ALGERIA: Revolt of the Fellagha

In the gleaming marble offices of the Governor General in Algiers, a French official fended off newsmen: “But there is no war in Algeria.” At first sight, the evidence supported him. In Algiers’ sidewalk cafes, French colons sipped their Pernods, while in the gutters, Arab urchins drowsily peddled postcards. But as night fell over the casbah, shots rang out in Algiers and in every other big city in the country. In eleven months, Algerian terrorists killed 457 Frenchmen and 505 pro-French Arabs, wounded close to 1,000.

Dwarfing the Mau Mau. The killers call themselves fellagha (outlaws). They are nationalists-turned-terrorists, who are fast transforming France’s most prized colony (technically a part of metropolitan France) into its greatest colonial hazard. In the first nine days of December, in the single departement of Constantine, they stormed five towns and villages, shot up six others, burned 34 houses, farms and schools, chopped down 2,244 vines and fruit trees belonging to French colons, destroyed 458 farm animals, killed or wounded 46 French soldiers, 49 civilians. Last week they ambushed a French armored column and killed 16 soldiers.

French revenge is efficient. So far this year, the French army in Algeria has killed 2,200 suspected fellagha. Yet far from being stamped out, the fellagha revolt is spreading. It has long since dwarfed the Mau Mau war in Kenya; it now threatens France with another Indo-China, this time in Europe’s backyard.

State of Siege. At 1 a.m. on Nov. 1, 1954, the fellagha revolt began. At that moment, across Algeria, some 30 fellagha bands fell on the nearest French settlements and slit the colons’ throats. The French sent armored columns to smash the fellagha, and the revolt seemed to fizzle out. Prefect Pierre Dupuch of the huge Constantine département announced that he had 8,000 troops and with 8,000 more could clean up the entire revolt.

Last week Prefect Dupuch had 80,000 French troops in action in his département. He said he needed 80,000 more. Fully one-third of Algeria north of the Sahara was in a state of siege. Stations, tent camps, truck parks and supply dumps were corseted in barbed wire and surmounted by steel watchtowers. The road to Batna, metropolis of the Aures Mountains, was strewn with sabotaged telegraph poles and bloated dead cattle.

Marksmen Without Mortars. The revolt that the French refuse to call a war has driven hundreds of French settlers from the irrigated farms they had carved out in the Algerian hills, closed down mines and quarries, converted scores of villages into sandbagged strongpoints. It has sucked into Algeria over 200,000 French troops, including the best part of France’s NATO divisions, and the bulk of the colonial army now being brought home from South Viet Nam. By contrast, the fellagha’s armed strength is less than 10,000 men, possibly less than 5,000. They have no mortars, no artillery, no radios, no armored vehicles. Some fellagha are armed with rifles and Tommy guns, but most have only knives. Lacking explosives, they use axes to chop down telegraph posts; lacking ammunition, some have been known to attack French strongpoints with spears and clubs.

The fellagha operate at night in bands of 12 to 15, hiding in the caves or the deep cork forests by day. “They are naturally beautiful fighters,” says Pierre Galuzot, a lieutenant in the Foreign Legion. “They are tougher than the Viet Minh Communists; they are the best marksmen I have ever fought against.”

Hate in the Heart. The fellagha rely heavily on the passive support and protection of Algeria’s 8,000,000 Moslems. France has done great things for the Algerian people in public health and economic development; yet nearly 1,000,000 are unemployed, and only one in five of their children can go to school. The Algerians suffer from bitter poverty (which is not necessarily France’s fault) and bitter discrimination (which they do blame on the French).

The French maintain that “Algeria is France” and, on paper, admit Algerians to full citizenship (with voting rights for 15 Deputies in the French National Assembly). Yet Algerians are no longer beguiled by the notion that they are Frenchmen. “We are only French when they want us to fight or die for them,” said a bitter young Constantine Arab. “When we need a job, we’re not French; when we fight for our freedom, we’re not French but bloodthirsty fanatics. Once we loved the French like brothers, and many of us hated to turn against them. But now they have put hate into our hearts.”

Pacification & Punishment. French official policy is to exorcise the hate and, at the same time, crush the revolt by “neither repression nor abandonment, but pacification.” In practice, this means that French Governor General Jacques Soustelle, a Gaullist and professional anthropologist, is trying to do two things at once: fight a punitive war against the elusive terrorists and at the same time regain the villagers’ confidence by demonstrating “the presence, power and benevolence of France.” The benevolence is the job of some 260 specially trained French officers, sent out with a corporals’ guard to the disaffected areas with orders to start public works and public-health programs, recruit a local militia. “Eighty percent of the natives just want to be protected from trouble,” said one young district officer in the Aures Mountains. “So long as they believe that we’re here to stay in strength, they will not support the fellagha.”

First reports suggest that benevolence is working in a few well-guarded areas. Governor Soustelle’s comment: “We must go further.” Soustelle hopes to hold Algerian elections next summer (if Paris allows him to) and to discuss a permanent settlement with the more moderate Arab leaders. Yet, as in all French North Africa, Algeria’s 1,000,000 French colons are terrified that home rule will submerge them under the votes of 8,000,000 Algerian Arabs. To reassure the colons (and their powerful backers in France), Soustelle announced last week: “We should never have lost Indo-China. We will hold on to North Africa.”