The Nineteenth Century Origins of Counterinsurgency Doctrine

Abstract

In counterinsurgency, the population is the center of gravity. This insight has become a key doctrinal tenet of modern armed conflict. But where does it come from? The razzia, a tactic introduced by the French in North Africa around 1840, first thrust tribal populations into the focus of modern operational thinking. Soon the pioneering bureaux arabes added an administrative, civil, and political element. Eventually, in the 1890s, French operations in Madagascar gave rise to a mature counterinsurgency doctrine. David Galula, a French writer who heavily influenced the American Counterinsurgency manual, is merely the joint that connects the nineteenth century to the twenty-first.

Key Words:

• Counterinsurgency
• French Nineteenth-Century Colonial Campaigns
• Algeria
• Madagascar
• Lyautey
• Galliéni
• Galula

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Etienne de Durand, Gian Gentile, Austin Long, Ann Marlowe, Stephanie Pezard, Bruno Reis, Stéphane Taillat, and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive remarks.

Notes

¹US Army, Operations, FM 3-0 (2008), p.0.

²Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1957).

³Winston Churchill, The Second World War (London: Houghton Mifflin 1986), 15.

⁴Harold Lasswell, ‘The Garrison State and Specialists on Violence’, American Journal of Sociology 46 (Jan. 1941), 455–68.

⁵For a general treatment of this period, see Douglas Porch, The March to the Marne. The French Army 1871–1914 (Cambridge: CUP 1981); Douglas Porch, ‘Bugeard, Galliéni, Lyautey: The Development of French Colonial Warfare’, in Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton: Princeton UP 1986), 376–407; specifically on the Army, see Alexander Sydney Kanya-Forstner, The Conquest of the Western Sudan (Cambridge: CUP 1969).

⁷US Army and US Marine Corps, Counterinsurgency, FM 3–24 (2006), 2–9.

⁶David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger 1964); David Galula, Pacification in Algeria 1956–1958, MG-478-1 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp. 1963). Stephen T. Hosmer and Sibylle O. Crane, Counterinsurgency: A Symposium, April 16-20, 1962 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp. 1963) and David Galula, ‘Subversion and Insurgency in Asia', in Alistair Buchan (ed.), China and the Peace of Asia (New York: Praeger 1965), 175–84.

⁸Ibid., A7.

⁹David Kilcullen, ‘Counter-insurgency Redux’, Survival 48/4 (Winter 2006–07), 111–30.

¹⁰David H. Petraeus, John A. Nagl, James F. Amos, and Sarah Sewall, The US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual FM 3–24 (Univ. of Chicago Press 2007), xix. For a similar assessment and more details, see Conrad Crane, ‘United States', in Thomas Rid and Thomas Keaney (eds) Understanding Counterinsurgency (London: Routledge 2010), 59–72.

¹¹Max Boot, ‘Keys to a successful surge’, Los Angeles Times, 7 Feb. 2007.

¹²Although Galula is certainly treated as a major influence today, it should be noted that both the US Army and the Marine Corps started focusing doctrinally – but not in practice – on the population already in the early 1960s, well before Galula came to America. Austin Long, Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, Occasional Paper (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp. 2008), 5–9.

¹³Author interviews at the Centre de doctrine d'emploi des forces, Paris, 2006/07.

¹⁴Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 40.

¹⁵‘David Galula, 48, French Army Aide’, New York Times, 12 May 1967, 47; David Galula (as Jean Caran), Les moustaches du tigre (Paris: Flammarion 1965).

¹⁶It is unlikely but not impossible that Galula had ‘connections’ to the French terrorist group Organisation de l'armée secrete (OAS) which had tried to assassinate General de Gaulle, see for instance Erich Wulff, Vietnamesische Lehrjahre: Bericht eines Arztes aus Vietnam 1961–1967 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1972), 344. Archival work is needed to assess this claim. Galula resigned from the Army to join Houston & Hotchkiss, an electrics company in Paris.

¹⁷David Galula, Contre-insurrection: Théorie et pratique (Paris: Economica 2008).

¹⁸The debate was also influenced by anti-communism and therefore departed in some ways from earlier assumptions. For an overview and a detailed bibliography, see Peter Paret, French Revolutionary Warfare from Indochina to Algeria (New York: Praeger 1964). Paret did not mention Galula.

¹⁹For an example, see the references in Centre de Doctrine d'Emploi des Forces, ‘Doctrine de Contre-Rébellion', Paris, Jan. 2009.

²⁰The razzia has been curiously neglected by historians and scholars of strategy. For the most detailed account in English, see Thomas Rid, ‘Razzia. A Turning Point in Modern Strategy’, Terrorism and Political Violence 21/4 (Oct. 2009), 617–35.

²¹The practice of the razzia is the historic precursor to the Prophet Mohammad's jihad, see William Montgomery Watt, ‘Islamic Conceptions of the Holy War’, in Thomas Patrick Murphy (ed.), The Holy War (Columbus: Ohio State UP 1976), 141–56.

²²Louis Charles Pierre de Castellane, Souvenirs de la vie militaire en Afrique (Paris: Victor Lecou 1852), 146–9.

²³An excellent history of the Armée d'Afrique is in Charles-André Julien, Histoire de l'Algérie contemporaine, Vol. 1 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1964), 316.

²⁴Decker recounts this anecdote in the introduction to his book, Carl von Decker, Algerien und die dortige Kriegsführung (Berlin: Friedrich August Herbig 1844), 160–2.

²⁵Ibid., 162.

²⁶Ibid.

²⁷Speech, 15 Jan. 1840, Thomas Robert Bugeaud, and Paul Azan, Par l'épée et par la charrue: écrits et discours (Paris: Presses universitaires de France 1948), 67–8.

²⁸Ibid., 66.

²⁹‘Ce n'est qu'en se diffusant soi-même, s'il est permis de s'exprimer ainsi, qu'en peut les attendre.’ Ibid., 125.

³⁰Castellane, Souvenirs, 229.

³¹Ibid., 338.

³²Ibid., 229.

³³Raaslöff later became the Danish minister to the United States during the Civil War, and later Minister of War of Denmark. Waldemar Rudolph von Raaslöff, Rückblick auf die militairischen und politischen Verhältnisse der Algérie in den Jahren 1840 und 1841 (Altona: J. Fr. Hammerich 1845), 398 footnote.

³⁴Albert de Broglie, ‘Une réforme administrative en Afrique, II’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 25/1 (1860), 295–335, 298. The article was later expanded into a book.

³⁵Ibid., 298.

³⁶Ferdinand Hugonnet, Souvenirs d'un chef de bureau arabe (Paris: Michel Lévy frères 1858), 5.

³⁷Decker, Algerien und die dortige Kriegsführung, 184.

³⁸Arrète du gouverneur général, 16 Aug. 1841, reproduced in ibid., 24.

³⁹For a more detailed administrative history, see ibid., Chapter 1.

⁴⁰Vincent Monteil, ‘Les Bureaux arabes au Maghreb (1833–1961)’, Esprit 29/300 (1961), 577; Xavier Yacono, Les bureaux arabes et l'évolution des genres de vie indigènes dans l'ouest du Tell algérois (Dahra, Chélif, Ouarsenis, Sersou) (Paris: Larose 1953), 116.

⁴¹Bugeaud, quoted in Albert Ringel, Les bureaux arabes de Bugeaud et les cercles militaires de Galliéni (Paris: E. Larose 1903), 27–8.

⁴²Bugeaud, quoted in ibid., 28.

⁴⁴H. Ideville, Le Maréchal Bugeaud, d'après sa correspondance intime et des documents inédites 1784–1849, 3 vols., Vol. III (Paris 1882), 137–8.

⁴³Arrêté ministériel, 1 Feb. 1844, Bulletins officials, t.III, 21–2, reproduced in Jacques Frémeaux, Les Bureaux arab dans l'Algérie de la conquête (Paris: Denoël 1993), 288; see also Broglie, ‘Une réforme administrative en Afrique, II’, 300.

⁴⁵Ibid.

⁴⁶Paul Bourdre, A travers l'Algérie: Souvenirs de l'excursion parliamentaire séptembre-octobre 1879 (Paris: G Charpentier 1880), 301.

⁴⁷Julien, Histoire de l'Algérie contemporaine, 270.

⁴⁸Broglie, ‘Une réforme administrative en Afrique, II’, 300.

⁵³Ibid., 99.

⁴⁹Lewis Wingfield, Under the Palms in Algeria and Tunis, Vol.1 (London: Hurst & Blackett 1868), viii.

⁵⁰Ibid., p.97.

⁵¹Ibid.

⁵²Ibid., 100.

⁵⁴Bourdre, A travers l'Algérie, 298.

⁵⁵Jules Duval, L'Algérie et les colonies françaises (Paris: Guillaumin 1877), 108.

⁵⁶Wingfield, Under the Palms in Algeria and Tunis, 167. Indeed Bugeaud himself had argued that his methods – this time with respect to the razzia – were more Arab than the Arabs: his point although was that the increased mobility of his flying columns rivaled the mobility of nomadic tribes.

⁵⁷Ibid., p.95.

⁵⁸J.J. Clamageran, L'Algérie: impressions de voyage (17 mars– 4 juin 1873) (Paris: Germer Baillière 1874), 127.

⁵⁹Decrais in preface to André You, Madagascar: Histoire, Organisation, Colonisation (Paris: Berger-Levrault 1905), viii.

⁶⁰Stephen H. Roberts, The History of French Colonial Policy (1870–1925) (London: P.S. King 1929), 390.

⁶¹Raseta, quoted in Hubert Deschamps, ‘Madagascar and France, 1870–1905’, in Desmond J. Clark, Roland Anthony Oliver, J.D. Fage and A.D. Roberts (eds), The Cambridge History of Africa, Vol. 6 (Cambridge UP 1975), 538.

⁶²Ibid., 525.

⁶³Henri Brunschwig, French Colonialism, 1871–1914: Myths and Realities (London: Pall Mall 1966), ix.

⁶⁴For a detailed account of the campaign's ‘regular’ first phase, see Anthony Clayton, ‘Hazou, Fazou, Tazou: Forest, Fire, and Fever – The French Occupation of Madagascar’, in A. Hamish Ion and E.J. Errington (eds), Great Powers and Little Wars: The Limits of Power (New York: Praeger 1993), 93.

⁶⁵Thomas Trotter Matthews, Thirty Years in Madagascar (London: The Religious Tract Society 1904), 308–9.

⁶⁶Joseph-Simon Galliéni, Neuf ans a Madagascar (Paris: Librairie Hachette 1908), 31.

⁶⁷The rations, perhaps tellingly, fell into three classes: French and European Algerian troops received wine rations and more meat; the tirailleurs sénégalais, Hausa troops, and Kabyles received no wine and a less elaborate diet; the Malagasy forces were quite literally at the bottom of the food chain: Frédéric Hellot, ‘La Pacification de Madagascar’, Journal des Science Militaires 75/10 (1899), 8, 40.

⁶⁸Ibid., 8.

⁶⁹Ibid., 13.

⁷⁰See a detailed discussion in ibid.

⁷¹Ringel, Les bureaux arabes de Bugeaud et les cercles militaires de Galliéni, 108.

⁷²Hubert Lyautey, Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar: 1894–1899 (Paris: A. Colin 1921), 663.

⁷³Ibid.

⁷⁴Hellot, ‘La Pacification de Madagascar’, 29.

⁷⁵Instructions, Tananarive, 1 Oct. 1896, Etat-major, 2e bureau, reproduced in ibid., 49–50.

⁷⁶Galliéni, Neuf ans a Madagascar, 47.

⁷⁷Ibid., 47. See also Joseph-Simon Galliéni, Galliéni au Tonkin (1892–1896) (Paris: Berger-Levrault 1941), 38, 215.

⁷⁸The Ecole supérieure de guerre in Paris, for instance, produced a 1905 doctrinal manual, Observations on War in the Colonies. The text heavily relied on Galliéni and for example outlined his oil-spot method and highlighted the duality of Lyautey's ‘material’ and ‘moral conquest’, what today would be called the hearts-and-minds. Albert Ditte, Observations sur la guerre dans les colonies (Paris: H. Charles-Lavauzelle 1905), 300 and 313 respectively.

⁷⁹Charles Richard was one of the first commanders of a so-called bureaux arabe. ‘Quand on veut conquérir, dans le vrai sens du mot, un pays, il y a deux espèces de conquêtes à exécuter: celle du terrain que est la conquête matérielle, et celle du peuple qui est la conquête morale.’ Charles Richard, Etude sur l'insurrection du Dahra (Algiers: A. Besancenez 1846), 7.

⁸⁰Hubert Lyautey, Du rôle colonial de l'armée (Paris: Armand Colin 1900), 11.

⁸¹Lyautey, Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar: 1894–1899, 334.

⁸²Ibid., 112–13.

⁸³Galliéni, Galliéni au Tonkin (1892–1896), 219.

⁸⁴W.L. Middleton, ‘Marshal Lyautey: Constructive Colonial Statesman’, The Living Age 328/4252 (1926), 22, see also Galliéni, Galliéni au Tonkin (1892–1896), 222.

⁸⁵This debate is reminiscent of today's debate about nation-building. Then US foreign-policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice, summed up the skeptics’ position most eloquently: ‘We don't need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten.’‘The Hobbled Hegemon’, The Economist, 28 July 2007.

⁸⁶Galliéni, Galliéni au Tonkin (1892–1896), p.219.

⁸⁷Lyautey uses a pun: in French ‘caporaliser’ means to browbeat. Lyautey, Du rôle colonial de l'armée, 28.

⁸⁸Ibid., 7.

⁸⁹Galliéni, Galliéni au Tonkin (1892–1896), 222.

⁹⁰Lyautey, Du rôle colonial de l'armée, 7.

⁹¹Jean Gottmann, ‘Bugeaud, Galliéni, Lyautey: The Development of French Colonial Warfare’, in Edward Mead Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton UP 1943), 252–4.

⁹²‘We have nothing to add to what Bugeaud outlined … and Lyautey realized in his campaign against the Beni-Snassen’, Antoine-Jules-Joseph Huré, ‘Stratégie et tactique marocaines’, Revue des questions de défense nationale I/3 (1939), 409.

⁹³Georges Catroux, ‘L'achèvement de la pacification marocaine’, Revue politique et parlementaire 161/479 (1934), 29.

⁹⁴Georges Catroux, Lyautey, le marocain (Paris: Hachette 1952), 25, 31, 98, also Catroux, ‘L'achèvement de la pacification marocaine’, 27.

⁹⁵‘Lyautey Africanus’, New York Times, 29 July 1934, p.E4.

⁹⁶‘Salvo Fired for Lyautey’, New York Times, 29 Oct. 1935, p.21.

⁹⁷David Lloyd George, quoted in Robin Bidwell, Morocco under Colonial Rule: French Administration of Tribal Areas 1912–1956 (London: Frank Cass 1973), 31.

⁹⁸Galula, Pacification in Algeria 1956–1958, 12–13 on Catroux and 179 on Noguès. Specifically on the role of Noguès' indigenous affairs office in the pacification of Morocco, see Catroux, ‘L'achèvement de la pacification marocaine’, 25.

⁹⁹Galula, Pacification in Algeria 1956–1958, 274.

¹⁰⁰Galliéni, Neuf ans a Madagascar, 326.

¹⁰¹Lyautey, Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar: 1894–1899, 467.