PENGUIN CLASSICS
THE PRAETORIANS
JEAN LARTÉGUY (b. Jean Pierre Lucien Osty) was born in Maisons-Alfort, a small town just southeast of Paris. In March 1942, he escaped occupied France for Spain, where he spent time in prison before joining the Free French Forces. He served seven years of military service in North Africa and Korea, during which he earned various military awards. After being wounded by a grenade, Lartéguy turned to writing, working as a journalist and war correspondent. He covered conflicts in eastern Europe, the Middle East, southeast Asia, and North Africa, primarily for the magazine Paris Match. In 1955, he earned the Albert Londres Prize for his reporting in Indochina. A prolific writer, Lartéguy’s body of work includes more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction, most of which focus on the consequences of war and decolonization in the twentieth century. He is best remembered for his Algerian War trilogy, consisting of The Mercenaries (1954), The Centurions (1960), and The Praetorians (1961). The Centurions, an overnight sensation and bestseller in France, became a film titled Lost Command, starring Anthony Quinn, in 1966. Though he died in 2011, his significance as a chronicler of irregular warfare continues to rise with the proliferation of modern guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency tactics.
A retired four-star general, STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL is the former commander of U.S. and International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and Joint Special Operations Command. General McChrystal is the cofounder of McChrystal Group, LLC, and a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where he teaches a course on Leadership in Operation. He is also the chairman of the Aspen Institute’s Franklin Project, dedicated to promoting national service initiatives among American youth. He is the author of two New York Times bestselling books: My Share of the Task: A Memoir and Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World. General McChrystal resides in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife of thirty-nine years, Annie.
ALEXANDER (XAN) WALLACE FIELDING was a British author and translator. He served in the Special Operations Executive in the British Army in Crete, France, and the Far East. The author of several books of his own, he also translated works by Pierre Boulle, Jean Lartéguy, and others from French into English. He died in Paris in 1991.
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First published in Great Britain by Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers) Ltd. 1963
First published in the United States of America by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1963
This edition with a foreword by Stanley McChrystal published in Penguin Books 2016
Copyright © 1961 by Presses de la Cite, an imprint of Place de Editeurs Translation
Copyright © 1963 by Penguin Random House LLC and The Random House Group
Foreword copyright © 2016 by Stanley McChrystal
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Originally published in French as Les Praetorians by Presses de la Cite.
ISBN 9781101992593
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover illustration: Ed Fairburn
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Contents
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword by GENERAL STANLEY McCHRYSTAL (U.S. Army, Retired)
Dedication
Epigraph
THE PRAETORIANS
Part One: Morning in Algiers
1. Unpaid Leave
2. The Three Notes of the Toad of Saint-Gilles-de-Valreyne
3. The End of a Myth
4. The Parade at the République
5. The Mutiny at the Aletti
6. Week-end in Algiers
7. The Chouchouka of the 13th of May
8. That Morning Anything was Possible
Part Two: Night in the Adrar
9. The Faraway Princess
10. The Zaouia of Sheik Sidi Ahmou
11. An “Objective” Point of View
12. Sector Diary
Foreword
Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
—EPITAPH ON THE CENOTAPH OF THERMOPYLAE
As the Greek historian Herodotus records, in 480 BC a pitifully small force of Spartan soldiers stood defiantly in the face of an immense Persian Army, and, in a display of courage and willing sacrifice, died.
For many, King Leonidas’s Spartans, like the Roman Centurions and Praetorians who came later, have come to symbolize the apogee of soldiering, red cloaks on stalwart shoulders, arms scarred by battle—war-seasoned professionals. They are the rough men whose presence, George Orwell suggests, allows others to sleep in peace. They are at once from the society they defend and yet detached from it.
In the years following World War II, the cloak was replaced by a parachute harness and camouflaged battle uniforms. Paratroopers, intrepid men who jumped behind enemy lines carrying a submachine gun and boot knife, became the darlings of a war where killing had gone industrially impersonal. Although they leveraged technology that was brand new, paratroopers suggested a romantic vision of combat where the individual was more than a nameless part of a larger machine.
In 1974 at West Point, in a course titled Revolutionary Warfare, I studied Malaya and Kenya, Korea and the Philippines. Unconventional or “guerrilla” warriors Francis Marion, Tito, Castro, and Mao became familiar figures. But it was Indochina, precursor to the war my father and brother fought in South Vietnam, and Algeria that resonated. It was as a cadet that I first read Jean Lartéguy’s The Centurions, and later The Praetorians. The infantry major who taught the course had us analyze the characters and consider the message. We followed Colonel Raspéguy, the instinctive warrior, and his officers; Esclavier, the complicated intellectual; Glatigny, the traditionalist-turned-paratrooper; Boisfeuras, the wily operative; the surgeon Dia; and others as the bitter experiences of Indochina were seared into their psyche. “People’s wars,” we concluded, would demand something fundamentally different from us than would more conventional struggles. Our major, shaped by his own Vietnam experience, subtly reinforced the message.
It was simultaneously a realistic, and yet romanticized, view of complex, brutal conflicts. Paratroopers dropping voluntarily into already-doomed Dien Bien Phu or combing rugged mountains for an elusive foe in a futile struggle careening to failure was not an attractive template for a life of purpose. But the role held a seductive appeal; it was a temptress that I, and some of my peers, willingly courted.
It wasn’t the most heavily traveled path. The American Army we joined in the mid-1970s was turning away from the agony of Vietnam and looked instinctively to Europe (and soon the Middle East) for mission and purpose. Through the years of the Cold War, the Soviet Army’s frightening mass of tanks, artillery, and soldiers had loomed as a constant menace to Europe. But the 1973 Arab-Israeli War reflected dramatically improved weapons technology and signaled a new era of conventi
onal warfare. For many, it was a welcome reason to turn our backs on the frustrations of revolutionary wars. The tanker and artilleryman regained the stature they’d lost to America’s temporary fixation on the jungles of Southeast Asia.
But for some, the allure remained. As a young Lieutenant in 1977 I reported to the famed 82nd Airborne Division. I donned the uniform, topped by a maroon beret, with the hope that before long I’d have the sinewy physique, steady nerves, and nonchalant demeanor of a veteran warrior—the outward traits of the paratroopers Lartéguy introduces us to in The Centurions and then examines more deeply in The Praetorians. Soon, my comrades and I learned the trade of young paratroop officers—from siting machine guns to dealing with strong-willed senior sergeants.
It would have been impossible to be quite as competent, courageous, and attractive to women as our French counterparts Lartéguy portrays, but at least superficially, mimicking warriors we admired was straightforward. Like Lartéguy’s characters, however, we’d learn over the years, careers, and wars ahead, almost everything else was far more complex.
In its simplest description, a soldier’s role is to master and execute the mechanics of war. Doctrinally, the policy before, and the way ahead after combat are the purview of others. From a distance this clear delineation between the civilians who craft a policy for war and the soldiers who fight it is comfortingly distinct. The paradox emerges when the inevitable reality blurs the line.
Lartéguy’s veterans leave Indochina with two deeply held conclusions. The first is that wars can be won only by an army that is willing and able to mobilize its soldiers and the people with a narrative that inspires. The Viet Minh’s unexpected triumph over the French Empire convinced them that an already discredited status quo (in that case, colonialism) is indefensible. They vowed that the next time they fought, they would have a cause worth believing in.
Recently we have been reminded that that cause must be broad enough to inspire more than just those in uniform. Entering Afghanistan in 2001, propelled by the cause of 9/11-fueled righteous indignation, we soon recognized that our cause did not automatically resonate with Afghans—the World Trade Towers had no tangible reality. And despite a general dislike of the recently ousted Taliban and a deep disdain for the largely foreign Al Qaeda, the Afghan people were soon frustrated by the formation of a government that at the local level felt much like the corrupt warlords they’d learned to abhor in the 1990s. As a result, recruiting young men to risk their lives in service was a tough sell. They were instinctively attracted to patriotism and a sense of nation but were revolted by their up-close experience with actual conditions. Countless good people worked tirelessly to push the effort forward but, like Sisyphus, often watched the stone roll back down.
It was difficult even for us. As soldiers, we sought to find cause in our fight against Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and threats to our homeland, but, like Colonel Raspéguy’s frustrated young officers, opposition to something is not enough. Sustained commitment requires the sustenance of belief. You must have something to fight for.
Lartéguy’s veterans’ second conclusion is more subtle: that any war fought in a manner sure to lead to defeat is stupid—and to fight stupidly is immoral. They decided that because losing was wrong, any tactics or measures necessary to win were therefore the right ones. On examination, it’s flawed logic that can begin a long downward slide on a slippery surface. But the complex struggle that enshrouds a nation and society at war with itself does not take place in a rhetoric class on a university campus. It occurs on a battlefield strewn with the shattered detritus of internecine carnage. The desire to win is as much visceral as it is logical.
For Colonel Raspéguy’s men, the quest for critical intelligence leads to torture, while in seemingly contradictory behavior, their objective of gaining popular support produces civil engagement ranging from schools to infrastructure projects. Driven by experience, they are unwilling to accept a narrow view of the mission. Close to the problem, they conclude that their perspective is most accurate; their solution, most appropriate. Directives and guidance from afar are dismissed with disdain.
Ultimately, when Lartéguy’s Praetorians take an active role in Algerian—and therefore French National—politics, it reflects a natural evolution that began with their disillusionment and resulting conclusions with the failure in Indochina. Their traditional military aversion to any political involvement fades with the specter of yet another defeat. But this new endeavor is a poor fit for soldiers for whom the gravitational pull of traditional military values is still present, the habits strong. Neophytes to political intrigue, in failure they retreat to the security of what they know: a more traditional, narrower view of a soldier’s role. And in doing so they conclude and accept that another defeat is inevitable.
Like most books, Lartéguy’s characters and story appear in the hue and focus of the reader’s personal lens. For some, the paratroopers are an arrogant, swaggering lot who abandon the sacred covenants that govern the profession of arms. Like a drug prescribed that does more harm than good, they no longer reflect a responsible option for the nation they are sworn to represent.
But in the minds of soldiers I led and knew, in the psyche of today’s paratroopers and special operators who most closely resemble the small society Lartéguy describes, there is no consensus or simple conclusion. The constant tension between politically correct and practically expedient, or between unquestioning obedience and a broader interpretation of responsibility is undeniable. The academic debate feels irrelevant in the complexity of the alleys of a violence-wracked city in Iraq or astride the illogic of the Durand Line. There is a very real temptation to abandon the confines of conventionality and “do what it takes.”
There are few answers in The Praetorians, but a multitude of questions. There are no tactics to adopt or figures worthy of unexamined emulation. But for soldiers, and those who would have a need or desire to understand them, there is food for thought. At its outset analysts typically declare “this war is different.” And the maps, names, uniforms, and technology often are—but much remains the same. Each time we will wrestle with questions that defy simple answers. Each time, each soldier will find the need to answer the truly difficult questions for themselves.
In the hurricane-like political atmosphere of Algiers, as their excursion in politics collapses in failure, one of the paratroopers’ own lashes out at them in frustration: “I took you for men, and you’re nothing but good soldiers . . .”
GENERAL STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL
(U.S. Army, Retired)
The Praetorians, like The Centurions, to which it is a sequel, is a novel and the characters in it are imaginary, although they evolve in the midst of events that are sometimes real. Let no one seek out any State secrets here: on this old hulk of ours they no longer exist, the rats have devoured them.
I dedicate this book to the memory of all the praetorians whom certain Caesars arranged to be massacred so as not to pay their wages or to save their own skins.
J. L.
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
—JAMES JOYCE, ULYSSES
PART ONE
MORNING IN ALGIERS
A nous dix, nous prîmes la ville
—Et le roi lui-même! Après quoi,
Maîtres du port, maîtres de l’île,
Ne sachant qu’en faire, ma foi,
D’une manière très civile
Nous rendîmes la ville au roi.
VICTOR HUGO,
La Lègende des siècles
1
UNPAID LEAVE
By decision of the Minister of National Defence, Captain Philippe Esclavier is posted at his own request on unpaid leave.
Journal Officiel, 1 MARCH 1959
Two weeks before being promoted to the rank of major and receiving the ribbon of a commander of the Lègion d’Honneur, Captain Philippe Esclavier, of the 10th Col
onial Parachute Regiment, handed in his resignation. He was still under treatment at the Val-de-Grâce for the wound he had received in the dunes of the Adrar.
Colonel Bucerdon, chief of staff of the airborne troops, came to see him in his hospital room to ask him the reasons for this inexplicable decision. He had deliberately donned civilian clothes so that this visit, which he intended to be a friendly one, should not be construed as an official interview. The captain merely replied that it was “for personal reasons.” The colonel almost asked him if his resignation was not in some way connected with the death of Boisfeuras and the dissolution of the Public Safety Committees, but he did not dare.
The young officers in his branch disconcerted and embarrassed him at one and the same time. He could not overlook the fact that they held regular meetings among themselves in order to take certain important decisions.
In every parachute regimental mess, among the units back at base or engaged on operations, Esclavier’s resignation was certain to be the main topic of conversation. He was one of those who had endowed the airborne troops with their particular quality, that mixture of insolence, cynicism and familiarity, that sense of belonging to a team that has its own customs and habits, to a sect that has its own secrets; just as Colonel Raspéguy had introduced their style, their turn-out and manner of fighting, and as Boisfeuras had been responsible for the atmosphere that reigned in many of the regiments, which appertained as much to the soviet of soldiers as to the seminary of a military establishment.
General le Bigan, the paratroops’ inspector, had had a long talk with the Minister of the Armed Forces concerning Esclavier. He had then asked Colonel Bucerdon to go and see the captain in the Val-de-Grâce, and to adopt a tactful, cautious, friendly attitude towards him; in the Rue Saint-Dominique* they wanted him to stay on in the army. If he absolutely refused to do so, then at least his departure should be engineered without any fuss. In a somewhat biting tone le Bigan had said to the colonel:
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