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Thread: France's war in Algeria: telling the story

  1. #61
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange View Post
    After all, they won the battle of insurgency in a lost war since the very first day.
    That is a very debatable statement. Between 1954 and 1962, the French Army lost 28,000 dead (avg: 300 a month). The cost of holding onto Algeria was simply too high, in terms of the strategy. The French left because they could not sustain the military engagement. Most French people wanted out because of the human cost of the war.
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    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Impact of conscript soldiers

    Wilf,

    I have read a little about the French war in Algeria, including the memoirs of an English-speaking conscript and an English-speaker in the Foreign Legion.

    Was the impact of the death toll minimised by the professionals and colonial formations were the operational "hard edge"? I recall at the time of the 'General's Revolt' the conscripts made it clear they were not involved or supportive.

    Are there parallels with the US role in South Vietnam? More troops deployed meant conscription.
    davidbfpo

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    Council Member M-A Lagrange's Avatar
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    Wilf,

    I do not disagree with you. The death toll during Algeria War was unacceptable for the population in France. I am not familliar enought with the details of the impact of conscription but it was clear that going to war in Algeria was not popular and the death toll made it even less popular. Official media could say what they want, people find out when too many sons are not coming home...


    David,

    You are perfectly right saying that the conscript did not support the general revolte. But neither did the President (De Gaule if I am not mistaking).

    My point was rather on the fact that in Malaysia case, the British did promise independance since the early stages while in the case of Algeria it was promised at the end and without the support of the colon population in Algeria (and without the support of some military). And extremely badly explained.
    Still, I do think that not evaluating rightfuly the situation at its early stage was the biggest mistake. And is the one which is repeated.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    Are there parallels with the US role in South Vietnam? More troops deployed meant conscription.
    Yes, in terms of the cost of the strategy. Destroying the enemy has to be matched to the cost of doing so.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Quote Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange View Post
    David,

    You are perfectly right saying that the conscript did not support the general revolte. But neither did the President (De Gaule if I am not mistaking).

    My point was rather on the fact that in Malaysia case, the British did promise independance since the early stages while in the case of Algeria it was promised at the end and without the support of the colon population in Algeria (and without the support of some military). And extremely badly explained.
    When I was younger, my idea was that Pdt. De Gaulle did a real mistake when he choose to leave, regarding agricultural & petrol resources of Algeria. My analyze, today is (as one of the greatest Pdt we had) that he made the good choice, and the main reason, can't be told to people of France at that time is : demographic.

    Quote Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange View Post
    Still, I do think that not evaluating rightfully the situation at its early stage was the biggest mistake. And is the one which is repeated.
    To apply that question to current deployement : Why did the opponents of ISAF fights ? Freedom ? politics ? money (opium) ? religion ? ethnics ?
    Last edited by jps2; 06-14-2010 at 05:44 PM.

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    Default Reason for cutting Algeria loose

    No doubt "war weariness" contributed to DG's decision (Wilf's point); BUT probably more important was the cost of lost opportunities elsewhere if Algeria continued to be a drain financially, and on France's overall posture in Europe and the World.

    This:

    from jps2
    When I was younger, my idea was that Pdt. De Gaulle did a real mistake when he choose to leave, regarding agricultural & petrol resources of Algeria. My analyze, today is (as one of the greatest Pdt we had) that he made the good choice, and the main reason, can't be told to people of France at that time is : demographic.
    - that DG made a good choice - seems to be correct (from my armchair view then and now ). DG had bigger fish that he wanted to fry (sometimes the USA ); so, Algeria was relatively expendible.

    Nixon and Kissinger made a similar choice re: Vietnam where the lost opportunity costs were too great once Southeast Asia (except for "Indochina") appeared to be secure from a Commie takeover.

    Regards

    Mike
    Last edited by jmm99; 06-14-2010 at 07:03 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Seabee View Post
    Do you make a difference between a landmine and a drone strike that kills civilians?

    Best
    Chris
    Yes I do, and I'll tell you why.

    If the insurgent lays a mine/IED on a road used by forces and civilians and knows that the military vehicles are to some degree protected from mine blast he does not care who detonates the mine, who gets killed (in other words an act of indiscriminate terrorism)

    If a drone is used to fire a missile at the residence of the number two Taliban leader which he occupies with his wife and children then that is IMHO acceptable "collateral damage".

    A drone firing a missile into a wedding party and killing women and children is sheer incompetence and should probably be legally actionable.

    A note here is that I seldom trust the media in reporting such civilian deaths as I was on the receiving end in Rhodesia of deliberate disinformation where virtually every military camp we attacked in Zambia and Mozambique was supposedly a 'refugee camp' full of women and children. Our PR and media relations were bad and I am willing to assume (unless proved otherwise) that the US has the same problem.

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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    That is a very debatable statement. Between 1954 and 1962, the French Army lost 28,000 dead (avg: 300 a month). The cost of holding onto Algeria was simply too high, in terms of the strategy. The French left because they could not sustain the military engagement. Most French people wanted out because of the human cost of the war.
    Those casualty rates are appalling! I had no idea the war was of that intensity.

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    Council Member M-A Lagrange's Avatar
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    From JMM
    - that DG made a good choice - seems to be correct (from my armchair view then and now ). DG had bigger fish that he wanted to fry (sometimes the USA ); so, Algeria was relatively expendible.
    actually, I also heard that US very pretty much happy that France lost such oil capacity...
    Not saying they were happy to see it fall in the hands of the Russias...

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    Default War Casualties

    The Algerian War - Wiki has Wilf's 28K KIA + 60K WIA for the French. On the FLN side of the ledger, this:

    Mostly civilians, 153,000 dead, 160,000 wounded

    1,500,000 dead according to the Algerian government

    960,000 dead according to historians
    with a longer story in the Wiki's Death Toll section:

    While it is admitted that any attempt to estimate casualties in this war is nearly impossible, the FLN (National Liberation Front) estimated in 1964 that nearly eight years of revolution had cost 1.5 million dead from war-related causes. Some other French and Algerian sources later put the figure at approximately 960,000 dead, while French officials estimated it at 350,000. French military authorities listed their losses at nearly 28,600 dead (6,000 from non-combat-related causes) and 65,000 wounded.

    European-descended civilian casualties exceeded 10,000 (including 3,000 dead) in 42,000 recorded terrorist incidents. According to French official figures during the war, the Army, security forces and militias killed 141,000 presumed rebel combatants. But it is still unclear whether all the victims were actual fighters or merely civilians, mostly due to the Algerian press and second bureau (intelligence) which regarded every Moslem civilian as a rebel.

    More than 12,000 Algerians died in internal FLN purges during the war. An additional 5,000 died in the "café wars" in France between the FLN and rival Algerian groups. French sources also estimated that 70,000 Muslim civilians were killed, or abducted and presumed killed, by the FLN.

    Historians, like Alistair Horne and Raymond Aron, consider the actual figure of war dead to be far higher than the original FLN and official French estimates, but below the 1 million adopted by the Algerian government. Horne has estimated Algerian casualties during the span of eight years to be around 700,000. Uncounted thousands of Muslim civilians lost their lives in French army ratissages, bombing raids, and vigilante reprisals. The war uprooted more than 2 million Algerians, who were forced to relocate in French camps or to flee to Morocco, Tunisia, and into the Algerian hinterland, where many thousands died of starvation, disease, and exposure. In addition large numbers of pro-French Muslims were murdered when the FLN settled accounts after independence.
    Unscrambling all those eggs would be difficult to say the least - so, there's a lot of hot air for propaganda wiggleroom.

    That (propaganda wiggleroom) ties in with JMA's last paragraph in his post on the prior page.

    --------------------------
    As to this, from that:

    from JMA

    If the insurgent lays a mine/IED on a road used by forces and civilians and knows that the military vehicles are to some degree protected from mine blast he does not care who detonates the mine, who gets killed (in other words an act of indiscriminate terrorism)

    If a drone is used to fire a missile at the residence of the number two Taliban leader which he occupies with his wife and children then that is IMHO acceptable "collateral damage".

    A drone firing a missile into a wedding party and killing women and children is sheer incompetence and should probably be legally actionable.
    More correct than less correct, but each of those examples would have to be expanded to cover the nuances - both military and legal - ranging from OK to "war crime".

    Regards

    Mike

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    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    So, the folks that did what you say (or what Mike Hoare talked about in his book on the Congo; or what Tom Odom has written of Rwanda; and what has occured in any number of other genocides throughout the World during my lifetime) - those folks are not animals, but very evil humans who should be killed one way or the other. Those very evil humans are far below the level of animals by orders of magnitude.
    Evil things are done by people in any conflict, and not just in genocides. Some of these acts are carried out deliberately to 'terrorise' the target population and others merely because the perpetrators are depraved subhumans. (like the RUF in Sierra Leone)

    Yes they should be dealt with one way or the other but what do you do when one (or more) of them puts his hands in the air?

    If those very evil humans are roaming the range, the military option to find, fix and kill seems to me the better solution for them. That solution includes the problem of defining and distinguishing the enemy (always difficult in irregular warfare even under sensible rules where a combatant remains a combatant - as opposed to rules allowing "transitory guerrillas" to flip their status on and off).
    Again I mention the scenario of surrender. What then?

    What do you do with Joseph Kony and his LRA subhumans? Why have only a few leaders of the Bosnian Serbs been prosecuted and not also the trigger-men?

    The question of "Queensbury Rules" would seem to me to come in more when those very evil humans surrender or are captured. Some might say summarily execute them - and that summary executions of irregular combatants were legal prior to the Geneva Conventions. Not so.

    From the 1914 US Rules of Land Warfare (linked in prior post):
    I guess it all comes down in that context to what constituted the "competent authority."

    I can't really see (can't visualize the military actions) where matching the brutality of evil irregulars would gain much for the good guys. If that was being suggested in Rhodesia or South Africa, what tactics were being suggested ?
    My comment there was to 'win the hearts and minds' of a given population through violence driven intimidation resulting in sheer terror. Certainly the Rhodesian forces never got close to out-terrorising the population. Don't cooperate with the security forces and get a slap around the ear, but don't cooperate with the gooks and get killed (often in horrific fashion) - make your choice. There is no choice and we better all start to understand that.

    Armies with conscience can never win the 'hearts and minds' war against a enemy who executes civilians who don't cooperate with them. This is why the focus must be on killing the enemy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    More correct than less correct, but each of those examples would have to be expanded to cover the nuances - both military and legal - ranging from OK to "war crime".
    Yes Mike that is the problem facing soldiers today. One man's legitimate act is another's war crime. How the hell does a soldier wade through that minefield today?

  13. #73
    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    If the insurgent lays a mine/IED on a road used by forces and civilians and knows that the military vehicles are to some degree protected from mine blast he does not care who detonates the mine, who gets killed (in other words an act of indiscriminate terrorism)
    A rather odd definition. By this definition anyone who lays a mine where a civilian crosses commits an act of indiscriminate terrorism. One could argue that dropping a bomb into a city neighborhood aiming for a military bunker but knowing that the bunker is fortified while civilian buildings around are not is also committing an act of indiscriminate terrorism. Then we also have cluster bombs.

    Armies with conscience can never win the 'hearts and minds' war against a enemy who executes civilians who don't cooperate with them. This is why the focus must be on killing the enemy.
    I think 'hearts and minds' is a fallacy - as has been argued ad nauseum on this board the proper method should not be 'support' registered by the population but rather 'control' over the population. 'Control' can be won by any number of means, including through the discriminating use of terror, but also through the provision of security against enemy terrorizers.

    Historically there has been a sliding scale. Both methods of control, however, require constant intelligence and interaction with the population. Ignoring the population or treating it as something static, like terrain, is not an option.

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    Default Good question, JMA

    from JMA
    Yes Mike that is the problem facing soldiers today. One man's legitimate act is another's war crime. How the hell does a soldier wade through that minefield today?
    First off, the soldier's Powers That Be should adopt a clear set of non-conflicting military operational considerations, diplomatic-political policies and legal constraints. As to legal, one must allocate the Laws of War (military) and Rule of Law (civilian) to their proper spheres.

    From that definitive juncture of military, diplomatic-political and legal, the Powers That Be then come up with a set of non-legalistic, blackletter doctrines and rules that will be trained in, not imposed on, the soldier.

    The idea is that rules of engagement and rules for use of force are worked into the combat drills - practice makes perfect. If the Powers That Be are smart, they will fall in love with the doctrine "from the masses, back to the masses" and accept feedback from the soldier as to doctrine and rules.

    No cookbook exists for this process. Each nation (each tribe) has its own military culture, its own diplomatic-political culture and its own legal framework - just as this board has some differences of opinion concerning the better practices in "counter-insurgency".

    It is beyond my kenning as to how that could be done for a coalition of nations trying to handle someone else's counter-insurgency (as in Astan).

    I suppose we could talk about surrenders and captures (two slightly different things); but what one should do in those cases would depend on the country and timeframe selected. The rules applied by a djaghoun commander under Subotai would definitely differ from those applied by today's US company commander.

    The soldier could also say to hell with it and follow the path outlined by James Molony Spaight, War Rights on Land (1911), p.18:

    ..... for an ambitious subaltern who wishes to be known vaguely as an author and, at the same time, not to be troubled with undue inquiry into the claim upon which his title rests, there can be no better subject than the International Law of War. For it is a quasi-military subject in which no one in the army or out of it, is very deeply interested, which everyone very contentedly takes on trust, and which may be written about without one person in ten thousand being able to tell whether the writing is adequate or not.


    Along those lines I suppose we could work up a set of rules that would fit each person's morals and ethics as to what the rules should be. International law profs seem to be good at that - and in trying to impose their rules on others.

    Regards

    Mike

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    Here is a thought from the peanut gallery....

    Did France "loose" or just come to the conclusion that in the modern world there is no place for Colonies. especially ones you have to fight for.

    At what point do leaders sitting around the table say "we CAN keep going for another 50 years... but is it worth it?"

    Best
    Chris

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seabee View Post
    At what point do leaders sitting around the table say "we CAN keep going for another 50 years... but is it worth it?"
    That is what the Policy had to decide. It is that condition that alters the strategy, because of the cost - for France, 28,000 KIA.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
    A rather odd definition. By this definition anyone who lays a mine where a civilian crosses commits an act of indiscriminate terrorism. One could argue that dropping a bomb into a city neighborhood aiming for a military bunker but knowing that the bunker is fortified while civilian buildings around are not is also committing an act of indiscriminate terrorism. Then we also have cluster bombs.
    If you lay a mine on a road where you have as much if not more chance of killing civilians in a passing bus than the enemy in mine protected vehicles then yes that is "an act of indiscriminate terrorism" and a war crime. If a command detonated mine or IED was used then it would be a different matter.

    Yes, using bombing and missiles in a civilian residential area is problematic from the legal point of view (in 2010) and before than from a moral point of view.

    Cluster bombs should be illegal and the use of them should be a war crime. We have steadily been getting smarter with the increasing accuracy of bombs and missiles and there is no longer place for the likes of cluster bombs.

    Convention on Cluster Munitions

    I think 'hearts and minds' is a fallacy - as has been argued ad nauseum on this board the proper method should not be 'support' registered by the population but rather 'control' over the population. 'Control' can be won by any number of means, including through the discriminating use of terror, but also through the provision of security against enemy terrorizers.

    Historically there has been a sliding scale. Both methods of control, however, require constant intelligence and interaction with the population. Ignoring the population or treating it as something static, like terrain, is not an option.
    I don't think 'hearts and minds' is a fallacy, it is just that given the local situations (in most insurgencies) and the actions of the insurgents it is largely a futile process.

    You build a school in Afghanistan today and there is a guarantee that within 4-5 years it will probably become a training centre for IEDs or worse.

    It all comes back to the selection and maintenance of the aim. That has been lost over time and now the ISAF force is seen to be propping up an illegitimate and corrupt Afghan government. There is no possibility that any 'hearts and minds' campaign in Afghanistan can be won under those circumstances.

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    Default Lost opportunity costs

    from Seabee
    At what point do leaders sitting around the table say "we CAN keep going for another 50 years... but is it worth it?"
    My belief is that both Algeria and Vietnam were decided that way.

    Regards

    Mike

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
    Historically there has been a sliding scale. Both methods of control, however, require constant intelligence and interaction with the population. Ignoring the population or treating it as something static, like terrain, is not an option.
    So who has ever ignored the population? You do not ignore terrain.

    My effort is to take the population out the competition as a whole. They will support who ever wins. Why ask them to be part of the fight?

    Gaining intelligence from a population does not require the vast majority of troops to interact with them - in fact, it has best been done by very small numbers of specialists. - this is especially true in very "hard" or non-permissive environments. You don't need to work in the area where everyone like you.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    I am still under the impression that the population was the key in the Algerian Independence War.
    The general population was quite unimportant, but the Europeans in Algeria (about 70% of them not really Frenchmen, but of Spanish or other descent) were the key.
    Their aggressive (at times almost genocidal) behaviour looks to me like the spark that ignited the whole mess after the fuel of war had previously only been warmed up by the indigenous population.

    The French Army could imho probably have won the war very quickly by choosing the European Algerians as their opponent and quelling their unrest instead of going after an ever-growing share of the general population.


    Going after the "obvious" enemy as quite self-defeating (on the strategic & political level), while going after the counter-intuitive enemy might have enabled a quick and brilliant strategic victory (that would have to be defended by politicians, of course).

    The "let's kill as many enemies as quickly as possible till the others give up" path only knew one destination in Algeria; failure.

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