Using Indigenous Forces in Counterinsurgency Operations: The French in Algeria, 1954–1962

Abstract

While the importance of indigenous forces for successful counterinsurgency operations has long been recognized by great powers fighting local insurgencies, the factors that determine the performance of such forces have attracted relatively little scholarly attention. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of those determinants through an examination of the role and performance of auxiliary indigenous units in French counterinsurgency operations during the Algerian War (1954–62). The findings presented here suggest some important lessons for those seeking to recruit and deploy effective indigenous forces in counterinsurgency operations.

Key Words:

• Counterinsurgency
• Algeria
• Indigenous Forces
• Military Effectiveness

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Robert Farley, Paul Fritz, Yoram Haftel, and Randall Schweller for helpful suggestions and comments on earlier drafts. The paper also benefited greatly from discussions with Stephen Biddle, Jeff Friedman, Katja Kleinberg, and Carter Malkasian. Finally, Jessica Auchter, Mike Jensen, Dan Johnson, Ryan O'Daniel, and Soul Park provided valuable research assistance.

Notes

¹Daniel L. Byman, ‘Friends Like These: Counterinsurgency and the War on Terrorism’, International Security 31/2 (Autumn 2006), 79–115. According to the US Army Field Manual Interim 3-07.22, Counterinsurgency Operations, ‘The use of HN [Host Nation] forces is essential to developing a stable society, one that looks to the HN government for long-term security.’ Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani recently drew attention to the need for indigenous forces in America's war on terror, ‘because local forces are best able to operate in their home countries and in part in order to reduce the strain on our own troops'. Rudolph Giuliani, ‘Toward a Realistic Peace’, Foreign Affairs 86/5 (Sept./Oct. 2007), 7.

²Cassidy offers an initial attempt to generate lessons from the use of indigenous counterinsurgency forces. Robert M. Cassidy, ‘The Long Small War: Indigenous Forces for Counterinsurgency’, Parameters 36/2 (Summer 2006), 47–62. For the problems in relying on indigenous forces for COIN operations, see also Byman, ‘Friends Like These’.

³Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954–1962 (New York: The Viking Press 1978), 538–9.

⁴Successful adaptation refers solely to the military outcome against the ALN, and does not take account of the adverse effects of some of the military measures that generated public animosity against the French among the Muslim population of Algeria. Thus, even had de Gaulle decided to make an effort to remain in control of Algeria, it is not clear whether the military successes of the Challe Plan could have provided the foundation for political success, which included winning the sympathy of a large part of the Muslim population of Algeria.

⁵They may also have been fooled by the initial weakness of the FLN, both in terms of operational success and its ability to recruit members. John E. Talbott, The War Without a Name (New York: Knopf 1980), 38–9.

⁶France had around 58,000 troops in Algeria when the insurrection broke out. Most of these, however, were not combat-ready. By mid-1955 only 15,000 reinforcements had been sent to Algeria. Charles R. Shrader, The First Helicopter War: Logistics and Mobility in Algeria, 1955–1962 (Westport, CT: Praeger 1999), 41.

⁷Anthony Clayton, The Wars of French Decolonization (London/ New York: Longman 1994), 121. It was only in April 1955, moreover, that a state of emergency was declared in parts of Algeria, allowing the military to operate without civilian judicial constraints in certain areas. Up until this time, the Army did not have the authority to detain anyone or to use lethal force, except for cases in which individuals were caught red handed in acts of terrorism or sabotage.

⁸See Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 114 and Daho Djerbal, ‘Les maquis du Nord-Constantinois face aux grande opérations de ratissage du plan Challe (1959–1960)’, in Jean-Charles Jauffret and Maurice Vaïsse (eds.), Militaires et guérilla dans la guerre d'Algérie (Paris: Éditions Complexe 2001), 195–217.

⁹French forces grew to approximately 181,000 in Jan. 1956, 320,000 in Jul. 1956, and 405,000 in Oct. of that year. Alban Mahieu, ‘Les effectifs de l'armée française en Algérie’, in Jauffret and Vaısse, Militaires et guérilla dans la guerre d'Algérie, Ch. 3, 41.

¹⁰Talbott, The War Without a Name, 63.

¹¹Jean-Charles Jauffret, ‘Une armée à deux vitesses en Algérie (1954–1962): réserves génerales et troupes de secteur’, in Jauffret and Vaïsse, Militaires et guérilla dans la guerre d'Algérie, 25.

¹²Clark estimates that 2,571 members of the security forces, and 19,617 rebels were killed in the first two years of the conflict. See Michael K. Clark, Algerian in Turmoil (New York: Praeger 1959).

¹³According to Tripier, the number of combat weapons (as opposed to shotguns and hunting rifles) in the hands of the ALN grew from 200 in Nov. 1954 to 12,500 in Feb. 1957, and the manpower of the organization grew from 400 ‘regulars’ to 18,000 by the same date. Philippe Tripier, Autopsie de la guerre d'Algérie (Paris: Éditions France Empire 1972).

¹⁴For accounts of the widespread use of torture and extra-judicial killings see Pierre Leulliette, St. Michael and the Dragon: Memoirs of a Paratrooper (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1964) and Paul Aussaresses and Robert L. Miller. The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria, 1955–1957 (New York: Enigma Books 2002).

¹⁵Douglas Porch, The French Foreign Legion (New York: HarperCollins 1991).

¹⁶Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 253.

¹⁷By the end of 1957, the FLN had 2,000 trained troops in Tunisia, a number that grew to 22,000 in 1962, armed with 350 heavy weapons, including 120mm mortars and 122mm field guns. Jacques Vernet, ‘Les barrages pendant la guerre d'Algérie’, in Jauffret and Vaïsse, Militaires et guérilla dans la guerre d'Algérie, 256.

¹⁸Constantin Melnik, ‘The French Campaign against the FLN’, Memorandum RM-5449-ISA, Prepared for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense/International Security Affairs, 1967 and Vernet, ‘Les barrages pendant la guerre d'Algérie’.

¹⁹Claude d'Abzac Epezy and François Pernot, ‘Les operations en Algérie decembre 1958–avril 1960,’Revue Historique des Armées 200 (1995), 61–73.

²⁰For a detailed account of how the French security forces used airpower to create mobile cordons and to deploy forces against ALN units see A.H. Peterson, G.C. Reinhardt and E.E. Conger (eds.), Symposium on the Role of Airpower in Counterinsurgency and Unconventional Warfare: The Algerian War, Number RM-3653-PR (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp. 1963).

²¹Michel Roux, Les harkis: Les oubliés de l'histoire (Paris: Éditions la Découverte 1991).

²²D'Abzac Epezy and Pernot, ‘Les operations en Algérie’. For an additional discussion of the effectiveness of the Challe offensives, particularly in Kabylie, see Moula Bouaziz and Alain Mahé, ‘La Grande Kabylie durant la guerre d'independence Algérienne,’ in Benjamin Stora and Mohammed Harbi (eds.), La Guerre d'Algérie: 1954–2004, la fin de l'amnésie (Paris: Robert Laffont 2004), 227–65.

²³Talbott, War Without a Name, 193–4. The ‘Si Salah affair’ also revealed important rifts between the interior and the exterior FLN/ALN leadership. In a memo captured by French intelligence, one of the leaders of Wilaya 4 accused the exterior leadership of intentionally depriving his units of necessary materials (especially weapons) and being taken over by the Communists. Sadek Sellam, ‘La situation de la wilaya 4 au moment de l'affaire Si Salah (1958–1960),’ in Jauffret and Vaïsse, Militaires et guérilla dans la guerre d'Algérie, 165–94.

²⁴Djerbal, ‘Les Maquis du Nord’, 212. It is important to note, however, as Djerbal outlines, that the massive ‘regrouping’ of the Muslim population and the harsh countermeasures against suspected ALN supporters that characterized the Challe offensives had turned much of the population against the French.

²⁵For a representative argument in this vein see Tripier, Autopsie de la guerre d'Algérie.

²⁶The reasons for de Gaulle's decision to abandon Algeria, and the timing of this decision, continue to be a matter of considerable academic debate. Gil Merom argues that the French could afford continuing the war in economic and military terms, but that domestic political factors convinced de Gaulle to abandon Algeria. Gil Merom, ‘The Social Origins of the French Capitulation in Algeria’, Armed Forces and Society 30/4 (2004), 601–28. Connelly and Clayton argue that de Gaulle came to believe that the maintenance of an empire was against French political and economic interests and would impede its ability to remain a great power. Matthew James Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford: OUP 2002); Clayton, The Wars of French Decolonization, 45.

²⁷Maurice Faivre, Les Combattants Musulmans de la Guerre d'Algérie (Paris: Harmattan 1995), 250. From a modest 3,000 auxiliary troops engaged in 1954, the number of indigenous Muslim auxiliaries attached to the French security forces grew to almost 120,000 individuals in 1961, with the biggest increase taking place between 1957 and 1960.

²⁸Muslim auxiliaries made up about 30–40 per cent of the commando de chasse overall. D'Abzac Epezy and Pernot, ‘Les Operations en Algérie’.

²⁹Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 337. For casualty ratios as a useful measure of the effectiveness of military units see Martin van Creveld, Fighting Power: German and US Army Performance, 1939–1945 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1982). There is reason to believe, therefore, that the Muslim forces fighting for the French – to the extent that they participated in the actual fighting – were at least as competent as their insurgent counterparts, if not more so. Maurice Faivre, ‘Le Plan Challe’, Revue Historique des Armées 238 (2005), 117.

³⁰Peterson, Reinhardt and Conger, Symposium on the Role of Airpower in Counterinsurgency, 7.

³¹This should not be necessarily confused with a desire for continued French rule in Algeria per se. Many Algerian Muslims found themselves torn by conflicting loyalties. Mohand Hamoumou, Et Ils Sont Devenus Harkis (Paris: Fayard 1993), 98. As Hamoumou points out, before 1954 many Algerians served in the French military, creating a sense of loyalty to France. On the other hand, many of these veterans also rejected the injustices associated with French rule over Algeria.

³²Martin S. Alexander, Martin Evans and John F.V. Keiger (eds.), The Algerian War and the French Army: Experiences, Images, Testimonies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2002), 5.

³³Faivre, Les Combattants Musulmans.

³⁴Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 358.

³⁵For data on desertions see Charles-Robert Ageron, ‘Les Supplétifs Algériens dans l'armée française pendant la guerre d'Algérie’, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire 48 (1995), 3–20. Although desertion rates are a valuable aggregate measure of motivation, one should not rely on them exclusively to measure the willingness of the Muslim troops to fight for the French Algerian cause. For one, a low desertion rate does not mean that those who did not desert fought hard, or well, for the French cause. Moreover, the desertion rates – especially for the auxiliary troops – can be misleading because many of the auxiliary troops were hired on daily, weekly, and monthly contracts and were not permanent members of the security forces. As such, those who went over to the other side, those who decided not to re-enlist, and those not re-hired for security purposes are not represented in these numbers. See François-Xavier Hautreux, ‘L'engagement des harkis (1954–1962): Essay de périodisation’, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire 90/2 (2006), 39.

³⁶Martin S. Alexander and John F.V. Keiger, ‘France and the Algerian War: Strategy, Operations and Diplomacy’, Journal of Strategic Studies 25/2 (June 2002), 1–32 and Cassidy, ‘The Long Small War’.

³⁷Up to 60,000 Harkis served at any given time. Some 10,000 Muslims served under nominally civilian control in gendarmerie units, modeled after the paramilitary Republican Security Companies in metropolitan France. Approximately 20,000 others served as bodyguards for officers in charge of Special Administrative Sections (SAS). Martin Evans, ‘The Harkis: The Experience and Memory of France's Muslim Auxiliaries', in The Algerian War and the French Army: Experiences, Images, Testimonies, 121, and Centre de Doctrine d'Emploi des Forces. Les ‘Sections Administratives Spécialisées’ en Algérie: Un outil pour la stabilization (Cahier de la recherche doctrinale 2005), 39.

³⁸Ageron, ‘Les Supplétifs Algériens.’ Challe believed, probably correctly, that the war in Algeria could not be won without the support of the indigenous population, both passive and active. He emphasized the necessity of recruiting as many Muslims into the security forces as possible. Challe also believed that indigenous forces would significantly improve the operational capabilities of the French security forces. D'Abzac Epezy and Pernot, ‘Les opérations en Algérie’, 64.

³⁹Evans, ‘The Harkis', 126

⁴⁰Buis believed that only three or four of the 30 or so Harkas that fell under his command were loyal and could be counted upon to perform their tasks. Roux, Les Harkis, 80.

⁴¹Abd-el-Aziz Meliani, Le Drame des Harkis (Paris: Perrin 2001), 19. Buis was certainly not alone in casting aspersions on the motivation and loyalty of Harkis. The French High Command was also suspicious of Harki loyalties. A report prepared by the general staff in Algiers suggested that those working with Harkas should engage in constant surveillance of their men, that they lock up weapons up at night, and maintain the presence of Europeans at guard stations at all times. Ageron, ‘Les Supplétifs Algériens,’ 7.

⁴²Cassidy, ‘The Long Small War’.

⁴³Christophe Cazorla, ‘Concept d'emploi et évolution statutaire des supplétifs durant la guerre d'Algérie’, Revue Historique des Armées 229 (2002), 69–82.

⁴⁴Only later in the conflict were the Harkas equipped with combat weapons, including crew-served machine guns. Such equipment, however, was reserved for units deemed reliable. Ageron, ‘Les Supplétifs Algériens', 6.

⁴⁵Faivre, Les Combattants Musulmans, 114.

⁴⁶For additional testimonies of the willingness and ability demonstrated by Harkis in combat see Meliani, Le Drame des Harkis.

⁴⁷Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 225.

⁴⁸See Sergio Catignani, ‘Motivating Soldiers: The Example of the Israeli Defense Forces', Parameters 34/3 (Autumn 2004), 108–21; Reuven Gal, ‘Unit Morale: From a Theoretical Puzzle to an Empirical Illustration – an Israeli Example,’Journal of Applied Social Psychology 16/6 (1986), 549–64; Creveld, Fighting Power; Allan R. Millet, Williamson Murray and Kenneth H. Watman, ‘The Effectiveness of Military Organizations', International Security 11/1 (Summer 1986), 37–71, and Edward A. Shils and Morris Janowitz. ‘Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II’, Public Opinion Quarterly 12/2 (1948), 280–315.

⁴⁹For a common portrayal of SAS officers as highly qualified and motivated see Cassidy, ‘The Long Small War’, 54. For the more qualified assessment see Centre d'Emploi des Forces, ‘Les Sections Administratives Spécialisées', 25, 27.

⁵⁰Roux suggests that the recruitment, training, and leadership of Harkas was not institutionalized at all in the security forces. As such the level of training and leadership they attained was directly commensurate with the quality and motivation of the officers assigned to deal with these units at the sectoral level. Roux, Les harkis.

⁵¹Faivre, Les Combattants Musulmans; Hamoumou, Et Ils Sont Devenus Harkis; and Bouaziz and Mahé, ‘La Grande Kabylie’.

⁵²Faivre, Les Combattants Musulmans.

⁵³Hautreux, ‘L'engagement des harkis', 39.

⁵⁴The basic facts of this episode are cited in almost any work on the Algerian uprising. For one example see Evans, ‘The Harkis'.

⁵⁵Roux, Les harkis, 360.

⁵⁶Faivre, Maurice, ‘Un Ethnologue de Terrain Face a la Rebellion Algérienne’, accessed online at <www.stratisc.org/Faivre_7.htm>

⁵⁷Bouaziz and Mahé, ‘La Grande Kabylie’, 236.

⁵⁸The FLN was especially brutal in its attempts to eradicate rival movements that could form a third party with whom the French could negotiate.

⁵⁹Bouaziz and Mahé, ‘La Grande Kabylie’, 237–8.

⁶⁰Lacoste-Dujardin, Camille, Opération ‘Oiseau bleu’: des Kabyles, des ethnologues et la guerre en Algérie (Paris: Découverte 1997).

⁶¹Roux, Les harkis, 360.

⁶²Some military commanders pointed out this weakness in the directive to create Harkas in every sector. According to Gen. Parlange, it would have been more fruitful to recruit Harkas only where the conditions were appropriate. The desire to have indigenous troops involved in large numbers and in all sectors, however, overrode concerns about loyalty and effectiveness. Roux, Les harkis, 81.

⁶³According to Allès, this was the official complement of these units, which was seldom achieved due to a lack of manpower, personnel turnover, and the haste with which the units were created. Jean-François Allès , Commandos de Chasse Gendarmerie: Algérie 1959–1962, récit et témoignages (Paris: Atlante Éditions 2000). Still the number of NCOs in these units was far higher than in regular Harkas.

⁶⁴The first recorded desertion in these units took place in June 1961. Only 3 cases of desertion were recorded between Dec. 1959 and Feb. 1961. Allès, Commandos de Chasse Gendarmerie, 101, 131.

⁶⁵Allès, Commandos de Chasse Gendarmerie, 27.

⁶⁶Raymond Béal, Les Commandos de Chasse Gendarmerie en Algérie, 1959–1962 (Paris: Société des écrivains associés 1997).

⁶⁷Creveld, Fighting Power.

⁶⁸David Rohde, ‘Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones', New York Times, 7 Oct. 2007.

⁶⁹In fact, Servier himself was very critical of many of the French attempts to recruit and employ indigenous forces precisely because he believed that the French authorities had insufficient knowledge of Algerian society. Jean Servier, Adieu djebels (Paris: Éditions France Empire 1958).