1487 A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, by Alistair Horne (read 9 June 1978) (Book of the Year) This most fascinating book tells the awful and depressing story of Algeria from 1954 (the war began Nov. 1, 1954) to 1962. I was aware of the war as it was going on, but it did not seem very non-boring to me. But this book puts it all together and it is the sheerest dramatic tragedy. The book was especially poignant for me since in 1953 I spent several joyous days in Oran and Algiers--scenes of some of the most awful aspects of the war. The French colonists and their lunatic fringe literally forced Algeria to be solely Muslim eventually. Really sad, but certainly the result could have been foreseen. It is a dramatic story, dramatically told. ( )

A splendid book about the end of the colonial rule in Algeria. In this masterpiece by Alexander Horne, he tells us how the Algerian national movement sparked by the Second World War. In the beginning this movement was modest with unpretentious goals. Anyway, the French responded to it with repression. As in many other likewise examples this hardly gave the desired result. From now on, two parallel mechanics of the conflict was constantly evolving to the bitter end: 1. The Algerians in FLN became more and more radical, soon ending up with demands of complete freedom. 2. The French colonial masters managed to miss all trains, by always offering concessions too late when it ended up being too small. The war in itself was brutal, with the French fighting with dirty tactics and torture, while the FLN was certainly not better, with indiscriminate violence against French civilians, against Algerians that they considered traitors, and at last racist violence against the Jewish minority in Algerian whose allegiance was uncertain. In the end the French military might prevailed with the battle of Alger. But then political events made this military victory completely worthless.
Rather soon the political leadership in Paris realized that some kind of settlement had to be reached to end the conflict. Therefore fumbling negotiations started. But the French military leadership in Algeria saw this as nothing more than stab in the back. Not only that, they had the support of the French living in Algeria, the so called Pied Noirs, who certainly weren’t ready to give up their life as colonial masters, and a French fascist movement started to grow. This was extremely serious for Paris, since the French military in Algeria consisted of all the crack troops France could offer. It actually evolved to a real coup d’etat, where the Fourth Republic fell, and the Parisians awaited an unstoppable invasion from Algeria. Then from the cold, General De Gaulle was called upon to save the day. By skillfully not showing his real allegiance for the ringleaders of the coup he started conspiring and since no one either could call the old war hero a traitor, or in the long run position themselves against him, he in the end prevailed. But the general very soon found what was needed to be done, and the French army left Algeria in 1962, with one million Pied Noirs following them, while Algerians that had sided with the French got butchered by the FLN.
This is the best book I have read by Alexander Horne, with actually says a lot. He is an excellent writer and a superb historian, which in this case managed to be completely neutral describing the conflict. Also the book delivers a certain message, at least to me. It shows the folly of Colonialism (and NO I’m NOT thinking of today’s Iraq which is NOT colonialism). The problem was seldom that colonial powers deposed bloody despots in some God-for-saken place on Earth (even if there are examples of that too). Neither was the colonial rule per se, worse than what the local despot would have been (even if there also are examples of that, as in Belgian Congo, or today’s Tibet). No, the problem lay in how and when to dismantle the colonial rule moving into modern times. Amazingly, most colonial powers as France in Algeria never thought about this before it was too late. This is of certain moral interest in democratic societies being colonial power (but not in dictatorships because they are per definition immoral with or without colonies). Because if a country is based on total suffrage and rule of law, how should the colonial subjects be regarded? The state might for a while look at them as inferior citizens, and thereby attaining the, in the long run, morally absurd position, as being an apartheid state. That ruled out there exist two options: First, give the colonial subjects full rights in the empire. But that would have meant that most European colonial democracies in the last century would have been dominated by suffrage by millions of people from the Third world. This would of course not have been acceptable to Europeans. Then only one option is left, namely, give the colonies freedom. Today this is without any serious dispute the correct answer. But go back fifty years in France and people probably had another view. Pretty amazing actually how ideas can change so profoundly in a rather short time span. Five out of Five! ( )

In my student days, I wrote a thesis on the Algerian War, more recently, I was surprised to see this book on a largely forgotten conflict re-issued. Of course I quickly found out that the book had been recommended to the US President for reflection on the current situation in Iraq. More on that later. For those who cannot wait, here is http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc... interview of the author on Charlie Rose.

This book covers the Algerian War of Independence from France, a bloody, fratricidal conflict that unfolded between 1954 and 1962. The author does well to cover the war in great detail – from the political and military aspects, stopping along the way to introduce new participants or to cover a significant development, switching between the FLN and the French perspectives and involving the decision-makers and men and women on the ground of both communities.

It is interesting that an independent Algeria was the least likely scenario at the beginning of the conflict because of its importance to France and the influence of the Pieds Noirs, however, by 1962, independence had become the only viable option. The book is excellent at accounting for this renversement de situation, which more than demographics or rising national consciousness boils down to the intransigence of the extremes on the French and Algerian sides and the growing apathy of the French masses.

The author makes clear that both the FLN, which never deviated from its objective of total independence outlined early in the conflict at the Soumman Conference of 1956, and as importantly never allowed an alternative leadership to arise and the Algerie Francaise factions – the extremist Pieds Noirs, and later the OAS – drove the conflict by their unwavering and opposite stances and the violence of their activities. De Gaulle towers over the conflict even before his involvement then as President, and it is his vision, his charisma and political skills (from je vous ai compris to the putsch des généraux) which, in effect, cut the Gordian knot.

It found this book to be an authoritative treatment of the conflict – the author has done his research and has talked to all sides of the conflict. Scars from the conflict are still raw and the author treats the issues of torture, murder and civilian displacement with fairness and reserves his scorn for the OAS. It is well worth remembering that this conflict is not just about Algeria and its political development, but deeply affected France too, for it saw the emergence of its Fifth Republic, the reinvention of its army and other wholesale changes.

Regarding parallels with Iraq, while there are some insofar as a committed insurgency is facing an occupying power, I would not want to stress that history repeats itself, although the end game might be the same. In my opinion, there are more similarities in conflicts with large settler populations, high emotional attachment and a popular insurgency against overwhelming military odds – Rhodesia, South Africa, Kosovo and the Occupied Territories come to mind. ( )

A comprehensive account of the end of the French presence in Algeria. The telling is sometimes dry but it filled in a hole in my knowledge of that time and place. ( )

They should have read this before they blundered into Iraq ( )