Mass terrorist attacks by FLN militants in November 1956 - September 1957. received the unofficial name "Battle for the capital" ("Battle for Algeria"). At the beginning of 1957, an average of 4 terrorist attacks a day took place in this city, and they were directed not only against Europeans, but also against loyal compatriots.
Even worse was the situation outside the big cities, in the provinces. There, FLN fighters killed entire families of local residents if they refused to pay tribute, worked for Europeans or received social assistance from them, smoked, drank alcohol, went to the movies, kept dogs at home, and sent children to schools opened by the French authorities.
Zigut Youssef, one of the field commanders of the FLN (second wilaya), at the beginning of the war, stated:
“The people are not on our side, so we need to force them. We must force him to act in such a way that he goes to our camp … The FLN is waging a war on two fronts: against the French authorities and against the Algerian people, in order to make him see us as his representative."
The indigenous Algerian Rashid Abdelli later recalled:
“For us, they were bandits. We didn't understand their ideas. We only saw what they were killing. In the morning you wake up and they tell you that your neighbor's throat was cut at night. You ask yourself why? Over time, we realized that we were killing good people. They wanted to destroy the teachers, the former military, those who had a good attitude towards France."
Jacques Zeo, who served in the Algerian region of Kabylia with the Alpine Riflemen, recalled a village whose inhabitants refused to pay the nationalists:
“28 women and 2 girls with throats cut by TNF fighters. Naked, completely undressed, raped. There are bruises everywhere, the throat has been cut."
By the way, “the cut throat in those days in Algeria was called the“Kabyle smile”.
At the same time, the FLN militants were very jealous of other "fighters for independence": they killed not only European settlers who collaborated with the authorities of their fellow countrymen, Harki or captured soldiers of the French army, but also Berbers and Arabs who supported the so-called Algerian National Movement or other anti-French groups, successfully defeating them by the beginning of 1956.
The saddest thing is that over time, these acts of intimidation began to bear fruit. In 1960, one of the social workers said to the commander of the 1st Parachute Regiment of the Legion, Elie Denois de Saint Marc:
“Muslims began to go over to the side of the FLN. They don't want to end up with a slit throat and a dick in their mouth. They are afraid."
On the French side, the FLN militants were opposed by General Massu and his subordinates.
Jacques Massu's battle for Algeria
Jacques Massu and his wife were staunch supporters of the idea of the possibility of peaceful coexistence between the French and the Arabs of Algeria. This family even adopted two Arab children, first a 15-year-old girl Malika from the Harki family (in 1958): her parents asked to take her in, fearing for their lives. Maliki's father was indeed killed by the nationalists immediately after the French troops left. And then the spouses Massu adopted 6-year-old Rodolfo, who at the age of 6 was left without parents and lived at the barracks of the regiment, quartered in Ouarsenis. In November 2000, in an interview with Le Monde, Massu said:
"For me, he (Rodolfo) and Malica were examples of how the integration that I have always fought for is possible, that it is not a chimera."
But some Arabs had a different opinion. At the same time, an old servant woman said to the owner of the villa where General Massu's family lived:
“It seems that soon all Europeans will be killed. Then we will take them at home and their refrigerators. But I will ask that I myself be allowed to kill you, since I do not want you to suffer. I will do it quickly and well, I swear to you, for I love you."
You can read about this in the book by Jacques Massu "La vraie bataille d'Alger" ("The real battle of Algeria").
On January 28, 1957, a weekly strike began in Algeria, which was supported by Arab "guest workers" in France: at the Citroen plant, 30% of the personnel did not go to work, at the Renault plant - 25%.
Jacques Massu had to sort out this situation.
He himself recalled this in the already cited book "La vraie bataille d'Alger":
“All large enterprises kept records of their employees, so it was not difficult to find out their addresses of work. Then everything happened according to a single scheme: several paratroopers jump into a truck and reach the right place … To tell the truth, not one striker went down the stairs at the fifth point, but those who really resisted were few: people were afraid to "lose face" in front of their wife, children or neighbors."
The shopkeepers, whom the paratroopers "escorted" to the shop doors on the first day, waited for the soldiers fully dressed and shaved the next day.
With the children who did not go to school, according to the testimony of Pierre Serzhan (paratrooper of the First Regiment, commander of the French branch of the OAS, military journalist, historian of the legion), they carried out the following work: the orchestra of the 9th Zuavsky Regiment with music passed through the streets and squares of the Kasbah, for Soldiers walked to him, handing out sweets to running children. When many children gathered around, the commander of this regiment (Marey, he will soon die in battle on the road to the city of El Milia), through a loudspeaker in French and Arabic, announced that “tomorrow the soldiers will come for them, as today for their dads, so that to take to school”.
And here's the result:
“The next day the Zouaves and paratroopers were combing the streets again. When they appeared, the doors opened and the fatmas handed them their offspring, washed, shining like a copper penny, with a knapsack on their backs. The guys smiled and held out their hands to the soldiers."
The funniest thing was that the soldiers that day brought “extra” children who were not enrolled in schools to schools, which they also had to leave: the Zouaves and parachutists took them home after the end of classes - at 16 o'clock (they were handed over to their mothers, not a single child not lost).
And here is the dynamics of school attendance by Algerian children: February 1 (the day of the "concert" of the Zouaves) - 70 people, February 15 - 8,000, April 1 - 37,500.
Another participant in these events, Major Ossares, in the book "Services spéciaux. Algérie 1955-1957 "(" Special Services. Algeria 1955-1957 ") reports such a tragicomic incident in the officers' mess:
“The waiter, with a narcissistic air, walked between the tables.
- So what is this mess? What are you waiting for? Will you serve us?
- I'm on strike.
- What?
The dining room suddenly became very quiet.
- I told you that I am on strike and that I will not serve you. If you're not happy, I don't care.
I jumped up. The waiter continued to look at me insolently. Then I gave him a slap in the face. He and his colleagues immediately got to work."
To clean up the garbage in the streets, Massu ordered to involve idly staggering Algerians, but not all, but only very well and decently dressed.
The strike, as we remember, began on January 28, and on the 29th, an Algerian boy came to one of the police stations, who asked the soldiers to come for his father:
“He needs to work. We have no money for food."
The wife of a certain Abdenume Keladi asked the same, and for this she was killed by her husband.
In general, the strike failed - on the second day some of the Algerians independently, without any coercion, came to work. On January 31, only a few did not go to work. The French captain Bergot then tried to find out the reasons why the Algerians went on this strike at all. The standard answer was:
"Those who say no to TNF end up badly."
An instructive story about Jamila Buhired, Yasef Saadi and Captain Jan Graziani
Since November 1956, the leaders of the FLN switched to new tactics - more and more explosions began to occur in crowded places, where French soldiers were rarely present, but there were many women and children. To carry out such attacks, young Muslim girls were used, who did bright makeup, put on European clothes and, without arousing suspicion, left bags with explosives at bus stops, in street cafes or in bars on the beach, and left (that is They were not suicide bombers).
Remember the poster from the last article that read: “Aren't You Beauties? Take off your veils!”?
Please removed:
And indeed, beauties. Our "heroine" is the second from the right, with bombs in her hands.
Many of these life-loving “patriots” have made more than one “walk” and each has its own cemetery behind them, where not legionnaires or Zouaves are buried, but European neighbors whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers considered Algeria their homeland, as well as their children.
A still from the film "Battle for Algeria". The terrorist leaves a bag with a bomb in the cafe:
Jean-Claude Kessler recalled one of these attacks:
“On this day, I patrolled the city in order to restore order in the sector near Isley Street. At 18.30, we heard a terrible explosion, from which the earth trembled. We immediately rushed there: a bomb of enormous power exploded in Place Bujot in Milk-bar. Its very name testified to the fact that alcoholic beverages were not served here, it was a favorite place for the surrounding mothers and their children …
Everywhere there were children's bodies, poorly distinguishable because of the smoke … I wanted to howl at the sight of twisted children's bodies, the hall was filled with screams and groans."
And here is the cover of the newspaper with the report of the terrorist attack, which Kessler talks about:
Larbi Ben Mhaidi, one of the top leaders of the FLN, captured by Bijar's soldiers, when asked if he was ashamed to send Arab girls to blow up innocent women and children in cafes, replied with a grin:
"Give me your planes, and I'll give you their bags of explosives."
On April 8, 1957, a Zouave patrol detained Djamila Bouhired, who was carrying explosives in a beach bag. Yasef Saadi, who controlled her movement, tried to shoot the girl, but Jamilya survived and indeed, as Saadi feared, betrayed many of her accomplices.
Liberals and "human rights defenders" in France and in other countries, of course, defended the failed terrorist, accusing the security officials of torture, bullying and even abuse of the "unfortunate and defenseless girl."
But that was not the case at all.
At the request of General Massu's wife (recall, she was an ardent supporter of the idea of peaceful coexistence of the French and Arabs in Algeria), a hereditary "blackfoot" - 31-year-old Captain Jean Graziani, whom we first met in the article "Foreign Legion against Viet Minh and the Dien Bien Phu catastrophe.
As you might guess from the last name, Graziani's ancestors were not French, but Corsicans. He fought since 1942, when at the age of 16 he was in the American army, then he was a paratrooper of the 3rd regiment of the British SAS (commanded by Pierre Chateau-Jaubert, we talked about him when we talked about the Suez crisis). Finally Graziani became a Free French soldier. From 1947 he served in Vietnam, in 1950 he was wounded during the battle of Khao Bang and was released only 4 years later. From Indochina Graziani went to Morocco. After looking around a little, he, on his own initiative, blew up two headquarters of the local Communist Party one after the other. His commander, Colonel Romain-Des Fosses, stunned by such a service zeal of his subordinate, almost kicked him to Algeria. Here Graziani met with General Massu, who decided that such an enterprising and active officer was in intelligence. So this young veteran of World War II and Indochina ended up in the 2nd Bureau of the Tenth Parachute Division, where Major Le Mir became his immediate superior.
Jean Graziani later recalled:
“Is it me who is accused of torturing her? Poor girl! I know why she is so attached to this idea of torture. The truth is simple and pitiful: Jamila Buhired began to speak after a couple of slaps in the face, then continued out of vanity, out of a desire to make herself significant. She even laid out to me what I did not ask about. Jamila Buhired, whom they want to make the Joan of Arc of the rebels, betrayed her entire organization at the very first interrogation. If we were able to cover the bomb-making network, it was only because of her. A couple of slaps and she put it all out, heroine. Torture, I know what it is. I was a prisoner of Viet Minh for four years.
Recall that at the time of his release from Vietnamese captivity, Jean Graziani weighed 40 kg, such as he was called the "squad of the living dead." The reason for the slaps that he gave to the arrested terrorist was her defiantly impudent behavior and rudeness during the first interrogation: a military officer who had gone through fire and water "fell through" and guessed right with the arguments. Jamila no longer needed a "whip", and later Graziani used only "gingerbread": he bought her dresses, jewelry and sweets, took her to dinner in the officers' mess, and the girl wrote him love letters, which he read to his colleagues. Moreover, he began to take care of Jamily's younger brother, who now lived at the location of the 10th division, receiving gifts from both Graziani and other officers. The underground terrorist organization, which was defeated thanks to the "assistance" of Jamila, was called the "Kasbah".
Let's continue to quote Graziani:
“Once I told her:
"Jamila, I like you, but I will do my best to be guillotined, for I do not like those who carry bombs, who kill innocents."
She laughed.
"My captain, I will be sentenced to death, but not guillotined, because the French do not guillotine women. Since in 5 years we will win the war, both militarily and politically, my people will free me and I will become a national heroine."
Everything turned out exactly as Jamila Buhired said: she was sentenced to death, but not executed. In 1962 she was released and became the head of the Algerian Women's Union.
She married her lawyer (who previously defended Nazi criminal Klaus Barbier) and later worked for the magazine African Revolution.
At present, this naive fool, who failed the task and was almost killed by her own commander, who fell in love with her jailer and gave him all her comrades-in-arms, is often included in the list of 10 outstanding Arab women who had the greatest influence on world history.
Yasef Saadi, who sent Jamila to kill women and children and shot at her after her arrest, was arrested on the night of September 23-24. This operation was carried out by paratroopers of the 2nd company of the First Regiment of the Legion, led by Jeanpierre himself (the regiment commander), who was wounded in a shootout - he was a desperate man and a real combat commander, he did not hide behind the backs of his subordinates, so the soldiers loved him so. We talked about Jeanpierre in the article "Foreign Legion against the Viet Minh and the disaster at Dien Bien Phu" and will continue our story about him in the next.
During interrogation, Saadi identified himself as a 29-year-old baker from Algeria and a French (!) By nationality.
It was Saadi who betrayed Ali Ammar, better known as Ali la Poin, a former petty criminal (he served 2 years in an Algerian prison), who became a prominent "revolutionary", who was executed on October 8, 1957. Ali Ammar was called "the main killer of the FLN", after his arrest the number of terrorist attacks immediately began to decline.
Apparently, Saadi was pardoned for "cooperation with the investigation" by de Gaulle who came to power in 1958.
In 1962, Yasef Saadi wrote a memoir about his "struggle for the independence of Algeria", where, apparently fearing legal action, he gave other names and surnames to quite recognizable heroes - for example, he called himself Jafar. In 1966, his book was filmed by the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo: Saadi played himself (Jafar), and Ennio Morricone wrote the music for the film.
Also in 1966, the film "Battle for Algeria" received the main prize of the Venice Film Festival.
Given to Saadi Ali, Ammar also became the hero of this film - a character named Brahim Haggiag:
And this is another hero of the film "Battle for Algeria": Lieutenant Colonel Mathieu. Our old friend Marcel Bijar became its prototype:
I must say that the film turned out to be very tough and neither side is idealized in it. It is shown how an Arab boy shoots a police officer, while another Algerian teenager is protected by the police from the crowd who wants to deal with him. The paratroopers in this film torture the FLN militants - and they also distribute bread in the Arab neighborhoods.
Stills from the film "Battle for Algeria":
Since Pontecorvo started out as a documentary filmmaker, his film proved to be incredibly realistic - so much so that it was allegedly used as a teaching tool by terrorists of the Red Army Faction and Black Panthers, and the Pentagon. For some time he was banned from showing in France.
This is how the attacks of the FLN fighters on French soldiers are shown in this film. A group of women walking towards the paratroopers' patrol:
And suddenly:
And here's the result:
And what about our French?
Captain Jean Graziani left reconnaissance for the army in July 1958, becoming the commander of a company of colonial paratroopers and in October was wounded in the chest in a battle with the FLN militants. He remained in the ranks and died in another collision with them on January 6, 1959, before he was 33 years old.
France bought off the Graziani family by posthumously awarding him the rank of officer of the Order of the Legion of Honor.
Nowadays, Jean Graziani in Algeria is remembered only as the jailer of the "heroic" Buhired, few people remember him in France.
Saadi Janpierre, who participated in the detention of Yasef, died before Graziani, in May 1958, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We will talk about him a little more in the next article, which will tell about the famous commanders of the French Foreign Legion who took part in the Algerian war.
In preparing the article, materials from the blog of Ekaterina Urzova were used:
On the atrocities of the FLN:
On the fight against the general strike:
About General Massu (by tag): https://catherine-catty.livejournal.com/tag/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%81%D1%8E%20%D0%96%D0 % B0% D0% BA
About Captain Graziania, Jamila Buhired and Yasef Saadi:
Also, the article uses quotes from French sources, translated by Urzova Ekaterina.
Some of the photos are taken from the same blog, including those of the author.
