3. How the Army was Subdued:
ALAN, RAY
3. How the Army Was Subdued By Ray Alan Paris While General de Gaulle purges his Army and the Surete rounds up the mutineers' civilian associates, thoughtful Frenchmen may be tempted to...
...None of these four generals appears to have had any clear-cut political ideas beyond stepping up the "pacification" of Algeria and blocking negotiations with the Algerian nationalists...
...His gun, insecurely fastened, broke loose in the battery of the ship: With every movement of the rough sea it reeled and rolled and tumbled— crushing, killing, devastating...
...No one doubts that whatever de Gaulle may propose in the near future will be approved by the nation...
...But the Government of France is already far too highly centralized for most democratic consciences, and to centralize it still further will merely make it easier for extremists of the right or left to seize power when de Gaulle relinquishes it...
...Right-wing commentators lay a maximum of blame on "the German mercenaries in the Foreign Legion...
...Algeria, they swore, would be different: There the world would be shown what French officers could achieve...
...The Government's only response was to transfer officers suspected of harboring activist thoughts from garrison to garrison, as often as possible, presumably in order to disrupt whatever conspiratorial webs they might be spinning...
...He was decorated with the captain's own Cross of Saint Louis...
...Ray Alan is a British correspondent who has reported on Europe, Africa and the Middle East for many years...
...Liberals rejoice that there are now no impediments—civilian or military —to the early opening of negotiations between French and Algerian representatives...
...It is not simply that he gave his blessing to, and rode to power on, a broadly similar revolt in May 1958...
...France's Government-operated radio and television are loudly praising de Gaulle's courage, sang-froid and determination—and, in essence, they are right...
...General Raoul Salan, the French Army's most decorated officer, was the first active officer publicly to urge de Gaulle to assume power in May 1958...
...Their" war was the Indochina campaign, and it ended in ashes and humiliation...
...Who else would have dared order the Navy, the gendarmerie and loyal Army units to shoot, if necessary, to crush the revolt...
...Wounded national pride inhibits discussion even more than the emergency regulations...
...More humiliation followed in Tunisia and Morocco...
...Government spokesmen have begun dropping hints to this effect and stressing the need for "greater discipline" and "increased loyalty...
...Most were veteran plotters who had helped undermine the Fourth Republic— parachutists, intelligence officers and enthusiasts for psychological warfare who had studied Chinese Communist boss Mao Tse-tung and tried to graft his tactical teaching onto "corporativist" and "National-Catholic" theories derived from Italian fascism, Spanish falangism and French "synarchism...
...At Mostaganem, near Algiers, he adopted the colon slogan Vive l'Algérie française...
...But they, too, were soon dismayed by the hostility of the mass of Frenchmen...
...But they fear that General de Gaulle, exploiting his enhanced prestige, may shortly ask the nation to approve constitutional changes giving him more power and the already emasculated Parliament less...
...A Left-wing paper has detected a joint American-Vatican-German plot against France...
...France's colonels—the angry young men and frustrated theorists of the Army—were even more avid than the generals for victory in Algeria...
...But de Gaulle's share of responsibility for the tragedy is heavy, and many of the officers who rallied round him rather than plunge France into civil war are only slightly less severe in their criticism of his "duplicity" than the generals and colonels who are now under arrest...
...Challe snapped: "Does de Gaulle really believe that French officers can be bought for a few bits of ribbon...
...The British, who were credited with organizing the May 1958 coup, have not yet been inculpated...
...From his retirement in February 1956 until May 1958, General Andre Zeller conducted a vigorous press campaign in the Gaullist interest...
...De Gaulle's admirers were gloating over the President's skill in easing French opinion, step by step, speech by speech, along the path from Algérie française to Algérie algérienne, and his cunning in decorating and promoting out of Algeria the officers who had most conspicuously committed themselves to defend French sovereignty there...
...They were disillusioned and demoralized within 72 hours—when they discovered, first, that de Gaulle was quite willing to shed their blood and their supporters', and, second, that the floodtide of militaristic chauvinism which the 1958 coup had been able to exploit in Metropolitan France had now receded, leaving the average Frenchman allergic to the whole Algerian mess and hostile to mutinous officers...
...Heroically, the gunner tussled with it and lashed it down...
...Although the April 22 coup came as a surprise, it was not surprising that General Challe's sense of honor had driven him to play a leading part in it...
...3. How the Army Was Subdued By Ray Alan Paris While General de Gaulle purges his Army and the Surete rounds up the mutineers' civilian associates, thoughtful Frenchmen may be tempted to re-read Victor Hugo's story of the master-gunner of the corvette Claymore...
...Having achieved power, he and his ministers continued to encourage both military and civilian partisans of Algérie française in the belief that he was their ally...
...Doubts about his sincerity, and indignation at his transfer of General Jacques Massu, the popular parachutist commander, provoked the civilian "barricades" uprising of January 1960...
...In January 1961 he resigned from the Army...
...The dangerous men of the mutiny were the seven or eight colonels in the background...
...There is as yet little serious analysis of the crisis in the press...
...then one may expect to hear more of the activist colonels and their doctrines...
...The mastergunner should always bear in mind the storms that may lie ahead...
...That our pledged word can be cancelled like a bad check...
...More than 1,000 such transfers were made in the 12 months preceding April 22...
...Inevitably, one widely-read (non-Communist) weekly has blamed "the Americans" for the mutiny and accused President Kennedy and the CIA of wanting to replace de Gaulle with someone more likely to toe the Washington line in NATO...
...In his letter of resignation he wrote: "I gave the Army a pledge that France would remain in Algeria...
...The Army, they add, has had a bad scare and is dismayed and demoralized, and senior and middle-grade officers in particular are likely to be on their best behavior for the next few years —at least until the problem of de Gaulle's succession arises...
...They were in touch with sympathetic officers and half a dozen neo-fascist groups, ex-servicemen's leagues and crackpot "networks" (réseaux) in many parts of France, and they were eager to "jump on Paris...
...Neo-fascist "activism" became the fashionable colonel's hobby...
...None of them wished to shed French blood or take the responsibility for starting a civil war, and they were convinced that de Gaulle would be equally cautious...
...The other three members of the "quartet of retired generals" (de Gaulle's contemptuous phrase) also felt that they had been personally betrayed by the President of the Fifth Republic...
...On his first visit to Algeria after the coup of May 13, 1958, he assured vast crowds of settlers and troops: "France is here to stay—for ever...
...Then, since his negligence had brought on the disaster, he was shot...
...Their formative years were overshadowed by the 1940 defeat and the GaullistPétainist schism of 1940-44...
...General Edmond Jouhaud, too, committed himself fully on de Gaulle's behalf as the Fourth Republic collapsed, and the fact that he was born in Algeria heightened ihe passion with which he campaigned for Algerie francaise and, ultimately, denounced his leader's perfidy...
...This, of course, simply enabled the most persuasive activists to extend the range of their influence and contacts —how effectively cannot be judged, since the early collapse of the mutiny gave them no chance to collaborate...
...Parachutist and other Army officers were dissuaded from supporting the uprising only when General Maurice Challe assured them that he had received a pledge from de Gaulle that Algeria would remain French...
...De Gaulle wrote to him: "I wish to thank you for the help you have given me and to pay tribute to your honorable conduct I consider you not only a very great general but my companion and friend...
...but the policy of the Government is no longer compatible with this pledge" Challe's friends say that he considered de Gaulle's aboutface a personal insult as well as a slight on the honor of the French Army...
...No civilian leader now in sight could have isolated the mutineers and retained the loyalty of the greater part of the armed forces as effectively as he did...
...Under a Pierre Pflimlin or a Guy Mollet, the Fifth Republic would probably have collapsed as abjectly as the Fourth...
...Civil security officials are now confident that the Algiers abscess has been finally lanced and that General de Gaulle will have no more trouble with the extreme Right on this issue...
...His ministers and officials went on talking like this for the next 18 months, though he himself adopted more sibylline language and methodically promoted the leading "activist" officers to staff or garrison duties in France and Germany...
...Only Yves Godard and Jean Gardes were at all well known to the general public...
...Challe, whom de Gaulle had personally appointed Commander-inChief of Algeria, repeated the President's pledge in Army messes throughout the country and declared over Algiers radio: "The French Army is fighting here in order that Algeria shall remain permanently French...
...Then de Gaulle, a remote starchy survival from a period they would rather forget, emerged as an agent of "humiliation...
...they believed that it would be sufficient to hold Algeria for only a few weeks while military and civilian opinion compelled de Gaulle, in the cause of national reconciliation, to come to terms with them or resign...
...In March 1960 Challe was kicked upstairs and nominated NATO Commander for Central Europe...
Vol. 44 • May 1961 • No. 19
