by Concrete Hell- Urban Warfare From Stalingrad to Iraq (epub)
The Guerre Revolutionnaire Doctrine
At the beginning of the war, French forces in Algeria did not completely understand the nature of the enemy with which they were engaged. The initial actions of the FLN were viewed as criminal terrorism to be dealt with by the police. By 1956 the French government recognized the scale and effectiveness of the insurgency, and the French response was large but conventional military operations. These proved generally ineffective against the insurgency, which by then had been active for two years, was well organized, had a large popular support base in the Muslim population, and was skilled in conducting hit-and-run guerrilla operations. Beginning in 1956 the French started to adjust their tactics and operational approach. This was mainly due to the arrival in theater of experienced officers and troops from Indochina who understood the Maoist approach to revolutionary warfare. The new French leaders began to informally articulate a counterinsurgency doctrine known as guerre revolutionnaire, and the tactics, techniques, and procedures to implement it.
Guerre revolutionnaire was not a formally adopted doctrine of the French army. Rather, it was a counterinsurgency doctrine articulated by influential French officers and disseminated unofficially through discussions, and private and professional writing. The crux of the new doctrine was that the objective of the army was the support and allegiance of the people. This support had to be won by providing a promising alternative ideology to the population. That ideology was a liberal French democratic ideology with strong Christian overtones. The tactics that supported the French doctrine were in general very effective. These tactics rested on five key counterinsurgency fundamentals: isolating the insurgency from support; providing local security; executing effective strike operations; establishing French political legitimacy and effective indigenous political and military forces; and establishing a robust intelligence capability. The French doctrine demonstrated that they had a solid theoretical understanding of Maoist revolutionary war. The battle for Algiers was the first clear large-scale application of guerre revolutionnaire against the FLN.
The leaders of the French paratroopers, in particular the staff officers, knew that the most important key to successful operations against the FLN was intelligence. This was the primary responsibility of Godard, Trinquier, and Aussaresses. They quickly created a very sophisticated and robust human intelligence (HUMINT) system in the city. This system was multilayered, including local loyal Algerians, turned former FLN members, paid informers, and aggressive interrogation and detention practices. It was linked to strategic intelligence operations in France as well as to the intelligence operations of other nations – notably Israel. It was managed by the key division staff officers personally, and included unit intelligence officers in each regiment. The key to the success of the intelligence system was the rapid dissemination of critical information to strike units. The French standard was to strike at targets identified through their intelligence system within hours of uncovering the information. High-stress interrogation techniques and torture were an integral part of this system – and its major defect. The failure of the French to recognize this flaw had immense strategic consequences.
The French adapted their operations and tactics, techniques, and procedures in recognition of the importance of intelligence. They adjusted their organizations to ensure that the most competent and qualified officers were assigned to the intelligence positions. The intelligence staff positions became in effect the key operational staff positions in battalion-level organizations and higher. The French ensured that intelligence was linked tightly to mobile reaction units. They understood the fleeting nature of good intelligence and thus developed the ability to react to acquired intelligence quickly with their mobile units. The French recognized that human intelligence was most important. They built multiple, overlapping layers of HUMINT networks to provide and cross-check information. They also understood that the environment in which the insurgents operated was the population. The French army therefore sought to organize that environment. This took the form of a very detailed and accurate documentation of the population. Censuses were conducted and identification cards were issued that enabled files to be established on the civilian population and gave the army the ability to track individuals within the population.
Counterinsurgency Tactics
Tactically the 10th Parachute Division used the quadrillage system to organize the city. They divided the city into quadrants and assigned one to each of the four regiments. The regiments then became experts on the people and the layout of their assigned area. The regiments also controlled access to their quadrants through checkpoints and patrolled their quadrants constantly. The intent was to isolate each part of the city from external influence. The quadrillage system also ensured that nothing could happen of significance within the city without the paratroopers being immediately informed.
As each regiment took charge of their zone, their operating environment was carefully cataloged. The paratroopers went door to door and forced the population to submit to a detailed census which created a huge database of residents, their occupations, family, and addresses. This database was invaluable in subsequent search operations and interrogations. In addition, the physical layout of the city was studied. The paras established a coded organizational system for the unstructured Casbah. They mapped, and assigned each block and house in the Casbah a designation. The letter–number codes were then painted prominently on all the buildings. This allowed quick and accurate targeting of patrols and raids anywhere in the city and, combined with the population data, gave intelligence officers and commanders an accurate understanding of the human terrain of the battle space.
The FLN Returns
In the fall of 1956 the FLN established itself in the Casbah, built its organization, and prepared itself for operations. The Milk-Bar bombings and subsequent operations demonstrated the ability of the FLN to carry out campaigns. However, the real battle for Algiers began in January 1957 with the arrival in the city of General Massu and his division. The first contest between the paras and the FLN was the general strike action called for by the FLN in January 1957.
Ben M’Hidi believed that the bombings and assassinations had demonstrated the effectiveness of FLN operations within the city. They had also firmly driven a wedge between the European and Muslim populations of the city. What had not been demonstrated, however, was the extent to which the general Muslim population was under the control of the FLN. This, according to M’Hidi’s plan, was to be demonstrated by a city-wide general strike that would last eight days, beginning on January 28, 1957. The strike, timed to coincide with the beginning of the UN session in New York, would demonstrate to the Algerian population, the French, and to the world the willingness of the Muslim population to follow the FLN’s leadership, thus firmly establishing the FLN’s legitimacy. The strike would benefit the FLN’s case for Algerian independence to the United Nations.
Map 6.2 Deployment and Actions of the 10th Para Division, Algiers, 1957
The French completely understood the threat of the strike to the legitimacy of French rule in Algeria. Thus, the French government directed Massu to break the strike at all cost. On Monday morning, the first day of the strike, Muslim shops throughout the city remained shuttered and closed, Muslim children did not go to school, workers at the post office, the telegraph and telephone service, and the railroad failed to show up for work. It appeared that the strike was a total and complete success. Then the French army moved into action.
Massu ordered his paratroopers to deploy throughout the city, and each regiment quickly swarmed over its assigned sector. Armored cars hooked up to the fronts of the closed businesses and ripped the doors off their hinges. Shop owners were faced with the option of appearing and protecting their stock or having the local population pillage their stores. Once the owners showed up, paratroopers ordered them to stay open or be subject to immediate arrest. Fleets of trucks followed the paratroopers who began to systematically move through the Mus
lim neighborhoods and roust the population. Using their census data as a guide, working-age males were gathered, quickly organized by workplace, and then trucked to work under guard. Any who resisted were arrested, but faced with imprisonment by the French, most of the strikers – like the shop owners – reluctantly complied. Within a few days, the same tactics were used with schoolchildren. The French army literally herded the children from their homes to the schools. Thus, within a few days, the strike was broken, and the city, to all appearances was back to normal. The French, and importantly, the FLN, both recognized that the FLN plan had failed in a very dramatic and public way. Colonel Godard remarked that the FLN’s mistake was to declare the strike effective for eight days. Godard conceded that had the FLN called for a one- or two-day strike, it would have appeared to be very effective, and the paras could not have made their presence felt fast enough to claim a victory. As it was, the failed strike seemed to indicate that the French government still had effective control over the city and its population.
The strike was a major setback to the FLN in its campaign to demonstrate its claim as the legitimate representative of the Muslim population. However, it did not diminish the FLN’s operational capability. As an alternative to the strike action, Yacef supervised another bombing campaign. Two days before the strike began the FLN hit downtown Algiers with a patterned attack of three simultaneous bombings. The attack was designed based on the successful Milk-Bar attack. Three young women were chosen as the bombers. The targets were popular entertainment and eating establishments, including the Cafeteria club for the second time. This time all three bombs detonated killing five and wounded 60, including a young Muslim who was lynched on the spot by outraged mobs of Colons. Two weeks later, on a Sunday, young girls aged 16 and 17 planted bombs in two crowded sports stadiums that detonated and killed ten and injuring 45. Despite their success, however, it was getting harder and harder for Yacef and his organization to operate.
The FLN was forced to use women bombers because it was virtually impossible for a Muslim male to travel unchallenged anywhere in the city. The French army’s grip on the city grew tighter as patrols and checkpoints began to bring in more and more Muslims for questioning. Each interrogation was carefully conducted to create a picture of the FLN organization, and new information was quickly used to provide more focus for patrols, raids, and arrests. Careful police action at the scene of the bombings was also important. Police investigations led to the information that at least some of the bombers were women, and from that point on army and police checkpoints subjected all women to the same intense searches as men. Police investigation also led to the identification and arrest of the stadium bombers. Those arrests, and the arrests of several couriers by checkpoints and patrols, combined with intense interrogations, gave the French paras the leads they needed to begin to systematically track down and deconstruct the FLN network.
An example of how the French interrogation system worked is the capture of a locksmith working for the FLN. He was stopped and searched by a routine patrol of the 3rd RPC, and found to have bomb blueprints in his possession. He was then turned over to the division special interrogation branch. After three days of intense interrogation he gave away the address of Yacef’s bomb factory in the Casbah. However, with three days’ notice the FLN had time to break down the hidden factory and hide all evidence and the raid on the residence netted no results. A week later however the paras captured a bomb courier and the mason who built many of Yacef’s hides in the Casbah. Both talked under torture and they gave away the exact location of the primary bomb factory and the bomb-maker. Raiding paras managed to capture almost a hundred completed bombs, thousands of detonators, and hundreds of pounds of explosive. As important, they rounded up many of the FLN associated with the bombing network, and had positively identified names of most of the others. It had taken Yacef 18 months to create his network in Algiers but by the end of February 1957 it had been essentially destroyed by the French paratroopers.
The same intelligence that the paras used to track down the bombers of the FLN was also helping them close in on the leadership of the organization. By the end of January 1957 Yacef himself had barely eluded capture several times. On February 9, a top lieutenant of B’Hidi was captured. On February 15, the FLN leadership agreed that their campaign in Algiers was on the verge of failing and they determined that the political leadership should depart the city to avoid capture. They also decided to leave Yacef behind to continue the campaign as best he was able. On February 25, Ben M’Hidi moved out of the Casbah and into a suburb of the city. That move caught the attention of a Muslim informer in Trinquier’s network. The paratroopers quickly raided the home and captured M’Hidi in his pajamas. A little over a week later the French army announced that M’Hidi killed himself while in captivity. Most of the population of Algeria understood that the French army killed him. More than 40 years later, in 2001, Major Paul Aussaresses admitted in his account of the battle of Algiers to having shot the FLN leader.
The capture of M’Hidi, the retreat of the FLN leadership, and the loss of key operatives, safe houses, and the bomb-making network were major setbacks for the FLN. However, Yacef, the operations chief, was still at large and active. Through the spring of 1957, even as paratroopers were withdrawn from the city, Yacef laboriously rebuilt the damaged FLN network in the city. In June the FLN felt strong enough to strike back. The first attack was a four-bomb attack where the bombs were installed in the iron bases of street lights. The light casings enhanced the effects of the explosives and the bombs killed eight and wounded over 90 civilians. For the FLN, however, the attacks were a strategic mistake because the bombs, located in busy public places, indiscriminately killed Europeans and Muslims alike, and created discord in the Muslim community. This strategic error was not repeated a few days later when a massive bomb was exploded in Algiers Casino, an upscale entertainment venue catering to well-to-do Colons.
The casino bombing of June 9, 1957 killed nine and wounded 85. The bomb was placed under the bandstand and because of its positioning many of the wounded suffered leg amputations. Nearly half of the dead and injured were women. In reaction the Colon community went on a rampage through Muslim neighborhoods. Mobs broke into and pillaged Muslim businesses as police and soldiers stood idly by. The mob, estimated at over 10,000 in number, was finally brought under control by Major Trinquier who brandished a tricolor from his jeep, got their attention and led them to the French commander, General Salan. Salan addressed them and then ordered them to disperse, which they did. In addition to hundreds of businesses destroyed, five Muslims were killed, over 50 injured, and 20 cars burned. The casino bombing and the Colon reaction drove the two communities irrevocably apart and pushed the Muslim community into the arms of the FLN.
By the time of the casino bombing the various actions of the French had restricted the safe havens of the FLN exclusively to the Casbah. With the FLN again active, the para regiments were redeployed throughout the city, and a subordinate of Trinquier, Captain Leger, deployed a new intelligence asset into the battle. Leger, a member of the elite 11th Shock Unit and an Arab expert, recruited a group of former FLN members and deployed them into the general Arab working population, clad in the typical blue dungaree dress of the working class. These spies, known as Leger’s “Blues,” achieved astounding success as they mingled with their former associates and reported back to the French. The first success of the “Blues” was locating Yacef’s new bomb-makers. On August 26, they were both killed in a stand-off after being trapped by the paras in an apartment.
The French intelligence net, the “Blues,” and incessant patrols and checkpoints by the paras made it impossible for Yacef to operate. In late September a courier carrying a message from Yacef to the FLN outside of Algeria was captured by the French on an informer’s tip. The courier, under intense interrogation, gave the French the location of Yacef’s final hideout. On September 24, the house was surrounded by Colonel Jeanpierre’s 1st REP and a s
earch revealed a hollow wall behind which Yacef was hidden. As the paras started to break down the wall Yacef threw a grenade out of a hole and wounded three paras including Colonel Jeanpierre. At that point Colonel Godard arrived and took charge of the operation. He ordered the entire house set for demolition and informed Yacef if he didn’t surrender they would blow the building up with him inside. At that point Yacef surrendered himself and a female companion. Neither Yacef nor his companion were tortured and, though sentenced to death by several military tribunals, Yacef was eventually pardoned by French President de Gaulle. Two weeks after Yacef’s capture, a “Blue” led the paras to the hideout of Yacef’s deputy, Ali la Pointe. On October 8, after fruitless negotiations, the paras blew up the house containing the trapped FLN assassin and two companions. The explosion set off secondary explosions in a bomb cache and brought down neighboring buildings resulting in the deaths of 17 innocent Muslims, including several children.
