Colonial states as intelligence states: Security policing and the limits of colonial rule in france's muslim territories, 1920–40 1

1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Washington, DC on 1 September 2005.

Abstract

At the heart of most colonial states lay a contradiction. On the one hand, colonial state institutions defined themselves in opposition to indigenous networks of power associated with the pre-colonial period, whether based on ethnicity, tribal kinship or religious affiliation. On the other hand, few colonial states had sufficient bureaucratic substance to operate separately of indigenous society. This paper suggests that a more catholic vision of the parameters and purpose of state intelligence gathering may aid our understanding of how colonial states endured. These intelligence activities were multifaceted. They were designed, on the one hand, to provide sufficient information about local social organization to enable government to function. On the other hand, intelligence gatherers were also intelligence disseminators. Those same agencies of the colonial state that amassed information about indigenous populations also sought to control the movement of knowledge within local society in order to mould popular opinion, or, at the very least, shape the views of influential elites. Only then could local authorities set about influencing these differing forums of opinion to European advantage. In this sense, the paper argues, colonial states were ‘intelligence states’.

Key Words:

• Colony
• intelligence
• colonial state
• French empire
• policing

Acknowledgement

Research for this article was supported by the Leverhulme Trust. Earlier versions were presented to the International History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, and to the American Political Science Association (APSA). The author is grateful to Joe Maiolo, Antony Best, Tom Mahnken, and his co-panelists at APSA for their comments and suggestions.

Notes

1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Washington, DC on 1 September 2005.

2 Colin Newbury, Patrons, Clients, and Empire. Chieftaincy and Over-Rule in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific (Oxford: Oxford UP 2003) pp.269–71.

3 The pioneer here has been Crawford Young. See his The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven: Yale UP 1994), and his ‘The Colonial State and Post-Colonial Crisis’, in Prosser Gifford and Wm. Roger Louis (eds), Decolonisation and African Independence (New Haven: Yale UP 1988) pp.1–31.

4 Catherine Boone, Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Change (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2003); Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1993).

5 Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works. Disorder as Political Instrument (Oxford: James Currey 1999); Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa. Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 2000); Gil Merom, How Democracies Lose Small Wars. State, Society, and the Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2003).

6 Louis-Hubert Lyautey, ‘Du rôle colonial de l'armée’, Revue des Deux Mondes, Jan. 1900, pp.11–7; Regarding Lyautey's administrative precepts in Morocco, see William A. Hoisington Jr, Lyautey and the French Conquest of Morocco (London: Macmillan 1995) pp.41–53.

7 A point made in Antony Best, British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914–41 (London: Palgrave–Macmillan 2002) p.2.

8 C.A. Bayly, Empire and Information. Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1996) pp.3–6, 365.

9 Roger Price stresses that a key function of rural policing in mid-nineteenth century France was to prevent the spread of rumour about social deprivation or local disorder; see his ‘Techniques of Repression: The Control of Popular Protest in Mid-Nineteenth-Century France’, Historical Journal 25/4 (1982) p.865.

10 Christopher Andrew, ‘Military Intelligence in History’, in Keith Neilson and B.J.C. McKercher (eds), Go Spy the Land. Military Intelligence in History (Westport, CT: Praeger 1992) pp.1–16.

11 Young, ‘The Colonial State and Post-Colonial Crisis’, p.7.

12 For discussion of the parameters of military and security intelligence, see Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1996) pp.16–21.

13 The National Archives (hereafter TNA), WO 106/259, memo by Captain J.E. Philipps (Chief Intelligence Officer, East Africa), ‘“Africa for the African” and “Pan-Islam”. Recent Developments in Central and East Africa’, 15 July 1917; CO 732/21/2: Persian political intelligence summaries, 1926; Thomas G. Fraser, ‘Germany and Indian Revolution, 1914–18’, Journal of Contemporary History 12/2 (1977) pp.255–72; Edmund Burke III, ‘Moroccan Resistance, Pan-Islam and German War Strategy, 1914–18’, Francia 3 (1975) pp.434–64; Richard J. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence. British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire 1904–24 (London: Frank Cass 1995). On similar concerns regarding East Asia, see Best, British Intelligence, pp.13–4, 23–8, 47–8.

14 Serge Berstein and Jean-Jacques Becker, Histoire de l'anti-communisme en France. tome I: 1917–40 (Paris: Olivier Orban 1987) Chap. 6; Sophie Coeuré, La grande lueur à l'Est: les Français et l'Union soviétique (Paris: Éditions du Seuil 1999); Frédéric Monier, Le complot dans la République. Stratégies du secret de Boulanger à la Cagoule (Paris: Éditions La Découverte 1998); Michael B. Miller, Shanghai on the Métro. Spies, Intrigue and the French Between the Wars (Berkeley: University of California Press 1994).

15 Susan L. Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds. British Governments, the Media and Colonial Counter-Insurgency 1944–60 (London: Leicester UP 1995) p.1.

16 Service Historique de l'Armée, Vincennes (hereafter SHA), Carton 7N4133/Dossier 4, no. 1876, Etat-Major de l'Armée (EMA) Section d'études (Afrique/Orient/Colonies), War Minister to Direction des affaires algériennes, 3 June 1926.

17 Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence (hereafter CAOM), Gouvernement Général d'Algérie (GGA), 11H46, no. 10272, Direction de la sécurité générale (Algiers), ‘État des crimes et délits importants commis par les indigènes contre les européens ou de fonctionnaires indigènes pendant le mois de juillet 1922’. The seventh capital crime recorded was the gang rape of a settler woman who committed suicide before the case could be brought to trial.

18 For general introductions, see Rashid Khalidi, Lisa Anderson, Muhammad Muslih and Reeva S. Simon (eds), The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York: Columbia UP 1991); Israel Gershoni, ‘Rethinking the Formation of Arab Nationalism in the Middle East, 1920–45: Old and New Narratives’, in James Jankowski and Israel Gershoni (eds), Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East (New York: Columbia UP 1997) pp.3–25; C. Ernest Dawn, ‘The Formation of Pan-Arab Ideology in the Inter-War Years’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 20 (1988) pp.67–91; Mahmoud Haddad, ‘The Origins of Arab Nationalism Reconsidered’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 26/2 (1994) pp.201–22. For the background of early Algerian nationalists, see Claude Collot and Jean-Robert Henry (eds), Le Mouvement National Algérien. Textes 1912–54 (Paris: Editions l'Harmattan 1978); Monique Gadant, Le nationalisme algérien et les femmes (Paris: Editions l'Harmattan 1995); Ahmed Koulakssis and Gilbert Meynier, L'Emir Khaled premier za'im? Identité algérienne et colonialisme français (Paris: Editions l'Harmattan 1987); Mahfoud Kaddache, Histoire du nationalisme algérien. Tome I: Question nationale et politique algérienne 1919–51, 2nd ed. (Algiers: Entreprise nationale du livre 1993). Regarding the Levant states, see Gérard D. Khoury, La France et l'Orient Arabe. Naissance du Liban moderne (Paris: Armand Colin 1993); Philip S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate. The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920–45 (London: I.B. Tauris 1987); Meir Zamir, Lebanon's Quest. The Road to Statehood 1926–39 (London: I.B. Tauris 1997).

19 Kaddache, Histoire du nationalisme algérien. Tome I, p.202.

20 ‘“Revendications algériennes” présentées par Messali au Congrès de Bruxelles (10–4 février 1927)’, in Collot and Henry, Le Mouvement National Algérien. Textes 1912–54, p.39.

21 Growing obsession with security surveillance in the late Third Republic has been highlighted by Miller, Shanghai on the Métro, and Gérard Noiriel, Les Origines républicaines de Vichy (Paris: Hachette 1999).

22 SHA, Archives repatriated from Moscow (hereafter Moscow), C286/Dossier 429, EMA-2, no. 1039, ‘Renseignement, Tunisie: Agitation nationaliste’, 10 July 1934; Dossier 428, no. 1780, Direction des affaires indigènes (Rabat), ‘A/S des incidents de Constantine et de leur répercussion possible au Maroc’, 23 Aug. 1934; EMA Section d'Outre-Mer, ‘La crise marocaine et le parti socialiste’, 3 April 1936.

23 Guy Pervillé, Les étudiants algériens de l'université française (1880–1962) (Paris: CNRS 1984), and his ‘Le sentiment national des étudiants algériens de culture français de 1912 à 1942’, Relations Internationales 2 (1974) pp.233–59. See also Charles-Robert Ageron, ‘L'association des étudiants musulmans nord-africains en France durant l'entre-deux-guerres. Contribution à l'étude des nationalismes maghrébins’, Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer 70/258 (1983) pp.25–56.

24 Archives de la Prefecture de Police, Paris (hereafter APPP), Série BA, Carton BA2170, fo. 7, Service des renseignements généraux, 1er bureau, ‘A/S de l'organisation communiste musulmane – L'Etoile Nord-Africaine’, 30 Nov. 1927.

25 SHA, Fonds Privés, Papiers du Général de Monsabert, 1K380/Carton 2, ‘Instruction rélative à la participation de l'armée au maintien de l'ordre public’, 20 Aug. 1907.

26 In black Africa and Indochina, the allocation of responsibility between civil, military and police authorities was formalized by a series of seven decrees passed between 1886 and 1909. This legislation was supplemented by additional decrees passed in the inter-war years to integrate intelligence services into the security apparatus. Regarding the pre-First World War decree legislation, see SHA, 7N4196/D1, Ministère des Colonies Services militaires 1er bureau circulaire, 19 July 1912.

27 SHA, Moscow, C1109/D667, no. 6620, EMA Section d'Outre-Mer renseignement, ‘A/S Préparatifs pour action musulmane en Afrique du Nord’, 7 Sept. 1935.

28 Archives Nationales, Paris (hereafter AN), F7/13411, Syrie, no. 1446, Commissaire spécial (Annemasse), ‘Rapport: A/S du mouvement syrien’, 14 May 1926.

29 Zachary Lockman, Comrades and Enemies. Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–48 (Los Angeles: University of California Press 1996) pp.80–2; Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens. Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia UP 2000) pp.100–3.

30 AN, F7/13411, Syrie, SCR-2, ‘Le mouvement communiste en Palestine et en Syrie’, 25 March 1926.

31 SHA, Moscow, C623/D1419, EMA-2, ‘Le SR de Beyrouth et la S.D.N.’, April 1926.

32 Michael Provence, ‘A Nationalist Rebellion Without Nationalists? Popular Mobilizations in Mandatory Syria 1925–26’, in Nadine Méouchy and Peter Slugleet (eds), The British and French Mandates in Comparative Perspectives (Leiden: Brill 2004) pp.673–92.

33 SHA, Moscow, C878/D997, EMA-2, no. 126, ‘La mouvement Riffain et l'aide intermusulmane’, 16 Sept. 1925.

34 The literature on French colonial urbanism is extensive. The regulation of urban space in inter-war North Africa is discussed in Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Rabat. Urban Apartheid in Morocco (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 1980); Paul Rabinow, French Modern. Norms and Forms of the Social Environment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1989); David Prochaska, Making Algeria French. Colonialism in Bône, 1870–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1990); Gwendolyn Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1991); Zeynep Çelik, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations. Algiers under French Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press 1997); Allen Christelow, ‘The Mosque at the Edge of the Plaza: Islam in the Algerian Colonial City’, The Maghreb Review 25/3–4 (2000) pp.289–308; Shirine Hamadeh, ‘Creating the Traditional City. A French Project’, in Nezar Al Sayyad (ed.), Forms of Dominance. On the Architecture and Urbanism of the Colonial Enterprise (Avebury: Ashgate 1992) pp.241–59.

35 Thompson, Colonial Citizens, pp.200–1.

36 AN, F7/13411, Syrie, ‘Renseignements sur les populations musulmanes’, 22 March 1926.

37 Centre des Archives Diplomatiques, Nantes, Fonds Beyrouth, Cabinet Politique, Vol. 986, Dossier bédouin, Capitaine Terrier memo., ‘Essai de legislation bédouine’, Oct. 1924.

38 SHA, 2N243/D2, General Serrigny to Paul Painlevé, report on Moroccan tour of inspection, 4 June 1925. For background, see C.R. Pennell, A Country with a Government and a Flag. The Rif War in Morocco (Wisbech: Middle East and North African Studies Press 1986). Still useful is David S. Woolman, Rebels in the Rif. Abd-el-Krim and the Rif Rebellion (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP 1968). The outstanding examination of Spain's involvement in the Rif conflict is now Sebastian Balfour, Deadly Embrace. Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War (Oxford: Oxford UP 2002).

39 Itamar Rabinovitch, ‘The Compact Minorities and the Syrian State, 1918–45’, Journal of Contemporary History 14/4 (1979) pp.693–7.

40 Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, Série M: Maroc 1917–40, Vol. 89, Direction des affaires indigènes/SR, ‘Rapport mensuel d'ensemble du protectorat: Situation politique et militaire, janvier 1924’.

41 Ibid. Direction des affaires indigènes/SR, ‘Rapport mensuel d'ensemble du protectorat: Situation politique et militaire, mars 1925’.

42 SHA, 7N4133/D6, no. 2947, EMA Section d'études (Afrique/Orient/Colonies), ‘La situation politique en Tunisie’, 14 Dec. 1931.

43 SHA, Moscow, C306/D426, no. 17,622, Officier de liaison (Rabat), ‘Le mouvement nationaliste marocaine’, 5 Nov. 1933. This was consistent with the resurgence of conservative associationist ideology in French West Africa discussed by Alice Conklin in A Mission to Civilize. The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930 (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP 1997) pp.174–211.

44 William A. Hoisington, Jr, The Casablanca Connection. French Colonial Policy, 1936–43 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1984) pp.40–51.

45 Stéphane Sirot, ‘Les conditions de travail et les grèves des ouvriers colonaiux à Paris des lendemains de la Première Guerre Mondiale à la veille du Front Populaire’, Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer 83/311 (1996) pp.86–92.

46 APPP, Paris, BA2170, ‘Note sur l'activité de l'Etoile Nord-Africaine depuis sa création jusqu'au 15 Novembre 1934’; on this subject more generally, see Clifford Rosenberg, ‘Republican Surveillance: Immigration, Citizenship and the Police in Interwar Paris’ (Ph.D., Princeton: Princeton University 2000).

47 CAOM, 8H61/D1, HCM March 1937 session, report 2: ‘Les grands courants d'opinion dans l'Islam nord-africain’, 5 March 1937.

48 Ibid.

49 SHA, 7N71333/D6, EMA Section d'Outre-Mer, ‘Synthèse de renseignements interessant l'Afrique du Nord, mois de décembre 1936’.

50 Reports from the Algiers SR office formed the basis for fortnightly North African political intelligence assessments compiled by the War Ministry deuxième bureau: SHA, Moscow, C388/D132: Renseignements Afrique du Nord, 1937–8.

51 SHA, Moscow, C878/D998, SR rapport, ‘Les Ulémas d'Algérie, Chekib Arslan et l'E.N.A.’, 7 Dec. 1936; Sûreté nationale report, ‘Activité de l'Emir Chekib Arslan’, 14 May 1937.

52 Charles-Robert Ageron, ‘Une émeute anti-juive à Constantine (août 1934)’, Revue de l'Occident Musulman et de la Méditerranée 3 (1973) pp.23–40.

53 As an example: SHA, Moscow, C1109/D667, no. 1978/G SFA: Renseignement Algérie, ‘Bruits de révolte indigène dans le département de Constantine’, 3 Jan. 1934.

54 SHA, Moscow, C388/D132, 19e Corps d'Armée, EMA-2, bulletin de renseignements no. 20, 14 Aug. 1937; ‘Compte-rendu de quinzaine’, 19 Aug. 1937.

55 SHA, Moscow, C930/D680, SEA (Alger), no. 4042, ‘A/S Enseignement des Oulémas’, 4 July 1935. According to prevailing security service wisdom, for the fellah masses, living standards were all that counted: see, for example, SHA, Moscow, C1109/C667, no. 2059/G, SEA, ‘Note sur la situation indigène dans le département d'Oran’, 14 Jan. 1935.

56 SHA, Moscow, C223/D122, SEA report, ‘A/S Situation des indigènes en Kabylie’, 16 April 1935.

57 Ibid. Commandant Delor (SEA) to Colonel Rivet, 22 May 1935.

58 SHA, Moscow, C1109/C667, SEA renseignement, ‘Collision entre la police et les partisans de Messali’, Sept. 1937.

59 Ibid. ‘SCR note sur le fonctionnement du contre-espionnage en Tunisie’, 3 Jan. 1935.

60 SHA, Moscow, C1109/D667, EMA Section d'Outre-Mer, ‘Note au sujet de la contrebande et de la préparation d'une insurrection en AFN’, 15 Nov. 1934; SEA, Commandant Delor, Section d'études Alger, to Commandant Rivet, ‘Informations fournies par REGNAUDIN’, 27 Nov. 1934.

61 SHA, Moscow, C1109/D667, no. 1970/G, SEA, ‘Note sur la question tunisienne’, 29 Dec. 1934.

62 CAOM, 8H61/D1, President Albert Lebrun letter to Albert Sarraut, 9 Jan. 1937.

63 CAOM, 8H61/D1, HCM March 1937 session, report 1: ‘Organismes d'information musulmane’; see also report 5: ‘Le régime administrative en Afrique du Nord’.

64 CAOM, 8H61/D1, HCM March 1937 session, report 2: ‘Les grands courants d'opinion dans l'Islam nord-africain’.

65 CAOM, 8H61/D1, HCM March 1937 session, report 3: ‘Les nords-africains en France’.

66 CAOM, 8H61/D1, HCM March 1937 session, report 4: ‘Les Assemblées élues en Afrique du Nord’.

67 SHA, Moscow, C464/D174, ‘Rapport du mission du Commandant Schlesser, Mars–Avril 1938’.

68 SHA, Moscow, CC464/D174, SCE, ‘La création de brigades de contre-espionnage’, 25 March 1938.

69 SHA, Moscow, C464/D174, ‘Rapport du mission du Commandant Schlesser, Mars–Avril 1938: Note sur le problème du renseignement en Afrique du Nord’.

70 SHA, 7N4133/D4, no. 3539, EMA, Section d'Afrique et d'Orient note, 10 Dec. 1926.

71 SHA, 7N4133/D4, no. 43469/EMA, Section d'Outre-Mer, ‘Note sur l'état d'esprit des militaires indigènes nord africains en 1937’, 26 Sept. 1938.

72 David M. Anderson and David Killingray (eds), Policing the Empire. Government, Authority and Control, 1830–1940 (Manchester: Manchester UP 1991) p.2.

73 See Robert Paxton's review of Gérard Noiriel's Les Origines républicaines de Vichy (Paris: Hachette 1999), in French Politics, Culture and Society 18/2 (2000) pp.99–103, and Noiriel, Les Origines, pp.183–5.