A savage war of peace pdf

For an aerial view of everything that happened, explored with all the benefits of both hindsight as well as the immediacy of interviews with almost all of the key figures surviving on both sides, this is a good place to start in understanding the conflict.

And it is full of sidelights of the humorous and pulpy details of plots and spies and bungling that I confess with a sense of almost shame, I enjoyed immensely. For all that it is written by a European of neither France nor Algeria , and despite his best efforts and his deep critique of France's role, it is still the French and the pied noir that it understands best, while Algerians themselves remain for the most part inscrutable and 'other'.

I am reading now the journal of the author Mouloud Feraoun, which has broken my heart in two and left me far more critical of Horne's account because it exemplifies what is missing -- the understanding of a colonised people finally standing up, along with the day to day fear, violence, death, descriptions of torture, hunger, loss, conflicted feelings about the FLN even while fully supporting their struggle.

Three things primarily struck me in reflecting back on it. First, how little I know of French history and how hugely important Algeria was in its history, as Horne summarises: The war in Algeria -- lasted almost eight years, toppled six French Prime Ministers and the Fourth Republic itself.

It came close to bringing down General de Gaulle and his Fifth Republic and confronted metropolitan France with the threat of civil war. The second is how closely it parallels the settling of the United States, and how much the white mobs in defense of their land and their privilege reminded me of the white mobs I have studied in the US On the French policy of 'pacification': Said Bugeaud in a renowned statement before the National Assembly in "Wherever there is fresh water and fertile land, there one must locate colons , without concerning oneself to whom these lands belong.

Part of that was the destruction of anything Algerian that could offer up resistance, primarily the policy of breaking up great traditional families because we found them to be forces of resistance. We did not realise that in suppressing the forces of resistance in this fashion we were also suppressing our means of action. The result is that we are today confronted by a sort of human dust on which we have no influence and in which movements take place which are to us unknown. Dust in the eyes of the oppressor, a terrifying analogy, for who cares what you do with dust?

Lives shorn of culture and mutual support and richness in the experience of the oppressed, though of course they strive to conserve, protect, rebuild what they can. The third is how this conflict, and that in Indochina, flowed naturally from World War II and calls into question much of what I thought I knew. It reverse polarities, putting people who might have been my heroes for their role in the resistance, for their sufferings in the concentration camps, in an alliance with fascists.

I cannot fundamentally understand it, just as I cannot understand the oppression of the Palestinians by Israelis. This is a long list. They took what they had learned in fighting fascism in Europe and applied it to the oppression of both the Vietnamese and the Algerians fighting a war of liberation, and they were both efficient and murderous. It is not just that they were heroes of the resistance, these men appropriated symbols of uprising from their history, drawing parallels from the French Revolition and the Paris Commune.

It hurts me to think of the Commune in this fashion : At Ortiz's "command post" there was chaos reminiscent of the headier days of the Paris Commune; everybody talked, gave orders and made speeches in an atmosphere dense with Bastos cigarette-smoke, the smell of sweat and beer. In the street below some young members of the FNF began spontaneously to prise up paving-stones and create a barricade In thinking about the turn to armed uprising as opposed to non-violence which I think we tend to support more now on this end of history, both for philosophical and well as very practical reasons as the terrain of war has shifted , for those emerging from the celebrated armed struggle against German fascism, what could be more obvious or natural?

How could they just return to be oppressed by the same people they had fought alongside of in a war for freedom and justice? This is again another parallel with returning soldiers of colour to the US no longer content to put up with second-class citizenship.

This same war created a wave of displaced Nazis seeking to occupy themselves, some of them, for money I am sure, ended up on the side of colonised peoples as arms-dealers: On the ground floor were a group of ex-Nazis who had found refuge in Cairo and had made themselves useful to Nasser; among them a former S.

Obviously, it was not. Finish this overly-long review here. Jan 28, Joseph rated it it was amazing Shelves: politics-and-economics , history. This is one of the best history books I've read in a long while. Horne does a masterful job of juggling the numerous actors and acronyms that populate the War of Algerian Independence.

Reading more like a textbool than many recent histories, the author does not try to string a common character through all the events, but takes instead a thorough approach to nearly every month of the eight year conflict.

Horne offers a very balanced review, never favoring the Algerian French population, nor the i This is one of the best history books I've read in a long while. Horne offers a very balanced review, never favoring the Algerian French population, nor the indigenous Muslims, and likewise does not shy away from detailing the horrors perpetuated by either side.

His de Gualle is neither hero nor villain, but simply the man he was. I was very surprised at the savagery of this conflict. It's truly horrifying what the civilian population had to endure at the hands of the revolutionary FLN and the counter-revolutionary OAS. Indiscriminate murders and revenge against suspected traitors to whichever cause one was supporting, it's remarkable the entire country of France did not suffer a nervous breakdown.

Horne does an excellent job describing the various political and martial scheming that went on, including the attempted coup against de Gaulle by several high ranking generals. The factionalism of the Algerian FLN is also given a lot of exposure, particularly the various power struggles between the different revolutionary leaders, and also between those FLN members inside Algeria and those in exile. He has a book called in English "The Algerian Chronicles," and when I started flipping through it, I realized I didn't know hardly any of the names nor the events behind the Algerian conflict.

After reading this book, it will be interesting to see how Camus weaves his support for the Algerian French population though the vestiges of French colonialism and paternalism. Horne frequents the musings of Camus and Sartre and de Beauvoir throughout, and it is now easy to see where some of the friction between Camus and the French Left came from. If anything, Camus is proven here to be just a man after all, as flawed as any of us.

The only criticism I have of this book is that the author uses many French phrases and quotes without giving their English translation. My rudimentary French was able to decipher most of them, but some were too idiomatic to figure out.

Likewise, a glossary of people would have been helpful as well. Generally, I was able to keep this huge cast of people straight with respect to who they were and what they did, but a number of times I had to search for their earlier appearances to remind myself of their significance. This edition is updated with new information on Algeria since the first printing, which helps to close out many of the "What ever happened to?

Mar 19, Jeremy Allan rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction-and-memoir. This book, like all histories, has its biases and its imperfections. Despite that, A Savage War of Peace maintains a reasonable level of objectivity in relating the happenings of a war rarely described in neutral terms. For example, I say "a war," even though I was informed by a French colleague yesterday that many French historians prefer to avoid that word, choosing instead to refer to "the events" in Algeria.

Such a position, I believe, illustrates clearly that even descriptions meant to appe This book, like all histories, has its biases and its imperfections. Such a position, I believe, illustrates clearly that even descriptions meant to appear prudent are in actually steeped in ideology and prejudice—how else could over seven years and arguably over a million casualties be considered simply "events?

Its limitations must be acknowledged—this is the work of a Francophilic Englishman, whose bias is towards recounting the maneuvers of great men. Still, where it succeeds, it does so brilliantly; it painstakingly states and restates what can only be described as fundamental misunderstandings by the French about the realities of their colonial government of Algeria, not to mention the motives of the various peoples who opposed them.

And so I think two of this editions books blurbs are as germane as anything else that could be said: "Anyone interested in Iraq should read this book immediately. Ricks, The Washington Post "[This] universally acclaimed history Very detailed history about a war and colonialism that does not get as much acknowledgement as it should in the West. Jan 15, Jack rated it it was amazing Shelves: military-history-general , cold-war-history , professional-military-education , colonial-wars , french.

We failed to heed Lesson 2 as well. The setting is the mid's to the early 60's in another colonial possession. The colony is Algeria and the colonizer is France. Yet saying Algeria is a colony is a bit different from what springs to our minds. Algeria boasted a population of over 1 million French Europeans called Pied Noirs out of a population of 5 million. Alge We failed to heed Lesson 2 as well. Algeria and France, in the French opinion, were one and the same.

Unfortunately, for the French that latent heat of Nationalism was growing ever stronger in the poor and second class person, the native Algerian. The background.

France experienced a series of defeats in mids. Her stupendous capitulation to Germany in was a humiliation not unnoticed by her colonial subjects. Her humiliation did not end after Dunkirk, but continued. France fell into a confused partnership since there were the Free French and Vichy French to deal with. One was on the Allied side and the other was a subject of Nazi Germany.

Free France had very little military power and therefore lost her Great Power status and her ability to direct any allied war efforts. Churchill, fearful of the powerful French fleet falling into Nazi hands ordered strikes against the fleet leading to severe damage, not only to the Fleet but relations as well. French forces actually fought each other in a mini civil war. After the defeat of Germany, France not only had to rebuild her devastated country, but repair her status as a Great Power.

Her colonies still belonged to her and she rushed to fill the voids from the defeated Germans and Japanese. The Vietnamese of course had a vote in this which led to the defeat of France in Indo-China.

Lesson 1 we failed to heed. Of particular interest is the fact that France employed many colonial units in its Army. Moroccans, Tunisians, Vietnamese, and Algerians all witnessed the loss of Indochina and the defeat of France. The Algerians especially took these lessons to heart. At almost the same time France lost Vietnam an Algerian insurgency began. The land, but not the people. Algerians were not considered French citizens. They did not own any land and had little voice to influence any change for the better.

The French enjoyed the bistros, the beach, and owned the land. Many cautioned the French leadership about the pathetic state of the Algerians.

Few listened. Disaffected and poor are the birthplace of revolution. Slowly the Algerians began to arm and prepare for war. A bomb blast here and a murder there were eventually replaced by armed bands of Algerian guerrillas. Algerians working for the French and also in the French Army began to desert and join the battle. The FLN became the lead insurrectionary group.

This was Lesson 1 for the French and in a way for us. The Legion and the Paratroopers were the best of the French forces and they had taken their lessons to heart. FLN forces were able to inflict small wounds upon the French, but their maneuverability, firepower, and tactics were much better. FLN forces pinned down were mauled. These supply runs became nearly suicidal leading to numerous casualties. Also, many Muslim soldiers still fought for the French and were able to infiltrate and extract intel on FLN forces leading to more losses.

Even though militarily the FLN was losing, the French were still not winning. Cost and casualties mounted and the war continued on. Harsh measures by the French continued to alienate many non-aligned Algerians. The FLN could still find recruits to fill its ranks. Politically the war in Algeria led to popular resentment in France and to a direct threat against France. France was growing tired of the cost in lives and treasure. They wanted out.

Dissatisfaction within the Army led to a resentment of political leadership. The army wanted Algeria for France and nothing else. The Army would win Algeria without France if needed. In a stunning move, the French military in Algeria staged a coup that overthrew the government in France and led to the ascendance of De Gaulle. Fears of French units fighting each other almost became reality. De Gaulle was what the military wanted in a leader. De Gaulle however had learned his lessons and knew what lay ahead and began to move toward Algerian independence.

A civil war ensued where Frenchmen murdered Frenchmen. The die had been cast though. Algeria would become independent. Seven years of war came to an end almost overnight.

The peace led to one of the greatest migrations know in this century where 1 million French Algerians fled their home. Few believed the promises of sanctuary within the newly independent Algeria. This flood of refugees spread out across France to find a new home.

France did not learn her colonial lessons in Indochina and she repeated them in Algeria. These lessons were also there for us. We paid no attention to two nationalistic wars when we began our saga in Vietnam. It is mind boggling to understand how we assumed things would be different. Much was clouded in our thinking by labeling all insurgencies as Communist and falling for our Domino Theory. Over 50, of our soldiers paid the price for this mistake.

The Savage War of Peace is a well written and organized book that takes you through all this and more. A perfect blending of the political and military with enough background for the reader to understand all.

A wonderful read for the military theorist or the armchair historian. Jan 02, Liam Books 'n Beards rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction , owned-books , , history , bought I've been endeavoring to read some non-fiction this year that I have little or no knowledge about - certainly before reading this I had the barest inkling of the fact that Algeria was once a holding of France, and that they must have gained independence at some stage. It appears that I'm finding myself a historical niche that interests me quite a lot - French colonialist wars - as the Algerian War of Independence kind of reads as the 'sequel' to France's disastrous finale in Indo-China, the Battl I've been endeavoring to read some non-fiction this year that I have little or no knowledge about - certainly before reading this I had the barest inkling of the fact that Algeria was once a holding of France, and that they must have gained independence at some stage.

Savage War of Peace came highly recommended by several articles and reviews I read on the topic before committing to a book - and it didn't disappoint. I'd not read any Alistair Horne before, and I picked up Hubris: The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century earlier in the year and was very underwhelmed - but from what I can tell it is pretty much agreed that it is one of his weakest, and just a last attempt to cover some subjects he had never covered before.

A Savage War of Peace is incredibly detailed and - most importantly for me - accessibly is that a word? The edition I read included a foreword which makes plain the comparisons drawn between the French attempts to provide 'freedom' to the Algerian state whilst still maintaining control over it, and America's recent excursions in the middle east - including Horne claiming that he sent President G. Bush a copy of the book for study purposes - and whilst there are parallels to be drawn here, I feel that the French are probably remembered with a lot less animosity 60 years on than America and her allies will be by Iraq, Syria and so on.

Horne especially draws attention to how tragically close France came to retaining control, albeit much reduced, and the benefits this would well have had for an independent Algerian state which has, since throwing off the yoke, staggered from crisis to civil strife and back to crisis again.

I'm bad at reviewing non-fiction, but suffice to say that I really enjoyed the read - and it was unexpectedly pleasing to see 'cameos' by names I was familiar with from my readings about Indochina and Dien Bien Phu - 'Bruno' Biegard, 'Madarin' Salan, and so on. I look forward to reading more Horne in the future. Aug 24, Lauren Albert rated it really liked it Shelves: history-middle-east , history-world.

Algeria's story is a complex one and Horne tells it well and even handedly. I, surprising myself, wanted to start over when I finished it to get a better grasp of all of the complexity. I didn't only because it is so very long! The publisher makes a point of quoting Thomas Ricks on the cover, saying that "a Not long ago, I wrote of "Mao's Last Revolution" that I "could not see the forest for the trees.

The publisher makes a point of quoting Thomas Ricks on the cover, saying that "anyone interested in Iraq should read this book immediately. Anytime pride and identity are an issue in a war zone, there is more than winning and losing a battle to winning and losing the war.

The French found that out too late in Algeria. Visiting Algeria after the war, Horne speaks to an Algerian official who, explaining the building of a complex and marina where the French landed in , "We thought this was the most appropriate kind of monument so the French can land here again--but this time with their travellers' cheques!

Oct 24, Michael rated it it was amazing. Dramatic and unsparing, yet with a unique ability to empathize with the various factions on both sides, French and Algerian. Horne's book deserves its reputation as a masterpiece. One quibble - je ne parle pas francais! If you don't either, make sure you read the book in the vicinity of a French speaker or have an English-French dictionary handy - Horne has an unfortunate habit at times of providing a quote in the original French and not providing the English translation - you can usually infer the meaning, but still, I am too old and lazy for that type of challenge in my entertainment reading.

But that minor annoyance aside - a truly great book - riveting history. Nov 28, Frank Kelly rated it it was amazing Shelves: intelligence , foreign-policy , military , north-africa. Horne long ago established himself as one of the greatest historians and biographers of our generation and, I would argue, many generations back.

This book is exactly why he wears this crown on his august head -- it's an extraordinary story of a brutal war that much of the world ignored while France fought viciously and ultimately to a bitter defeat. Many pointed to this book as a case study of everything the US was doing in Iraq. Maybe that is correct, maybe not.

But to confine this book as s Horne long ago established himself as one of the greatest historians and biographers of our generation and, I would argue, many generations back. But to confine this book as simply a precurser of Iraq is one dimensional. Rather, it is a story of how the world has changed and the West has failed to understand exactly how to deal with those changes.

A true classic with more lessons packed into it than ten other books combined Nov 30, Alexia rated it it was ok. So dense and drowning in details that it loses sight of the story and becomes difficult to follow. Very readable for such a dense book. After this book, I felt like I understood a critical part of French history much more deeply—and in the process, I've also come to understand contemporary France including its debates on race, terrorism, its far-right, de Gaulle much better than I have ever before.

Rant: I found the highlighted reviews particularly annoying for their repeated comparison with Iraq to be fair, the author himself embraced this and tried to emphasize the didactic value of his b Very readable for such a dense book. Rant: I found the highlighted reviews particularly annoying for their repeated comparison with Iraq to be fair, the author himself embraced this and tried to emphasize the didactic value of his book.

Of course, there are clear parallels And don't torture people while fighting those wars!!! But it doesn't do justice to this event in history to compare it to something that just bears a few similar shapes it doesn't do justice to most events in history to make shallow comparisons, really! I find it took away a lot of the most interesting, complicated, and thought-provoking dilemmas about France's dealings with Algeria, most of which revolves around the colonial question and while people abuse and overuse the lexical field of "colonial" now, no, the American experience in Iraq is hardly the same kind of colonial venture that the French attempted in Algeria—a venture that lasted over a century and ended up with a population of over a million Europeans being born and raised on Algerian soil.

Jan 20, Andrew Hill rated it it was amazing. Alistair Horne's great chronicle of the Algerian war of independence returned to mainstream attention during the last decade when it was on the reading list of President Bush and many of his national security and military advisors.

The implication was that France's experiences in Algeria might hold some lessons for the United States as it fought the Iraqi insurgency at the time a greater concern than the war in Afghanistan. I find this quite ironic, for the one great lesson of Horne's book is h Alistair Horne's great chronicle of the Algerian war of independence returned to mainstream attention during the last decade when it was on the reading list of President Bush and many of his national security and military advisors.

I find this quite ironic, for the one great lesson of Horne's book is how history can enslave strategy, at enormous cost. The relevance of the national ordeals of France and Algeria to the operational and strategic context of the Iraq war is dubious. First, the operational success of the French Army and French intelligence against the FLN in Algiers and other large cities, and against the ALN in the rest of the country, was predicated on tactics that the US never adopted, nor even contemplated.

The most significant example is that France created civilian-free zones in Algeria in order to justify its use of blunt military instruments against its enemies. In doing so, it relocated millions of Algerians from the countryside, fencing them in for years in what can only be called concentration camps. Does the French experience in Algeria hold operational lessons about counterinsurgency? But this search for analogies must also recognize fundamental differences, lest the wrong lessons be applied.

Algeria was always Algeria's war; "Foreign Fighters" were not part of Algerian conflict at least not on the rebel's side. Iraq became a proxy war for the broader attacks of Islamic fundamentalism against the United States, and against its allies and interests. No parallel exists in the French war for Algeria. The brutality of the foreign fighters in Iraq, their indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians, was a crucial negotiating point when the US co-opted the sunni insurgency in the period.

No comparable opportunity was presented to the French. Second, and more significant, is that Algeria was a part of France for almost a century and a half. At the start of the Algerian war, some French had lived in Algeria for five or six generations.

To get a sense of how America would view such a war, imagine if Iraq had been conquered during the presidency of US Grant, and then colonized and governed as an integral part of the United States albeit with a disenfranchised muslim majority.

An Iraqi movement against this rule in the past decade would mean the potential expulsion of million Americans of European descent call them "black feet" who had made their home in Mesopotamia. You also have to throw in a vicious terrorist group founded by the "black feet", one that ultimately makes numerous attempts on the life of the US President.

In reality, the emotional and political costs are not comparable. Defeat in Algeria, for France's leaders, meant a fundamental shift in Franch identity, the abandonment of the idea of a greater geographically France, and the specific abandonment to an uncertain future of the pied noirs, the ethnic French inhabitants of Algeria.

The Algerian War brought down not just several French presidencies, but the actual system of the 4th Republic. Imagine if the Iraq War had resulted in a new system of government--a new US constitution--and you get a sense of it. The Algerian War also resurrected the political career of that greatest of all 20th-century Frenchman, Charles DeGaulle. For mostly vain reasons, DeGaulle is not admired by many Americans. I love my country, andbutI do not believe that another nation's assertion of greatness is necessarily a challenge to the greatness of my own.

DeGaulle reasserted French greatness at a time when France seemed to be sliding into irrelevance and anarchy. The great lesson of the Algerian war is that the past cannot be allowed to rule the future. Path dependencies are strong, but can be overcome through transformational leadership. The past had held French policy captive in Algeria for decades. DeGaulle was uniquely able to rise above French-Algerian history, to recognize the need to break free of prior commitments, because he saw no other way forward.

He ran enormous risks, both to his person and his nation, because he was courageous enough to break from the past. Nov 19, Kusaimamekirai rated it it was amazing. From until , the French and Algerians tortured and slaughtered each others peoples, as well as their own. It happened in the cities and in the mountains.

It happened to soldiers and civilians, Muslims and Christians. It happened on orders from the respective armies, it happened at random and on the orders of groups and individuals accountable to no-one. It was quite simply, one of the most drawn out, brutal, and tragic wars the world has ever seen.

How did this happen? These moments however were not squandered as much as they were ruthlessly snuffed out. By the time the war was in full swing any moderates on either side had either been exiled or more often, murdered. Perhaps there was never a chance. Reading, much less trying to keep track of, various factions at play in Algeria and France is like playing a kind of murderous alphabet soup.

On the French side alone there was the pied noir, petit blanc, the army who was loyal, the army that rebelled, the F. The Algerians had the F. With so many competing agendas, in fighting, and lack of order, it is perhaps no wonder that Algeria devolved into the chaos it did, leaving lasting scars in both countries that exist to this day.

It brought down six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, returned de Gaulle to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict and as many European settlers were driven into exile.

The download size of this English history book is — 5. One of the Best Works of Alistair Horne. It was a battle in which at least , men fell, along a front of fifteen miles. Its aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death and a battleground whose once fertile terrain is even now a haunted wilderness.

The most violent places in the world today are not at war. More people have died in Mexico in recent years than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. These parts of the world are instead buckling under a maelstrom of gangs, organized crime, political conflict, corruption, and state brutality.

Such devastating. The first full account for a generation of the war against French colonialism in Algeria, setting out the long-term causes of the war from the French occupation of Algeria in onwards. After liberating itself from French colonial rule in one of the twentieth century's most brutal wars of independence, Algeria became a standard-bearer for the non-aligned movement.

By the s, however, its revolutionary political model had collapsed, degenerating into a savage conflict between the military and Islamist guerillas that killed some , When Algerian nationalists launched a rebellion against French rule in November , France was forced to cope with a varied and adaptable Algerian strategy.

In this volume, originally published in , David Galula reconstructs the story of his highly successful command at the height of the rebellion. This groundbreaking work, with a. It is hard to convey the public impact of France's war to maintain her colonial grip on Algeria; yet in the late s this ugly conflict dominated Europe's media to almost the same extent as would Vietnam ten years later. It brought France to the very verge of military coup.

In , the German army fought and won an extraordinary battle with France in six weeks of lightning warfare.