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A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-62
A Savage War of Algeria, 1954-62.
608 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Alistair Horne
69 books182 followersSir Alistair Allan Horne was an English journalist, biographer and historian of Europe, especially of 19th and 20th century France. He wrote more than 20 books on travel, history, and biography. He won the following awards: Hawthornden Prize, 1963, for The Price of Glory; Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize and Wolfson Literary Award, both 1978, both for A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962; French Légion d'Honneur, 1993, for work on French history;and Commander of the British Empire (CBE), 2003.
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April 27, 2016
When the New York Review of Books republished this in 2006, a lot was made of its relevance to modern US-led adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is kind of true, but also a bit irritating (because a well-told history like this shouldn't require modern parallels to be worth reading), and for that matter also overstated – the differences were really more striking to me than the similarities. America was fighting in a foreign country. France was not, and that was really the whole point. I don't think I had appreciated before quite how French Algeria was considered to be. It wasn't like neighbouring Morocco or Tunisia. Those were French protectorates, administered by the foreign office; but Algeria came under the interior ministry, and on paper it was as French as Normandy or Provence. The French had been there since 1830, and generations of European families – the so-called pieds noirs – had grown up there who had never set foot in mainland France. Here's the (left-wing) French PM in 1953:
This is one reason why the Algerian War was characterised by such total intransigence on each side. In Paris it was politically unthinkable to imagine giving up an integral part of France itself; the pieds noirs were fighting for the survival of their whole world; and the French military were desperate not to lose again after humiliation in 1940 and later in Indochina. On the Muslim side, it was a simple matter of liberty and representation, which had been denied them to an extraordinary extent. Unlike, say, the British in India, who had trained a whole middle class of native administrators and civil servants that could gradually take over as the British pulled back, the French had allowed only the most token participation from Muslims in Algerian affairs.
One of the most depressing things about this story is how many good viable alternatives to war were clearly available in the 1950s. At first there was a huge middle ground of Europeans and Muslims who would have been very happy with interim solutions – a protectorate, for example, or quotas to ensure Muslim representation in state councils. Again and again such ideas were shot down by hawks in Paris and by the burgeoning independence movement in Algeria. And once they had finished shooting down ideas, they started shooting down people. Gradually – in a process that becomes a theme of this book – moderates were turned, one by one, into extremists.
It was a very violent conflict. The nationalist FLN was basically just a sprinkling of inexperienced politicians over a vast mass of angry guerrillas, whose two main targets were European civilians and moderate Muslims. Bombs in cafés, cinemas, dancehalls in the cities; in the countryside, throat-slitting, known as the ‘Kabyle smile’. Towards French soldiers, once these started to arrive in greater numbers, the guerrillas could be more cruelly creative, and the troops were always aware that they were risking not death, but something worse. Here's a French para describing how his colleague was caught in a firefight while the rest of them were pinned down by an FLN group.
If that sounds bad, consider how sickening it is to have to say that the French were no better. In response to FLN outrages, gangs of soldiers and pieds noirs would go on indiscriminate rampages through Muslim parts of Algiers, looting shops and killing any Muslims they could lay their hands on. Towards the end, when it was clear which way the wind was blowing, some of them came together to organise a counter-terrorist group called the OAS which carried out a revolting series of bomb attacks both in Algeria and in mainland France. The French army, meanwhile, often resorted to the worst of methods to try and extract information from their prisoners: Algeria was where the whole business of institutionalised military torture first came under the spotlight in a serious way. (Goodreads friend Lisa Lieberman has written an interesting essay on this, Dirty War.)
At least one general freely admitted that torture was used, and seemed perfectly happy with it. The preferred method was the infamous gégène – a field dynamo with electrodes attached to the victim's body, usually to the genitals. Occasionally things were even worse: girls deflowered with glass bottles, high pressure hoses inserted in the rectum, and so on.
I've lived with this book for a couple of weeks, and typing this passage out is making me lose my breath with distress all over again. There are a few heros: Paul Teitgen, head of the Algiers police, was faced with a real-life example of the famous ‘ticking bomb’ scenario, when a terrorist was caught planting a device in a gasworks, but it was believed there was already a second bomb somewhere which had not yet gone off. Would Teitgen give permission to torture the suspect to find out where it was, potentially saving dozens of lives? Teitgen had himself been tortured by the Gestapo. He refused. ‘I trembled the whole afternoon. Finally the bomb did not go off. Thank God I was right. Because if you once get into the torture business, you're lost.’
And the French were lost. French society was increasingly outraged by what it heard, and by the time the war ended – it went on longer than either of the world wars – it had directly brought down no fewer than six French governments.
Alistair Horne tells the story well, but thoroughly – this is a very dense book and I don't know that it could really be considered general interest. There are a few updates in it, but most of the writing is from 1977, and I'm curious to know what historical sources have become available since then, especially on the Algerian side. Historians have been nervous of touching the subject because A Savage War of Peace is so widely considered, still, to be the definitive treatment. And it's easy to see why. Modern parallels or not, this is extremely enlightening.
(May 2013, with many subsequent edits)
Mesdames, Messieurs, several deputies have made comparisons between French policy in Algeria and Tunisia. I declare that no parallel is more erroneous, that no comparison is falser or more dangerous. Ici, c'est la France!
This is one reason why the Algerian War was characterised by such total intransigence on each side. In Paris it was politically unthinkable to imagine giving up an integral part of France itself; the pieds noirs were fighting for the survival of their whole world; and the French military were desperate not to lose again after humiliation in 1940 and later in Indochina. On the Muslim side, it was a simple matter of liberty and representation, which had been denied them to an extraordinary extent. Unlike, say, the British in India, who had trained a whole middle class of native administrators and civil servants that could gradually take over as the British pulled back, the French had allowed only the most token participation from Muslims in Algerian affairs.
One of the most depressing things about this story is how many good viable alternatives to war were clearly available in the 1950s. At first there was a huge middle ground of Europeans and Muslims who would have been very happy with interim solutions – a protectorate, for example, or quotas to ensure Muslim representation in state councils. Again and again such ideas were shot down by hawks in Paris and by the burgeoning independence movement in Algeria. And once they had finished shooting down ideas, they started shooting down people. Gradually – in a process that becomes a theme of this book – moderates were turned, one by one, into extremists.
It was a very violent conflict. The nationalist FLN was basically just a sprinkling of inexperienced politicians over a vast mass of angry guerrillas, whose two main targets were European civilians and moderate Muslims. Bombs in cafés, cinemas, dancehalls in the cities; in the countryside, throat-slitting, known as the ‘Kabyle smile’. Towards French soldiers, once these started to arrive in greater numbers, the guerrillas could be more cruelly creative, and the troops were always aware that they were risking not death, but something worse. Here's a French para describing how his colleague was caught in a firefight while the rest of them were pinned down by an FLN group.
My poor friend V. lay howling on his bed of stones till morning. He suffered unimaginably, both physically and mentally, a prey to mortal terror. He only really stopped at dawn, when we could perhaps have saved him. For several hours a rebel had been slithering towards him. He could have seen him all that while. There he was. The rebel touched his body. He took away his weapons. Then he gouged out his eyes. Then he slashed his Achilles' tendons, afraid, perhaps, that he might still come back and die with us. But he didn't finish him off, merely wanting him to have to lie still and suffer.
If that sounds bad, consider how sickening it is to have to say that the French were no better. In response to FLN outrages, gangs of soldiers and pieds noirs would go on indiscriminate rampages through Muslim parts of Algiers, looting shops and killing any Muslims they could lay their hands on. Towards the end, when it was clear which way the wind was blowing, some of them came together to organise a counter-terrorist group called the OAS which carried out a revolting series of bomb attacks both in Algeria and in mainland France. The French army, meanwhile, often resorted to the worst of methods to try and extract information from their prisoners: Algeria was where the whole business of institutionalised military torture first came under the spotlight in a serious way. (Goodreads friend Lisa Lieberman has written an interesting essay on this, Dirty War.)
At least one general freely admitted that torture was used, and seemed perfectly happy with it. The preferred method was the infamous gégène – a field dynamo with electrodes attached to the victim's body, usually to the genitals. Occasionally things were even worse: girls deflowered with glass bottles, high pressure hoses inserted in the rectum, and so on.
Almost as painful as the torture inflicted on oneself was the awareness of the suffering of others nearby: "I don't believe that there was a single prisoner who did not, like myself, cry from hatred and humiliation on hearing the screams of the tortured for the first time," says Alleg, and he records the horror of the elderly Muslim hoping to appease his tormentors: "Between the terrible cries which the torture forced out of him, he said, exhausted: ‘Vive la France! Vive la France!’ "
I've lived with this book for a couple of weeks, and typing this passage out is making me lose my breath with distress all over again. There are a few heros: Paul Teitgen, head of the Algiers police, was faced with a real-life example of the famous ‘ticking bomb’ scenario, when a terrorist was caught planting a device in a gasworks, but it was believed there was already a second bomb somewhere which had not yet gone off. Would Teitgen give permission to torture the suspect to find out where it was, potentially saving dozens of lives? Teitgen had himself been tortured by the Gestapo. He refused. ‘I trembled the whole afternoon. Finally the bomb did not go off. Thank God I was right. Because if you once get into the torture business, you're lost.’
And the French were lost. French society was increasingly outraged by what it heard, and by the time the war ended – it went on longer than either of the world wars – it had directly brought down no fewer than six French governments.
Alistair Horne tells the story well, but thoroughly – this is a very dense book and I don't know that it could really be considered general interest. There are a few updates in it, but most of the writing is from 1977, and I'm curious to know what historical sources have become available since then, especially on the Algerian side. Historians have been nervous of touching the subject because A Savage War of Peace is so widely considered, still, to be the definitive treatment. And it's easy to see why. Modern parallels or not, this is extremely enlightening.
(May 2013, with many subsequent edits)
June 25, 2009
Prior to reading A Savage War of Peace, I knew as much about Algeria as I do about Sanskrit morphology. A bit of Camus, a few memorable scenes from The Battle of Algiers, the puzzling lyrics to Rock the Casbah: that was pretty much the extent of my knowledge. I was dimly aware that France had fought a nasty colonial war there back in the 50s, but I had no idea just how terrible – and terribly momentous – the conflict was. I don’t think I can put it any more succinctly than the jacket copy of my NYRB edition:
The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, brought de Gaulle back to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict and as many European settlers were driven into exile. Above all, the war was marked by an unholy marriage of revolutionary terror and state torture.
Note the subtle claim to contemporary relevance in that last sentence. Even without knowing that A Savage War of Peace found an unlikely niche market in the Bush White House or that Ariel Sharon kept a copy on his bedside table, you can’t help but draw parallels between the French experience in Algeria and the West’s current imbroglios in the Islamic world. Insofar as the historical narrative is about a modern military power getting desperately entangled in a ‘backward’ Arab country, the temptation to view it as a rough draft of the Iraq War is almost irresistible. My own feeling, however – and please bear in mind that I’m just some random netizen with zero expertise in such matters – is that the Algerian War presents so many local peculiarities that its lessons are not easily reducible to the bite-size chunks that policy-makers presumably require.
Take, for instance, the exquisite dilemma posed in Algeria by the pieds noirs. These were the European colonists who farmed the land and staffed the local administration. Not all of them were grands bourgeois; not all were congenital reactionaries (the liberal Camus was one of them), but taken as a whole, they represented an exploitative and rapacious oligarchy whose power – both in Algeria and in metropolitan France – was out of all proportion to their numbers. Horne makes it clear that the war might have been avoided had this class displayed a modicum of political generosity, of simple justice, towards the native Muslim population. Although the author’s sympathies – culturally if not morally – are with the French, he emphasizes time and again the fatal stupidity of the pieds noirs. Wallowing in what Horne calls ‘the egotistical isolationism of their despair,’ they allowed their (sometimes legitimate) political aspirations to sour into an ugly strain of fascism. By the middle years of the war, they were engaging in tit-for-tat terrorism and inveigling the French army into open rebellion, thereby undermining their own cause.
Of the many expository threads woven together in the book, the most eye-opening for me was the one detailing the cleavage between the French military and the civil government. As someone who’d always uncritically accepted the Anglo-American stereotype of the French as a bunch of ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’, I was amazed to discover how ruthlessly competent the French army actually was. In fact, that was just the problem: it was too good. Its tough and experienced field commanders – men who’d cut their teeth in the Resistance and spent years in the jungle fighting the Viet Minh -- kept running ahead of the dithering politicians of the Fourth Republic, which was paralyzed by endless squabbles between Left and Right. Horne quotes de Gaulle’s acute assessment of the case:
Taking upon itself not only the burden of the fighting but also the severity, and sometimes the beastliness, of the repression…haunted by fear of another Indo-China…the army, more than any other body, felt a growing resentment against a political system which was the embodiment of irresolution.
This schism was to lead to the most incredible development of the war: the attempted coup d’etat hatched within the upper echelons of the Algerian occupation army. The plotters had already seized Corsica, and were getting ready to drop elite parachute regiments on Paris, when de Gaulle came out of retirement and averted a civil war at the last possible moment. And this was merely the first in a series of insurrections and failed putsches, all of which had some of the residual glamour, the broad gestures, of 1789 or 1871.
The most dispiriting chapter in this profoundly dispiriting book is the one on torture. There’s absolutely no doubt the French tortured prisoners – in an ad hoc manner initially, but later on, as the war turned vicious and the Gallic instinct for systematization kicked in, methods were refined and special interrogation units set up (and yes, if it counts for anything, the Algerians were every bit as barbaric in their own way, though they tended to prefer mutilation, both pre- and post-mortem). To what extent torture was officially sanctioned, though, is another question. It would appear the government was genuinely in the dark about it at first, and once they did clue in, tried to put a stop to it (and certainly de Gaulle, when he came along, gave explicit orders forbidding it). The problem was that, at some point, the army had gone completely off the reservation, and thereafter was only nominally subject to civilian oversight.
To be sure, there were dissenting voices, even within the military, and a few junior officers risked their careers opposing the ‘beastliness’, as de Gaulle called it. Horne tells the remarkable story of one such hero, a police functionary named Teitgen. During the Battle of Algiers, he was confronted with a real-life version of the classic ticking time bomb scenario. A Communist had been caught planting a bomb at a gasworks. A second bomb was suspected, but the man refused to talk. Thousands of lives were at stake, and Teitgen was under intense pressure to ‘put the man to the question’. But Teitgen, who had himself been tortured by the Gestapo in Dachau, was adamantly opposed. In his own words:
I refused to have him tortured. I trembled the whole afternoon. Finally the bomb did not go off. Thank God I was right. Because if you once get into the torture business, you’re lost…
He resigned soon after.
The last word on the subject should go to Camus, who employs the simplest and noblest argument against torture that I know of: ‘It is better to suffer certain injustices than to commit them.’ Amen.
In the end, neither side really won the war. The French betrayed their own ideals in a grubby fight to hold on to unjust prerogatives, and wound up losing everything: colony, prestige and national self-respect. The Algerians, meanwhile, gained their freedom at the cost of appalling sacrifices, only to throw it away on the shabbiest type of military dictatorship.
My God, history is depressing. Maybe it’s time to read some summer fluff.
The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, brought de Gaulle back to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict and as many European settlers were driven into exile. Above all, the war was marked by an unholy marriage of revolutionary terror and state torture.
Note the subtle claim to contemporary relevance in that last sentence. Even without knowing that A Savage War of Peace found an unlikely niche market in the Bush White House or that Ariel Sharon kept a copy on his bedside table, you can’t help but draw parallels between the French experience in Algeria and the West’s current imbroglios in the Islamic world. Insofar as the historical narrative is about a modern military power getting desperately entangled in a ‘backward’ Arab country, the temptation to view it as a rough draft of the Iraq War is almost irresistible. My own feeling, however – and please bear in mind that I’m just some random netizen with zero expertise in such matters – is that the Algerian War presents so many local peculiarities that its lessons are not easily reducible to the bite-size chunks that policy-makers presumably require.
Take, for instance, the exquisite dilemma posed in Algeria by the pieds noirs. These were the European colonists who farmed the land and staffed the local administration. Not all of them were grands bourgeois; not all were congenital reactionaries (the liberal Camus was one of them), but taken as a whole, they represented an exploitative and rapacious oligarchy whose power – both in Algeria and in metropolitan France – was out of all proportion to their numbers. Horne makes it clear that the war might have been avoided had this class displayed a modicum of political generosity, of simple justice, towards the native Muslim population. Although the author’s sympathies – culturally if not morally – are with the French, he emphasizes time and again the fatal stupidity of the pieds noirs. Wallowing in what Horne calls ‘the egotistical isolationism of their despair,’ they allowed their (sometimes legitimate) political aspirations to sour into an ugly strain of fascism. By the middle years of the war, they were engaging in tit-for-tat terrorism and inveigling the French army into open rebellion, thereby undermining their own cause.
Of the many expository threads woven together in the book, the most eye-opening for me was the one detailing the cleavage between the French military and the civil government. As someone who’d always uncritically accepted the Anglo-American stereotype of the French as a bunch of ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’, I was amazed to discover how ruthlessly competent the French army actually was. In fact, that was just the problem: it was too good. Its tough and experienced field commanders – men who’d cut their teeth in the Resistance and spent years in the jungle fighting the Viet Minh -- kept running ahead of the dithering politicians of the Fourth Republic, which was paralyzed by endless squabbles between Left and Right. Horne quotes de Gaulle’s acute assessment of the case:
Taking upon itself not only the burden of the fighting but also the severity, and sometimes the beastliness, of the repression…haunted by fear of another Indo-China…the army, more than any other body, felt a growing resentment against a political system which was the embodiment of irresolution.
This schism was to lead to the most incredible development of the war: the attempted coup d’etat hatched within the upper echelons of the Algerian occupation army. The plotters had already seized Corsica, and were getting ready to drop elite parachute regiments on Paris, when de Gaulle came out of retirement and averted a civil war at the last possible moment. And this was merely the first in a series of insurrections and failed putsches, all of which had some of the residual glamour, the broad gestures, of 1789 or 1871.
The most dispiriting chapter in this profoundly dispiriting book is the one on torture. There’s absolutely no doubt the French tortured prisoners – in an ad hoc manner initially, but later on, as the war turned vicious and the Gallic instinct for systematization kicked in, methods were refined and special interrogation units set up (and yes, if it counts for anything, the Algerians were every bit as barbaric in their own way, though they tended to prefer mutilation, both pre- and post-mortem). To what extent torture was officially sanctioned, though, is another question. It would appear the government was genuinely in the dark about it at first, and once they did clue in, tried to put a stop to it (and certainly de Gaulle, when he came along, gave explicit orders forbidding it). The problem was that, at some point, the army had gone completely off the reservation, and thereafter was only nominally subject to civilian oversight.
To be sure, there were dissenting voices, even within the military, and a few junior officers risked their careers opposing the ‘beastliness’, as de Gaulle called it. Horne tells the remarkable story of one such hero, a police functionary named Teitgen. During the Battle of Algiers, he was confronted with a real-life version of the classic ticking time bomb scenario. A Communist had been caught planting a bomb at a gasworks. A second bomb was suspected, but the man refused to talk. Thousands of lives were at stake, and Teitgen was under intense pressure to ‘put the man to the question’. But Teitgen, who had himself been tortured by the Gestapo in Dachau, was adamantly opposed. In his own words:
I refused to have him tortured. I trembled the whole afternoon. Finally the bomb did not go off. Thank God I was right. Because if you once get into the torture business, you’re lost…
He resigned soon after.
The last word on the subject should go to Camus, who employs the simplest and noblest argument against torture that I know of: ‘It is better to suffer certain injustices than to commit them.’ Amen.
In the end, neither side really won the war. The French betrayed their own ideals in a grubby fight to hold on to unjust prerogatives, and wound up losing everything: colony, prestige and national self-respect. The Algerians, meanwhile, gained their freedom at the cost of appalling sacrifices, only to throw it away on the shabbiest type of military dictatorship.
My God, history is depressing. Maybe it’s time to read some summer fluff.
January 28, 2024
Alistair Horne has published a masterful, exhaustive, and objective work on this terrible conflict. British, he is a specialist in modern France and perfectly commands his subject. What should you say to the potential reader interested in this topic? I still can't sum up this tight 600-page book. I am only giving you this advice: take the time to read it; you will learn a lot on a subject close to your heart!
April 26, 2021
This is an excellent book, but a book emotionally difficult to read. A book filled with detailed information. A challenging book.
It is thorough and well researched.
It is balanced. All warring combatants are fairly presented.
Details of war atrocities, and they are numerable, are not excessive because this is what happened; if you are going to read about this terrible war you need to be given all the facts and information about the atrocities committed. Only then do you fully understand. Atrocities of war are committed by all those involved. I love France, but I am not a French citizen. If you love a place you must also with clear eyes seek out all facets of its history--the good and the bad. What I learned shook me and made the book very difficult to read. When I read The Rape of Nanking, about the atrocities committed by the Japanese in 1937-1938, I found it a very important book and a book I wanted to support because the Japanese still today evade the truth. I was mad and my anger made it easy to support that book. With Alistair Horne's book I was shaken too, here because I had to open my eyes to the truth about a country I love. I still love France, but all aspects of their past must be acknowledged too. The atrocities committed hit close to home. We Europeans are no cleaner, no more morally upright, equally culpable, and equally savage as the Japanese and the Arabs and other peoples. The atrocities committed during this war hit home because they are committed by people of European culture, albeit not only bu them. The atrocities related in this book had to be detailed.
The author is English. I am glad he was neither French nor Arab. He has gathered all the facts, the incriminating details, and presented them in a fair, balanced and nuanced manner.
To understand what happened you have to understand the history that lead up to the Algerian War – a war of independence, a civil war and a war of terrorism. A war that lasted eight long years 1954-1962. The atrocities started before 1954 and continued beyond 1962. The book starts not in 1954, but in the 1830s, when the French settled in Algeria. Algeria was a province of France. It was not a colony as Morocco and Tunisia were. It was as French as Brittany, as Provence, as Burgundy, as Normandy. These people felt themselves to be as French as a Parisian! You have to understand this to understand why the French in Algeria could not give up what they saw as home. France’s war in Indochina, France’s occupation by the Germans in WW2, French involvement in the Suez conflict, the political events in France during the war years are all covered in the extent to which they related to the Algerian War. The burgeoning strength of third world nations is discussed too. Comparisons are made with the conflicts in Ireland and South Africa as well as independence and political developments in Morocco and Tunisia. What happened in Algeria and France immediately after the war is thoroughly covered too; influential persons and political and economic developments are reviewed. The book concludes in the 1990s.
The narrator of the audiobook is James Adams, a British narrator who speaks clearly and with a steady, good speed. The French lines are clearly pronounced, albeit with a British accent. There are quite a few lines that are not translated, but they are not long sections. Comprehension of French is a plus. In that the book is so detailed, that so many Arab names are cited and that my own knowledge was so cursory when I began, I did find listening challenging, but the narration is excellent.
Thorough, well researched, balanced and emotionally engaging--this book in seven words. Not an easy read, but an important one.
It is thorough and well researched.
It is balanced. All warring combatants are fairly presented.
Details of war atrocities, and they are numerable, are not excessive because this is what happened; if you are going to read about this terrible war you need to be given all the facts and information about the atrocities committed. Only then do you fully understand. Atrocities of war are committed by all those involved. I love France, but I am not a French citizen. If you love a place you must also with clear eyes seek out all facets of its history--the good and the bad. What I learned shook me and made the book very difficult to read. When I read The Rape of Nanking, about the atrocities committed by the Japanese in 1937-1938, I found it a very important book and a book I wanted to support because the Japanese still today evade the truth. I was mad and my anger made it easy to support that book. With Alistair Horne's book I was shaken too, here because I had to open my eyes to the truth about a country I love. I still love France, but all aspects of their past must be acknowledged too. The atrocities committed hit close to home. We Europeans are no cleaner, no more morally upright, equally culpable, and equally savage as the Japanese and the Arabs and other peoples. The atrocities committed during this war hit home because they are committed by people of European culture, albeit not only bu them. The atrocities related in this book had to be detailed.
The author is English. I am glad he was neither French nor Arab. He has gathered all the facts, the incriminating details, and presented them in a fair, balanced and nuanced manner.
To understand what happened you have to understand the history that lead up to the Algerian War – a war of independence, a civil war and a war of terrorism. A war that lasted eight long years 1954-1962. The atrocities started before 1954 and continued beyond 1962. The book starts not in 1954, but in the 1830s, when the French settled in Algeria. Algeria was a province of France. It was not a colony as Morocco and Tunisia were. It was as French as Brittany, as Provence, as Burgundy, as Normandy. These people felt themselves to be as French as a Parisian! You have to understand this to understand why the French in Algeria could not give up what they saw as home. France’s war in Indochina, France’s occupation by the Germans in WW2, French involvement in the Suez conflict, the political events in France during the war years are all covered in the extent to which they related to the Algerian War. The burgeoning strength of third world nations is discussed too. Comparisons are made with the conflicts in Ireland and South Africa as well as independence and political developments in Morocco and Tunisia. What happened in Algeria and France immediately after the war is thoroughly covered too; influential persons and political and economic developments are reviewed. The book concludes in the 1990s.
The narrator of the audiobook is James Adams, a British narrator who speaks clearly and with a steady, good speed. The French lines are clearly pronounced, albeit with a British accent. There are quite a few lines that are not translated, but they are not long sections. Comprehension of French is a plus. In that the book is so detailed, that so many Arab names are cited and that my own knowledge was so cursory when I began, I did find listening challenging, but the narration is excellent.
Thorough, well researched, balanced and emotionally engaging--this book in seven words. Not an easy read, but an important one.
January 2, 2022
The Algerians wanted their freedom, their self-determination. The French saw Algeria as French. Algerians worked in France, sent their small earnings back home. French settlers in Algeria believed their existence there a right. Rebellion, finally, followed by the predictable backlash. Algerian atrocities. French torture. The settlers – pied noirs - would have their chance at ignominy.
And then De Gaulle, who had maneuvered himself to be head of state once again, appeared on the balcony:
shortly after 7 p.m., wearing the uniform of a brigadier general but bare-headed, de Gaulle appeared on the balcony where his name had been so frequently and fervently invoked during the preceding May days. Among the vast, expectant crowd were many Muslims; but behind their impassive, weatherbeaten, unsmiling faces it was as difficult to decipher what was really in their minds as it had been during those moments of fraternization in May.
In an apartment building across the square, facing the balcony, was an assassin, an expert marksman:
His telescopic sights were aimed on de Gaulle in the first of some thirty assassination attempts.
The assassin waited. For three minutes de Gaulle spoke, but could not be heard over the crowd. They quieted. And de Gaulle began again:
“Je vous ai compris . . .
I understood you, he said.
And the assassin lowered his rifle.
But who was the vous?
This is a splendid history; gripping. And not one I knew much about. The atrocities and the torture stand out.
This was different than Vietnam, the French believed. Algeria was France. But it wasn’t; not really. One only has to look at the disparity in treatment of the Algerians.
This is not a criticism, but the book does tend to focus on the leaders of the factions, sides, countries. And there are some wonderful character studies within, most notably de Gaulle. But there is little of the common man. So I am supplementing the experience by fiction: The Stone Face by William Gardner Smith, before; and Tomorrow They Won’t Dare Murder Us by Joseph Andras, after.
This really put an exclamation mark on my reading year.
And then De Gaulle, who had maneuvered himself to be head of state once again, appeared on the balcony:
shortly after 7 p.m., wearing the uniform of a brigadier general but bare-headed, de Gaulle appeared on the balcony where his name had been so frequently and fervently invoked during the preceding May days. Among the vast, expectant crowd were many Muslims; but behind their impassive, weatherbeaten, unsmiling faces it was as difficult to decipher what was really in their minds as it had been during those moments of fraternization in May.
In an apartment building across the square, facing the balcony, was an assassin, an expert marksman:
His telescopic sights were aimed on de Gaulle in the first of some thirty assassination attempts.
The assassin waited. For three minutes de Gaulle spoke, but could not be heard over the crowd. They quieted. And de Gaulle began again:
“Je vous ai compris . . .
I understood you, he said.
And the assassin lowered his rifle.
But who was the vous?
This is a splendid history; gripping. And not one I knew much about. The atrocities and the torture stand out.
This was different than Vietnam, the French believed. Algeria was France. But it wasn’t; not really. One only has to look at the disparity in treatment of the Algerians.
This is not a criticism, but the book does tend to focus on the leaders of the factions, sides, countries. And there are some wonderful character studies within, most notably de Gaulle. But there is little of the common man. So I am supplementing the experience by fiction: The Stone Face by William Gardner Smith, before; and Tomorrow They Won’t Dare Murder Us by Joseph Andras, after.
This really put an exclamation mark on my reading year.
November 17, 2018
Its hard to comprehend that the events chronicled in this book actually took place, yet they did. For over a century Algeria was considered by France to be as much as part of its territory as Lyon or Normandy. The North African country was home to over a million French, in many cases spanning several generations there. The indigenous Arabs and Berbers of Algeria were an invisible, largely impoverished underclass about whom the French rarely thought twice. Slowly and steadily, however, the natives developed their own national consciousness. By the 1930s, the 100th anniversary of the French colonization of their country, the Algerians began to ask for equal rights on negotiated terms. After being rebuffed for years on end, in the 1950s an armed anti-colonial revolt broke out, in many ways unlike any that the world had seen before. Against all odds and expectations this revolt would totally put an end to Algerie Francaise, creating a new nation and sending over a million French pied noir back across the Mediterranean.
Horne's book is a very captivating grand history of the Algerian revolution. Both the French and the FLN engaged in incredible brutalities, but in terms of scale the suffering inflicted by the former was magnitudes greater. A significant percentage of the Algerian population was moved into concentration camps, torture was institutionalized by the French military, a Maginot Line of electric fortifications was erected on the border and entire villages were incinerated with napalm. In addition to holding on to what, well into the 1950s, was seen as core French territory, the French military sought desperately to avoid adding another military defeat to its legacy following recent humiliations by Germany and Vietnam. In its war to suppress the Algerians, French military officers leaders really embraced the chilling doctrine of “any means necessary.”
The FLN on the other hand are a case study in how brutal, even totalitarian, an armed insurgency usually must become to be to succeed. While their initial manifesto eschewed targeted civilians, the brutality of the war led them to later target the French wherever they could find them. Most stunning however was the ruthless attitude to any dissenting or neutral Algerians, who were often killed en masse to eradicate any competition. The FLN also conducted internal purges that eliminated thousands of their own cadres, including many who were falsely suspected of betrayal. In many ways their attempts to make Algerie Francaise ungovernable is reminiscent of the contemporary Afghan Taliban insurgency. The FLN did not have as many weapons as the French or their native harki brigades, but they had the weapon of fear and used it to great effect.
In contrast to their romantic image, revolutions are an ugly thing. The French made the Algerian revolution inevitable by fundamentally failing to recognize Algerians as equals, including those liberals and moderates who spoke their own language. By the time they began making piecemeal concessions to the moderate Arabs and Berbers, it was already far too late. The French mishandling of the situation in Algeria was so grave it almost ended up starting another revolution in France itself, triggering an attempted coup against de Gaulle and then the emergence of a fascist terrorist organization of pied noir in the last years of the war. In addition to trying to kill de Gaulle and destabilize the Fifth Republic, the OAS managed to kill more civilians in urban terrorist attacks in Algiers than the FLN did over the entire seven year conflict. Following a 1968 amnesty by de Gaulle most of the OAS leaders were let free to live normal lives in the metropole, though a small handful of lower ranking killers lacking political connections faced the firing squad.
Its quite amazing that Algeria emerged as a unitary and relatively functional state following these events. Few countries have been so devastated over the course of an anti-colonial war, perhaps because the Algerians were fighting an imperial power that failed to even comprehend that Algeria was its colony. Horne's account is fairminded, but he nonetheless has a clear sympathy to the French position as the European "force of order," perhaps in part because of his greater access to French sources. FLN attacks against the French military are often portrayed in the book as provocations. But was it not a provocation for the French military to have occupied another country as a colonizing force that denied millions of people its rights? French Algeria was a living monument to racism and fascism. During the last days the pied noir leaders fervently expressed hopes of "saving" the country by turning it into an emulation of Apartheid South Africa, or sequestering themselves into urban enclaves and turning the rest of the country into Gaza. These efforts failed due to the FLN's obdurate refusal to negotiate anything other than what was effectively total surrender. In the end they waited out the French long enough and won, though at painful cost.
This version of the book was republished in 2006, after apparently becoming popular among American military officers grappling with the war in Iraq. Aside from a few superficial similarities regarding torture and the Arabic language however, I find that the comparison between the Algeria and Iraq conflicts is vastly overdetermined. The territory of Iraq was never considered part of the American homeland. It was never home to millions of native-born Americans and there was never a white Iraqi-American demographic that could advocate for its own distinct interests in the American metropole. The two wars have really little in common, and I think it shows just how adrift the Americans were at the time to think that they could learn something about their own predicament by reading about it.
All else aside, this is a masterful history of one of the most unbelievable historical episodes of the 20th century. I would also love to read a book like this published about the ANC struggle in South Africa.
Horne's book is a very captivating grand history of the Algerian revolution. Both the French and the FLN engaged in incredible brutalities, but in terms of scale the suffering inflicted by the former was magnitudes greater. A significant percentage of the Algerian population was moved into concentration camps, torture was institutionalized by the French military, a Maginot Line of electric fortifications was erected on the border and entire villages were incinerated with napalm. In addition to holding on to what, well into the 1950s, was seen as core French territory, the French military sought desperately to avoid adding another military defeat to its legacy following recent humiliations by Germany and Vietnam. In its war to suppress the Algerians, French military officers leaders really embraced the chilling doctrine of “any means necessary.”
The FLN on the other hand are a case study in how brutal, even totalitarian, an armed insurgency usually must become to be to succeed. While their initial manifesto eschewed targeted civilians, the brutality of the war led them to later target the French wherever they could find them. Most stunning however was the ruthless attitude to any dissenting or neutral Algerians, who were often killed en masse to eradicate any competition. The FLN also conducted internal purges that eliminated thousands of their own cadres, including many who were falsely suspected of betrayal. In many ways their attempts to make Algerie Francaise ungovernable is reminiscent of the contemporary Afghan Taliban insurgency. The FLN did not have as many weapons as the French or their native harki brigades, but they had the weapon of fear and used it to great effect.
In contrast to their romantic image, revolutions are an ugly thing. The French made the Algerian revolution inevitable by fundamentally failing to recognize Algerians as equals, including those liberals and moderates who spoke their own language. By the time they began making piecemeal concessions to the moderate Arabs and Berbers, it was already far too late. The French mishandling of the situation in Algeria was so grave it almost ended up starting another revolution in France itself, triggering an attempted coup against de Gaulle and then the emergence of a fascist terrorist organization of pied noir in the last years of the war. In addition to trying to kill de Gaulle and destabilize the Fifth Republic, the OAS managed to kill more civilians in urban terrorist attacks in Algiers than the FLN did over the entire seven year conflict. Following a 1968 amnesty by de Gaulle most of the OAS leaders were let free to live normal lives in the metropole, though a small handful of lower ranking killers lacking political connections faced the firing squad.
Its quite amazing that Algeria emerged as a unitary and relatively functional state following these events. Few countries have been so devastated over the course of an anti-colonial war, perhaps because the Algerians were fighting an imperial power that failed to even comprehend that Algeria was its colony. Horne's account is fairminded, but he nonetheless has a clear sympathy to the French position as the European "force of order," perhaps in part because of his greater access to French sources. FLN attacks against the French military are often portrayed in the book as provocations. But was it not a provocation for the French military to have occupied another country as a colonizing force that denied millions of people its rights? French Algeria was a living monument to racism and fascism. During the last days the pied noir leaders fervently expressed hopes of "saving" the country by turning it into an emulation of Apartheid South Africa, or sequestering themselves into urban enclaves and turning the rest of the country into Gaza. These efforts failed due to the FLN's obdurate refusal to negotiate anything other than what was effectively total surrender. In the end they waited out the French long enough and won, though at painful cost.
This version of the book was republished in 2006, after apparently becoming popular among American military officers grappling with the war in Iraq. Aside from a few superficial similarities regarding torture and the Arabic language however, I find that the comparison between the Algeria and Iraq conflicts is vastly overdetermined. The territory of Iraq was never considered part of the American homeland. It was never home to millions of native-born Americans and there was never a white Iraqi-American demographic that could advocate for its own distinct interests in the American metropole. The two wars have really little in common, and I think it shows just how adrift the Americans were at the time to think that they could learn something about their own predicament by reading about it.
All else aside, this is a masterful history of one of the most unbelievable historical episodes of the 20th century. I would also love to read a book like this published about the ANC struggle in South Africa.
June 16, 2022
Alistair Horne's A Savage War of Peace is rightly considered the definitive English-language history of the Algerian War. Horne sketches France's presence in North Africa from 1830 through the 1950s, showing the curious nature of Algeria as less colony (though possessing all the flammable characteristics of a colonial outpost) than an integral part of France, with a large permanent population of independent-minded Europeans (pieds noirs) alongside a much larger Muslim population who were persistently denied representation. A series of provocations - the Setif Massacre on V-E Day, refusal of French governments (and the resistance of pieds noirs) to implement even modest reforms, the French defeat in Indochina and the example of Nasser in Egypt - led Algeria's nationalist leadership to begin a long, bloody war for independence. If the book has a failing, it's that Horne (understandable, as a British historian of France) focuses much more on the French perspective than the Algerian, though his sketches of the FLN leaders are incisive and well-done. Still, he catches the conflict's messiness in all its permutations: terrorism, torture, counterinsurgency tactics and mass murders; the infighting among Algerian nationalist groups and the FLN's brutal, often-dogmatic approach to independence; and, of course, the whirlwind of French military and political discontent that brought de Gaulle to power and nearly destroyed him. Often read in American policy circles as a lesson on counterinsurgency, it's much more valuable as a lesson in the folly of imperialism, and how its worst forms rend both the colonized and colonizers in horrifying, insoluble ways.
December 28, 2023
It was a long haul and an unwise choice of a book to read, but well worth it. Unwise, because I myself live in a country torn by a slow-burning civil conflict and implicated into the biggest war in Europe since WW2, so the horrors of daily news weren't the best of the backdrops for the book which essentially is a very detailed account of colonial oppression, murderous pogroms, bloody guerilla war, terror attacks, reprisals, torture used on an industrial scale etc etc. But this is also one of the best non-fiction books I ever read in my life, balanced, nuanced, thoughtful, well-researched and well-paced at the same time. In a way, it reminded me of Xenophon's Anabasis because it is a book centered around stories, not just information on the subject. I actually see it as a kind of a collection of plot lines for half a dozen of gripping and grim novels tightly woven into a non-fiction book on military history.
To cut the long story short, if you ever wanted to get a comprehensive picture of the Algerian war itself, this is it; if you ever wanted to understand the political and psychological life of post-war France, this is it; if you ever wanted to have a better insight into the inner workings of European colonialism and, consequently, a better understanding of the Rhodesian war, Kenyan Mau-maus or South African apartheid, this is it; if you ever wondered how the Soviet Union could lose its war in Afghanistan or where ISIS picked up their tactics, this is it; if you want to have a very interesting angle to look at the current Russian delusional, (self-)destructive war from, this is again it; and of course, if you want to understand Albert Camus better and somehow need an incentive to reread his La Peste, read this book first.
To cut the long story short, if you ever wanted to get a comprehensive picture of the Algerian war itself, this is it; if you ever wanted to understand the political and psychological life of post-war France, this is it; if you ever wanted to have a better insight into the inner workings of European colonialism and, consequently, a better understanding of the Rhodesian war, Kenyan Mau-maus or South African apartheid, this is it; if you ever wondered how the Soviet Union could lose its war in Afghanistan or where ISIS picked up their tactics, this is it; if you want to have a very interesting angle to look at the current Russian delusional, (self-)destructive war from, this is again it; and of course, if you want to understand Albert Camus better and somehow need an incentive to reread his La Peste, read this book first.
February 17, 2014
This is not a book about Algeria. The author makes clear that he was unable to access decent sources from the Algerian side, but anyone buying this book should be aware that this is French history more than anything else. The author makes some efforts to understand the Algerians, but it often comes back to the same comments about their "inscrutable" nature. If you are looking for insight into Algeria, the wikipedia page would probably be about as useful.
The treatment of the French, on the other hand, is superb. As an American, this is a whole era I had no awareness of. The fact that France was constantly at risk of military take-over during the eight year period this book covers was a revelation to me. France faced a lot of problems that I formerly associated only with third world banana republics.
The book is about loss more than anything else. The French military is its most interesting protagonist. The French military's transition from world-spanning force, to a strictly continental one was much more traumatic than that of the British. Appearing to win the second world war, while also losing it, imposed all sorts of contradictions. The book makes a fascinating account of this breakdown.
The treatment of the French, on the other hand, is superb. As an American, this is a whole era I had no awareness of. The fact that France was constantly at risk of military take-over during the eight year period this book covers was a revelation to me. France faced a lot of problems that I formerly associated only with third world banana republics.
The book is about loss more than anything else. The French military is its most interesting protagonist. The French military's transition from world-spanning force, to a strictly continental one was much more traumatic than that of the British. Appearing to win the second world war, while also losing it, imposed all sorts of contradictions. The book makes a fascinating account of this breakdown.
May 22, 2012
This is a subject that I only became interested in because of the film 'The Battle Of Algiers' The film is certainly a great film. The book is also a very good to great piece of history. Alistair Horne manages to fully interrogate a distressing and controversial world event in such a way as to be fair to all the parties concerned but also not be judgment free.
Horne is in control of his facts and with them tells the sordid, painful story of this conflict. To his credit it reads like a story, a complex story of effect and counter effect. For the non-French much of this story is unknown. I can only put this down, at least for English speakers, to Anglo-Saxon self centeredness. This is a story of intrigue and high drama, coups and counter coups.
The author does not gloss over the atrocities of the FLN, the political short sightedness of the French, the mindless fascist outrages of the OAS and the appalling torture and its consequences of and for the French army.
This struggle has become something of a template for all insurgent struggles. Supposedly the U.S. Army counter insurgency types poured over this book to look for clues to defeat the anti-U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Well if they had they took the wrong lessons away with them.The lessons are: torture does not work, a political war is not won on the battlefield, a determined enemy can not be easily negotiated with as they are not a sovereign power, an army that becomes politicized encountering insurgency is not easily depoliticized.
Oh lets dispel any lingering myths about the prowess of French arms. This French Army was tough. The officer corp had escaped the clutches of the Germans during WWII were part of the Free French armies or were in the Resistance. They had been through the French phase of the Vietnam war. Many of them had been through German POW camps, concentration camps and the tender embrace of Viet Minh POW camps. They were tough, they had something to prove and they were fighting what, was for many of them, a patriotic war. They were fighting for Algerie Francaise. The whole of the French political establishment including the communists considered Algeria an integral part of France at the start of this conflict in 1954.
On the FLN side many of them had been through the same experiences as the French army because they had been a part of the French Army. Some had been part of a Muslim SS corp. Horne also makes the point that the Algerian character is stoic, distrustful and has the capacity to endure great hardship. To put it bluntly neither side were pussies.
This conflict was almost 'won' by the French on the battlefield but they were defeated on the international stage and politically on the ground. The overwhelming majority of Muslims supported the FLN. This majority only grew stronger and more disciplined as the war dragged on.
In France the gaping wound of this war brought down the tottering Fourth Republic and installed de Gaulle. The plotters, though they had 'their man' in power, were sorely disabused of this notion as de Gaulle slowly, ambiguously but in the end decisively withdrew from Algeria. This led to coup attempts by elements of the Army and the pied-nor (the Algerian French settlers). When this failed and a date had been set for Algerian independence the OAS was formed. They were not simply hard core cranks, although there was many of them in the ranks, many were army deserters, fascists and former top level French administrators of Algeria. It would be like General Westmoreland and Robert McNamara deciding to stay on and continue fighting the war in the Vietnam after Nixon signed the peace treaty.
The uncontrolled, ferocious violence of the OAS condemned the pied-nor to the choice of "la valise ou le cercueil" (the suitcase or the coffin). Over half a million fled within a month. Between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Algerians were killed in the conflict.
Horne is in control of his facts and with them tells the sordid, painful story of this conflict. To his credit it reads like a story, a complex story of effect and counter effect. For the non-French much of this story is unknown. I can only put this down, at least for English speakers, to Anglo-Saxon self centeredness. This is a story of intrigue and high drama, coups and counter coups.
The author does not gloss over the atrocities of the FLN, the political short sightedness of the French, the mindless fascist outrages of the OAS and the appalling torture and its consequences of and for the French army.
This struggle has become something of a template for all insurgent struggles. Supposedly the U.S. Army counter insurgency types poured over this book to look for clues to defeat the anti-U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Well if they had they took the wrong lessons away with them.The lessons are: torture does not work, a political war is not won on the battlefield, a determined enemy can not be easily negotiated with as they are not a sovereign power, an army that becomes politicized encountering insurgency is not easily depoliticized.
Oh lets dispel any lingering myths about the prowess of French arms. This French Army was tough. The officer corp had escaped the clutches of the Germans during WWII were part of the Free French armies or were in the Resistance. They had been through the French phase of the Vietnam war. Many of them had been through German POW camps, concentration camps and the tender embrace of Viet Minh POW camps. They were tough, they had something to prove and they were fighting what, was for many of them, a patriotic war. They were fighting for Algerie Francaise. The whole of the French political establishment including the communists considered Algeria an integral part of France at the start of this conflict in 1954.
On the FLN side many of them had been through the same experiences as the French army because they had been a part of the French Army. Some had been part of a Muslim SS corp. Horne also makes the point that the Algerian character is stoic, distrustful and has the capacity to endure great hardship. To put it bluntly neither side were pussies.
This conflict was almost 'won' by the French on the battlefield but they were defeated on the international stage and politically on the ground. The overwhelming majority of Muslims supported the FLN. This majority only grew stronger and more disciplined as the war dragged on.
In France the gaping wound of this war brought down the tottering Fourth Republic and installed de Gaulle. The plotters, though they had 'their man' in power, were sorely disabused of this notion as de Gaulle slowly, ambiguously but in the end decisively withdrew from Algeria. This led to coup attempts by elements of the Army and the pied-nor (the Algerian French settlers). When this failed and a date had been set for Algerian independence the OAS was formed. They were not simply hard core cranks, although there was many of them in the ranks, many were army deserters, fascists and former top level French administrators of Algeria. It would be like General Westmoreland and Robert McNamara deciding to stay on and continue fighting the war in the Vietnam after Nixon signed the peace treaty.
The uncontrolled, ferocious violence of the OAS condemned the pied-nor to the choice of "la valise ou le cercueil" (the suitcase or the coffin). Over half a million fled within a month. Between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Algerians were killed in the conflict.
June 29, 2016
I confess to not being very knowledgeable on the Algerian war for independence from France during the 1950’s to 1962. So there was much that was new to me in reading this book (particularly the plethora of characters introduced). It serves once more to emphasis the evils of the entire colonial system.
But there were some distinguishing features in France’s occupation of Algeria.
> There were over one million who settled in Algeria starting in the 1830’s when France first occupied it. Some were from France but many came from Spain, Italy, and other European countries. They were called “pieds noirs” (explained in the book) – and many had been in Algeria for several generations.
> The almost 10 million native Muslim inhabitants had their land stolen by the pieds noirs. For the most part they were kept uneducated, disenfranchised and poverty stricken . Algeria had the makings of an Apartheid society.
> Many in France and Algeria thought of Algeria as an integral part of France. It was thought that eventually all its inhabitants and culture were to be made entirely French. This was an illusion, but because it was thoroughly believed by many in both Algeria and France it would lead to disastrous consequences.
The FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale) was formed by Muslims who wanted France out of Algeria. In the early 50’s they began terrorist activities – bombings and killings throughout Algeria. This was a direct threat to those in France and the pieds noirs in Algeria who wanted Algerie Francaise. Algerie Francaise came to mean different things to different groups. For example moderate educated Muslims (a small minority) gave an interpretation much different than the pieds noirs.
To counter and combat the FLN campaign the French sent in their army. By the 1960’s there were over 500,000 troops. The war ranged from small isolated hamlets in the rough hinterland to the cities – and it was vicious. Both sides tortured and multilated. The psychological consequences of this spread to France when the press reported on these incidents – done by the French Army on behalf of France.
The author explains very well the groups in conflict with one another. For example the French army was criticized in metropolitan France for its brutality. The army was also in a state of needing to prove itself, of not wanting to lose. France had lost in 1940, had lost at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954 – it did not want to undergo another humiliation. There were starting to be sympathetic adherents in France to the FLN. As well there were thousands of Algerian workers in France. The pieds noirs in Algeria criticized the French Army for not doing enough to protect them. The FLN was also killing more and more moderate Muslims who were sympathetic to France. The gulf between pieds noirs and Muslims was widening because those who could have made a bridge were being murdered – and one could add that these murders were brutal – in order to set an example of what would happen to any who went against the FLN cause. The pieds noirs formed their terrorist groups.
And finally Charles de Gaulle was called back to power. Initially he was seen as a panacea to all these disparate groups. But de Gaulle, more than some, saw the fruitlessness of keeping Algeria in France. In 1962 Algeria was given independence. Over one million pieds noirs left and abandoned their possessions and land; most went to France. Many moderate Muslims left as well. Any one left in Algeria who had a sympathetic connection to France would be killed.
This was an enlightening book that well illustrates a maxim of George Orwell that revolutions that succumb to violence cannot extricate themselves from this savage self-perpetuating cycle. The violence and repression in Algeria continue to this day.
But there were some distinguishing features in France’s occupation of Algeria.
> There were over one million who settled in Algeria starting in the 1830’s when France first occupied it. Some were from France but many came from Spain, Italy, and other European countries. They were called “pieds noirs” (explained in the book) – and many had been in Algeria for several generations.
> The almost 10 million native Muslim inhabitants had their land stolen by the pieds noirs. For the most part they were kept uneducated, disenfranchised and poverty stricken . Algeria had the makings of an Apartheid society.
> Many in France and Algeria thought of Algeria as an integral part of France. It was thought that eventually all its inhabitants and culture were to be made entirely French. This was an illusion, but because it was thoroughly believed by many in both Algeria and France it would lead to disastrous consequences.
The FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale) was formed by Muslims who wanted France out of Algeria. In the early 50’s they began terrorist activities – bombings and killings throughout Algeria. This was a direct threat to those in France and the pieds noirs in Algeria who wanted Algerie Francaise. Algerie Francaise came to mean different things to different groups. For example moderate educated Muslims (a small minority) gave an interpretation much different than the pieds noirs.
To counter and combat the FLN campaign the French sent in their army. By the 1960’s there were over 500,000 troops. The war ranged from small isolated hamlets in the rough hinterland to the cities – and it was vicious. Both sides tortured and multilated. The psychological consequences of this spread to France when the press reported on these incidents – done by the French Army on behalf of France.
The author explains very well the groups in conflict with one another. For example the French army was criticized in metropolitan France for its brutality. The army was also in a state of needing to prove itself, of not wanting to lose. France had lost in 1940, had lost at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954 – it did not want to undergo another humiliation. There were starting to be sympathetic adherents in France to the FLN. As well there were thousands of Algerian workers in France. The pieds noirs in Algeria criticized the French Army for not doing enough to protect them. The FLN was also killing more and more moderate Muslims who were sympathetic to France. The gulf between pieds noirs and Muslims was widening because those who could have made a bridge were being murdered – and one could add that these murders were brutal – in order to set an example of what would happen to any who went against the FLN cause. The pieds noirs formed their terrorist groups.
And finally Charles de Gaulle was called back to power. Initially he was seen as a panacea to all these disparate groups. But de Gaulle, more than some, saw the fruitlessness of keeping Algeria in France. In 1962 Algeria was given independence. Over one million pieds noirs left and abandoned their possessions and land; most went to France. Many moderate Muslims left as well. Any one left in Algeria who had a sympathetic connection to France would be killed.
This was an enlightening book that well illustrates a maxim of George Orwell that revolutions that succumb to violence cannot extricate themselves from this savage self-perpetuating cycle. The violence and repression in Algeria continue to this day.
November 11, 2023
Before actually reviewing this book, which is brilliant, I need to remark on two items which invariable crop up:
1. It is often mentioned that this book came back into print in connection with the USA's actions/adventures/idiocies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although getting as brilliant book as this back into print and read is a wonderful thing I don't think even the most self absorbed author (which Mr. Horne is definitely not) would think human cost in this case worth it. Nor would any author like one of their books being promoted as essential reading for all those planning or taking part in an event like the USA's involvement in Iraq/Afghanistan when it is patently clear that if any of these people had read the book they clearly ignored or did not understand what they read. One is generally lead to conclude that though they may purchased the book none of the politicians, generals, etc. actually read it. Please do not associate this book with anything to do with the USA's actions or policies in Iraq/Afghanistan.
2. As for the Algerian war can we please begin by removing the ridiculous but irrelevant assertion that Algeria was 'part of France'. How can somewhere that is no way geographical contiguous and is linguistically, historically and culturally different be called 'part' of somewhere else? Algeria was invaded by France in 1830, conquered, vast numbers of the existing population killed; their land, obviously all the best land sequestered/confiscated/stolen; large numbers of outsiders, very few of them from France, were imported; these people were regarded as citizens and could elect members of the Paris parliament, the existing population could not vote and we're not citizens but they were the majority of the population perhaps by 10-1; the entire Algerian 'question/problem' revolved around the maintenance of a situation were the vast majority of the population would remain second class citizens forever because the French never had any intention of allowing millions of Algerians to become citizens of France.
To put it simply to call Algeria part of France is as meaningless as trying to claim that Ireland (or Scotland and Wales) became 'part' of England after being conquered.
Now for the review - as far as I am aware this is the best, if not the only, history of the Algerian War in English. Clearly it has more to say about France and her actions, motivations, etc. but I believe that for a long time, it may still be the case, it was very difficult to even speak with many of the Algerian participants, let alone consult archives, etc. Despite my very reductive picture in the preferring paragraphs it was a complex situation which cannot be reduced easily to good/bad stereotypes. The world of French Algeria, of the pied noirs (the 'French' Algerians), was unique but its members were ultimately more Algerian than French. They had much to loose but the actions of their leaders and many of them meant that they would inevitably loose everything. There is much to regret and much horror and sadness in this story which is not well enough known. But above all it is one of many tales which above all teaches us of the hypocrisy of colonies and empires.
It also taught the lesson, which was then quickly forgotten, that simply being militarily the most powerful, as France was, and even 'beating' the rebels, as it was possible to argue the French army did, doesn't do anything to achieve a lasting political settlement. You can stop, for a time, rebel attacks, but you can't stop people from believing, wanting or dreaming. Old soldiers have 'proved' again and again that they had won the 'war' against the rebels in Algeria but somehow 'victory' was stolen by inept politicians etc. Soldiers should know the difference between real and Pyrrhic victories but they never do.
(It is November 2023 and I have just been correcting some infelicitous phrasing and spelling mistakes but cannot, this time, avoid pointing out the clear parallel between Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan (under all invaders since the Russians in 1979) and Iraq
One of the most shameful stories in a history full of shameful violence and betrayal is the fate of the Harki, native Algerians recruited by the French to help them defeat the rebels and help keep Algeria French. Once de Gaulle recognised and announced that the war was over the order came down for the army to withdraw and the Harkis, despite the valiant efforts of many french officers who had lead them, were by in large abandoned to the vengeance of the Algerian rebels. Tens of thousands, possibly more, suffered gruesome deaths by torture and being buried alive and the same fate was extended to their families. Those who escaped to France found no welcome or thanks.
I fear I haven't done justice to this marvellous book which is both well researched and beautifully written. It is a must read for understanding a great deal of 20th century history.
1. It is often mentioned that this book came back into print in connection with the USA's actions/adventures/idiocies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although getting as brilliant book as this back into print and read is a wonderful thing I don't think even the most self absorbed author (which Mr. Horne is definitely not) would think human cost in this case worth it. Nor would any author like one of their books being promoted as essential reading for all those planning or taking part in an event like the USA's involvement in Iraq/Afghanistan when it is patently clear that if any of these people had read the book they clearly ignored or did not understand what they read. One is generally lead to conclude that though they may purchased the book none of the politicians, generals, etc. actually read it. Please do not associate this book with anything to do with the USA's actions or policies in Iraq/Afghanistan.
2. As for the Algerian war can we please begin by removing the ridiculous but irrelevant assertion that Algeria was 'part of France'. How can somewhere that is no way geographical contiguous and is linguistically, historically and culturally different be called 'part' of somewhere else? Algeria was invaded by France in 1830, conquered, vast numbers of the existing population killed; their land, obviously all the best land sequestered/confiscated/stolen; large numbers of outsiders, very few of them from France, were imported; these people were regarded as citizens and could elect members of the Paris parliament, the existing population could not vote and we're not citizens but they were the majority of the population perhaps by 10-1; the entire Algerian 'question/problem' revolved around the maintenance of a situation were the vast majority of the population would remain second class citizens forever because the French never had any intention of allowing millions of Algerians to become citizens of France.
To put it simply to call Algeria part of France is as meaningless as trying to claim that Ireland (or Scotland and Wales) became 'part' of England after being conquered.
Now for the review - as far as I am aware this is the best, if not the only, history of the Algerian War in English. Clearly it has more to say about France and her actions, motivations, etc. but I believe that for a long time, it may still be the case, it was very difficult to even speak with many of the Algerian participants, let alone consult archives, etc. Despite my very reductive picture in the preferring paragraphs it was a complex situation which cannot be reduced easily to good/bad stereotypes. The world of French Algeria, of the pied noirs (the 'French' Algerians), was unique but its members were ultimately more Algerian than French. They had much to loose but the actions of their leaders and many of them meant that they would inevitably loose everything. There is much to regret and much horror and sadness in this story which is not well enough known. But above all it is one of many tales which above all teaches us of the hypocrisy of colonies and empires.
It also taught the lesson, which was then quickly forgotten, that simply being militarily the most powerful, as France was, and even 'beating' the rebels, as it was possible to argue the French army did, doesn't do anything to achieve a lasting political settlement. You can stop, for a time, rebel attacks, but you can't stop people from believing, wanting or dreaming. Old soldiers have 'proved' again and again that they had won the 'war' against the rebels in Algeria but somehow 'victory' was stolen by inept politicians etc. Soldiers should know the difference between real and Pyrrhic victories but they never do.
(It is November 2023 and I have just been correcting some infelicitous phrasing and spelling mistakes but cannot, this time, avoid pointing out the clear parallel between Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan (under all invaders since the Russians in 1979) and Iraq
One of the most shameful stories in a history full of shameful violence and betrayal is the fate of the Harki, native Algerians recruited by the French to help them defeat the rebels and help keep Algeria French. Once de Gaulle recognised and announced that the war was over the order came down for the army to withdraw and the Harkis, despite the valiant efforts of many french officers who had lead them, were by in large abandoned to the vengeance of the Algerian rebels. Tens of thousands, possibly more, suffered gruesome deaths by torture and being buried alive and the same fate was extended to their families. Those who escaped to France found no welcome or thanks.
I fear I haven't done justice to this marvellous book which is both well researched and beautifully written. It is a must read for understanding a great deal of 20th century history.
April 10, 2022
At nearly a thousand pages, this has taken some while to get through but I’m glad I read it. It must surely be the seminal work on the Algerian struggle for independence. The detail is incredible.
After WW2, most colonies achieved independence without too much trouble. Despite the easy transition for its neighbours, Morocco and Tunisia, the author explains how Algeria was different, seen as an inseparable part of France. '55 million Frenchmen from Dunkerque to Tamanrasset' ( deep in the Sahara) was the mantra of the ‘pieds noirs’ (black feet). These were people of French origin who lived in Algeria but also included a great number of Spaniards and Italians, all of whom had emigrated to Algeria since it was taken over by France in the 1830s and who weren’t about to give it up, similar to the whites in Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.
I learned how the conflict nearly resulted in a military coup in France and a likely civil war, and how De Gaulle, who earned the enmity of those against independence when he switched from insisting Algeria was part of France to being in favour of independence, survived several assassination attempts. His change of mind was driven by wanting France to extricate itself so she could focus on modernising. History has proved him right. France has now evolved into one of the most impressive nations in the world with its superior infrastructure of high speed trains and superb autoroutes and a world beating health service, and yet has manage to retain its incomparable culture and cuisine and quality of life.
A truly enthralling book if the subject interests you. My own interest was piqued after watching ‘La Battaglia di Algeri’, a very gripping black and white Italian film from 1966 filmed in the Casbah of Algiers and banned in France for five years after its release.
After WW2, most colonies achieved independence without too much trouble. Despite the easy transition for its neighbours, Morocco and Tunisia, the author explains how Algeria was different, seen as an inseparable part of France. '55 million Frenchmen from Dunkerque to Tamanrasset' ( deep in the Sahara) was the mantra of the ‘pieds noirs’ (black feet). These were people of French origin who lived in Algeria but also included a great number of Spaniards and Italians, all of whom had emigrated to Algeria since it was taken over by France in the 1830s and who weren’t about to give it up, similar to the whites in Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.
I learned how the conflict nearly resulted in a military coup in France and a likely civil war, and how De Gaulle, who earned the enmity of those against independence when he switched from insisting Algeria was part of France to being in favour of independence, survived several assassination attempts. His change of mind was driven by wanting France to extricate itself so she could focus on modernising. History has proved him right. France has now evolved into one of the most impressive nations in the world with its superior infrastructure of high speed trains and superb autoroutes and a world beating health service, and yet has manage to retain its incomparable culture and cuisine and quality of life.
A truly enthralling book if the subject interests you. My own interest was piqued after watching ‘La Battaglia di Algeri’, a very gripping black and white Italian film from 1966 filmed in the Casbah of Algiers and banned in France for five years after its release.
November 18, 2023
The Algerian War of Independence against France was, in many ways, the archetype of the "wars of liberation" of the 20th century as imperialism passed out of favor. It was also a precursor of the wars of resistance in Islamic societies against real or perceived Western aggression. Each stage of the struggle seems to be more brutal and bloody than the one before, and things were vastly complicated by the fact that France considered Algeria to be not a colony but rather an integral part of the French homeland, and by the fact that almost a million European colonists called Algeria home. The French army almost destroyed itself by mutinying against the French government to prevent France's withdrawal, and it is unlikely that anyone other than De Gaulle could have faced down the mutinous troops and generals (and their terrorist allies, the OAS) and ended the war. Alistair Horne is perhaps the outstanding historian of modern France writing in English, and this work is his finest in many ways. Both highly enlightening and well-written, A Savage War of Peace is one of those history books that simply shouldn't be missed if you strive to understand the modern world. First rate.
April 1, 2013
A good book but a very dense read. Horne presented very vivid descriptions of the atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict, and I believe this approach somewhat masked the causes of the war. While it seems popular to try to learn lessons from wars which appear superficially similiar, one of the unique characteristics of this war was that Algeria was a department of France, not part of its colonial empire. This situation contributed to the emotional involvement felt not only by the insurgents, but the pieds noirs as well, who later formed the OAS. Horne points to several squandered opportunities for reconciliation, but I disagree with his assessment. I don't think reconciliation was ever possible because assimilation was impossible. The pieds noirs lived in contstant fear of being overwhelmed and subsumed by the Muslims, and the French government had absolutely no intention of trying to integrate the Muslims of Algeria. The most important take away from this book is that from beginning to end the end state for the FLN NEVER varied. The FLN was intent on one solution, and no amount of negotiation was going to change that. We see the results of the final peace with the massive exodus of Europeans following the end of the war. Militarily, the French won the war, both in the cities and in the hinterland. Politically, the war was a debacle, not only because of the prominent role of torture, but because of the effect in France of the terrorist attacks and the massive mobilization of draftees. I think this book has some pointed lessons, but it is not the COIN manual that many of my peers think it to be.
Read
November 10, 2021I was briefly familiar with the Algerian War of Independence, however, I knew little of the details; Mr. Horne supplied these in abundance. Here is another event in history where intractable, polarized behaviors in the face of blatant, systemic social imbalances led to human atrocities, much of which could have been avoided had enlightened compromise first reigned. Asking reactionary constituencies to embrace humanism is a tall order, witness events like the American Civil War, the French or Russian revolutions, to name just a few. The pieds noirs, Algerian Muslims – both sympathetic and insurgent – the French military and the citizens of metropolitan France formed the major constituencies in this history. French military memories seemed always present, too, where attempts to avenge prior disgrace motivated many. I was unaware of the specific role Algeria played in toppling the Fourth Republic and of the threat personally posed to de Gaulle. I found this book a valuable educational experience.
April 11, 2016
Algeria, "France's Viet Nam," is a conflict most people outside of France and Algeria don't know much about. You've probably heard it was one of the last anti-colonialist wars, and that it pitted Muslims against Westerners, and that there were atrocities on both sides. But the details are fuzzy for most Americans after half a century. It was a conflict happening in a part of the world we didn't care much about at the time, and even during the Cold War, neither the US nor the USSR was heavily invested in it.
But, it brought down several French governments, almost led to more than one coup, did (at least indirectly) lead to France pulling out of NATO, and set the tone for French relations for decades. As well, the fate of Algerian Muslims who emigrated after independence echoes to this day in France - every time you hear about riots by "unemployed youths" in French urban areas, they are usually talking about the descendants of those refugees.
Alistair Horne's book, A Savage War of Peace, is considered pretty much the definitive book on the subject. It is comprehensive, and on audio it's difficult to keep all the names straight for an American reader - everyone, after all, is either French or Algerian, and the cast of characters is huge. Successive governments, movements, splinter groups, all tussling over a patch of North Africa for eight bloody years.
At its heart, the Algerian war was a war for independence. The Algerians wanted to be independent; France didn't want them to be. But it was different from some similar colonial struggles for several reasons. France did not consider Algeria to be a colony; Algeria was considered French soil. Therefore, giving up Algeria was akin to giving up Normandy.
While Muslims in Algeria did suffer from racism and a sort of apartheid which only grew worse during the war, the Pied-Noirs ("Black Feet"), or native French residents of Algeria, were another faction with interests that were not always aligned with those of their erstwhile countrymen back home. Some of them had been living in Algeria for generations. They had mixed and complicated views of their Muslim neighbors - often they were friends and colleagues, but always there was racism and European superiority. When the war broke out, as in the Middle East, or the Balkans, people who'd lived side by side peacefully for years would suddenly turn on each other with incredible savagery.
The Question
The war brought out incredible savagery on all sides. The FLN (National Liberation Front) and MNA (National Algerian Movement) operated like guerrilla/terrorist groups always do, butchering men, women, and children. The French Army, in response, began to make systematic use of torture, a scar that France has not yet healed from. "The Question," as it was called in France, was controversial even at the time, with some defending it with the familiar "ticking time bomb" defense, while at least one French officer, faced with the prospect of a literal time bomb, elected not to use torture and hope the bomb wouldn't go off (it didn't).
The issue of torture is of course one Horne covers heavily in the book. He examines whether it really was necessary and/or effective, and argues that it was not, while also admitting that in fact the French army would not have been able to roll up the FLN the way it did without its extensive intelligence network backed by torture. He also describes how French bureaucrats and military officers debated the nuances of what did or did not qualify as "torture," in the same sort of arid, legalistic language we have heard US officials more recently use to defend waterboarding. It's not the only thing in the book that clearly resonates today. (In fact, in one of his afterwords, the author says he sent a copy of his book to the Bush White House, hoping to impress upon them the importance of not going down that path. He never received a response.)
The Algerian War was unquestionably a brutal one, and the catalog of atrocities committed by both sides is horrific. Dismemberments, rape, prolonged torture, dashing babies' skulls against walls, carving out brains and guts and scattering them on the street, as well as the usual bombs left in cafes, drive-by shootings, and frequent assassinations, were constant for eight years, right up to the end when the MNA was trying to derail peace talks.
Ideology
Today we'd describe this as a struggle against Islamists, but while Algerian independence was clearly a Muslim movement, it wasn't that simple. Some Muslims were loyal to France; many French were sympathetic or even outright supportive of the FLN, and the Pied-Noirs themselves were divided over the great question of Algerian independence. In fact, Islam was hardly a factor in the war at all, other than one side being predominantly Muslim. Communism was probably a stronger guiding principle for the resistance, and even communism was more of a unifying ideology than an actual motivation.
De Gaulle
Algeria brought Charles De Gaulle to power, and almost cost him his life. The great irascible statesman, formerly a French Freedom Fighter during Nazi occupation, seemed perpetually playing both sides in the conflict between leftists who wanted to give the Algerians their independence and right-wingers who wanted Algeria to remain French.
Ultimately, De Gaulle would be responsible for cutting Algeria loose, but to this day, the author can't say for certainty what De Gaulle's intention had been from the beginning, and when or where or whether he changed his mind. But De Gaulle himself is an interesting character worthy of his own book, and his maneuvering, his tantrums, his diplomacy, and his leadership are all an intrinsic part of the Algerian War and its resolution.
The author includes several afterwords following the original publication of this book in 1973. One was in the 1980s, after he'd been able to interview many more people who were involved in the war who he hadn't had access to when he was first writing the book. Another is post-9/11, in which he describes Algeria today (well, early 2000s), and how the unrest in the Middle East, the Palestine/Israel question, and all those other issues that have riven the Muslim world have played a part in also affecting a relatively separated and not-so-Muslim Algeria.
For all that, the book is almost entirely about a conflict that happened half a century ago and is of mostly historical interest now. There are certainly things to reflect upon, in the way they have affected France and Algeria in the modern day, but that was a different world. But it is valuable history and a bloody, savage war that merits this sort of close examination. I recommend it to anyone who'd like greater understanding of some of the factors that still affect French life and politics, as well as an early look at the sort of Western/Muslim conflicts that would come to dominate the 20th and 21st centuries.
But, it brought down several French governments, almost led to more than one coup, did (at least indirectly) lead to France pulling out of NATO, and set the tone for French relations for decades. As well, the fate of Algerian Muslims who emigrated after independence echoes to this day in France - every time you hear about riots by "unemployed youths" in French urban areas, they are usually talking about the descendants of those refugees.
Alistair Horne's book, A Savage War of Peace, is considered pretty much the definitive book on the subject. It is comprehensive, and on audio it's difficult to keep all the names straight for an American reader - everyone, after all, is either French or Algerian, and the cast of characters is huge. Successive governments, movements, splinter groups, all tussling over a patch of North Africa for eight bloody years.
At its heart, the Algerian war was a war for independence. The Algerians wanted to be independent; France didn't want them to be. But it was different from some similar colonial struggles for several reasons. France did not consider Algeria to be a colony; Algeria was considered French soil. Therefore, giving up Algeria was akin to giving up Normandy.
While Muslims in Algeria did suffer from racism and a sort of apartheid which only grew worse during the war, the Pied-Noirs ("Black Feet"), or native French residents of Algeria, were another faction with interests that were not always aligned with those of their erstwhile countrymen back home. Some of them had been living in Algeria for generations. They had mixed and complicated views of their Muslim neighbors - often they were friends and colleagues, but always there was racism and European superiority. When the war broke out, as in the Middle East, or the Balkans, people who'd lived side by side peacefully for years would suddenly turn on each other with incredible savagery.
The Question
The war brought out incredible savagery on all sides. The FLN (National Liberation Front) and MNA (National Algerian Movement) operated like guerrilla/terrorist groups always do, butchering men, women, and children. The French Army, in response, began to make systematic use of torture, a scar that France has not yet healed from. "The Question," as it was called in France, was controversial even at the time, with some defending it with the familiar "ticking time bomb" defense, while at least one French officer, faced with the prospect of a literal time bomb, elected not to use torture and hope the bomb wouldn't go off (it didn't).
The issue of torture is of course one Horne covers heavily in the book. He examines whether it really was necessary and/or effective, and argues that it was not, while also admitting that in fact the French army would not have been able to roll up the FLN the way it did without its extensive intelligence network backed by torture. He also describes how French bureaucrats and military officers debated the nuances of what did or did not qualify as "torture," in the same sort of arid, legalistic language we have heard US officials more recently use to defend waterboarding. It's not the only thing in the book that clearly resonates today. (In fact, in one of his afterwords, the author says he sent a copy of his book to the Bush White House, hoping to impress upon them the importance of not going down that path. He never received a response.)
The Algerian War was unquestionably a brutal one, and the catalog of atrocities committed by both sides is horrific. Dismemberments, rape, prolonged torture, dashing babies' skulls against walls, carving out brains and guts and scattering them on the street, as well as the usual bombs left in cafes, drive-by shootings, and frequent assassinations, were constant for eight years, right up to the end when the MNA was trying to derail peace talks.
Ideology
Today we'd describe this as a struggle against Islamists, but while Algerian independence was clearly a Muslim movement, it wasn't that simple. Some Muslims were loyal to France; many French were sympathetic or even outright supportive of the FLN, and the Pied-Noirs themselves were divided over the great question of Algerian independence. In fact, Islam was hardly a factor in the war at all, other than one side being predominantly Muslim. Communism was probably a stronger guiding principle for the resistance, and even communism was more of a unifying ideology than an actual motivation.
De Gaulle
Algeria brought Charles De Gaulle to power, and almost cost him his life. The great irascible statesman, formerly a French Freedom Fighter during Nazi occupation, seemed perpetually playing both sides in the conflict between leftists who wanted to give the Algerians their independence and right-wingers who wanted Algeria to remain French.
Ultimately, De Gaulle would be responsible for cutting Algeria loose, but to this day, the author can't say for certainty what De Gaulle's intention had been from the beginning, and when or where or whether he changed his mind. But De Gaulle himself is an interesting character worthy of his own book, and his maneuvering, his tantrums, his diplomacy, and his leadership are all an intrinsic part of the Algerian War and its resolution.
The author includes several afterwords following the original publication of this book in 1973. One was in the 1980s, after he'd been able to interview many more people who were involved in the war who he hadn't had access to when he was first writing the book. Another is post-9/11, in which he describes Algeria today (well, early 2000s), and how the unrest in the Middle East, the Palestine/Israel question, and all those other issues that have riven the Muslim world have played a part in also affecting a relatively separated and not-so-Muslim Algeria.
For all that, the book is almost entirely about a conflict that happened half a century ago and is of mostly historical interest now. There are certainly things to reflect upon, in the way they have affected France and Algeria in the modern day, but that was a different world. But it is valuable history and a bloody, savage war that merits this sort of close examination. I recommend it to anyone who'd like greater understanding of some of the factors that still affect French life and politics, as well as an early look at the sort of Western/Muslim conflicts that would come to dominate the 20th and 21st centuries.
April 29, 2016
This is one of the best history books I've read in a long while. Horne does a masterful job of juggling the numerous actors and acronyms that populate the War of Algerian Independence. Reading more like a textbool than many recent histories, the author does not try to string a common character through all the events, but takes instead a thorough approach to nearly every month of the eight year conflict. Horne offers a very balanced review, never favoring the Algerian French population, nor the indigenous Muslims, and likewise does not shy away from detailing the horrors perpetuated by either side. His de Gualle is neither hero nor villain, but simply the man he was.
I was very surprised at the savagery of this conflict. It's truly horrifying what the civilian population had to endure at the hands of the revolutionary FLN and the counter-revolutionary OAS. Indiscriminate murders and revenge against suspected traitors to whichever cause one was supporting, it's remarkable the entire country of France did not suffer a nervous breakdown.
Horne does an excellent job describing the various political and martial scheming that went on, including the attempted coup against de Gaulle by several high ranking generals. The factionalism of the Algerian FLN is also given a lot of exposure, particularly the various power struggles between the different revolutionary leaders, and also between those FLN members inside Algeria and those in exile.
I picked up this book because I am a fan/admirer of Albert Camus, the famous Algerian-born French novelist, playwright, philosopher, and Nobel winner. He has a book called in English "The Algerian Chronicles," and when I started flipping through it, I realized I didn't know hardly any of the names nor the events behind the Algerian conflict. After reading this book, it will be interesting to see how Camus weaves his support for the Algerian French population though the vestiges of French colonialism and paternalism. Horne frequents the musings of Camus (and Sartre and de Beauvoir) throughout, and it is now easy to see where some of the friction between Camus and the French Left came from. If anything, Camus is proven here to be just a man after all, as flawed as any of us.
The only criticism I have of this book is that the author uses many French phrases and quotes without giving their English translation. My rudimentary French was able to decipher most of them, but some were too idiomatic to figure out. Likewise, a glossary of people would have been helpful as well. Generally, I was able to keep this huge cast of people straight with respect to who they were and what they did, but a number of times I had to search for their earlier appearances to remind myself of their significance.
This edition is updated with new information on Algeria since the first printing, which helps to close out many of the "What ever happened to....?" questions that frequently arise when reading books like this.
I was very surprised at the savagery of this conflict. It's truly horrifying what the civilian population had to endure at the hands of the revolutionary FLN and the counter-revolutionary OAS. Indiscriminate murders and revenge against suspected traitors to whichever cause one was supporting, it's remarkable the entire country of France did not suffer a nervous breakdown.
Horne does an excellent job describing the various political and martial scheming that went on, including the attempted coup against de Gaulle by several high ranking generals. The factionalism of the Algerian FLN is also given a lot of exposure, particularly the various power struggles between the different revolutionary leaders, and also between those FLN members inside Algeria and those in exile.
I picked up this book because I am a fan/admirer of Albert Camus, the famous Algerian-born French novelist, playwright, philosopher, and Nobel winner. He has a book called in English "The Algerian Chronicles," and when I started flipping through it, I realized I didn't know hardly any of the names nor the events behind the Algerian conflict. After reading this book, it will be interesting to see how Camus weaves his support for the Algerian French population though the vestiges of French colonialism and paternalism. Horne frequents the musings of Camus (and Sartre and de Beauvoir) throughout, and it is now easy to see where some of the friction between Camus and the French Left came from. If anything, Camus is proven here to be just a man after all, as flawed as any of us.
The only criticism I have of this book is that the author uses many French phrases and quotes without giving their English translation. My rudimentary French was able to decipher most of them, but some were too idiomatic to figure out. Likewise, a glossary of people would have been helpful as well. Generally, I was able to keep this huge cast of people straight with respect to who they were and what they did, but a number of times I had to search for their earlier appearances to remind myself of their significance.
This edition is updated with new information on Algeria since the first printing, which helps to close out many of the "What ever happened to....?" questions that frequently arise when reading books like this.
November 4, 2015
I have to admit that this is one of the if not the best historical book I have read and that includes Roy Jenkin’s bio of Churchill. :) Not even going to try to summarize this one bit more than saying that it’s a book about the 8 year war of independence that Algeria fought with France and with themselves. Google / Wikipedia any of the following in the context of Algeria (in no particular order) and you get a jist of the shizzle: barricades week, battle of Algiers, harkis, Brazzaville, sakiet, morice line, Constantine, evian agreements, FLN, L’Algerie Francais, OAS, Kabylia, neuf historiques, Ramadan war, and setif.
November 26, 2019
An incredible book about a subject I knew nothing about. I really enjoy Alistair Horne's writing style, the only dry parts unlike his Price of Glory were the political side of things, but given the subject matter it was absolutely necessary to include.
A truly intimate examination of war, politics, atrocities, and terrorism, that still rings true to this day.
A truly intimate examination of war, politics, atrocities, and terrorism, that still rings true to this day.
March 13, 2015
I knew almost nothing of the war of liberation in Algeria, and this was an enormous introduction (624 pages worth), bringing immense satisfaction at finishing it. It is brilliantly crafted history, slow going but fairly enthralling none the less, and a wonderful management of detail. It is as balanced and critical as the author can make it I think, exploring the critical events and the political machinations of the war on both sides. For an aerial view of everything that happened, explored with all the benefits of both hindsight as well as the immediacy of interviews with almost all of the key figures surviving on both sides, this is a good place to start in understanding the conflict. And it is full of sidelights of the humorous and pulpy details of plots and spies and bungling that I confess with a sense of almost shame, I enjoyed immensely.
For all that it is written by a European (of neither France nor Algeria), and despite his best efforts and his deep critique of France's role, it is still the French and the pied noir that it understands best, while Algerians themselves remain for the most part inscrutable and 'other'. I am reading now the journal of the author Mouloud Feraoun, which has broken my heart in two and left me far more critical of Horne's account because it exemplifies what is missing -- the understanding of a colonised people finally standing up, along with the day to day fear, violence, death, descriptions of torture, hunger, loss, conflicted feelings about the FLN even while fully supporting their struggle.
Three things primarily struck me in reflecting back on it. First, how little I know of French history and how hugely important Algeria was in its history, as Horne summarises:
The second is how closely it parallels the settling of the United States, and how much the white mobs in defense of their land and their privilege reminded me of the white mobs I have studied in the US...defending their land and their privilege. On the French policy of 'pacification':
That is the foundation of it all, conquest and a refusal to give up its fruits. Part of that was the destruction of anything Algerian that could offer up resistance, primarily the policy of breaking up great traditional families
This quote struck me, both in its poetic racism and in the sad reality of colonialism that seeks to destroy any sense of strength and sociality with such a tremendous human cost. Dust in the eyes of the oppressor, a terrifying analogy, for who cares what you do with dust? Lives shorn of culture and mutual support and richness in the experience of the oppressed, though of course they strive to conserve, protect, rebuild what they can.
The third is how this conflict, and that in Indochina, flowed naturally from World War II and calls into question much of what I thought I knew. It reverse polarities, putting people who might have been my heroes for their role in the resistance, for their sufferings in the concentration camps, in an alliance with fascists. I cannot fundamentally understand it, just as I cannot understand the oppression of the Palestinians by Israelis.
The list of generals -- paras from both Indochina and Algeria -- all heroes of WWII, leaders of resistance, many in concentration camps:
Ducournau, Trinquier, Bigeard, Brothier, Meyer, Jeanpierre, Fossey-François, Château-Jobert, Romain-Defossés, Coulet.
This is a long list. They took what they had learned in fighting fascism in Europe and applied it to the oppression of both the Vietnamese and the Algerians fighting a war of liberation, and they were both efficient and murderous.
One of the key figures of the revolt and attempted coup against de Gaulle was:
He worked in Indo-China and Algeria, and was put in charge of the Cinquième Bureau, with its 'potent functions of propaganda and psychological warfare'...
It is not just that they were heroes of the resistance, these men appropriated symbols of uprising from their history, drawing parallels from the French Revolition and the Paris Commune. In describing the brains behind the fascist OAS (Organisation de l'armée secrète), Pierre Serjent writes of him: 'rigid comportment and incisive speech, Jean Jacques Susini evoked in me ... the image of St Just.' (482)
Of the uprising led by the FNF (Front National Français -- it would later fold into the OAS), Horne writes (and is he prompted in this by interviews with the men or simply on his own? It hurts me to think of the Commune in this fashion):
With the same results:
It was not just the French who were decorated war heroes in this conflict. In thinking about the turn to armed uprising as opposed to non-violence (which I think we tend to support more now on this end of history, both for philosophical and well as very practical reasons as the terrain of war has shifted), for those emerging from the celebrated armed struggle against German fascism, what could be more obvious or natural? How could they just return to be oppressed by the same people they had fought alongside of in a war for freedom and justice? This is again another parallel with returning soldiers of colour to the US no longer content to put up with second-class citizenship.
Just one example: The FLN's external campaign to influence the United Nations was led by M'hamed Yazid and Abdelkader Chanderli -- Chanderli had fought in the French campaign of 1940, escaped to Britain to join de Gaulle, in 1948 a reporter on Palestine, and in 1954 he was working for UNESCO.
This same war created a wave of displaced Nazis seeking to occupy themselves, some of them, for money I am sure, ended up on the side of colonised peoples as arms-dealers:
Racism and colonial struggle have clearly wrecked havoc on the ideology, on the sense of what is just and an instinctive knowledge of which side is the right one that is usually portrayed as being so clear in WWII. Obviously, it was not.
Finish this overly-long review here.
For all that it is written by a European (of neither France nor Algeria), and despite his best efforts and his deep critique of France's role, it is still the French and the pied noir that it understands best, while Algerians themselves remain for the most part inscrutable and 'other'. I am reading now the journal of the author Mouloud Feraoun, which has broken my heart in two and left me far more critical of Horne's account because it exemplifies what is missing -- the understanding of a colonised people finally standing up, along with the day to day fear, violence, death, descriptions of torture, hunger, loss, conflicted feelings about the FLN even while fully supporting their struggle.
Three things primarily struck me in reflecting back on it. First, how little I know of French history and how hugely important Algeria was in its history, as Horne summarises:
The war in Algeria -- lasted almost eight years, toppled six French Prime Ministers and the Fourth Republic itself. It came close to bringing down General de Gaulle and his Fifth Republic and confronted metropolitan France with the threat of civil war.
The second is how closely it parallels the settling of the United States, and how much the white mobs in defense of their land and their privilege reminded me of the white mobs I have studied in the US...defending their land and their privilege. On the French policy of 'pacification':
Said Bugeaud in a renowned statement before the National Assembly in 1840: "Wherever there is fresh water and fertile land, there one must locate colons, without concerning oneself to whom these lands belong. (30)
That is the foundation of it all, conquest and a refusal to give up its fruits. Part of that was the destruction of anything Algerian that could offer up resistance, primarily the policy of breaking up great traditional families
because we found them to be forces of resistance. We did not realise that in suppressing the forces of resistance in this fashion we were also suppressing our means of action. The result is that we are today confronted by a sort of human dust on which we have no influence and in which movements take place which are to us unknown.
-- Jules Cambon, governor-general 1894 (p37)
This quote struck me, both in its poetic racism and in the sad reality of colonialism that seeks to destroy any sense of strength and sociality with such a tremendous human cost. Dust in the eyes of the oppressor, a terrifying analogy, for who cares what you do with dust? Lives shorn of culture and mutual support and richness in the experience of the oppressed, though of course they strive to conserve, protect, rebuild what they can.
The third is how this conflict, and that in Indochina, flowed naturally from World War II and calls into question much of what I thought I knew. It reverse polarities, putting people who might have been my heroes for their role in the resistance, for their sufferings in the concentration camps, in an alliance with fascists. I cannot fundamentally understand it, just as I cannot understand the oppression of the Palestinians by Israelis.
The list of generals -- paras from both Indochina and Algeria -- all heroes of WWII, leaders of resistance, many in concentration camps:
Ducournau, Trinquier, Bigeard, Brothier, Meyer, Jeanpierre, Fossey-François, Château-Jobert, Romain-Defossés, Coulet.
This is a long list. They took what they had learned in fighting fascism in Europe and applied it to the oppression of both the Vietnamese and the Algerians fighting a war of liberation, and they were both efficient and murderous.
One of the key figures of the revolt and attempted coup against de Gaulle was:
The slender St Cyrien, Jean Gardes...The only son of a Parisian heroine of the Reisistance, who had run a cell through her well-known Restaurant des Ministères on the Rue Ministères on the Rue du Bac, Gardes himself had won no less than twenty-four citations for bravery and been severely wounded with the Tiralleurs Marocains in Italy. (354)
He worked in Indo-China and Algeria, and was put in charge of the Cinquième Bureau, with its 'potent functions of propaganda and psychological warfare'...
It is not just that they were heroes of the resistance, these men appropriated symbols of uprising from their history, drawing parallels from the French Revolition and the Paris Commune. In describing the brains behind the fascist OAS (Organisation de l'armée secrète), Pierre Serjent writes of him: 'rigid comportment and incisive speech, Jean Jacques Susini evoked in me ... the image of St Just.' (482)
Of the uprising led by the FNF (Front National Français -- it would later fold into the OAS), Horne writes (and is he prompted in this by interviews with the men or simply on his own? It hurts me to think of the Commune in this fashion):
At Ortiz's "command post" there was chaos reminiscent of the headier days of the Paris Commune; everybody talked, gave orders and made speeches in an atmosphere dense with Bastos cigarette-smoke, the smell of sweat and beer. In the street below some young members of the FNF began spontaneously to prise up paving-stones and create a barricade... (361)
With the same results:
With remarkable speed, army pioneers got to work, bulldozing the barricades, replacing the pavé and covering it with a thick, prophylactic layer of bitumen -- as Paris had done after her "troubles" in the nineteenth century (373)
It was not just the French who were decorated war heroes in this conflict. In thinking about the turn to armed uprising as opposed to non-violence (which I think we tend to support more now on this end of history, both for philosophical and well as very practical reasons as the terrain of war has shifted), for those emerging from the celebrated armed struggle against German fascism, what could be more obvious or natural? How could they just return to be oppressed by the same people they had fought alongside of in a war for freedom and justice? This is again another parallel with returning soldiers of colour to the US no longer content to put up with second-class citizenship.
Just one example: The FLN's external campaign to influence the United Nations was led by M'hamed Yazid and Abdelkader Chanderli -- Chanderli had fought in the French campaign of 1940, escaped to Britain to join de Gaulle, in 1948 a reporter on Palestine, and in 1954 he was working for UNESCO.
This same war created a wave of displaced Nazis seeking to occupy themselves, some of them, for money I am sure, ended up on the side of colonised peoples as arms-dealers:
On the ground floor were a group of ex-Nazis who had found refuge in Cairo and had made themselves useful to Nasser; among them a former S.S. man called Ernst-Wilhelm Springer, who had helped form the pro-German Muslim Legion in the Second World War... (262)
Racism and colonial struggle have clearly wrecked havoc on the ideology, on the sense of what is just and an instinctive knowledge of which side is the right one that is usually portrayed as being so clear in WWII. Obviously, it was not.
Finish this overly-long review here.
January 14, 2023
I read most of this years ago (I started it in 2018, Goodreads tells me) and then I put it aside without finishing it for some indefensible reason. Anyway, just read the final 100 pages and it remains one of my favorite books I've ever read. A completely sympathetic mind telling a crucial story in commendable prose.
May 25, 2020
When Benmhidi, one of the prominent FLN historical leaders was captured in the battle Algiers, he was asked by a French journalist:
« Don’t you find it rather cowardly to carry bombs in the baskets of your women that end up taking the lives of so many innocent victims »
Benmhidi answered with the following:
« And you, don’t you find it much more cowardly to drop Napalm bombs on unarmed villages that take a thousand times more innocent victimes.
That would have been more convenient for us, give us your war planes and we will give you our baskets »
This book although beautifully written, concise, covers major milestones of the war and contains various testimonies. It will generally tell you the French journalist’s view of the revolution. It maybe due to length excess or other reasons but without Benmhidi’s answer you will not have the full picture of the Algerian liberation war.
Although, this book is supposed to benefit of an « outsider » view to the war, It suffers from two flaws, first flaw, recognized by the author is the lack of the other side of the story for one reason or the other. Autobiographies of liberal moderate leaders like F. Abbas could have served to verify or at least provide the Algerian version of the war especially for the major points like the 1945 events or the battle of Algiers.
Second flaw, is the author’s adoration of the French culture, which in many instances made
him slightly untouched by many of colonization massacres, concentration camps, torture and injustice... Even when raised by some French intellectuals, he would label them as Pro-FLN or communist lenient.
It is even more evident as one can find the description for most French military and political leaders or even soldiers including their character, career, looks, thoughts or even hobbies. But when it comes to the main Algerian leaders, a few words, if any.
Another point, which is a bit revolting is the arrogant attitude of assuming colonization as “civilizing” mission similar to the way others had assumed slavery before that as a way of keeping Africains well fed. Same justification again of carrying “white man burden”
Finally, this book was widely read in US trying to understand the Iraq war. This in my opinion provides a wrong reference as these war have little in common.
Algerians revolution, was started due to misery, injuste and some “pied noir” grand colons humiliation of the indigenous population. Religion had little do with it; actually the main religious organizations joined the war 2 years later, when they were contacted by the unifying super visionary leader Abane, who was considered by many to be “secular”. In fact, in the leadership of FLN, one can find communists, liberals, socialist, Intellectuals or religious leaders. It was as plural as the population was, and that’s why it succeeded to bring down the fourth strongest army of the time.
With the assassination of the FLN “unifying” leaders Abane and Benmhidi, this plurality/diversity would become a source of discordance within FLN, And with m the hardliners taking control of army imposing a unique view on the others by force. This would end up producing one of the worst dictatorships at the end of one of most glorious revolutions of the 20th century.
« Don’t you find it rather cowardly to carry bombs in the baskets of your women that end up taking the lives of so many innocent victims »
Benmhidi answered with the following:
« And you, don’t you find it much more cowardly to drop Napalm bombs on unarmed villages that take a thousand times more innocent victimes.
That would have been more convenient for us, give us your war planes and we will give you our baskets »
This book although beautifully written, concise, covers major milestones of the war and contains various testimonies. It will generally tell you the French journalist’s view of the revolution. It maybe due to length excess or other reasons but without Benmhidi’s answer you will not have the full picture of the Algerian liberation war.
Although, this book is supposed to benefit of an « outsider » view to the war, It suffers from two flaws, first flaw, recognized by the author is the lack of the other side of the story for one reason or the other. Autobiographies of liberal moderate leaders like F. Abbas could have served to verify or at least provide the Algerian version of the war especially for the major points like the 1945 events or the battle of Algiers.
Second flaw, is the author’s adoration of the French culture, which in many instances made
him slightly untouched by many of colonization massacres, concentration camps, torture and injustice... Even when raised by some French intellectuals, he would label them as Pro-FLN or communist lenient.
It is even more evident as one can find the description for most French military and political leaders or even soldiers including their character, career, looks, thoughts or even hobbies. But when it comes to the main Algerian leaders, a few words, if any.
Another point, which is a bit revolting is the arrogant attitude of assuming colonization as “civilizing” mission similar to the way others had assumed slavery before that as a way of keeping Africains well fed. Same justification again of carrying “white man burden”
Finally, this book was widely read in US trying to understand the Iraq war. This in my opinion provides a wrong reference as these war have little in common.
Algerians revolution, was started due to misery, injuste and some “pied noir” grand colons humiliation of the indigenous population. Religion had little do with it; actually the main religious organizations joined the war 2 years later, when they were contacted by the unifying super visionary leader Abane, who was considered by many to be “secular”. In fact, in the leadership of FLN, one can find communists, liberals, socialist, Intellectuals or religious leaders. It was as plural as the population was, and that’s why it succeeded to bring down the fourth strongest army of the time.
With the assassination of the FLN “unifying” leaders Abane and Benmhidi, this plurality/diversity would become a source of discordance within FLN, And with m the hardliners taking control of army imposing a unique view on the others by force. This would end up producing one of the worst dictatorships at the end of one of most glorious revolutions of the 20th century.
March 19, 2011
This book, like all histories, has its biases and its imperfections. Despite that, A Savage War of Peace maintains a reasonable level of objectivity in relating the happenings of a war rarely described in neutral terms. For example, I say "a war," even though I was informed by a French colleague yesterday that many French historians prefer to avoid that word, choosing instead to refer to "the events" in Algeria. Such a position, I believe, illustrates clearly that even descriptions meant to appear prudent are in actually steeped in ideology and prejudice—how else could over seven years and (arguably) over a million casualties be considered simply "events?" This makes Alistair Horne's relatively fair account more admirable. Its limitations must be acknowledged—this is the work of a Francophilic Englishman, whose bias is towards recounting the maneuvers of great men. Still, where it succeeds, it does so brilliantly; it painstakingly states and restates what can only be described as fundamental misunderstandings by the French about the realities of their colonial government of Algeria, not to mention the motives of the various peoples who opposed them. And so I think two of this editions books blurbs are as germane as anything else that could be said:
"Anyone interested in Iraq should read this book immediately."—Thomas E. Ricks, The Washington Post
"[This] universally acclaimed history...should have been mandatory reading for the civilian and military leaders who opted to invade Iraq."—The Washington Times
Both statements feel ominous on what might be the eve of air strikes against Libya.
"Anyone interested in Iraq should read this book immediately."—Thomas E. Ricks, The Washington Post
"[This] universally acclaimed history...should have been mandatory reading for the civilian and military leaders who opted to invade Iraq."—The Washington Times
Both statements feel ominous on what might be the eve of air strikes against Libya.
January 7, 2015
So dense and drowning in details that it loses sight of the story and becomes difficult to follow.
November 26, 2017
Very detailed history about a war and colonialism that does not get as much acknowledgement as it should in the West.
February 7, 2017
We failed to heed Lesson #2 as well. The setting is the mid-50's to the early 60's in another colonial possession. The colony is Algeria and the colonizer is France. Yet saying Algeria is a colony is a bit different from what springs to our minds. Algeria is not a British Colonial possession although it is fairly close to British India, A French Indochina, or a US Philippines. Algeria boasted a population of over 1 million French Europeans called Pied Noirs out of a population of 5 million. Algeria and France, in the French opinion, were one and the same. Unfortunately, for the French that latent heat of Nationalism was growing ever stronger in the poor and second class person, the native Algerian.
The background. France experienced a series of defeats in mid-1900s. Her stupendous capitulation to Germany in 1940 was a humiliation not unnoticed by her colonial subjects. Her humiliation did not end after Dunkirk, but continued. US and Britain were the powers that directed the Western Allied efforts against Nazi Germany. France fell into a confused partnership since there were the Free French and Vichy French to deal with. One was on the Allied side and the other was a subject of Nazi Germany. Free France had very little military power and therefore lost her Great Power status and her ability to direct any allied war efforts. Churchill, fearful of the powerful French fleet falling into Nazi hands ordered strikes against the fleet leading to severe damage, not only to the Fleet but relations as well. Allied landings in North Africa was the scene of US forces battling Vichy French. French forces actually fought each other in a mini civil war. After the defeat of Germany, France not only had to rebuild her devastated country, but repair her status as a Great Power. Her colonies still belonged to her and she rushed to fill the voids from the defeated Germans and Japanese. The Vietnamese of course had a vote in this which led to the defeat of France in Indo-China. Lesson #1 we failed to heed. Of particular interest is the fact that France employed many colonial units in its Army. Moroccans, Tunisians, Vietnamese, and Algerians all witnessed the loss of Indochina and the defeat of France. The Algerians especially took these lessons to heart.
At almost the same time France lost Vietnam an Algerian insurgency began. Algeria was France. The land, but not the people. Algerians were not considered French citizens. They did not own any land and had little voice to influence any change for the better. The French enjoyed the bistros, the beach, and owned the land. Many cautioned the French leadership about the pathetic state of the Algerians. Few listened. Disaffected and poor are the birthplace of revolution. Slowly the Algerians began to arm and prepare for war. A bomb blast here and a murder there were eventually replaced by armed bands of Algerian guerrillas. Algerians working for the French and also in the French Army began to desert and join the battle. The FLN became the lead insurrectionary group. This was Lesson #1 for the French and in a way for us.
The French Army, although suffering from its defeats from Nazi Germany and Giap's Communists, was still in the field. The Legion and the Paratroopers were the best of the French forces and they had taken their lessons to heart. FLN forces were able to inflict small wounds upon the French, but their maneuverability, firepower, and tactics were much better. FLN forces pinned down were mauled. Supplies had to be smuggled in from Tunisia and Morocco (similar to the Ho Chi Minh Trail). These supply runs became nearly suicidal leading to numerous casualties. Also, many Muslim soldiers still fought for the French and were able to infiltrate and extract intel on FLN forces leading to more losses. Even though militarily the FLN was losing, the French were still not winning. Cost and casualties mounted and the war continued on. Harsh measures by the French continued to alienate many non-aligned Algerians. The FLN could still find recruits to fill its ranks.
Politically the war in Algeria led to popular resentment in France and to a direct threat against France. France was growing tired of the cost in lives and treasure. They wanted out. Dissatisfaction within the Army led to a resentment of political leadership. The army wanted Algeria for France and nothing else. The Army would win Algeria without France if needed. In a stunning move, the French military in Algeria staged a coup that overthrew the government in France and led to the ascendance of De Gaulle. Fears of French units fighting each other almost became reality. De Gaulle was what the military wanted in a leader. De Gaulle however had learned his lessons and knew what lay ahead and began to move toward Algerian independence. This led to French Algerian forces and citizens becoming terrorists (the OAS) and attacking the French forces in France and Algeria. A civil war ensued where Frenchmen murdered Frenchmen. The die had been cast though. Algeria would become independent.
Seven years of war came to an end almost overnight. The peace led to one of the greatest migrations know in this century where 1 million French Algerians fled their home. Few believed the promises of sanctuary within the newly independent Algeria. This flood of refugees spread out across France to find a new home.
France did not learn her colonial lessons in Indochina and she repeated them in Algeria. These lessons were also there for us. We paid no attention to two nationalistic wars when we began our saga in Vietnam. It is mind boggling to understand how we assumed things would be different. Much was clouded in our thinking by labeling all insurgencies as Communist and falling for our Domino Theory. Over 50,000 of our soldiers paid the price for this mistake.
The Savage War of Peace is a well written and organized book that takes you through all this and more. A perfect blending of the political and military with enough background for the reader to understand all. A wonderful read for the military theorist or the armchair historian.
The background. France experienced a series of defeats in mid-1900s. Her stupendous capitulation to Germany in 1940 was a humiliation not unnoticed by her colonial subjects. Her humiliation did not end after Dunkirk, but continued. US and Britain were the powers that directed the Western Allied efforts against Nazi Germany. France fell into a confused partnership since there were the Free French and Vichy French to deal with. One was on the Allied side and the other was a subject of Nazi Germany. Free France had very little military power and therefore lost her Great Power status and her ability to direct any allied war efforts. Churchill, fearful of the powerful French fleet falling into Nazi hands ordered strikes against the fleet leading to severe damage, not only to the Fleet but relations as well. Allied landings in North Africa was the scene of US forces battling Vichy French. French forces actually fought each other in a mini civil war. After the defeat of Germany, France not only had to rebuild her devastated country, but repair her status as a Great Power. Her colonies still belonged to her and she rushed to fill the voids from the defeated Germans and Japanese. The Vietnamese of course had a vote in this which led to the defeat of France in Indo-China. Lesson #1 we failed to heed. Of particular interest is the fact that France employed many colonial units in its Army. Moroccans, Tunisians, Vietnamese, and Algerians all witnessed the loss of Indochina and the defeat of France. The Algerians especially took these lessons to heart.
At almost the same time France lost Vietnam an Algerian insurgency began. Algeria was France. The land, but not the people. Algerians were not considered French citizens. They did not own any land and had little voice to influence any change for the better. The French enjoyed the bistros, the beach, and owned the land. Many cautioned the French leadership about the pathetic state of the Algerians. Few listened. Disaffected and poor are the birthplace of revolution. Slowly the Algerians began to arm and prepare for war. A bomb blast here and a murder there were eventually replaced by armed bands of Algerian guerrillas. Algerians working for the French and also in the French Army began to desert and join the battle. The FLN became the lead insurrectionary group. This was Lesson #1 for the French and in a way for us.
The French Army, although suffering from its defeats from Nazi Germany and Giap's Communists, was still in the field. The Legion and the Paratroopers were the best of the French forces and they had taken their lessons to heart. FLN forces were able to inflict small wounds upon the French, but their maneuverability, firepower, and tactics were much better. FLN forces pinned down were mauled. Supplies had to be smuggled in from Tunisia and Morocco (similar to the Ho Chi Minh Trail). These supply runs became nearly suicidal leading to numerous casualties. Also, many Muslim soldiers still fought for the French and were able to infiltrate and extract intel on FLN forces leading to more losses. Even though militarily the FLN was losing, the French were still not winning. Cost and casualties mounted and the war continued on. Harsh measures by the French continued to alienate many non-aligned Algerians. The FLN could still find recruits to fill its ranks.
Politically the war in Algeria led to popular resentment in France and to a direct threat against France. France was growing tired of the cost in lives and treasure. They wanted out. Dissatisfaction within the Army led to a resentment of political leadership. The army wanted Algeria for France and nothing else. The Army would win Algeria without France if needed. In a stunning move, the French military in Algeria staged a coup that overthrew the government in France and led to the ascendance of De Gaulle. Fears of French units fighting each other almost became reality. De Gaulle was what the military wanted in a leader. De Gaulle however had learned his lessons and knew what lay ahead and began to move toward Algerian independence. This led to French Algerian forces and citizens becoming terrorists (the OAS) and attacking the French forces in France and Algeria. A civil war ensued where Frenchmen murdered Frenchmen. The die had been cast though. Algeria would become independent.
Seven years of war came to an end almost overnight. The peace led to one of the greatest migrations know in this century where 1 million French Algerians fled their home. Few believed the promises of sanctuary within the newly independent Algeria. This flood of refugees spread out across France to find a new home.
France did not learn her colonial lessons in Indochina and she repeated them in Algeria. These lessons were also there for us. We paid no attention to two nationalistic wars when we began our saga in Vietnam. It is mind boggling to understand how we assumed things would be different. Much was clouded in our thinking by labeling all insurgencies as Communist and falling for our Domino Theory. Over 50,000 of our soldiers paid the price for this mistake.
The Savage War of Peace is a well written and organized book that takes you through all this and more. A perfect blending of the political and military with enough background for the reader to understand all. A wonderful read for the military theorist or the armchair historian.
June 13, 2014
This is an intense read that will probably take you a while to get through. The narrative is pretty dense, and it's difficult to keep track of the stream of generals, politicians, and rebels that come and go. Leaving out some extra details could have made the book 1/5th shorter. The one towering figure over this period in history is Charles de Gaulle. He deserves significant credit for holding France together in this period in the face of military intransigence and rebellion. He also had the foresight to see that France's future lay not in fighting to retain the empire, but in modernizing the economy and preparing for the Cold War battlefield in Europe.
Sadly, there's hardly anyone else to admire in this story. The ALN was a weak force that the French became quite adept at suppressing. The FLN was captained by a series of bloodthirsty, ruthless, and quarrelsome leaders who had few reservations about spilling innocent French blood and even fewer about spilling Algerian blood, especially the luckless harkis. The FLN clearly understood that the longer the conflict dragged on, the more untenable France's position would become, so winning simply became a matter or surviving in Algeria in some way and isolating France in the court of international opinion. They also succeeded in preventing the French from creating a third force to negotiate with, a key step in forcing France to talk with the FLN. The sad part for the average Algerian is that independence was mainly a vehicle for gaining power for the autocratic FLN, who should in no way be romanticized. The French military was competent in both counterterrorism and COIN (see Chapters 9 and 16), but missed the broader political context of the conflict. All their efforts to crush the FLN and develop Algerian society were too little, too late for an alienated population yearning for independence. They were also far too Machiavellian, willing to turn to torture and ratonnages in response to FLN attacks, further alienating the Algerians. The OAS was even more outrageous and unreasonable in their terror campaign against Muslims and liberal Frenchmen. By the end of the book, you may wish to spit "A plague a both your houses" to these parties. To be honest, the pieds noirs were the biggest problem. They oppressed and humiliated the Algerians, but opposed any early moderate reforms that would have made their long-term presence in the country possible. They also overreacted to FLN attacks, usually giving Muslims the worse end of the stick in their retaliations (see Setif and Philippeville for the mass lynchings/massacres of Muslims). Finally, they latched onto quixotic and violent leaders who were willing to tear up the fabric of French society and democracy to chase the pipe dream of l'Algerie Francaise. The endless cycle of revenge burned any possible bridges between these groups, leading to a mass exodus at the end of the war.
ASWoP is classic work of excellent old-school political/military history, with some interesting cultural observations thrown in. Horne is a writer with flair who avoids phony equivocation or hyper-objectivism. He creates a tremendous sense of tragedy and pathos in this work. It's a lot of work and dull at times, but it's also a useful study for students of imperialism, decolonization, counterinsurgency, civil-military relations, or France in general. More than anything, ASWoP and the French-Algerian War is a fantastic reminder of Clausewitz's idea that war is essentially political, and that sometimes military victory and political defeat go hand in hand. Those who overlook this principle in modern warfare will receive a stark reminder by reading Horne's book. 563 pages.
Sadly, there's hardly anyone else to admire in this story. The ALN was a weak force that the French became quite adept at suppressing. The FLN was captained by a series of bloodthirsty, ruthless, and quarrelsome leaders who had few reservations about spilling innocent French blood and even fewer about spilling Algerian blood, especially the luckless harkis. The FLN clearly understood that the longer the conflict dragged on, the more untenable France's position would become, so winning simply became a matter or surviving in Algeria in some way and isolating France in the court of international opinion. They also succeeded in preventing the French from creating a third force to negotiate with, a key step in forcing France to talk with the FLN. The sad part for the average Algerian is that independence was mainly a vehicle for gaining power for the autocratic FLN, who should in no way be romanticized. The French military was competent in both counterterrorism and COIN (see Chapters 9 and 16), but missed the broader political context of the conflict. All their efforts to crush the FLN and develop Algerian society were too little, too late for an alienated population yearning for independence. They were also far too Machiavellian, willing to turn to torture and ratonnages in response to FLN attacks, further alienating the Algerians. The OAS was even more outrageous and unreasonable in their terror campaign against Muslims and liberal Frenchmen. By the end of the book, you may wish to spit "A plague a both your houses" to these parties. To be honest, the pieds noirs were the biggest problem. They oppressed and humiliated the Algerians, but opposed any early moderate reforms that would have made their long-term presence in the country possible. They also overreacted to FLN attacks, usually giving Muslims the worse end of the stick in their retaliations (see Setif and Philippeville for the mass lynchings/massacres of Muslims). Finally, they latched onto quixotic and violent leaders who were willing to tear up the fabric of French society and democracy to chase the pipe dream of l'Algerie Francaise. The endless cycle of revenge burned any possible bridges between these groups, leading to a mass exodus at the end of the war.
ASWoP is classic work of excellent old-school political/military history, with some interesting cultural observations thrown in. Horne is a writer with flair who avoids phony equivocation or hyper-objectivism. He creates a tremendous sense of tragedy and pathos in this work. It's a lot of work and dull at times, but it's also a useful study for students of imperialism, decolonization, counterinsurgency, civil-military relations, or France in general. More than anything, ASWoP and the French-Algerian War is a fantastic reminder of Clausewitz's idea that war is essentially political, and that sometimes military victory and political defeat go hand in hand. Those who overlook this principle in modern warfare will receive a stark reminder by reading Horne's book. 563 pages.
November 19, 2018
From 1954 until 1962, the French and Algerians tortured and slaughtered each others peoples, as well as their own.
It happened in the cities and in the mountains. It happened to soldiers and civilians, Muslims and Christians. It happened on orders from the respective armies, it happened at random and on the orders of groups and individuals accountable to no-one.
It was quite simply, one of the most drawn out, brutal, and tragic wars the world has ever seen.
How did this happen?
“A Savage War of Peace” attempts to answer this question but as Alistair Horne would probably himself admit, there is no clear answer.
There were moments early on in the war before the torture, before the insurrections in the armies, before De Gaulle, where some form of compromise or gradual solution toward Algerian autonomy/independence could have been achieved. These moments however were not squandered as much as they were ruthlessly snuffed out. By the time the war was in full swing any moderates on either side had either been exiled or more often, murdered.
Perhaps there was never a chance. Reading, much less trying to keep track of, various factions at play in Algeria and France is like playing a kind of murderous alphabet soup. On the French side alone there was the pied noir, petit blanc, the army who was loyal, the army that rebelled, the F.N.F., O.A.S., P.C.F., B.P.C., F.A.F., R.P.C., among countless others. The Algerians had the F.L.N., C.R.U.A., F.A.F., G.P.R.A., P.C.A., U.D.M.A., P.P.A., and many more all claiming to speak for the people.
With so many competing agendas, in fighting, and lack of order, it is perhaps no wonder that Algeria devolved into the chaos it did, leaving lasting scars in both countries that exist to this day.
How then did it end?
Horne makes that case that most wars of independence fought by an outnumbered and poorly equipped country, as Algeria surely was, (the latter being true at least until receiving financial and military assistance from the communist bloc) end by attrition. By 1962 it was increasingly clear that Algerians would fight until their last man, woman or child was dead. More importantly, the French (most importantly Charles De Gaulle) recognized that the bloody cost and emotional damage of eight years of war was simply not worth preserving the fantasy of a Francaise Algeria any longer when its own domestic problems required urgent attention.
It was not a fantasy easily surrendered within and without Algeria, as the brutal last years of the war would attest, but it too would eventually surrender to the inevitable of an independent Algeria.
Or as French leader Paul Reynaud was quoted as saying
“The war did not end in favorable conditions, but in the only conditions which were possible”
Mine is simply a brief summary of this book, but the events in between are numerous, shocking, and at times difficult to read. The 800+ pages of this book felt like at least double or triple that. I do not say this in the sense that it was not a wholly engrossing and designating book, it is without a doubt this and more. I mean rather that reading the endless brutality of man’s inhumanity to man does took an emotional toll, even on a somewhat hardened reader of history like myself.
It is however a majestic work of history (it is still read today by political and military leaders in the United States, John McCain was said to be an admirer of it) whose lessons are to valuable to ignore.
It happened in the cities and in the mountains. It happened to soldiers and civilians, Muslims and Christians. It happened on orders from the respective armies, it happened at random and on the orders of groups and individuals accountable to no-one.
It was quite simply, one of the most drawn out, brutal, and tragic wars the world has ever seen.
How did this happen?
“A Savage War of Peace” attempts to answer this question but as Alistair Horne would probably himself admit, there is no clear answer.
There were moments early on in the war before the torture, before the insurrections in the armies, before De Gaulle, where some form of compromise or gradual solution toward Algerian autonomy/independence could have been achieved. These moments however were not squandered as much as they were ruthlessly snuffed out. By the time the war was in full swing any moderates on either side had either been exiled or more often, murdered.
Perhaps there was never a chance. Reading, much less trying to keep track of, various factions at play in Algeria and France is like playing a kind of murderous alphabet soup. On the French side alone there was the pied noir, petit blanc, the army who was loyal, the army that rebelled, the F.N.F., O.A.S., P.C.F., B.P.C., F.A.F., R.P.C., among countless others. The Algerians had the F.L.N., C.R.U.A., F.A.F., G.P.R.A., P.C.A., U.D.M.A., P.P.A., and many more all claiming to speak for the people.
With so many competing agendas, in fighting, and lack of order, it is perhaps no wonder that Algeria devolved into the chaos it did, leaving lasting scars in both countries that exist to this day.
How then did it end?
Horne makes that case that most wars of independence fought by an outnumbered and poorly equipped country, as Algeria surely was, (the latter being true at least until receiving financial and military assistance from the communist bloc) end by attrition. By 1962 it was increasingly clear that Algerians would fight until their last man, woman or child was dead. More importantly, the French (most importantly Charles De Gaulle) recognized that the bloody cost and emotional damage of eight years of war was simply not worth preserving the fantasy of a Francaise Algeria any longer when its own domestic problems required urgent attention.
It was not a fantasy easily surrendered within and without Algeria, as the brutal last years of the war would attest, but it too would eventually surrender to the inevitable of an independent Algeria.
Or as French leader Paul Reynaud was quoted as saying
“The war did not end in favorable conditions, but in the only conditions which were possible”
Mine is simply a brief summary of this book, but the events in between are numerous, shocking, and at times difficult to read. The 800+ pages of this book felt like at least double or triple that. I do not say this in the sense that it was not a wholly engrossing and designating book, it is without a doubt this and more. I mean rather that reading the endless brutality of man’s inhumanity to man does took an emotional toll, even on a somewhat hardened reader of history like myself.
It is however a majestic work of history (it is still read today by political and military leaders in the United States, John McCain was said to be an admirer of it) whose lessons are to valuable to ignore.
May 28, 2018
I've been endeavoring to read some non-fiction this year that I have little or no knowledge about - certainly before reading this I had the barest inkling of the fact that Algeria was once a holding of France, and that they must have gained independence at some stage.
It appears that I'm finding myself a historical niche that interests me quite a lot - French colonialist wars - as the Algerian War of Independence kind of reads as the 'sequel' to France's disastrous finale in Indo-China, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which I've read two books about - Windrow's The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam and Fall's Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. Next on the list I have Fall's Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina.
Savage War of Peace came highly recommended by several articles and reviews I read on the topic before committing to a book - and it didn't disappoint. I'd not read any Alistair Horne before, and I picked up Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century earlier in the year and was very underwhelmed - but from what I can tell it is pretty much agreed that it is one of his weakest, and just a last attempt to cover some subjects he had never covered before.
A Savage War of Peace is incredibly detailed and - most importantly for me - accessibly (is that a word?) written - it talks you through the eight year conflict with patience and obvious care and does a good job of covering both sides and their strengths, weaknesses and issues.
The edition I read included a foreword which makes plain the comparisons drawn between the French attempts to provide 'freedom' to the Algerian state whilst still maintaining control over it, and America's recent excursions in the middle east - including Horne claiming that he sent President G.W. Bush a copy of the book for study purposes - and whilst there are parallels to be drawn here, I feel that the French are probably remembered with a lot less animosity 60 years on than America and her allies will be by Iraq, Syria and so on.
Horne especially draws attention to how tragically close France came to retaining control, albeit much reduced, and the benefits this would well have had for an independent Algerian state which has, since throwing off the yoke, staggered from crisis to civil strife and back to crisis again.
I'm bad at reviewing non-fiction, but suffice to say that I really enjoyed the read - and it was unexpectedly pleasing to see 'cameos' by names I was familiar with from my readings about Indochina and Dien Bien Phu - 'Bruno' Biegard, 'Madarin' Salan, and so on.
I look forward to reading more Horne in the future.
It appears that I'm finding myself a historical niche that interests me quite a lot - French colonialist wars - as the Algerian War of Independence kind of reads as the 'sequel' to France's disastrous finale in Indo-China, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which I've read two books about - Windrow's The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam and Fall's Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. Next on the list I have Fall's Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina.
Savage War of Peace came highly recommended by several articles and reviews I read on the topic before committing to a book - and it didn't disappoint. I'd not read any Alistair Horne before, and I picked up Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century earlier in the year and was very underwhelmed - but from what I can tell it is pretty much agreed that it is one of his weakest, and just a last attempt to cover some subjects he had never covered before.
A Savage War of Peace is incredibly detailed and - most importantly for me - accessibly (is that a word?) written - it talks you through the eight year conflict with patience and obvious care and does a good job of covering both sides and their strengths, weaknesses and issues.
The edition I read included a foreword which makes plain the comparisons drawn between the French attempts to provide 'freedom' to the Algerian state whilst still maintaining control over it, and America's recent excursions in the middle east - including Horne claiming that he sent President G.W. Bush a copy of the book for study purposes - and whilst there are parallels to be drawn here, I feel that the French are probably remembered with a lot less animosity 60 years on than America and her allies will be by Iraq, Syria and so on.
Horne especially draws attention to how tragically close France came to retaining control, albeit much reduced, and the benefits this would well have had for an independent Algerian state which has, since throwing off the yoke, staggered from crisis to civil strife and back to crisis again.
I'm bad at reviewing non-fiction, but suffice to say that I really enjoyed the read - and it was unexpectedly pleasing to see 'cameos' by names I was familiar with from my readings about Indochina and Dien Bien Phu - 'Bruno' Biegard, 'Madarin' Salan, and so on.
I look forward to reading more Horne in the future.
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