In this article, we will conclude the story of the many years and bloody Algerian war, talk about the flight from Algeria of the "blackfeet", evolves and harki, and about some of the sad events that followed this country's independence.
End of French Algeria
Despite the desperate opposition of the Blackfeet and the OAS, at the referendums in France (April 8, 1962) and in Algeria (July 1, 1962), the majority voted in favor of granting independence to this department, which was officially proclaimed on July 5, 1962.
The most outrageous was the fact that the people most interested in its results were excluded from participation in the April 1962 referendum - the "black-footed" Algeria and local Arabs who had the right to vote: this was a direct violation of the third article of the French Constitution, and this vote was legitimate could not be considered.
One of the consequences of this act was the exodus (in fact, the flight) of more than a million "black feet", hundreds of thousands of loyalist Arabs (evolves), tens of thousands of Jews and over 42 thousand Muslim military personnel (harki) from Algeria to France.
In fact, we are talking about one of the most tragic pages in the history of the French people, about which the current "tolerant" authorities of this country would like to forget forever. This exodus of a biblical scale is remembered now mainly only by the descendants of these people.
In total, about 1,380,000 people left Algeria at that time. This flight was complicated by the lack of space on ships and airplanes, besides, the workers of the water transport of France also went on strike, whose selfish interests turned out to be higher than the price of the blood of the Algerian French. As a result, in Oran, the day of the declaration of independence of Algeria was overshadowed by a large-scale massacre of the European population - according to official figures recognized by the Algerians themselves, over three thousand people were killed.
As early as 1960, this city was home to 220,000 Blackfeet and 210,000 Arabs. By July 5, 1962, there were still up to 100 thousand Europeans in Oran. The Evian agreements, which were concluded between the French government and the National Liberation Front of Algeria on March 16, 1962, guaranteed their safety. But de Gaulle in May 1962 declared:
"France should not bear any responsibility in maintaining order … If someone is killed, this is the business of the new government."
And it became clear to everyone that the black-footed Algeria, as well as the local Arabs-evolves and harki, were doomed.
Indeed, immediately after the announcement of the independence of Algeria, a real hunt for them began in large cities.
According to rough estimates, about 150 thousand people were killed ("rough" - because only men were taken into account, while women and children from their families were often exterminated along with them).
Sorry for this photo, but look what the FLN fighters did with the harki who remained in Algeria:
And this is not Algeria or Oran, but Budapest in 1956, and the Hungarian communist was brutally killed not by "wild Kabila" from the FLN, but by "civilized" European rebels:
Very similar, isn't it? But the attitude to these events, both in our country and abroad, for some reason, has always been very different.
Against this background, the Kharkiv MP from the Party of Regions in December 2014 was, of course, very “lucky”: the current “activists” of independent Ukraine are still far from their idols of the times of Shukhevych and Bandera:
And in this photo, not the harki of Algeria are kneeling in front of the raging crowd, but the soldiers of the Ukrainian special-purpose militia "Berkut" in Lvov:
In Algeria or Oran in 1962, they would, of course, have their throats cut 5 minutes after this "photo session" - it was very scary there at that time.
The greatest scale of the massacre of Europeans found in Oran: people with European appearance were shot in the streets, slaughtered in their own homes, tortured and tortured.
French soldiers were forbidden to interfere in what was happening, and only two officers dared to violate this order: Captain Jean-Germain Krogennek and Lieutenant Rabach Kellif.
Captain Krogennek was the commander of the 2nd company of the 2nd Zouavsky regiment. Lieutenant Rabah Kheliff, who commanded the 4th company of the 30th motorized infantry battalion, is an Arab from the evolves family, his father was an officer in the French army. Keliff himself served from the age of 18 and took part in the battle of Dien Bien Phu, where he was seriously wounded.
Upon learning that the FLN militants were driving the Blackfeet into trucks near the prefecture, Keliff turned to the regiment commander and received an answer:
“I perfectly understand how you feel. Proceed at your own discretion. But I didn’t tell you anything.”
Not giving a damn about the possible consequences, Keliff led his soldiers (only half of the company) to the indicated place, where he found hundreds of Europeans, mainly women, children and the elderly, who were guarded by armed FLN militants. It turned out to be very easy to free the "Blackfeet": the now emboldened "revolutionaries" remembered very well how, quite recently, French soldiers had chased them through the mountains and the desert. Keliff found the prefect (!) And said:
“I give you three minutes to free these people. Otherwise, I am not responsible for anything. The prefect silently descended with me and saw a sentry from the FLN. The negotiations did not last long. The guys from the FLN got into the truck and drove away."
The problem was that the freed people had nowhere to go: the same militants were waiting for them in their own homes. Keliff again unauthorizedly set up patrols on the roads leading to the port and airport, and personally transported refugees to the port in a service jeep. During one of these trips, he was captured by militants and wounded, but the soldiers recaptured him.
From the article "Algerian War of the French Foreign Legion" we remember that most of the Orange "Blackfeet" were of Spanish origin. Therefore, the authorities of this country also provided assistance in their evacuation, providing ships that took them out to Alicante. Thirty thousand Orange refugees stayed in Spain forever.
Rabah Keliff also had to leave his native Algeria, in the same 1962. He served in the French army until 1967, retiring with the rank of captain, and died in 2003.
War on monuments
Having got rid of the "damned colonialists", the FLN activists began to "liberate" the country they had inherited from the French monuments.
This monument to the soldiers of the Foreign Legion previously stood in the Algerian city of Sidon. The Blackfeet who left Algeria took him with them to save him from abuse. Now he can be seen in the Corsican city of Bonifacio:
This is how the monument to those who fell in World War I until 1978, created by Paul-Maximilian Landowski (the author of the statue of Christ the Savior in Rio de Janeiro), looked like: France, a European soldier and an Arab soldier held a shield with the body of a murdered hero:
And this is what it looks like now: a concrete cube and hands clenched into fists, breaking the shackles:
So, probably "much better", what do you think?
This photo shows a monument to those who fell in World War I, which has stood since 1925 in the Algerian city of Tlemcen. The figures symbolize the European and Algerian soldiers and France:
In 1962, he was transported to the French city of Saint-Aigulph:
Here, FLN activists smash one of the French monuments:
About the same now, outside of Russia, they treat Soviet monuments. For example, the city of Ciechocinek in Poland. On December 30, 2014, a monument to Gratitude and Brotherhood of the Soviet Army and the Polish Army was destroyed here:
And this is Odessa, February 4, 2020: nationalists are tearing down the last bas-relief to G. K. Zhukov:
And very recent events in Prague. On April 3, 2020, a monument to Soviet Marshal Konev was dismantled here, whose troops were the first to enter the city abandoned by the Vlasov division Bunyachenko and still controlled by the Germans:
And here, too, after the "victory of democracy", zombie extremists were knocking down monuments - let's not forget about that.
This is Moscow, August 22, 1991, under the cries of a drunken crowd, the monument to F. Dzerzhinsky is being demolished:
Smug dwarfs trampling on the stone giant:
And Kiev, December 8, 2013. Vandals break the monument to V. Lenin:
Very similar pictures, right?
Degradation of independent Algeria
The proclamation of the Algerian People's Democratic Republic dates back to September 20, 1962. The presidential election in 1963 was won by Muhammad Ahmad bin Balla (Ahmed bin Bella), a World War II participant in the French army and a failed central midfielder of the Olympic football club in Marseille, one of the leaders of the FLN, who learned Arabic only in a French prison. where he sat from 1956 to 1962.
And a year later, independent Algeria grappled with the independent kingdom of Morocco. The cause of the conflict was the claims of the Moroccans to the iron ore deposits in the province of Tindouf.
By the fall of 1963, Soviet specialists cleared the main part of the border of Algeria and Morocco for free (one person died, six were seriously injured), and now nothing could prevent the neighbors from fighting a little.
On October 14, 1963, the Moroccan army struck in the Colomb-Béchar area, advancing 100 km forward. Both sides used tanks, artillery and aircraft, and the Moroccans were armed with Soviet MiG-17s, and the Algerians had MiG-15s donated by Egypt. On October 15, one MiG of the opposing sides even entered the battle, which ended in vain. And on October 20, 1963, Moroccan fighters forced to land a "lost" Algerian Mi-4 helicopter, which was carrying 5 Egyptian "observers", which became the reason for Morocco to accuse Egypt of military intervention.
The Cuban contingent, led by Efighenio Ameiheiros, also took the side of the Algerians. This conflict was stopped only in February 1964, when, at an emergency session of the Council of Ministers of the Organization of African Unity, an agreement was reached on the cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of troops to their initial positions. The parties to the conflict were asked to jointly develop this field. The ratification of this agreement was delayed: the government of Algeria did it on May 17, 1973, and the Moroccans only in May 1989.
But back to Ahmed ben Bella, who used to say:
"Castro is my brother, Nasser is a teacher, and Tito is my model."
However, the first president of Algeria was then compared not with these outstanding figures, but with Nikita Khrushchev, who, before resigning, managed to present him not only with the International Lenin Peace Prize, but also with the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.
As in the USSR under Khrushchev, under the new president, economic problems began in Algeria, and entire sectors of the economy quickly fell into decay.
Algeria, which sent food for export under the French, now provided itself with food for only 30%. Only oil production and oil refining enterprises worked more or less stably, but after the fall in prices in the 80s. Algeria has lost practically the only source of foreign exchange income. Social stratification and tension in society grew, the influence of the Islamists increased. Very soon, ordinary Algerians already looked with envy at their compatriots living in France. On June 19, 1965, Ahmed bin Bella was removed from the presidency and arrested. Under the new President Boumedienne, the Jews who remained in the country were imposed additional taxes, the Islamists began a campaign to boycott Jewish businesses and shops.
On June 5, 1967, Algeria declared war on Israel. The Algerian Supreme Court even declared that Jews were not entitled to judicial protection. And on July 23, 1968, militants of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked an Israeli civilian airline El Al 426, en route from Rome to Tel Aviv. The said organization, by the way, was created in 1967 by the Arab pediatrician and Christian George Habash.
The hijackers forced the pilots to land the aircraft in Algeria, where they were hospitably greeted by the authorities of that country, who placed the hostages at one of the military bases. The airliner personnel and male passengers were detained, despite official protests from the UN Secretary General, leaders of several Western countries and the boycott of the International Civil Aviation Pilots Association announced to Algeria on 12 August. The latter measure, apparently, turned out to be the most effective, because on August 24 the hostages were nevertheless released - in exchange for 24 terrorists convicted in Israel. Trying to "save face", Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Even said that this "humanitarian gesture" was not a fulfillment of the conditions of the PFLP militants.
However, the FNOP did not stop at this "achievement". On August 29, 1969, the TWA 840 airliner, en route from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv, was captured and sent to Damascus by two terrorists, who assumed that the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, I. Rabin, was on this flight. The operation was led by 23-year-old Leila Hamed, who enjoyed hijacking planes so much that on September 6, 1970, she made another attempt, but was defused and handed over to British authorities at Heathrow airport.
Hamed got off with a slight fright: on October 1, she was exchanged for hostages of four other planes hijacked on September 6-8, four of which were landed in Jordan at an airfield near the city of Irdib unauthorizedly seized by Palestinian militants. It ended with the fact that King Hussein of Jordan, realizing that the Palestinians intend to seize power in the country, launched a military operation against them on September 16, during which 20 thousand militants were "disposed of" and about 150 thousand more were expelled ("Black September", on this was briefly described in the article "Russian Volunteers of the French Foreign Legion").
Hamed in the rank of a national heroine, promising to "behave well", settled in Amman, got married, gave birth to two children, and in one of her interviews she even called DAISH (ISIS, banned in Russia) "agents of world Zionism."
But back to Algeria, where in 1991 the Islamic Salvation Front, formed in 1981, won the first round of parliamentary elections, after which the voting results were canceled, the ISF was banned and began a large-scale campaign of terror against government officials and civilians.
1991-2001 went down in the history of Algeria as the "Black Decade" (in other words, this time is called the "Decade of Terror", "Years of Lead" or "Years of Fire") - in fact, all this time there was a war between the government and the Islamists.
In 1992, a new coup d'état took place in the country, as a result of which General Lamine Zerual, the former commander of the Air Force and the ground forces of Algeria, a graduate of military schools in Moscow (1965) and in Paris (1974), came to power.
In 1993, the Islamic Salvation Front declared in Algeria “a war against foreigners, during which, for example, 19 Catholic priests and monks were killed (all had their heads cut off).
Former officer of the Algerian army, Habib Suaidiya, wrote about the events of those years in the book "Dirty War", in which he accused the Minister of Defense of Algeria, a member of the Supreme Council of State Hamed Nezzar and other Algerian generals of "responsibility for the killing of thousands of people, carried out not without the participation of the Islamic armed group." … The International Association Against Impunity Trial claims that under Khaled Nezzar in Algeria, “Bloody repressions against political opponents, mass torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions against them. The result was 200,000 deaths, 20,000 disappearances and the forced displacement of more than 1.5 million people.”
In turn, Nezzar stated that:
"The Islamic opposition from FIS, including Hossein Ait Ahmed, drenched Algeria with blood, with the exception of isolated cases of killings, the army was not involved in this."
Independent researchers agree that the Islamic Front and the Algerian security forces account for approximately the same number of victims. For 19 years, from 1992 to 2011, a state of emergency was in force in Algeria.
A new activation of fundamentalists took place in 2004, the country was shaken by high-profile terrorist attacks with a large number.
The Algerian Islamists did not forget about the "damned colonialists" from France.
On December 24, 1994, 4 terrorists hijacked an Air France A-300 airbus that flew from Algeria to Paris, with 12 crew members and 209 passengers on board. They wanted to blow up this plane over the Eiffel Tower, but when refueling in Marseille, the "Intervention Group of the National Gendarmerie of France" took the plane by storm, destroying all the terrorists.
On December 3, 1996, militants of the Algerian Islamic Armed Group detonated a gas cylinder filled with nails and metal shavings in a carriage at the Port Royal metro station in Paris: 4 people were killed and more than a hundred were injured.
There were other incidents in France involving Algerians.
In February 2019, as a result of popular unrest that engulfed Algeria, Abdel Aziz Bouteflika, who had held this post since 1999, was forced to refuse to participate in the presidential elections. And at present, the situation in Algeria is far from calm: this state is included in the list of the 10 most dangerous countries to visit in the world.
Those who read the article "The Time of the Parachutists" and "Je ne regrette rien" remember what Charles de Gaulle said in 1958:
“Arabs have a high birth rate. This means that if Algeria remains French, France will become Arab."
His attempt to close France off Algeria failed. Almost immediately after the victory of the FLN, emigration to France became the dream and meaning of life for many fighters for independence, their children and grandchildren.
In 2006, Marcel Bijart, a man who has become a legend of the French army (we have already spoken about him several times in the articles of this series), wrote the book Farewell, My France, which contains the following lines:
"Farewell, my France, which has become a country of global speculation to everyone indiscriminately, a country of unemployment, Islamism, polygamy, permissiveness, impunity, family disintegration."
I do not think that modern French people have heard these words of one of their last heroes, about whom the American historian Max Booth said:
"Bijar's life refutes the popular myth in the English-speaking world that the French are cowardly soldiers."
He called Bijar "the perfect warrior, one of the great soldiers of the century."
But let's not talk about sad things.
In the following articles, we will talk about the French Foreign Legion of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the operations it carried out in the Congo, Mali, Chad, Gabon, the Central African Republic and some other countries. And also about how some French legionaries in the second half of the twentieth century found a new area of application for their talents, about the famous condottieri of the twentieth century, the amazing and fascinating African adventures of "wild geese" and "soldiers of fortune".
In preparing the article, materials from the blog of Ekaterina Urzova were used:
The story of Rabah Keliff.
The story of Pierre Chateau-Jaubert.
Some of the photos are taken from the same blog, including those of the author.
