A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (100 page)

Counter-measures: effectual and ineffectual

For many months the Algiers authorities displayed a disturbing impotence to cope with the O.A.S., despite the more than 25,000 gendarmes and C.R.S. available to them. The problems facing them were, admittedly, immense. In the larger part of Algiers and Oran the O.A.S. enjoyed the same advantages of being the “fish in water” among a sympathetic population that helped make the F.L.N. so elusive over the country as a whole. As with Yacef’s network in the Casbah before the Battle of Algiers, the adjacent poor white district of Bab-el-Oued now became a virtually impenetrable citadel for the O.A.S. There was also a worrisome question of loyalties. Following the collapse of the April putsch, General Ailleret estimated that — while ten per cent of his officers were prepared to fight against the O.A.S. — ten per cent were actively favourable to it, and the remaining eighty per cent neutral and unlikely to obey orders to fire upon the army deserters with the O.A.S. (Despite this, in September Ailleret issued an uncompromising “Order of the Day No. 5” which was tantamount to an army declaration of war on the O.A.S.; several days later his Paris apartment was blown apart, his wife narrowly escaping with her life. From then on the Commander-in-Chief took to carrying two revolvers and travelling in a bullet-proof Citroën — passed down from Salan — filled like a mobile armoury with grenades and sub-machine-guns.)

The situation was even worse with the force most closely concerned with combating the O.A.S.; of the
gendarmerie mobile
of the city of Algiers, it was reckoned that between sixty and eighty per cent were O.A.S. sympathisers. When Morin appealed to the Minister of the Interior, Roger Frey, for reinforcements of “reliable” police from France, he was met with cool lack of interest; Algeria was lost anyway, and Paris wasn’t going to bust itself to maintain order there. Morin warned of the danger that the establishment of Salan in real power in Algiers could have for metropolitan France, but this too fell on deaf ears. Morin then addressed himself directly to de Gaulle, who — having recently survived the Pont-sur-Seine attempt on his life — promised to send him a high-grade counter-terrorist team. But a further three months were to elapse before this was to become effective.

Meanwhile, Morin’s chief card was Commissaire Louis Grassien, sent from the Rheims police, who had formed a tiny anti-O.A.S. squad of ten trustworthy men. After weeks of patient work Grassien managed to sketch out an
organnigramme
of the O.A.S. — similar to that which Godard had composed of Yacef’s networks during the Battle of Algiers. He had managed to identify most of the O.A.S. leaders, but had proved incapable of tracking down a single one. Then, in September, a break came. An Italian ex-Legionnaire, “Pino”, turned informer and led Grassien to Godard’s hideout. That expert on underground techniques proved (as he always would) too elusive, but notes found in the raid revealed the name of one Maurice Gingembre, an important O.A.S. courier plying between Madrid, Paris and Algiers. Aged forty, Gingembre was a wealthy, flamboyant and indiscreet
pied noir
with a childish passion for “007” work — for which, according to Susini, he could scarcely have been less suited. On 7 September Gingembre — his briefcase stuffed with incriminating documents — flew from Paris to Algiers. With him on the plane was Colonel Debrosse himself, the head of the Algiers gendarmerie, whose men had suffered so appallingly at the hands of “ultra” sharpshooters on that “bloody Sunday” of 24 January 1960. Debrosse settled an old score by arresting Gingembre, who, says Susini, “immediately began to talk at the top of his voice”. On the resultant information, police in France swooped to arrest a number of senior French army officers. These included Colonel de Blignières, one of those involved in setting up the April putsch, and General Paul Vanuxem, former deputy commander-in-chief in Germany, on the charge of being “Verdun”, Salan’s designate to be O.A.S. military commander in France — a charge of which he was acquitted two years later. The O.A.S. network in metropolitan France probably never recovered from Gingembre’s revelations, while in Algeria networks throughout the western region were smashed; Godard’s secretary was captured, but he himself once again escaped. As Susini later admitted: “The O.A.S. general staff as a whole was almost arrested. Liaison was broken off; some of our agents abruptly disappeared; for two weeks the wheels of the Resistance stopped turning. We barely escaped total disaster.”

It was the closest of shaves. Next, a renegade police inspector working with Degueldre was picked up in a bar by former colleagues; tortured, he revealed the address of the Deltas’ lair. On 12 October a net thrown around the house caught Bobby Dovecar, Degueldre’s deputy who had led the Delta commando that killed Commissaire Gavoury, and five other Deltas. The net missed Degueldre by a matter of minutes; Dovecar died in front of the firing squad the following June.

Little time elapsed before the Deltas were hitting back. Early in November word reached Degueldre that Grassien, recalled to France, was holding a farewell party for some of his inspectors at the l’Universel bar. A car drew up outside, the occupants got out and calmly raked the bar with sub-machine-gun fire; Grassien survived, but his assistant, Commissaire Joubert, was killed. Godard and his fellow colonels expressed strong objection to the murdering of men “who wear French uniforms”; nevertheless, a few days later a “Z-Commando” — less disciplined O.A.S. rivals of the Deltas — ambushed a gendarmerie half-track on the Rue Michelet. Attacked by “Molotov cocktails”, four French gendarmes were burnt to death in the very heart of Algiers. The episodes marked the beginning of what was in effect a kind of civil war, and another of those “secret wars” fought behind the scenes of the main battle-front — savage, mean and without quarter — of which the first round had been won by the O.A.S. For the time being they appeared once again masters of Algiers.

“
Civil war” against the “barbouzes”

After the killing of Commissaire Joubert, over a period of forty-eight hours in mid-November six well-known Algiers cafés frequented by “ultras” were blown up. They included the “Otomatic”, scene of one of the first F.L.N. bombing outrages during the Battle of Algiers. It was clear that some new counter-terrorist body was at work in the tormented city. A clue to its identity might have been gained from a rash of anti-O.A.S. posters that had appeared overnight throughout Algiers, to the surprise of its inhabitants, and bearing the initials M.P.C. The Mouvement pour la Communauté had been launched earlier in the year to boost de Gaulle’s Algerian policy, receiving substantial funds from Morin’s Délégation-Générale for its activities. Though its function was essentially political, with the growing ascendance of the O.A.S. its secretary-general in Algiers, a former radio producer called Lucien Bitterlin, decided that something more than words was now called for. He began gathering around him a group of strong-arm men. Bitterlin claims he did not demur when a colonel in Military Security branch supplied him with weapons, explosives and permits to move about during the curfew, and asked him to “
plastiquer
several activist cafés in Algiers” — in itself an extraordinary revelation of the state of anarchy and lawlessness already prevailing in the cities of Algeria. Short on security, the M.P.C. and its new activities were not long in reaching the ears of the French Press. Before the end of the month
France-Soir
was publishing a sensational scoop, under the banner headline: “
Carte blanche
for ‘
Barbouzes
’[
5
] to liquidate the O.A.S.” The new “anti-O.A.S. shock force”, it proclaimed, was to be composed entirely of “new men”:

all the aces of espionage, counter-espionage and subversive warfare available in France are being sent to Algeria. They are trustworthy men, from the most diverse origins…. The new anti-O.A.S. formations will not belong to any classical hierarchy. They will be autonomous organisms, not subject to normal authority…. They will act largely outside the army and the police.

Above all, this new force will be secret. An absolute secrecy will cover the activities and above all the identity of the members of the anti-O.A.S. formations.

Both in respect to secrecy and its members being “aces”, the M.P.C. was excessively flattered by
France-Soir
. By comparison with Degueldre’s highly trained and ruthless army deserters and the veteran
pied noir
counter-terrorists of Pérez, Bitterlin’s
barbouzes
were a motley and amateurish crew. Their nucleus consisted of Jim Alcheik, a Jewish-Tunisian karate champion, and eight judo black belts he had brought with him; four Vietnamese expert in torture (which they not infrequently used), but who stood out like sore thumbs in the Algiers scene; and a mixture of
pieds noirs
of Jewish origin, Gaullist party “bouncers” and untrained muscle-men. None of them was a match for Degueldre’s Deltas, by whom they were almost immediately identified before even going into action. On the other hand, the
France-Soir
report had muddled Bitterlin’s amateurs with a much more professional body arriving in Algiers at the same time — that which de Gaulle had promised Morin three months previously. Called “Force C” and under the command of Michel Hacq, Director of the French Criminal Police and hero of the Resistance, it consisted of no less than 200 hand-picked police inspectors. These would be posted in quick rotation (to avoid corruption by the O.A.S.) so that none would spend more than two months in Algeria. “Force C” would work hand-in-hand with Bitterlin’s team, getting it out of scrapes, deploring its fiascos, but also benefiting from the intelligence provided. Both bodies would become bracketed in the public eye as
barbouzes
; the name that would stick henceforth where any “irregular” action against the O.A.S. was concerned.

Degueldre slaughters the “barbouzes”

For Hacq, installed in an office inside the Algiers Police School under the name of “Professor Ermelin”, there now began a five-months’ methodical and relentless hunt, ending only when the O.A.S. had been tracked down. For Bitterlin and his
barbouzes
it almost immediately opened with disaster. Within three days of his having established Jim Alcheik’s team in a rented villa in the Chemin Raynaud, Bitterlin was ambushed by four Deltas. His driver was badly wounded in the abdomen, while Bitterlin received superficial shoulder wounds; but for the heavy steel of the old Mercedes in which they were driving they would both probably have been riddled with bullets. The wounded driver was removed to the Maillot Hospital in Bab-el-Oued, and when visiting him a few days later Bitterlin nearly fell into another well-informed ambush. While he was inside the hospital with Jim Alcheik, a Delta Peugeot swept up and sprayed his two cars with automatic weapons. The Deltas obviously intended to get the
barbouzes
in the hospital. This time, however, Bitterlin had two of his Vietnamese on guard outside, who returned the fire and drove off the Deltas. No one was hit on either side, but the shooting drew a crowd from Bab-el-Oued which, recognising the Vietnamese as belonging to the hated
barbouzes
, took on an ugly aspect. With his tyres shot to shreds, Bitterlin was trapped and forced to telephone “Force C” for help; the rescuing inspector sent by “Professor Ermelin” advised him coldly to try to keep out of trouble in future. Meanwhile, in France the
barbouzes
were soon under cross-fire from the Press, with the Right criticising them as “parallel police” and the Left deriding de Gaulle’s regime as “The
barbouze
Republic”.

On 29 December Bitterlin received orders from Paris to cease operations but he, with some courage, turned a blind eye. Two nights later Degueldre himself, driven by his inamorata, led an all-out assault to wipe out the
barbouzes
in the Chemin Raynaud. Shortly before midnight no less than twenty-four Deltas ringed the villa with home-made bazookas and machine-guns; inside they could see lights and hear sounds of the
barbouzes
celebrating New Year’s eve. When one of the
barbouze
sentinels in the garden momentarily turned his back, Degueldre opened up with a deadly concentration of firepower. Seven rockets hit the villa at point-blank range, one of them exploding a cache of grenades in Alcheik’s office. The fusillade continued for some twenty minutes, reducing the villa to a shambles. Miraculously enough, though Susini’s propaganda
apparat
claimed fourteen dead, only one Vietnamese was wounded, and a policeman of the relieving force was killed. But it marked the beginning of the end of Bitterlin’s
barbouzes
, who were becoming an increasing embarrassment to the Algiers authorities — despite the flow of useful information they kept passing to Hacq’s “Force C”.

The
coup de grâce
was administered by Degueldre a month later. Bitterlin had returned to Paris for consultations, and had then found himself banned by Premier Debré from returning to Algeria. But Jim Alcheik was still there, had found new hideouts for the remaining
barbouzes
and was awaiting the imminent delivery of a new printing press to step up the production of anti-O.A.S. posters. On 29 January de Gaulle’s minister, Robert Buron, was dining with Morin in his new quarters at Rocher Noir when there was a series of powerful explosions and all the lights went out. The party finished dining by candlelight. The next day Buron learnt that the O.A.S. had blown up six transformers, and that a further explosion had been inside the
barbouzes
’ new villa.