Remember Algeria: a lesson from midcentury.(The Middle East II)

ON the night of All Saints, 1954, a young honeymooning couple of French schoolteachers, dedicated to their work among underprivileged children, were dragged off a bus in the Aures Mountains of Algeria and shot dead. Their murder by the newly created FLN (National Liberation Front) marked the beginning of organized revolt against the French colonial "occupiers." The eight-year-long Algerian war was to bring down six French prime ministers, open the door to Charles de Gaulle--and come close to destroying him too.

The war was the last of the grand-style colonial struggles, but, perhaps more to the point, it was also the first campaign in which poorly equipped Muslim mujahadeen licked one of the top Western armies. The echoes of la guerre d'Algerie still reverberate across the Islamic world, especially in Iraq.

As in Iraq today, the struggle in Algeria was hydra-headed. In fact, there were several wars going on at the same time: the counter-insurgency; a civil war between Algerians; the external battle fought for public opinion in metropolitan France, and on the platforms of the U.N.; the struggle between the pieds noirs (French colonists in North Africa) and Paris, culminating in army revolt, followed by open, white terrorism under the aegis of the brutal killers of the OAS (Organisation Armee Secrete).

The first year of the Algerian war ended in stalemate, with France's forces, trained for war in Europe, unable to eradicate the FLN, and the FLN too weak to inflict serious damage on the French. Then, in a deadly move, the FLN switched to attacking the government's Algerian auxiliaries: local caids or magistrates, administrators, and above all, the police and their families. This strategy paid off handsomely. The Muslim police suffered many casualties; they were demoralized by fear, and remained paralyzed in their stations. They had to be protected by French army units that should have been deployed on offensive missions.

Next the FLN targeted villages friendly to the French, and outlying pied noir settlements. Using the bestial technique favored by Islamists to express contempt for the infidel, they slit the throats of women and children. Result: On the one hand, the French steadily lost support to the FLN for failing to protect the loyal, or uncommitted population; on the other, a terrorized civilian workforce left in droves.

Premier Guy Mollet sent in French conscripts. Even against 500,000 troops, the FLN continued to prove elusive--but the conscripts brought back to France ugly stories of torture. These were snapped up by anti-war celebs like the Sartres, and journals like Servan-Schreiber's L'Express. In 1958 General Massu's tough Paras broke the FLN hold on Algiers--through widespread use of torture. They won the Battle of Algiers; but they were to lose the war through the revulsion of French and foreign public opinion.

It got worse. In 1961, the army in Algeria revolted. The revolt was led by the elite Paras under four dissident generals. In response General de Gaulle made one of his most impassioned speeches, heard by conscripts all over Algeria. The revolt collapsed; but the unreliability of the army now made it plain that France would have to negotiate an exit strategy from her proudest colony--once an integral part of France.