Dankdude
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Telegraph | Comment | Algeria was worse than Iraq so far
Sir Alistair Horne, the great historian of modern war, believes that the war in Iraq most resembles the Algerian war against the French of 1954-62, of which he wrote a celebrated history, just reissued.
Certainly there are resemblances. The Algerian war, launched by ferocious nationalists, many of whom had served as soldiers in the French Algerian regiments against Germany in the concluding years of the second world war, was as bitter and cruel as Iraq has become.
As the Algerian war did, the Iraq war has spilt over into the homelands of the Western armies fighting it, leading to terrorism and atrocities on Western soil. It has also affected the politics of those homelands. It has also baffled, just as Algeria did, governments as to how to bring the war to a conclusion.
advertisementAnd it has drawn into the conflict external forces, based on neighbouring Muslim countries that support the anti-Westerners and complicate efforts at solutions by favouring one party or another among the Muslim combatants.
In addition, there is vast oil wealth, to intensify Western desire to achieve victory.
Fortunately there is also a lack of resemblances. As was not the case in Algeria, there is no large white minority domiciled in Iraq and demanding the entrenchment of its political privileges. Partly as a result, the politics of Iraq have not undermined the loyalties of the Western armies, nor encouraged generals or particular regiments to lend their support to factions or to attack institutions of government at home.
Nevertheless, as a war, Iraq depressingly resembles Algeria. There are the same massacres of Muslims who support the Western troops, the same failure to inflict disabling setbacks on the enemy, the same inability to identify the source of hostile supplies and recruits, the same sense of frustration in the Western leadership at its failure to get on top of the situation.
There is no doubt that, if transferred to Iraq today, many of the French generals who struggled to beat the Army of National Liberation (ANL) would recognise the same problems and perhaps advocate the same solutions, including repression of the Muslim population and the use of torture to extract intelligence.
The Algerian war began with a countrywide uprising on November 1, 1954. There were few French troops in the country and the insurgents, who concentrated on attacking the police and organs of government, swiftly succeeded in creating widespread disorder.
Reinforcements were hurried across the Mediterranean, many of them, since the war in Indo-China had just finished, veterans of France's own Vietnam. They included a high proportion of parachutists and the Foreign Legion, tough and highly experienced. They were quickly successful in suppressing the worst of the disorder and of taking the war to the enemy.
Though they could win local successes, they could not stop the ANL from mounting attacks. Following a number of judicial executions, the ANL launched a wave of killings of French civilians in Algiers, the worst outrage so far. In retaliation, Paris ordered General Massu to take over the Arab quarter of the city with his 10th Parachute Division. Massu was a famed fighter and veteran of Indo-China. Between January and March 1957, Massu's Paras terrorised the casbah into pacifity. Torture was widely used and in the end the ANL gave up because its counter-terrorism could not carry the Arab population with it.
Meanwhile, however, the war in the countryside continued, while, in France, a succession of weak governments was already becoming infected by defeatism. There were rumours of a negotiated peace. In Algiers, white colonists took to the street. In Paris, the government showed every sign of incapability.
At that moment, May 1958, the Frenchman-in-waiting, Charles de Gaulle, announced that he was ready to "assume the powers of the republic". Algiers went wild with joy.
Shortly afterwards, the government of France collapsed as the National Assembly agreed to pass its authority to de Gaulle, who promised a new constitution, and indeed a new Fifth Republic to replace the exhausted Fourth. He also went to Algiers where he uttered the soon-to-be-famous but deeply ambiguous words: "Je vous ai compris."
Both white Algeria and the Muslims would debate ever afterwards what de Gaulle had understood. It is most likely that he had already understood that Algeria would have to be given independence, but it would take him a long time to give it.
From his return to power in May 1958 until the departure of the French in July 1962, events in Algeria and France continued to be as turbulent as in the previous four years of war. The ANL launched a bloody campaign of terror inside France. The Algerian colonists took to open rebellion against France and succeeded in winning several of the leading French generals of Algeria to their side. France was threatened with invasion by military rebels.
By the exertion of his popular appeal, speaking directly to the French conscripts in Algeria on the radio, de Gaulle managed to overcome the rebellion and so eventually to organise Algerian self-government and an Algerian peace. The cost was the exodus of a million white colonists and several attempts at his assassination by rebellious officers.
Moreover, de Gaulle's grant of independence to Algeria did not bring a lasting peace to that country. The unrecognised power of Islam came into play against what was essentially a secular Algerian revolutionary government, leading to outbreaks of terrible civilian violence in 1992, which were to persist into the 21st century. No one would wish the history of Algeria on the suffering people of Iraq.
Sir Alistair Horne, the great historian of modern war, believes that the war in Iraq most resembles the Algerian war against the French of 1954-62, of which he wrote a celebrated history, just reissued.
Certainly there are resemblances. The Algerian war, launched by ferocious nationalists, many of whom had served as soldiers in the French Algerian regiments against Germany in the concluding years of the second world war, was as bitter and cruel as Iraq has become.
As the Algerian war did, the Iraq war has spilt over into the homelands of the Western armies fighting it, leading to terrorism and atrocities on Western soil. It has also affected the politics of those homelands. It has also baffled, just as Algeria did, governments as to how to bring the war to a conclusion.
advertisementAnd it has drawn into the conflict external forces, based on neighbouring Muslim countries that support the anti-Westerners and complicate efforts at solutions by favouring one party or another among the Muslim combatants.
In addition, there is vast oil wealth, to intensify Western desire to achieve victory.
Fortunately there is also a lack of resemblances. As was not the case in Algeria, there is no large white minority domiciled in Iraq and demanding the entrenchment of its political privileges. Partly as a result, the politics of Iraq have not undermined the loyalties of the Western armies, nor encouraged generals or particular regiments to lend their support to factions or to attack institutions of government at home.
Nevertheless, as a war, Iraq depressingly resembles Algeria. There are the same massacres of Muslims who support the Western troops, the same failure to inflict disabling setbacks on the enemy, the same inability to identify the source of hostile supplies and recruits, the same sense of frustration in the Western leadership at its failure to get on top of the situation.
There is no doubt that, if transferred to Iraq today, many of the French generals who struggled to beat the Army of National Liberation (ANL) would recognise the same problems and perhaps advocate the same solutions, including repression of the Muslim population and the use of torture to extract intelligence.
The Algerian war began with a countrywide uprising on November 1, 1954. There were few French troops in the country and the insurgents, who concentrated on attacking the police and organs of government, swiftly succeeded in creating widespread disorder.
Reinforcements were hurried across the Mediterranean, many of them, since the war in Indo-China had just finished, veterans of France's own Vietnam. They included a high proportion of parachutists and the Foreign Legion, tough and highly experienced. They were quickly successful in suppressing the worst of the disorder and of taking the war to the enemy.
Though they could win local successes, they could not stop the ANL from mounting attacks. Following a number of judicial executions, the ANL launched a wave of killings of French civilians in Algiers, the worst outrage so far. In retaliation, Paris ordered General Massu to take over the Arab quarter of the city with his 10th Parachute Division. Massu was a famed fighter and veteran of Indo-China. Between January and March 1957, Massu's Paras terrorised the casbah into pacifity. Torture was widely used and in the end the ANL gave up because its counter-terrorism could not carry the Arab population with it.
Meanwhile, however, the war in the countryside continued, while, in France, a succession of weak governments was already becoming infected by defeatism. There were rumours of a negotiated peace. In Algiers, white colonists took to the street. In Paris, the government showed every sign of incapability.
At that moment, May 1958, the Frenchman-in-waiting, Charles de Gaulle, announced that he was ready to "assume the powers of the republic". Algiers went wild with joy.
Shortly afterwards, the government of France collapsed as the National Assembly agreed to pass its authority to de Gaulle, who promised a new constitution, and indeed a new Fifth Republic to replace the exhausted Fourth. He also went to Algiers where he uttered the soon-to-be-famous but deeply ambiguous words: "Je vous ai compris."
Both white Algeria and the Muslims would debate ever afterwards what de Gaulle had understood. It is most likely that he had already understood that Algeria would have to be given independence, but it would take him a long time to give it.
From his return to power in May 1958 until the departure of the French in July 1962, events in Algeria and France continued to be as turbulent as in the previous four years of war. The ANL launched a bloody campaign of terror inside France. The Algerian colonists took to open rebellion against France and succeeded in winning several of the leading French generals of Algeria to their side. France was threatened with invasion by military rebels.
By the exertion of his popular appeal, speaking directly to the French conscripts in Algeria on the radio, de Gaulle managed to overcome the rebellion and so eventually to organise Algerian self-government and an Algerian peace. The cost was the exodus of a million white colonists and several attempts at his assassination by rebellious officers.
Moreover, de Gaulle's grant of independence to Algeria did not bring a lasting peace to that country. The unrecognised power of Islam came into play against what was essentially a secular Algerian revolutionary government, leading to outbreaks of terrible civilian violence in 1992, which were to persist into the 21st century. No one would wish the history of Algeria on the suffering people of Iraq.
