My Father was conscripted in 1961, as were many young French to to fight in Algeria, then a French colony.
Historical Context
Algeria was invaded by France in 1830, with the Capital Algiers being captured during a violent and brutal conquest in June of that year. First becoming a military colony, it became an integral part of France in 1848 which led to settlement of large populations of French and mostly Southern Europeans within Algeria in the following years. All throughout the colonial period, there were various movements to restore independence, though thwarted through political or forceful means.
During World War II, thousands of Algerians fought alongside French soldiers and resistance against the Nazi occupation. The concept of colonies was redefined in the Post-War era with Europe under pressure from decolonization movements and their own reconstruction burdens. Certain colonies gained independence through negotiation, while others, considered integral parts of their respective realms, were not. As Algeria was considered an integral part of France and not Colony, as well as the recent defeat of French forces to keep Indochina as a Colony (modern day Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam); the French Government was strongly intent on holding on to Algeria, especially due to its proximity just across the Mediterranean.
As Algerian nationalist movements gained steam, the Front National de la Liberation (FLN) and its militant arm: the Algerian National Liberation Army (ALN) were founded in 1954. Using guerilla tactics, often against civilians including women and children, became the main factions fighting for independence. Reprisals from the French Military were equally as brutal and changed opinions in favor of the FLN within Algeria and mounting protests within France and wavering support from its allies. The protests and public disenchantment with the war led to the fall of the Fourth Republic in France and to the near retirement of French President Charles de Gaulle.
The Evian agreements of March 18, 1962 ended the war by first instituting a cease fire, followed by a French withdrawal from Algeria in July of that year.
The complexity, nuances, brutality and criminality of this war in certain ways became a blueprint for wars to come. This war deserves deeper understanding than can be delivered here.
Algerian War Numbers:
1954-1962Algerian deaths 400,000 – 1,500,000 (depending on French or Algerian estimate)FLN Soldiers: 140,000-153,000French Military 25,000-30,000Harkis (French aligned Algerians) 50,000 (killed or missing)Europeans 6,000
The following is the recollection from my father
In high-school, my father befriended an old art teacher who was not well respected by the students. My dad didn’t like the way he was treated by other students, they grabbed a coffee from time to time after class. With the French mandatory military conscription in effect, it was a matter of time before my Father would be sent to Algeria to fight. Knowing this, the art teacher told my Father that once in Algiers, he should look up his son who was also in Algeria.
1961: Fresh off the boat, Algiers, my father was in the incoming soldiers camp on the outskirts of Algiers. It was your typical boot camp, with the French equivalent of drill sergeants instilling discipline through auditory intensity. One of the instructions given to the new recruits was to never go out alone, always in groups of seven or more. At the conclusion of the safety briefing of safety in numbers, my dad asked if he could leave the camp alone. He was summoned to see the officer in his command and was asked who he was going to see. He said to meet the teacher’s son. and that his father had sent him. With a change of tone to confused and then positive, he took out the leave form from his desk and was granted leave and told where to find the son, outside of Algiers on the opposite side.
“Pay was about $2 and some cigarettes”
My father left the camp by foot, fully clothed in Military uniform and walked to Algiers; in the middle of a war with pro-independence partisans everywhere, nonetheless asking everyone direction to the “Rocher Noir”, the “Black Rock”. After hitchhiking to the Rocher Noir, he was dropped off at the front gate, and was immediately greeted by two Republican Guards in ceremonial dress uniform. My Fathers’ commander had phoned in ahead to tell them that he was coming. Nowhere in that conversation was it mentioned that my dad had gone by foot. This was slightly problematic as the guards in uniform were sent as a motorcycle escorts for my father’s non-existent vehicle from the gate to the main building, the assumption being that my Father was someone important and not a conscript traveling by foot and thumb. As my father walked the distance between the gatehouse and the building, escorted on either side by the Republican Guard motorcycles in grand pomp at the speed of a less than brisk walk.
He then met the teacher’s son who turned out to be a high-ranking official in charge of some serious stuff (he cannot remember the name with certainty). They talked about the son’s dad, the teacher and other things French men talk about in the sixties, I assume cigarettes, wine, and Brigitte Bardot. After my father was chaufered back to the camp for his own safety, he knew his original assignment was to be sent to the front lines. The next day as he was shaving in a tent, he heard a whizzing sound next to his head, looking around hi noticed a new small whole on both sides of the tent, through and through. The Algerian hello, shortly after he was summoned to his commander’s office. His assignment had changed. Instead of going to the front, he would be assigned to the French Military headquarters in Algiers known as “La Redoute” as an assistant to a General who was arrested months before my Father arrived for conspiracy against the state. In effect he sat behind a desk with no role, assistant to no one.
Pictures taken during “permission”.
Remaining mostly in Algiers, the Evian Accords were signed, my Father was with other friends of his on the beach which emptied out in less than five minutes once the news that the French had agreed to a cease-fire and withdrawal. Shortly after, walking in Algiers on a busy street, a improvised bomb exploded near my father who was mostly protected from the blast by an obstruction between the bomb and him. When my dad came to, he and a young boy who was passing on the street at the same time also was coming to. The look on that child’s face changed his life’s direction, leading him to ultimately work for the United Nations, he would never hear from his right ear again after the explosion. He was sent back to France via medical transport first to the Military Hospital in Lyon, then to the Military Hospital in Strasbourg close to his home. He was released from the hospital and finished out the mandatory military service in the French Air Force on a base close to Strasbourg. He later recalled how several Algerians who had fought along side the French, called Harkis were loaded on ships to be evacuated to safety to France. They were disembarked without leaving Algiers with a fate of certain death at the hands of the new republic.
NB. There are parts and aspects of the war that my dad will not talk about.