 'arte.

Or

like a

where the clouds take strange shapes, changing from sheep tors.

"Massu says he knows nothing," Brissac no more

coffins,

were formed

was

suitcases.'

in a

dozen

him

'No more

preparation for the loi-cadre, which

to be submitted to the National Assembly.

The Algiers

is

tells

Mixed commissions of colons and Arabs

cities in

these jobs were brave men.

to alliga-

"No one

new slogan

anything. Apparently, in colon circles, the "

said.

sky

Some

The Arabs who took

of them were assassinated.

press (including our

"crummy

military situation was improving, which

rag") insisted that the

was true

in Algiers but not

the rest of the country. General Salan announced that the balance

was

sheet for the year rebels

were

And

rebellion

seemed

yet

From January

.

.

.

were no

in all Algeria, there

to be everywhere. Bigeard

to exterminate rebel

safe zones.

was sent

bands that were ambushing the

Hassi-Messaoud. Lacoste claimed that "the is

to September, 10,000

while the number of French troops had risen to

killed,

425,000.

positive:

to the Sahara

oil

FLN front

The

trucks from

in the

Sahara

backed by international companies that want the spoils from our

departure."

By

through the

the end of November, however,

first

pipeline,

oil

was flowing

freely

from Hassi-Messaoud to the port of

Bougie.

Despite the herd oui-ouis who volunteered for the mixed commissions,

there

was

—the

result of torture,

French

a catastrophic loss of

Moslem support

unwarranted

labor to repair the sabotage of the

for the

killings, the use of forced

FLN, and

the vast and oppressive

system of searches, ID controls, and the unwritten code that every

Arab was

a suspect: Raise

your arms, drop your packages,

let

go of

TED MORGAN

254

your donkey,

women and

when

children pushed around and worse,

often they couldn't speak French and didn't respond to orders quickly

enough.

Or

else their foot-dragging

and ignorance were deliberate,

What made every situation worse was a among the troops, so that they were more

the weapons of the weak.

seething combat fatigue jittery

than usual.

came

Brissac

The war had gone on in

one day

too long.

in a state of

uncommon

agitation, after

attending a military intelligence briefing at Massu's headquarters.

"Those who think Algeria

is

an internal French

themselves," he said. "Algeria has

The American choppers

chessboard. for

NATO are matched

Warsaw

become

Pact nations.

pawn on

deluding

the Cold

War

we're using that were intended

by the weapons the fels are getting from the

The

arsenals of Eastern Europe are being

shipped to the rebels via Cairo. surplus, but

a

affair are

They no longer

use

World War

II

Skoda machine guns."

He proceeded

Our

mili-

tary intelligence had an Egyptian agent code-named Soliman,

who

had studied law sian.

Upon

to relate a remarkable tale of espionage.

in France, flirted

his return to

when Nasser came

to

with Marxism, and learned Rus-

Egypt, he found himself on the wrong side

power

in 1952.

He was

jailed but got out

by

joining the Volunteers of Death during the Suez

crisis,

where he per-

Thanks

to his

knowledge of

formed well enough to be

rehabilitated.

Russian, he was recruited by General Goleb, the head of the tian mission that purchased

weapons

in

Eastern Europe.

Egyp-

He was

in-

troduced to the Algerian rebel mission in Cairo and put in charge of obtaining Czech weapons for the Algerians. Soliman shuttled from

Cairo to Prague to Geneva to Paris. It

happened that Soliman spent more money than he earned. He

gambled and kept mistresses. He had maintained French friends from

his student days,

to Paris, he agreed to

work

for

and

to Algiers to see the colonel

his passport

was not stamped.

of

FLN

in early 1957,

French military

gan coming

his contacts with

12,

trip

He

be-

intelligence.

who handled

On November

during a

him, though

he turned over a

list

"probationers" in Eastern European training camps: 9 in a

flight school

near Rostov, 22 in a tank school in East Germany, 21 in

MY END GAME Poland, 21 in Romania, 24 in Bulgaria,

255

infantry schools.

all in

them by the Syr-

trainees traveled on Syrian passports, delivered to ian

ambassador

in Cairo.

"The

ALN

entire

[^National

Army

The

of Liberation] officer corps

is

trained in the Eastern bloc," Brissac said. "There are three hundred

Cairo right now, waiting to leave."

fels in

Soliman also provided information on the weapons recently obtained by the

FLN

from the Soviet Union

— 20,000

rifles

and 1,700

machine guns, donated under the Warsaw Pact. Soviet cargo planes flew those

weapons

From

to Cairo.

were trucked across

there, they

Libya and Tunisia into Algeria. "In war, fraud

and deceit are

On November

15,

I

virtues,"

came home

Bernard

as usual

6:00. Georgette had let herself into

waiting for me.

"Two men came looking

"They were policemen

They

said they'd be back

figured

I

in plainclothes.

it

from the

my for

office

around

apartment and was

you

today," she said.

didn't tell

them anything.

tomorrow morning."

might have something

sending to the Telegram.

I

said.

I

to

do with the

articles I'd

been

never used the military franking system

but sent them air mail from the main post office with no return address.

Although

I

signed them with a pseudonym, perhaps they had

found a way to identify me, perhaps through

and checks the Telegram sent back.

clips

take the clips

I

had collected

in a

My

drawer and

my

return mail, the

first

flush

reaction

was

to

them down the

toilet. "It's

nothing,"

I

told Georgette. "Just a few articles

American newspaper." Then

I

thought

I'd better call

boardinghouse, in case they were after him too.

come him

calling, but just in case,

that whatever "I've

left

I

wrote

Bernard

said

he was getting rid of his

happened to me,

got one month

He

I

for

an

at his

no one had clips.

I

told

would not mention him.

before I'm released,"

I

told Georgette,

"and this has to happen." "I

know how you

feel,"

she said. "I'm waiting to

sell this

building,

TED MORGAN

256

and then I'm off to

Paris."

did not doubt that she would quickly find

I

another husband.

The next morning

at 8:00, the

concierge buzzed to

tell

me two

gentlemen were waiting downstairs. They wore belted raincoats and

me my

hats and asked

felt

name. They took out cards to show they

DST

were not ordinary cops but ritoire,

(Direction et Surveillance du Ter-

the French FBI).

"How

can

I

help you?"

asked.

I

"You're under arrest," the short one with the

"You must be joking,"

trimmed beard

said.

I

"We've been tailing you since August," the

you met Warburton Casbah.

in the

said.

square

We were tailing him

we

tall

one

said, "since

now on and took him

are

as a visiting foreign dignitary,

to the

and we

started tailing you." It

occurred to

me

that since

they might have taken inattentive that

I

and naive

I

me

for

I

was dark-haired and olive-skinned,

an Arab.

was, for

I

was being followed. Finally

DST moved, since

it

It

it

me how moment suspected me how slowly the

also occurred to

had never

for a

occurred to

had been more than two months since

my meet-

ing with Warburton.

"We

have a

list

of your meetings with American diplomats, and

also of your meetings with Aisha Chachoune, an

works

at the

tact with the "I

Government-General and who

known

to be in con-

FLN."

saw her

the French

is

Arab woman who

in connection

army and an

with

my work,"

editor on the

I

said. "I'm

newspaper

an officer in

Realties Algeriennes,

command of Major de Brissac." Though they tried not to show it, they were taken aback. After this time, they still didn't know I was a soldier in civilian clothes.

under the

all

That was the and-start.

style of their investigation,

They must have

followed

plodding and hesitant, stop-

me

to the office

and seen the

nameplate, Compagnie Atlantique, but hadn't bothered to find out

what that was. Also, the

it

often happened that the cooperation between

DST and the military was tenuous at best. Also, they hadn't men-

MY END GAME

257

tioned Berger, which meant they hadn't seen

me

with him when

I

took him to the photo shop, which was a blessing.

They drove me down

to

DST

headquarters, though they didn't

handcuff me, and they processed me, which took half an hour. suggested they

call Brissac,

who

could clear the whole matter up.

After another long wait, while the

he returned and risdiction first,

I

tall

an

said: "Since you're

one called out of my hearing, officer,

you're out of our ju-

and you're being turned over to military intelligence. But

Major de Brissac asked

to see you,

and we're taking you to

him."

whom

Brissac, with

a year, had

become

I

had been

a friend.

He was

same time he was concerned be tarnished.

me

He

ushered

everything just as

if you

can help you. But "I've

it

I

saw

I

Anyway, how could

I

I

said. "It

I

was through the Amer-

[who had been replaced not long

socially.

this job. That's I

be a spy when

after

how I met some

thought America was our I

my of

ally.

don't have any access to classi-

information?"

"What about

the

"She worked

at the

home

to

meet her

Arab

girl?"

GG and gave me reports. Once, she took me

father."

Brissac grilled

me for a while,

then said:

"I

have to turn you over

to military intelligence for questioning. I'm going to stick

out and give you absolution. But get

tell

play games, you could be in serious trouble."

met Massu and got

whom

would

Gauloise, and said: "If you

in, lit a

got nothing to hold back,"

the others,

fied

me

protective of his team, but at the

that the reputation of his office

happened, without holding anything back,

ican consul, Lewis Clark arrival], that

in close quarters daily for nearly

me "I

if

my

neck

you're trying to trick me, you'll

in trouble too!"

swear to you on

contacts, as far as "I realize,"

my father's

grave that these were banal social

you can get from espionage."

Brissac said, "that these guys in the

DST

have one-

dimensional minds, and once they fasten on someone they're like

dogs with a bone. You'll find that the Deuxieme Bureau [military

TED MORGAN

258

|

intelligence] captain I'm turning

you over to has more

finesse. He's a

friend of mine."

That afternoon, Brissac drove me Hydra, up

to divisional headquarters in

above Algiers. Across the courtyard, where

in the hills

dozens of military vehicles were parked, and behind the main building where Massu's offices were, there was a separate two-story build-

ing with a

was

He

turned

me

military intelligence

over to a sentry and wished

led into the office of Captain Pierre Merillon, a

about 30 with light curly hair and a boyish his

—

roof and shuttered windows

flat

headquarters.

campaign ribbons. He was too young

luck.

I

young man of

uniform, wearing

face, in

for

me

World War

II

but had

served in Indochina, and had a silver-dollar-sized scar stamped on his forehead like a vaccination

ster at his waist

The

hol-

voluminous.

I've

stood to greet me.

had that new-leather smell.

DST

have your

"I

He

mark.

been going through

"They say they

dossier,"

he

said. "It's quite

it."

tailed

me

for several

months, but

I

was never

conscious of it."

"We're going to have to place you in isolation for a few days so that

can question you. Please understand that

I

was escorted

I

to the

upper

floor, to a

it's

only a formality."

windowless room with

bare whitewashed walls, a cot, a table, two chairs, a washbasin, and

From

a toilet.

the ceiling

hung

a lightbulb that

there was no light switch in the room. for

"I

on,

a watch,

I

worked

up.

I

there said.

It

was

all

resistance.

had no sense of time, and with the light always

had no sense of day or night.

I

me

down someone's

very polite, the polite way to break

for

have to lock you in and ask

your watch," the soldier who had led

Without

remained on,

thought to myself,

I'll

tried to doze, but

I

I

was too

pretend I'm in a doctor's waiting

room. But

in a doctor's

magazines.

Then plan.

I I

I

waiting room,

craved a newspaper the

thought,

I

could read newspapers and

way

have to treat this as

had nothing to hide.

I

a

a

smoker craves a

game and

cigarette.

figure out a

game

My only sin would be the sin of omission.

MY END GAME I

wouldn't mention Berger.

make me

came

llon

in

He

the other.

sat at

him

"You seem

it,

me

to

sit

on

and

said,

"Will you

Virginia tobacco."

It's

didn't smoke, realizing that he

I

my American

sion to

door opened and Meri-

dossier on the table, pulled a silver

from a jacket pocket, opened

have a cigarette? told

like hours, the

DST

to

level.

one of the chairs, and beckoned

placed the

cigarette case

I

anxiety

what seemed

and

game was

realized that part of the

I

my

wait, to increase

Finally, after

259

was making an

allu-

connections.

to have spent quite a lot of time with

American

diplo-

mats," he said. Is

that a crime?

—

understand

French embassy and

scripted,

I

I

in

I

came back

what did you

began

timidate,

allowed

to see

He

deliberate.

to

said,

My

was

I

"Mainly Imhof. You have to father

in

was stationed

America when

I

at the

was con-

to serve."

lunch on October twelfth with Imhof

at the

talk about?"

what Merillon's game plan was. He was calm and would have actually preferred,

I

for

it

would have

remain absolutely calm by contrast. Merillon was go-

down every

ing to go

I

America.

didn't pace, he didn't gesticulate, he didn't try to in-

which

me

in

Washington.

"When you had Aletti,

thought, but

grew up

I

date in the

DST

dossier and ask

me

to recall

conversations that had been forgotten with the end of lunch or drinks. If I said

tion of

I

didn't

my

remember, or of what was

guilt,

would show that I

I

actually did

on October

grown

up.

12,

if

I

was vague,

left

had nothing to

unsaid. But if

would be an indicaI

because

it

was

had

total recall,

I

hide.

remember something Imhof and

I

had talked about

a coincidence about

where we had

We had both spent years in the Yorkville neighborhood of

core of Yorkville the other ethnic

me

German groups were arranged very much

Manhattan, and he had explained to

as they

that

that around the

were on the map of Europe, with the Poles and Czechs and

Hungarians to the east and the Austrians

to the south.

peated that to Merillon, he would think

was an evasion.

it

But I

if

I

re-

had to

TED MORGAN

260

more pertinent conversations

invent

that could

form the basis of his

report.

So

colons.

I

"We

said,

I

down

voted

talked about the loi-cadre, which had just been

Imhof said

in Paris.

said

it

was due

was more of an attempt

it

to the lobbying of the gros

to bring

down

the premier,

Bourges-Maunoury."

He

pressed

me for more details, which I made up as I went along,

knowing they would never question Imhof. parties,

I

my chats

described

topic of Algeria.

And

so

and he probably needed "I'll

it

When

it

came

to cocktail

with half a dozen guests, always on the

went

for four hours, until

I

was exhausted

a rest as well.

be back tonight," he

said. "In the

meantime, you'll be given

the usual rations."

The sage), I

stale

the I

usual rations were two slices of bread, a bit of saucisson (sau-

and a glass of water from the

tap.

took off my clothes and tried to sleep, but

warmth of the

cell,

so

I

threw

couldn't under the

it off,

but

I

still

couldn't sleep because of the light.

tried to think of pleasant things, dinner with Georgette, the beach

with Sauveur. turned and I

was dozing

I

said,

asked him what time

He was Did you

off

from exhaustion when Merillon

it

was. "That

is

information

I

am

some

point, 'France cannot

That one threw me.

I

remembered

when

Zimmer from

The only way

the dossier

father's.

I

win

me

see.

this war'?"

quite clearly that

those words more or less

her

not per-

said.

flipping through the pages of the dossier. "Let

say, at

re-

"Get dressed."

mitted to give you," he

I

had used

was driving back with Genevieve that could have gotten into

for the DST. down every word warn Don Davies when I get out

was that Genevieve was an informant

Damned pied-noir snitch, I

I

blanket, which smelled of previous occupants of

said to use against me.

I

thought. She was taking

I'll

have to

of this hole. "Yes,

"But

I

I

did say that France would lose the war,"

didn't

mean

it

in a military sense.

I

told Merillon.

Massu won

Algiers. Other battles will be won. But the

war

the Battle of

will be lost politi-

MY END GAME

261

The Fourth Republic cannot absorb the cost and does not have the will to win. The government, when there is a government, trembles every time Le Monde publishes an antiwar editorial." cally.

My answer seemed among

to satisfy him, since

was an

it

article of faith

career officers that the politicians had lost the colonial wars

the military were winning.

All the things

Who was

mind.

couldn't

I

right and

was

history, colonialism

and the British

in India.

tell

Merillon were racing through

who was wrong?

in decline.

Look

Look

at the

my

In terms of the forces of

at the

French

all

should Algeria be any different, particularly

Dutch

in Indonesia

over the map.

when

it

Why

was getting

a

leg up

from the Arab world and the Eastern bloc? The momentum

was on

Algeria's side, propelled by the thriving antiwar

France.

And

certainty

knew who was

while no one yet

was

winner would be

that the

right,

movement

in

right, since the only

both sides were frozen

into their positions like Paleolithic corpses found intact in the ice a

million years

later.

In Algeria, France had jettisoned

its

adopting the hardball tactics of the terrorists. As that noncom of

ues,

mine

in

Champlain had put

it,

"You

can't fight this

war according

the Marquis de Queensberry." But history doesn't have

ing spaces, and those on the

wrong

lose,

you

suffer.

Wars

it

— but the The

are dispossessed.

I

who denounce wanted

breathfine to

It's

you win.

If

you

good

faith

—

that has nothing

victor takes possession, and the vanquished victor's

crimes remain unpunished, but the

vanquished are severely dealt with. tors,

to

are fought on moral credit, and the loser must

declare bankruptcy. Both sides are in

do with

many

side always suffer.

believe that the ends justify the means, but only if

to

liberal val-

The

victors then

spawn

inquisi-

the heretics in their midst.

to have faith, but in

what? Not

in a

French victory. Not

even in an Algerian victory. "The coffin or the suitcase" was the

wrong way

to put

on the house."

I

it.

The

wanted

right out.

I

way

to put

it

was

needed to quiet

"coffins all around,

my

nerves.

myself waiting expectantly for the rattling of the key

How

strange

our daily

it

was

lives. It

I

found

in the lock.

to lose track of time, the pervasive regulator of

was

like losing the force of gravity, like floating.

TED MORGAN

262

me

Merillon came and went, hoping to catch get as

little

sleep as

I

do,

I

On

He must

thought, although he always looked dapper

and freshly shaven, smelling ginia tobacco.

off guard.

faintly of

cologne and smoking his Vir-

his fourth visit, he asked,

"She works in Lacoste's

office,"

I

"What about Aisha?" assume she was vetted

said. "I

by his people." "His people didn't invent gunpowder," he said. "They liked Aisha,"

"I

I

said, "but

she wanted nothing to do with me."

home?"

"Didn't you visit her socially, at her

me

"She wanted

me

lectured

to

meet her

about the Koran.

I

slip up."

who's some sort of cleric.

father,

He

think he was trying to convert me.

I

couldn't get out fast enough."

"Don't you

know

she has

FLN contacts?"

"I'm the last person she would

think

"I

I

should

tell

tell.

She

you we've opened

can't stand me." a field investigation.

She

could be arrested." "It will

be no trouble

"That wraps shave and

to

me

to stay

was

my office when

briskly.

her."

"Shower and

you're ready to leave."

my interrogation was over.

mental habit of mine to visualize the worst-case scenario, and

a

I

had imagined myself locked up with Aisha

I

asked him

Back

usual

away from

up for me," Merillon said

had trouble adjusting to the idea that

I

It

come

it

at all for

in Merillon's office,

he gave

in the

me my

same

cell.

watch and some

coffee.

how long I'd been held. "Three days," he said. "That's the time it takes." He was relaxed now, and smiling. "Brissac told

me you friends

were

all right,

though

a bit naive,

and that your American

were probably pumping you. Taking Warburton to the Cas-

bah was not a clever move." "But Warburton was pro-French," that the

I

said. "I

are persona non

we have "Maybe I was

union, so

ture.

I

to

show him

Casbah was calm."

"Perhaps," Merillon said, "but there are

who

wanted

some American agents

grata in Algeria for trying to subvert

to be

our labor

on our guard."

gullible,"

I

said, "but

I

don't have a suspicious na-

take people for what they seem to be."

MY END GAME

take them for what their dossiers say they are," Merillon re-

"I

"But

plied.

me

let

ask you: You've been in Algeria

Did you get your two weeks' didn't even

"I

"Well, look. it

263

know

I

was

entitled to

rassing.

But

if

We don't want any problems

you agree not

mention

to

you to take your two weeks

with the Americans. If

it

it

to them,

might be embarI

could arrange

December. You're due to be re-

in

December

leased from service on

a year.

it."

gets out that you were arrested for seeing them,

for

more than

leave in France?"

15,

so you could leave the

first

of

the month."

That sounded good sac,

and

to me,

who said, "I knew it was just Some formality, I thought.

I

agreed.

reported back to Bris-

I

a formality."

"I'm sorry to lose you," he said, "in spite of your love for the

Americans and other drawbacks." I

come

Bernard he didn't have to worry about

told

When

up.

his head.

I

said

I

was leaving the

first

his articles.

hadn't

of December, he shook

have to write the entire lousy sheet," he

"I'll

It

He

said.

wasn't

getting out until January 1958. I

spent

my

last

days in Algiers tying up loose ends.

American Library and

was a

Don

told

Davies that

a possible "patriotic informant" for the

month

ago," he said. "She

I

I

went

to the

had heard Genevieve

DST. "Oh,

I

got rid of her

was lecturing everybody, and

since at-

tendance was down, she was expendable."

Although

I

was pretty sure

me more cautious, and

had made

using a different

name and

was no longer being

I

I

voice,

tailed, events

avoided seeing Aisha.

I

called her,

and warned her that she was on a

list. I

saw Sauveur and

"Mektoub"

When

I

told

him

("It is written"),

said

I

knew we'd meet

but that was the last time

good-bye to Georgette, she said

eyes misted over, for

she could have

my

I

again, and he said,

had made a few friends

"I'll I

I

saw him.

miss you," and

would miss.

battered Citroen. She said she'd give

it

I

my

told her

to

one of

her young cousins.

Back

in 1951,

when

I

was

at the

Sorbonne, one of my professors,

TED MORGAN

264

philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, told me: "You have something of Rousseau's noble savage."

figured he meant that

I

of man in his primal

state, a hopelessly

Algeria had rubbed

all

my

brain ordering

me

that off me.

reminded him

rudimentary but amiable

now had

I

I

to be suspicious

a

dolt.

master sergeant in

and watchful.

The Algerian experience did not enrich me; it diminished me. Young men are sent out to fight wars and are placed in situations they are not prepared to deal with.

had done

in

Champlain, but

at the

right to be criticized by those It's

a little too easy to

was deeply ashamed of what

I

same time

who had

one's living

sit in

not been put in harm's way.

room and watch

Only those who have been there have the been horrified

at myself,

and

I

have

did not recognize the

I

committed by men

horrified by the reprehensible acts

I

TV and in

be

combat.

right to do that, and

have

I

known myself to be morally com-

promised. I

wanted

think about

to put Algeria behind

it

again.

When

fleeing a burning building.

Back I

in

New York,

I

was hired by the Herald

for those

December

had been scorched, but

Tribune,

I

But

and

a

in 1961

I

was

I

was

still alive.

A year later,

was back

I

that

in Algiers

have written about in the preceding pages, titled Parisian

who

member of the French Olympic Committee. After independence,

Aisha worked in the cabinet of Prime Minister

was one of my sources when din became an art critic

who

felt

I

another story.

that's

Georgette moved to France and married a

was

my life, and never

1957,

got a job with the Associated Press.

I

as a foreign correspondent.

As

me, get on with

left in

I

I

Ahmed Ben

Bella and

covered Algeria in 1962. Bernard Bro-

and remained friends with Major de Brissac,

eventually retired as a general. Sauveur Galliero died in the

1970s. Jean Berger vanished. There's serters,

no statute of limitations

and he may well have changed

his

name.

for de-

My two friends from

basic training are in America. After a distinguished career at Cornell,

Alain Seznec has retired to Las Vegas bling).

He and

(for the climate,

Janet recently celebrated their

fifty-fifth

not the

gam-

anniversary.

MY END GAME

Upon

265

leaving the army, Jean Aslanian decided to go to America and

He

try his luck.

married a fellow Armenian in California, got into the

rag trade, and made

of money selling American bowling shirts to

lots

the French. Today, he lives in a gated

where he

California,

community

Palm Desert,

in

and tennis courts

hits the golf links

daily.

Zohra Drif were freed

In the rebel ranks, Yacef Saadi and

in

June

1962 after the liberation of their country. Zohra studied law in prison

and passed her bar exam when she got and married one of the top children. Yacef

out.

She practiced family law

FLN leaders, Rabah Bitat. They had three

went into the movie business and produced Gillo

Pontecorvo's 1965 classic, The Battle ofAlgiers.

Thanks

to Yacef,

Pon-

tecorvo was able to shoot in the actual Algiers locations, which gave the film

gritty sense of place.

its

The

film struck a balance,

showing

the torture of the paras, as well as a pied-noir child eating an ice

cream cone who based on Bigeard, than a

sadist.

is is

killed

by a bomb. The para colonel Matthieu,

depicted as a rational military technician, rather

But there

is

a serious flaw in the

cinema verite

style.

Yacef Saadi starred as himself, and he embellished and distorted the facts of his capture. In the

la-Pointe. In reality,

and the

movie, a tortured informer gives away Ali-

was Yacef who

it

led the paras to his colleague,

and two boys with him. Once captured, Yacef and Zohra

girl

talked freely, without being tortured. In January 2004, The Battle of Algiers

New

Forum

in

before,

and Yacef was there

at 76.

York.

went

I

was shown

to the premiere, never

to present the film, looking spry

When it was over, he made some brief remarks,

the French.

on Massu's

I

true role, but since this

decided not to mention I

said, "If

I

I

if

I

and

it fit

translated from

was surprised that he had bowdlerized

was almost half a century

shot you

his

after the events,

I

it.

had met you then,

you."

"Not

Film

went up to him and introduced myself as having been

staff in 1957.

Instead

at the

having seen

first,"

he replied.

I

would have had

to shoot

Epilogue

A

nation at war war but

is

a nation in peril, not only of losing the

also of internal cataclysms.

unseated Lyndon Johnson.

shuffling Fourth Republic. In Algiers on

reprise of the oft-seen scenario ers scrambling

up the

stairs

—

a

The havoc

The war

crowd

May

in

Vietnam

in Algeria toppled the 13,

at the

1958, there

was

war memorial,

a

riot-

and across the broad esplanade to invade

the Government-General building. Lacoste

agreed to head a committee of public

was

safety, "to

in Paris, but

Massu

keep hotheads from

spilling blood."

Two

days

later,

Forum and

the

a statement: "I

Salan spoke from the famed balcony overlooking

said, "Vive de Gaulle." In

am

France, the general released

ready to assume the powers of the Republic."

Or would the army seize power with a banana republic-type junta? The situation was whirling out of control, and the newly named government under France was seen as being on the brink of

civil

war.

Prime Minister Pierre Pflimlin could only watch less

on

befuddlement.

May

Army

in a state of hope-

units were in open insubordination, and

24, paratroopers seized the island of Corsica as a staging

area to invade France. Facing a putsch, Pflimlin resigned on

May

28.

EPILOGUE

On

June

1,

'267

came

the undertaker of the Fourth Republic

National Assembly and was

named prime

before the

minister by a vote of

,'329

to 224. After 12 years in the wilderness, de Gaulle returned to usher in the Fifth Republic.

what we had

The vox

populi said, "This can't be worse than

before."

These events were

like a series of train

wrecks caused by faulty

The colons firmly believed that de Gaulle would keep Algeria French. The army took credit for bringing him back to power track signals.

and saw him

as

De

one of their own.

Gaulle, however, privately

thought that a French Algeria was a "lamentable stupidity." respected the rule of law, which

coup

d'etat, a la

army must

And

Napoleon

III.

is

why

He deeply

he refused to take power by a

His bedrock certitude was that the

serve the republic and not vice versa.

so he wasted no time reducing the power of the

army

in

Algeria, by transferring praetorian officers by the hundreds back to

France from the top down. Massu was transferred, as was Salan. In October 1958, de Gaulle called

FLN

the Brave." But the tion

for a negotiated peace, the "Peace of

De

refused.

Gaulle realized that the situa-

was hopeless, because of the dilemma of the draw. The French

might be winning the war on the ground, with barriers

on the Tunisia and Morocco borders, and

that broke up large rebel bands. But they

out the rebellion, a draw, the ate

its

highly effective

1959 offensive

its

were incapable of wiping

and the best they could hope

for

was

in

fighting.

For the French, the war was quicksand, and after a ria in

But

FLN were the winners, as long as they refused to negoti-

and could keep

August 1959, de Gaulle began

end game,

a draw.

craftily. In a television

audience of millions on September

visit to

Alge-

to prepare public opinion for the

and radio speech that reached an 16,

he outlined the choices: inde-

pendence, which he called "secession," would lead to pauperism and the installation of a

no good either

—

"association," a

the

Communist

dictatorship; "Frenchification"

two communities were

like oil

was

and water; but

"government of Algerians by Algerians," could be

achieved within four years after a peace was signed. In Algiers, the ultras responded with barricades on January 24,

TED MORGAN

268

1960, and the

were

fired. It

army temporized. The gendarmes was

closed in and shots

a bloody confrontation, with 14

gendarmes

and 123 wounded, while among the

ultras, 6 died

wounded. The stalemate lasted a week,

until de Gaulle called

army

do

to

its

duty.

tants were interned.

The The

killed

and 26 were on the

barricades were dismantled and the miliultra leadership

was on the run, but only

among

the colons and in the army,

temporarily, for the diehards, both

were propelled by the conviction that they had brought de Gaulle

power and he owed them

a

to

pound of flesh.

In a referendum in January 1961 on self-determination for Alge-

de Gaulle

ria,

won two

thirds of the vote, but to placate the diehards,

he had to rob Peter to pay Paul. Pursuing his zigzag course, he was back

in

Algeria in March, on a tournee despopotes ("mess-hall tour"),

army

telling the

When army

the

felt that,

grasp by corrupt throne.

to press the offensive.

he spoke of "an Algerian Algeria" that summer, however,

once again, victory was being snapped from their

politics,

The putsch

by the very

man

they had installed on the

of April 1961 was an act of desperation on the

part of the superior officers

who were

willing to throw away their

careers and a lifetime of service to their country and

become rene-

gades, so strongly did they feel they had been betrayed. four generals

who

de Gaulle" in

May

led the putsch

1958, and

Among

the

were Salan, who had shouted, "Vive

Maurice Challe, the general who suc-

ceeded him and was the mastermind of the 1959 offensive. Challe had felt

he had the rebels on the run, and then he'd been recalled when he

was on the verge of winning. The prestige of Salan and Challe drew other officers into the putsch, such as Colonel Godard.

The putsch

lasted all of three days, foiled by the refusal of the conscripts to follow.

On

cers,

moved

April 22, the

1st

into Algiers

REP

(green berets), led by putschist

offi-

and took over government buildings. But

in

almost every other regiment, the conscripts stayed put, particularly

when they putsch.

was

On

heard, on their transistor radios, de Gaulle

condemn

the

April 25, Challe and his followers surrendered. Challe

tried before a military court

and sentenced to

15 years. Salan

and Godard went underground and became leaders of the

OAS

EPILOGUE

269

(Organisation de l'Armee Secrete), a terrorist mix of renegade

and ultras that hammered, through

cers

offi-

their lunatic violence, the

final nails in the colons coffins.

happened to be

I

Tribune,

and

covering the putsch for the Herald

in Algiers

saw the men of the

I

1st

REP

leave their barracks in

Zeralda, outside Algiers, under arrest in trucks, singing at the top of their lungs Edith Piaf's "Non, Je ne Regrette Rien." In this tragedy of

the lost soldiers, as the rebellious military became known, 200

French

were jailed.

officers

Having put down the putsch, de Gaulle was now the undisputed leader of France, above parties and factions.

Even

so, the

end game

took more than a year. Once begun, negotiations with the

dragged

out.

The

trigger-happy terrorists of the

vert the talks. Algiers and Algiers,

I

was

down

New

his

to

fill

him

A week

in

GG,

but

Henry

Oran, where the

who was

a

from the Aletti Hotel

bistro with Eric Pace of Life,

and drove back

We were on our way and asked

to the hotel.

OAS

was targeting journalists,

I

I

it.

The

went back to

me He

an oceanside

in

asked for the

my name on

OAS."

inside his raincoat.

was having lunch

I

and when

with a note in an envelope with die.

arrived.

two cameras

killed the next day.

Oran by tomorrow or

a pool of blood collected

photographer for Paris-Match showed

that he had ingeniously hidden

was shot and

to sub-

places to be. In

said he didn't feel well

—he was going back

later in

a friend of mine

bill,

away and

body before the ambulance

to a briefing at the

hoped

York Times when an Arab was gunned

in the street three feet

around

me

Oran were dangerous

sitting at a cafe terrace across

with Henry Tanner of the

OAS

FLN

bill, it

came

note said: "Leave

my

hotel, paid the

to Algiers with a British reporter

who'd also

been threatened, Alan Williams, son of actor Emlyn Williams.

At

least there

to de Gaulle

were

was now

a clear division

between the

officers loyal

and the renegades who had joined the OAS. The

nihilists

whose slogan was

French soldiers and veiled Moslem

"Vive la

OAS

mort" They murdered

women and blew up

the library of

the University of Algiers. Their scorched-earth tactics were counterproductive, in that they sped up the negotiations in Evian and

TED MORGAN

270

making both

other locations,

FLN, because

the

OAS

more accommodating:

sides

to the

was blowing up buildings and harbor

facili-

ties in Algiers; to

de Gaulle, because the colons backed the OAS,

murdered French

soldiers

served their

and

police,

which made him

feel

who

they de-

fate.

On March

18,

came

1962,

the agreement to end the war, in a 98-

page document, followed by a cease-fire the next

day.

To

his chagrin,

de Gaulle had to give up the oil-rich Sahara, which he had hoped

would become a French enclave.

who

Settlers

decided to stay would

be given a special legal status, but the actions of the

soned

The French and its

FLN

the

respected the cease-fire, but the

senseless killing, lobbing mortar rounds into the

to provoke a massacre of colons. at stake,

the

had poi-

hopes of the two communities coexisting.

all

kept up

OAS

showed great

OAS, was where

The Arab

restraint.

OAS

Casbah

masses, knowing what was

Bab-el-Oued, the

last

stronghold of

the poor-white colons were entrenched, those

without properties in France or fallback positions. So attached were they to their

OAS

way of life

that they did not realize that by backing the

they were hastening their

own

exodus.

On

April 20, Salan was

By

captured, his hair dyed black, defiant to the end.

were leaving by the thousands. bor for ships and clock

airlift

And

was

at

Long lines waited

then, the colons

for days at the har-

Maison Blanche Airport, where

a round-the-

in place.

so ended

more than 130 years of French

rule,

with these

forlorn families, the parents clutching a cardboard suitcase in one

hand and

a small child in the other, forced back to

sistance

from the

By

1,

July

state,

when 91% of

though they had forced

own. As

left

might have been

its

he real-

was part of the dustbin of history, and

that the

Fifth Republic under a

He

and travails were now a dissembler, but

war was destroying France. post until 1969.

out of a million. Algeria became an in-

all its difficulties

for de Gaulle, he

ized that colonialism

upon themselves.

the Algerian electorate voted for self-rule,

there were 170,000 colons

dependent republic, and

it

France to seek as-

new

In 1959, he

was named president of the

constitution,

and he remained

died in 1970 at the age of 80.

in that

Index

Abbas, Ferhat, 15-16,

Algerian Communist Party, Action

19

17,

Abd-el-Kader, 6-7

Service

Abdel-Kader, Ferradj, 107-8

Abderrahmane, Hamened, Abderrahmane, Taleb,

Abu Ghraib

151, 158

author's

109, 213, 216

colonial political structure

of, 8, 14,

French colonials French consuls

in, see colons

in,

French invasion

4

4-6

of,

independence won

by,

109, 110, 112, 145,

152-53, 198, 200-201, 233, 253,

Cold

War politics

cost

251, 261

of,

and, 254

xix-xx, 216,

in, 17,

20, 21, 108-9, 197, 211, 217-18,

232 of,

59

effect

Moslem population rule in,

of,

end

18

3-4

of,

91-92,

141,

264

266-70

56, 154-55, 164-66, 206, 217,

237-38, 251, 261

religious authorities in, 107

resistance to French rule

on author

of,

French anti-war sentiment and, xix,

as part of France, 8, 13, 126

14, 17

17,

cycle of violence and reprisals

266-70

Ottoman

on, 193, 238

268, 269

22

landscape

241, 261

59-101

bled portion of,

casualties in,

for, 59,

17-23

of,

Camus' views

110, 185

Algeria, 46, 51, 54, 55, 56

18,

204

sympathy

beginnings

prison, xix

Air France terminal,

of,

Algerian revolution:

in,

6-7,

13,

French troop strength

UN resolution on,

in,

150-51

23, 52,

253

INDEX

272

Algerian revolution [continued) as

unwinnable

Allaire, Captain

64-65, 182,

for French,

260-61

Alleg, Henri,

see also Algiers, Battle

86

5, 19, 25, 85,

in,

24

author's arrivals in, 57-58, 119,

author's departure from,

effects of

see also

264

FLN

background on,

188-97 in, 113, 127, 136, 137,

143, 145-50, 159

"golden youth"

of,

of, xvii,

U.S. consulate

in,

bombings

end

of,

first,

to,

in

for, 13,

supported

by, 105, 128,

French army,

14,

16-17,

209

20

French military attitudes toward, 54,

bombings warfare

b led

to,

60, 68, 83-84, 86, 94, 122, 128, 129

105-18

French recruiting

of,

224, 228

Realites Algeriennes "politeness" issue

regarding, 167-68

119-74 in,

minimal damage

175-201

see also

assignations a residence, 139, 155, 204,

in, xviii

236

urban terrorist tactics originated

in,

Associated Press, 264 Assumptionists, 39

xvii, 21

Algiers, University

of, 13,

Audin, Maurice, 204, 205, 206, 207

204, 269

Autonomous Zone (ZAA),

109,

Aussaresses, Paul, 224, 236

Ben M'Hidi

218

Algiers Court of Appeals, 207 Ali-la-Pointe, see

Moslems

Aslanian, Jean, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 265

inflicted in, xviii

second, 202-35

111,

by, 3

145

FLN

of:

interim period

Algiers

12-13,

178-81, 191, 196-97, 253

Berbers converted to Islam

202

231-35

participants

8, 11,

derogatory terms of colons

119

156

in,

in, see

change from

109

15,

Arabs:

268-69

Casbah

Algiers, Battle

234

106,

black Africans and, 61

return of paras

see also

of,

73, 79, 132-33, 143, 154, 176,

139

population

234

attitude of colons toward,

army putsch

1961 French

106,

232-34

American Solution, 9

xvii

para regiments removed from, 184-85 of,

of,

anti-Semitism,

general strike

police

death

of,

Saadi's recruitment

198

Galliero as author's friend and guide in,

"Ali-la-Pointe," 163, 185, 211,

226, 231

bombing campaign

111, 121, 154,

pieds-noir

Amar, Ali

263-64

119-21

of,

101,

255 Alsatians, 11-12, 179

anti-Mollet demonstration

description

204-7

ALN (National Liberation Army),

of

Algerian Workers' Union (UGTA), 137 Algiers,

"La Boulaya," 227-28,

233

Amar, Ali

killed by,

161-62

torture teams headed by, 116, 161,

207

273 background

baignoire, 157

Ben M'Hidi's

bananes, 68, 113

Bandung conference

116-17

of,

arrest and torture and,

159-61

(1955), 21

death

baraka, 69, 75, 90, 118, 132

Barberousse Prison, 106-7, 108,

173,

118

of,

film character based on, 265

187-88, 193-94, 207, 211, 215, 224,

ordered out of Algiers, 166, 226-27

232

regiment commanded

Barbie, Klaus, 213, 216-17

return to Algiers

by, see

3rd

R PC

217

of,

Saadi captured by, 219-20

Baret, Serge, 115

Barkley, Alben, 37

black berets (airborne commandos), 81-84

baroud, 54

bled, 126, 128, 167, 198,

265

Battle ofAlgiers, The,

Bayens, Andre, 72-73 8,

Belamine,

Mohamed,

10

Belkacem, Krim,

Ben

Bella,

arrest

first

17,

Ahmed,

in,

political

159, 162

23, 25, 129, 159

bleus,

complexity

bleus de chauffe, 224,

in

de Gaulle's army, 16-17

in

OS,

blue berets, see 1st

as

prime minister of Algeria, 264

18

Ben Bouali, Hassiba,

163, 185, 231,

92

in,

76-81, 96-97

227-29, 234

RCP

Bollardiere, Jacques Paris de, 164-65,

167

bombings, 108-11

232-34

of Ali-la-Pointe's hiding place, 233

Ben Hamdi, Badeche, 212 Ben Hamida (FLN

leader), 226,

Beni-Messous detention

234-35

center, 146, 155,

of Casino de

la

Corniche, 198-200,

202,211 casualties in, 109, 110, 145, 152-53,

224 beni oui-ouis, 92,

198, 200,

253

Ben Khedda, Benyoucef,

Ben M'Hidi,

159, 162

Larbi, 25, 231

arrest and torture

FLN positions

of,

159-62

held by, 25, 109, 111,

159

222

257, 259,

264

bidasses, 157

Bigeard, Marcel, 116-18, 137-38, 151-52, 156, 158, 202, 218, 223-24,

233

by French forces, 109 of Joinville restaurant, 152

of Milk Bar and Cafeteria, 110-11, 185

networks 151,

3,

Berger, Jean, 54, 56, 169-71, 245-52,

253

in,

51-52

Blida, 18

Berbers,

59-101

FLN's advantages

153

26

of,

part of Algerian revolution

conducted

Bedouins,

226

definition of, 59

for, xviii,

108-9, 144-45,

159, 162-63, 164, 185, 187,

197-98, 217-18, 223, 224 of Otomatic, Cafeteria, and

Coq

Hardi,

144-45, 187, 213 rationale

for, xvii,

20-21, 106, 110-11,

145, 161 in reprisal for

197-98

Ruisseau massacre,

NDEX

274

bombings

BRQ

{continued)

by right-wing underground group, 140-41

{bulletin de renseignement quotidien),

16, 11,

90

Bugeaud, Thomas-Robert, 7

of soccer stadiums, 152-53

burnous, 13

women's

Bush, George W., 34

role in, xviii, 108, 109,

144-45, 152, 162-63, 185-86, 228, cafeteria, 110, 144

231 in "

World War

bonne

blessure,"

II,

20-21

Camus, Albert, Casbah,

123

bordels militaires de

campagne (BMC), 70

Bouazza, Djamila, 144,

115, 116, 128, 143,

census taken

Boubakeur, Salem, 19-20

curfew

Bouhired, Djamila:

FLN's

185-87

136-37, 138,

124, 136, 182-83,

in,

202

political control of, 106, 221

120, 124,

of,

217-18 163,

paras' raids conducted in, 136, 138,

146-47, 151, 152, 218

185 post-trial life of, 216 trial of,

police

213-16

Bourges-Maunoury, Maurice,

152, 166,

260

105, 120, 136

author's tour

of,

220-23, 256, 262 Casino de

la

Corniche, 198-200, 202,

211

Catroux, Georges, 23-24, 25

73

Boutaleb (go-between for French and

FLN), 158-59 Major

109

in,

of, xvii,

Warburton and

Boumendjel, Ali, 154-55, 184, 204, 206

198, 211, 239,

bombings

population

Bouhired, Mustapha, 152, 158-59

Brissac,

185-86

in,

in, 116,

paras' enclosure

152,

of,

bombing campaign, 109-10,

bousbir,

145-46, 149,

146

Bouchafa, Mokta, 108-9

in

238

194,217, 237

Bouhired arrested

187, 213, 215,

216

arrests and interrogation

30, 188, 191-93,

30,

de, 135-37, 141,

143-44,

171, 173-74, 183,

187, 203, 207, 210,

34

Chachoune, Abdullah, 243-45, 262 Chachoune, Aisha, 239-45, 250-52, 256,

145-46, 148-49, 153, 157-58, 163-64, 167-68,

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 21,

212-13, 217, 231,

257, 262, 263,

264

Chamber of Deputies

(French), 5-6,

233-34, 238, 254, 256-58, 262-63,

Charles X, king of France, 5-6

264

Christianity, 4, 6,

French army newspaper run

by, see

243

Churchill, Winston, 16

Clark, Lewis, 119, 123-25, 129,257

Realties Algeriennes

Brodin, Bernard, 135-37, 146, 149,

155-58, 162, 164, 167, 168-69, 187, 201, 212-13, 246, 263,

7,

Chubb, Hendon, 29-30

author hired by, 125-29

264

Clausewitz, Karl von, 59 171,

CNRA (FLN

national council), 26

Code de Vlndigenat, 13-14

7,

8

INDEX Cohen, Georgette, 130-35, 141-43, 144, 153-54,

171, 188, 198,

targeted assassinations of leaders

242, 245, 250, 255-56, 260, 263

in

World War

see also

132-33

of,

husband

physical appearance

of,

second marriage

264

of,

xviii, 126, 140, 145, 155,

249-50

Compagnie Atlantique,

130

125,

256

concubinage, 45

Cohen, Julien, 130-31, 133,

consuls, French, 4

135, 142,

Coq

182-84

52—53

coincer la bulle,

15-16

162, 163-64, 191-92, 204, 213-14,

Cohen, Julien

of, see

II,

pieds-noir

Communists,

182, 184

background

of,

111-12

200, 203,

author's affair with, 134-35, 142-43,

first

275

Hardi, 144-45, 187, 213

Cossard, Lucien, 66-68, 76-77

Cold War, 254

Coty, Rene, 107, 158, 210, 212

Colonial Infantry, 56

crevettes Bigeard,

author's regiment in, see 1st Regiment,

"cross, the bell,

139

and the

pig, the," 6

Colonial Infantry

nickname

for, 61,

Dar el Islam, 6

66

colonialism, 106, 136, 180, 211, 214, 261

Bandung conference description

of,

Daridan, Jean, 171-74 Davies, Don, 129-31, 139, 175, 260,

on, 21

263

3

colons, 39, 52, 60, 73, 111, 147, 189,

209,

death penalty,

220, 237, 239, 252, 270 Alsatian, 11-12, 112

Arab

as

viewed

by, 8, 11, 12-13, 73,

Gaulle, Charles, 22,

arrival

196-97, 253 of,

xix-xx, 267-70

extremist,

in

made

French

ideology

of,

in

76

270

power

World War

of,

II,

56, 253,

266-70

16-17, 33, 44, 112,

114, 141

Depeche

by, 14

political upheavals, 253,

of, 13,

of,

political

see ultras

FLN extortion fortunes

death

7-12

23-24

Algeria given independence by,

79, 132-33, 143, 154, 176, 178-81, 191,

246

see also guillotine

De

killings of, 17

Arabs

5, 107, 111, 153, 155, 172,

211, 216, 223,

178-81

267

d'Alger, 15

Deuxieme Bureau, 257-63 dey

(Ottoman governor), 3-4, 6

Islam denigrated by, 13

Diallo, Sergeant, 70-72, 73-74, 75

land ownership by,

Dien Bien Phu,

lower

8,

10-12, 14

class, 143

Mollet's

government

as

viewed

by,

116-17

du Territoire

(DST), 255-57, 258-59, 260, 263 "disappeared" suspects, 236, 238

24 political

19, 113,

Direction et Surveillance

power

population

of, 14,

Domain

18

of, xvii, 7, 9, 10, 18,

270

of the State agency,

douar, 10-11, 86,95, 122

8, 10, 11

INDEX

276

Dourakine, Boris, 66-70,

84-90, 92, 94,

DPU

121,

71,

73-74, 77,

as sole para regiment in Algiers,

184-85

134-35

(Urban Protection Disposition),

1st

Regiment, Colonial Infantry:

Algerian base

115, 137

Drif, Zohra, 109-10, 163, 185, 211,

author as intelligence officer

230-32, 265 drole de guerre,

59

of,

author as platoon leader

author's choosing

in bled,

mission types given

18, 23, 38, 115

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 207-8

59-101

monthly brothel

of 1830, 5-6

of 1956, 23

slogan third

of 1948, 37

1st

of,

of,

56, 61, 62, 68,

96

65,

in 1st

of,

268-69

156

charge of Algiers suburbs, 116

RPC

(Regiment des Parachutistes

Coloniaux) (red berets), in charge of

167

downtown

FLN

Fanon, Franz, 149

of,

for, 105,

128,

209

Berger and, 248-50

72

Faulques, Roger, 156-57, 163, 206

in bled,

59-101

bombing campaign

20

Casbah controlled

feu a volonte, 63 Fifth Republic, 267, 270

cell

structure

of,

of, see

bombings

by, 106

144

Committee of Coordination and

(Regiment de Chasseurs

Execution

Parachutistes) (blue berets):

Alleg arrested and tortured

Algiers, 116

(National Liberation Front):

Arab support

Farouk, king of Egypt, 18

fels, definition of,

60-61

227, 230, 232, 233, 234-35,

22-23

fatmas, definition

of,

[Regiment Etranger Parachutiste)

bad reputation

espionage, 254-55

of,

charge of Algiers suburbs,

116,

of,

159

de Gaulle's army as source of leaders

by,

204-6

197

by troops

(green berets), 163, 184, 202, 226,

239

see also loi-cadre

El Halia mine,

of,

company

REP

of 1958, 220, 223 electoral colleges, 18, 22,

of,

92-93

87-88, 93, 100

elections, U.S.:

reprisal for

visits

Senegalese troops

of 1849, 10

in

to,

70-74, 76

elections, French:

RCP

63,

56

of,

Egypt,

1st

in,

author's rank in, 56, 61, 72, 125

Ecole de Caporal, 46-51

L',

76-92

64, 70-76

d'Alger,-L\ 162, 164, 251

Express,

in,

92-101

author as transportation officer

33

Duval, Archbishop, 107, 149, 166

Echo

in,

202

murder of two members

16-17

executions of members

of,

107-8, 111,

211-13, 223 final negotiations and,

267-69

INDEX

first

campaigns

forerunner

founding

19-23

of,

277

Fossey-Francois, Albert, 116, 154, L84

French sympathizers

of,

26

of,

163-64,

401st Anti-Aircraft Regiment, 46

Fourcade, Major, 64-65, 96

236-37

Fourth Republic,

136, 137, 143, 145-50, 159

"internals" vs. "externals"

of,

Algeria invaded by, 4-6

25

anti-war sentiment

Mollet's declaration of war against, 24 of,

26

of, 8, 10, of,

Fourth Republic

outside assistance

79-80

to, 23,

26-27,

56, 198, 239, 252-53,

111,

Second Empire

254-55

pro-French Arabs

of,

Second Republic

105n

in,

of,

22, 23, 127,

of, 18,

political upheavals in, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11,

115

"probationers"

248, 270

267, 270

261,266-67

151

killed by,

power struggle

56,

251, 261

constitutions

Fifth Republic

as nationalists, xviii of,

in, xix,

154-55, 164-66, 206, 217, 237-38,

242

Leger's infiltration group and, 224

newspaper

261,

France, 96

Islamic moral strictures enforced by,

national council

18, 22, 23, 127,

266-67

general strike organized by, 113, 127,

106, 221,

by, see 1st

RPC; 2nd RPC

19

French hijacking of leaders

Ouakrim

commanded

regiments

to, 18

of,

10

of, 8,

secret talks between

Syria and

86-87, 92

secret talks

between France and,

158-59, 181,229

by, 17

of, 11

Vichy government

162-63

of,

and,

Lebanon given up

Third Republic

reformation

10

FLN

158-59, 181, 229

killed by, 79-81,

recruitment into, 106

266-69

of, 15, 16,

in

World War

I,

in

World War

II, 15,

109

14 33, 48, 127, 139,

141

size of, 112

slang term for

members

of,

20

Soummam summit conference of,

France, Anatole, 179

Free French, 33, 214

French army:

25-26, 109

16-17, 20

tax collection by, 76-77, 79, 218, 225

Arabs

UN recognition of,

author

at

author

at officers' training school in,

weapons used

151

19-20,

by,

111,

225,

in, 14,

Ecole de Caporal

in,

47-51

53-56

255 Foreign Legion,

121-23, 229

21,

greeting used

in,

123

122-23, 170-71

mentality

of,

motto

106, 233

of,

see also 1st

REP

author

at sergeant's school in,

author conscripted

into,

51-52

38-39

author's basic training period

in,

41-47 Berger's desertion from, 245-52, 264

INDEX French army {continued) conscripts

Gramont, Gabriel

237

death

French government as viewed

by, 56,

266-69

to,

of,

Gramont

green berets,

code, 8 in Algeria, see colons

French Indochina,

see

French Resistance,

as tribute

de, 28, 31,

33-34,

family, 32-33, 62, 130, 182

Great Britain,

see also specific units

civil

30, 72

Graziani, Jean, 186-88

54, 82, 98

French colonials,

of,

240, 243

23, 52,

68, 253 of,

243

141,

39

Gramont, Mariette

troop strength in Algeria

French

33-34,

diplomatic career

political upheavals and, 56,

weapons

of, 31,

Morgan's military service

127, 138, 261

French

de, 28, 31-34, 119,

259

41-43, 52, 64,

in, 23,

Indochina

6, 8, 15, 16,

see 1st

33-34

REP

Guantanamo, xix guillotine, 107-8, 155, 187,211,212-13,

216, 233

15, 19, 25, 139, 155,

238

165, 170,

Hacene, Gandriche (Zerrouk), 218-19,

French revolutions: of 1789,

5, 13,

of 1848,

8,

of 1870,

11

226-28, 232, 234

249

Hacene, Latifa, 219, 227-28, 232, 234

10

Hadj, Messali,

Froger, Amedee, 111-12, 129, 212

18, 19, 21

Harvard University,

37,

43

Hattab, Rachid, 215

252-53

Gaillard, Felix, 239,

Hocine, Ait-Ahmed, 21, 26

Galliero, Sauveur, 188-97, 198-200,

220, 221, 222, 238, 260, 263, 264

Hollywood Reporter, 128 "hour of the gendarme,"

Gauloise bombs, 225-26

Hugo, Francois, 32-33

Gautier, Emile, 13

Hugo, George, 32 Hussein

Gautron, Eliane, 163 gegene, 157-58, 169-70, 205,

(dey),

17

4

206

Geneva Convention, 87

Imhof, Hans, 156, 220, 246, 259-60

Germany, Federal Republic of (West

Indochina, xviii, xix,

Germany), 23

Germany, Imperial,

164, 170,

236

173, 217

115, 157,

44

interrogation centers, xix, 139, 151, 161,

268

Government-General (GG), 239, 242, 269

187,214,258

intendance,

202-4, 207, 217,

219, 224, 226, 227-30,

257,

164,

insoumis, 14

Gille, Rene, 156

Godard, Yves,

60, 64, 67, 73,

116-17, 126, 137, 140, 156-57, 161,

11

Germany, Nazi, 15-16, Gestapo, 139, 155,

18,

82, 89, 93, 94, 95, 96, 112, 113, 114,

169, 186, Iraq,

204

34

Iraq War, xvii-xviii, xix-xx

INDEX 243-45

Islam, 15, 73, 216,

anti-Christian sentiment

Berbers converted colon denigration

to,

Lavigne, Sergeant, 59-60,

FLN's enforcement of moral 106, 221,

Of,

law code

of, 8,

Lawrence, T.

3

under,

99

E.,

Leger, Alain, 224-25, 226, 227-29, 232

Max,

26, 166

242

Lenoir, Major,

225-26

10

Leopard

strictures

polygamy and, 9

women

9,

Lejeune,

Life,

12-13, 186, 222,

251

(officers' club),

203, 207

269

"Linguistic Variations in Orgasmic

Phonation" (Dourakine), 134-35

see also

Moslems

Janissaries, 4

loi-cadre,

238-39, 252, 253, 260

"looking

at the blue line

of the Vosges,"

65

Jeanpierre, Colonel, 116, 156, 163, 166, 184, 226-27,

229-30, 233

regiment commanded

Louis-Philippe, king of France,

6, 8

Louis XVI, king of France, 5

by, see 1st

REP

Jeanson, Francis, 236-37, 238

Mangin, Louis, 211-12

Jews,

Mannoni, Eugene, 184

15,

71, 72, 87, 88,

89, 90-91, 93-97, 98, 100-10]

in, 4, 6, 7

13

of,

279

143

Joinville restaurant, 152

Manour, Hassan, 149-50

Juin, Alphonse-Pierre, 16

Massu, Jacques,

xviii,

126-27, 129, 130,

131, 146, 148, 149, 154, 155, 163,

Kennedy, John Khider,

F.,

207-10, 220-21, 223

Mohammed, 26

165, 167, 174, 178, 184, 187, 201,

210, 219, 224, 226, 227, 230, 231,

Koran, 77, 249, 262

254, 257, 260, 266, 267

Kovacs, Rene, 140-41

appointed as head of security in Algiers, 114-15

Kurds, xviii

author's

La

bess?,

Lacoste, Robert, 112-14, 115, 140, 158,

\65-66, 182, 197, 209, 212, 231, 251, 252-53, 262,

Algerian policy

of,

25, 107-8,

239

Algeria, 25

Lakhdari, Samia, 109-11

Laroche, Sergeant, 71, 72, 89, 90-91,

93-96, 98-100 Lastours, Henri de, 61-65, 70, 73-81, 82,

84-85, 90-92, 101

of,

114 by,

161-62

Bigeard ordered out of Algiers

by, 166

Ben M'Hidi's death ordered

detention and search powers given

266

appointed governor-general of

Laval, Pierre, 15

meeting with, 124-25

background

83

115,

to.

138-39

FLN's general

strike and, 136, 137

gegene tried by, 157-58

para regiments brought back to Algiers by, 202, 217

paratroop division

commanded

by, see

10th Paratroop Division Realties Algenennes' "politeness" issue

and, 167-68

NDEX

280

Massu, Suzanne Rosenberg,

114, 124,

assimilated, 18

Code de llndigenat applied

to,

mechtas, 82

French citizenship barred

to,

Medaille Militaire, 17

Senegalese troops

167-68, 178, 186, 187

mektoub, 11, 263

see also

Merillon, Pierre, 258-63

as,

13-14 8-9, 14

61

Arabs

Moujahid, 151, 232

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 264

moujik, 13

met table, 199

Mozabites, 222

military tribunals, 172-74, 213-17

Murphy, Frank,

Milk

Murphy, Robert, 15-16

Bar, 110-11, 139-40, 185

36,

38-39

Minne, Danielle, 144-45

Napoleon

Mitterrand, Francois, 159

Mohammed

V, sultan of Morocco,

Napoleon

Mollet, Guy, 26, 115, 155, 158, 166, 236

election

of,

of,

emperor of France,

24-25

III,

ultras'

demonstration against, 24

Gamal Abdel,

198

18, 155, 214,

Arab and

Monnerot, Guy and Janine, 20

post-World

Morgan, Ted: 38-39,

arrest and questioning

of,

childhood

Negroponte

255-63

33-36

of, 31,

of,

French army,

32-33

see

French army

of,

38

as staff writer for

newspaper,

family,

see

FLN

34-35

York Herald Tribune, 237, 264, 269

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO),

23, 208,

254

French military

see Realties

Algeriennes

23, 26, 111, 114, 209,

Organisation de l'Armee Secrete (OAS),

268-70 Organisation Secrete (OS), 18-19

267

Otomatic, 144

Ottoman Empire,

Moslems: Algeria population

de renseignement (OR), 76

Oran, 18,21, 107,251,269

Yale University, 28-30 7,

101,

York, N.Y., 34-36, 259

ofjicier

prisoner killed by, 91-92

Morocco,

rise of, 17

Army (ALN),

269

name change

at

II

Nobel Prize, 238

as journalist, 30-31, 36-39, 125, 128,

237, 264,

War

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 21

New New

243-44

family history in

Islamic, 15, 19, 126

National Liberation Front,

39

8, 9, 11, 14,

255

51,

54-55, 62-63, 65, 141

254

239, 253

National Liberation

apolitical nature of, 31,

of,

18, 26, 115, 210,

nationalism:

Monde, he, 184

atheism

emperor of France, 10-11,

National Assembly (French),

23

of,

of,

38, 61,

267 Nasser,

ouster

anti-military attitude

5,

68, 136

26-27

Algerian policy

I,

of,

18

3

Ouakrim (FLN tax

collector),

79-80

INDEX Pace, Eric, 269

Rabah, Hassan, 158

paras (French paratroopers), 54, 56

commandos

airborne

281

of,

81-84

racism,

13, 16

Ramadan,

4,

182

1958 coup and, 266-67

Ramadier, Paul, 18

removed from Algiers, 184-85

Ramdane, Abane, 20-21,

return to Algiers

202

of,

25, 105-6, 109,

110-11, 159, 162

suspects "disappeared" by, 236,

238

rappeles,

46

razzia, 7

torture used by, see torture

weapons used

Realites Algeriennes, 210, 253,

author as staff writer

by, xviii

10th Paratroop Division;

see also

137, 162, 182, 213, 217, 234,

238-39

specific regiments

Paris, 26, 28, 49, 113, 130, 133, 166,

229

first issue of, 137,

mission

liberation

of, 16, 114,

Morgan's childhood uprisings

in, 6,

145-46

127-28

other staff writer

127

in,

of,

of, see

"politeness" issue

167-68

of,

Reda, Hattab, 197, 223-24

pays de connaissance, 62

red berets, 202

pegre, 106

see also 1st

RPC; 2nd RPC; 3rd RPC

Petain, Philippe, 15

Rhine Observer, 10

petits bla?ics, 143

Rodier, Major, 140

Roman Empire,

266

pieds-noirs, 155, 175, 211, 260,

265

anti-Arab riots by, 111-12, 201

Camus

224 Ali-la-Pointe's hiding place given

away

53

la,

plastic explosives,

background

see 1st

Regiment, Colonial

bombing operations

capture

92

La

quille, la, 59.

106

(Alleg), 205,

led by, 108-11,

217-18

primogeniture, 9

Question,

of,

145, 152-53, 162-63, 197-98,

Infantry

quadrillage,

234

The Battle ofAlgiers and, 265

94

premier RIC,

by, 232,

author's meeting with, 265

1 1

Pontecorvo, Gillo, 265 popote, 66,

Ruisseau massacre, 197

Saadi, Yacef, 107, 152, 185-86, 213, 214,

78

piracy, 4, 112, 119

planque,

3

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 16

193

as,

origin of term, 111-12 pipelette,

Brodin,

Bernard

31

8

Paris-Match, 269

Pflimlin, Pierre,

256

127-28,

at,

of,

218-20, 226-32

Froger's assassination and,

207

111

political goals of, 106

Tillion's

meetings with, 211-12

INDEX

282

Sahara,

142, 182-84, 222,

9, 14, 131, 135,

253, 270

Teitgen, Paul, 139, 155, 184, 204, 236-37

224

Said, Fares,

tableau de chasse, 101

"Tahya el-Djazair", 107

Saint-Maixent, 53-56, 169

Temoignage

Salan, Raoul, 112-14, 115, 121, 125,

Temps Modernes,

140-41, 160, 165, 166-67, 198, 231, 253, 266, 267, 268, 270

Chretien, 149,

Les,

231

10th Paratroop Division, 114-15 in

FLN-led general

strike,

formation and regiments

Sante prison, 26

236-37

Sartre, Jean-Paul,

given police powers in Algiers, 115 interrogation centers

RPC

146-50

of, 114, 116,

137-38

Second Empire, 10

2nd

\55-56

(Regiment des Parachutistes

Coloniaux) (red berets), 149, 184

Boumendjel tortured and

killed by,

154-55

of, see

interrogation centers

nickname

of,

127

size of, xviii, 116, 137

tenueleopard, 55

Second Republic,

3rd

10

8,

RPC

{Regiment des Parachutistes

Coloniaux) (red berets), 151, 158-59,

self-determination, 18 Senate, U.S., 207-10, 223

161, 218,

223

charge of Casbah,

137-38

senate (French), 10, 14

in

Senegalese troops, 56, 61, 68

ordered out of Algiers, 166, 226 return to Algiers

Setif, 11, 17

Seznec, Alain, 43-44, 45, 46, 47-50, 51, 53,

264

Third Republic, Tillion,

of,

116,

217

11

Germaine, 210-12, 231-32

Seznec, Janet, 43, 49-50, 53, 264

Times (London), 6

Sharia law,

Timsit, Daniel, 108-9, 111

8,

10

torture, 116, 236,

Shiites, xviii

anti-war sentiment created by reports

slavery, 4, 61

Slimane,

Mohammed,

171-74

soccer, soccer stadiums, 19,

Soliman (Egyptian

spy),

of,

254-55

by Aussaresses, Battle of Algiers

Soustelle, Jacques, 22-23, 24

Supreme Court,

1

won through

regarding, 206, 211

given under, 212

by Faulques, 156-57 U.S.,

Syria, 17, 24, 63, 112

29

use

commissions of inquiry formed

10

false confessions

Sunnis, xviii

224

of Boumendjel, 154-55

Suez, 114-15, 129, 206, 209, 254

Ottoman, 3-4

116, 161, 207,

xviii-xix, 151

spahis, 20, 60, 72, 76, 77

suicide bombers, xvii-xviii,

xix, 154-55, 164-66, 206, 217,

237-38

152-53

Sorbonne, 28, 29, 53, 155, 214, 263-64

sultan,

265

of Alleg, 204-6

Sidi Ferruch, 5, 16

at

Guantanamo, xix

in

Indochina, xix, 95, 156-57

of,

INDEX information gained through use 151, 157, 158. 159, 163,

of,

204, 206,

223

283

valise

ou

le cerceuil, la,

261

Vernon, 41-47, 48, 49, 53

in Iraq,

Vichy government,

xix

methods

of,

156-57, 170

morality

of,

xix, 157

Vietnam, see also

xviii,

15, 16, 33,

109

266

Indochina

Voix du Soldat, La, 204

by Nazis, 139, 155, 164, 173

Volunteers of Death, 254

torture {continued)

paras given no directives on use

of,

Walbert, Denise, 163

144 secret para unit

and Slimane's

war:

for, 161

trial,

171-74

author's views on, 81, 90, 141, 169,

transit camps, 184

261,

264

tribalism, 10

Clausewitz on, 59

Trinquier, Roger, 115-16, 136-37, 138

guerrilla, 84,

209

Lawrence on, 99

Trois Glorieuses uprising, 6

Tunisia, 4, 23, 26, 114, 209, 218, 252,

Warburton, Barclay

H., Ill,

220-23, 256,

262

267

Anne Robert Jacques, 209

Turgot,

181, 253,

Verges, Jacques, 213-17, 237

Washington,

DC, 33,

34, 72, 259

wilayas, 15, 109, 111, 162

tutoiement, 168

Williams, Alan, 269

UGTA

(Algerian Workers' Union), 137

women,

ultras, 107, 113

demonstrations and violence

by, 24,

United Nations,

18, 23, 36, 113, 136, 145,

150-51, 208

France from, 117

French immigration

to, 9,

12

9,

12-13, 186, 222, 251

255

World War

I,

World War

II,

14, 92,

189

15-17, 20-21, 24, 28,

33-34,48,93, 112-13,

and, xviii

Suez and, 206

World War

role of, xviii, 108,

109, 144, 152, 162-63, 167, 185-86,

Worcester Telegram, 36-39, 125, 149,

207-10, 254

in

prison, xix

231

Algerian independence and, 15-16,

War

22, 170

Abu Ghraib

under Islam,

United States:

Iraq

at

bombing campaign

267-69

aid to

Wingate, Orde, 209

141 II,

Wretched of the Earth, T/;^(Fanon), 149

15-16

United States Information Agency,

American Library

at,

129, 131, 139,

263

Urban Protection Disposition (DPU), 115, 137

114, 127, 139,

Yale University, 28-30 yaouleds, 106,

Yazid,

240

Mohammed,

21

Yveton, Fernand, 155

INDEX

284

ZAA

(Autonomous Zone of Algiers), 109, 111, 218

Zabana, Ahmed, 107-8 Zerrouk,

see

Hacene, Gandriche

Zimmer, Francois,

176, 178-81

Zimmer, Genevieve, 175-82, 260, 263 zouaves, 116, 120, 148, 185-86, 187,

224-25, 230

itinued from front flap)

beach casino

He becomes is

as he

«st

is

going

in for

k-ncn.

ioned with the war and what

disiltu

doing to his country. He

is

it

himself arrestea, but

not for the real offense he committed, helping a

deserter to escape.

Though the events Ted Morgan describes

happened nearly

half a century

might as well have taken place

TED MORGAN

is

ago in

in

today.

the author of several biogra-

FDR;

Pulitzer Prize);

Somerset Maugham

Life

Algiers, they

Baghdad

phies, including

the National

so vividly

Churchill (a finalist for the (a finalist for

Book Award); Literary Outlaw: The

and Times of William

S.

Burroughs; and two

epic narrative histories of the settling of America,

Wilderness at

Dawn and A Shovel

most recent book

is

of Stars. His

Reds: McCarthyism

in

Twentieth-

Century America. As Sanche de Gramont, he was the only French citizen to win the Pulitzer Prize (for

journalism). Ted

Visit

Morgan

lives in

www.AuthorTracker.com

New York

City.

tor exclusive

information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Ja J* Aut'

jy Kristine Mills-Noble

aph

©

Bettmann/CORBIS

.ph by Eileen

Bresnahan Morgan

X

A

compelling personal account of the story behind the story of one of the most excit-

ing events of our times,

IMy

Battle of Algiers] reads like a novel, but

isn't.

Of special

relevance today: Algiers was a training ground for the insurgents of Baghdad, but

— by

comparison

—

FLN

which Ted Morgan writes about with such immediacy and which shocked

girls,

it

was

also a kindergarten. The

the world at the time,

French

civilians.

were the

None

of the

bombs placed

in

Algiers' bistros by Yacef's

Lucky Strike packets; each

size of

FLN was

killed half a

suicide bombers, none exploded

hundreds, but the parallels with Iraq alone

make Ted Morgan

bombs

dozen to

kill

a must-read/'

-ALISTAIR HORNE, AUTHOR OF A SAVAGE WAR OF PEACE: ALGERIA 1954-1962

fc u

Part coming-of-age memoir, part eyewitness to history, Ted Morgan's

Algiers lived

is

it.

the real Mccoy.

I

covered the Algerian

War

of that earlier conflict that

-JONATHAN

C.

war

Morgan

in

Iraq

may

Battle of

of Independence, but

His account of the battle of Algiers rings as true today as

ago. Americans horrified by the

My

uneasily recognize

so vividly has brought back to

it

Morgan

did half a century

many

of the lessons

life."

RANDAL, AUTHOR OF OSAMA: THE MAKING OF A TERRORIST

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-085224-5 ISBN-10: 0-06-085224-0 5 2 4

9

5

O

Smithsonian Books

C

Collins An

78006 0" 852245

Imprint of HarperCollinsPub/ishers

www.harpercollins.com