My Battle of Algiers: A Memoir

by Ted Morgan

Book Overview

In My Battle of Algiers , an eminent historian and biographer recounts his own experiences in the savage Algerian War, an event all too reminiscent of America's present difficulties in Iraq. Ted Morgan recalls a war that we would do well not to forget. A Yale graduate who had grown up in both France and America -- he was then known as Sanche de Gramont and was then a French citizen -- he was drafted into the French Army and served in Algeria 1956...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060852240
• ISBN13: 9780060852245
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Smithsonian Books (DC)
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating! Ironic! Cruel! I wrote propaganda for General Massu!

This is a personal history recounted a half-century after the fact, so Ted Morgan (formerly Sanche, the Count of Gramont) should be given a little journalistic license. Many of the scenes are recounted with a novelist's precision, with pages of dialogue that the author couldn't possibly recount verbatim. The author wins us over at the outset by his self-depiction as a rather silly, spoiled, and lazy young man. A diplomatic brat raised in both America and France, he transfers from the Sorbonne to Yale. Then comes the Columbia J-School and some dullish work for a paper in Worcester, Mass. The French Consulate phones him up and reminds him it is time for his National Service. And so the scenes shift quickly to a hellish French-army bootcamp, officers' school, the back hills of Algeria, and then at long last to the lush and legendary city of Algiers, where he works in the propaganda department of counterterrorism chief Gen. Jacques Massu. The year is 1957, and the Battle of Algiers is on. The FLN is leaving package-bombs throughout the European quarters of the city, killing and maiming dozens. Thanks to brilliant intelligence officers and dedicated, seasoned paratroopers, Massu and company completely break the FLN network and win the war. (A few years later Algeria would be handed over to the FLN revolutionaries, but that was an outcome of French political debate rather than military failure.) During his free time, the author has an affair with a wealthy colonial woman (a real-estate heiress named Georgette Cohen; her husband is conveniently out of town), and then an irksome friendship with an Arab girl with FLN sympathies and a day job with the French government. He entertains visiting American politicians and socialites when they come to town. These social notes let Morgan suggest things that would be hard to substantiate in a more serious history. For example: the French (in France) were not too fond of Algeria, and didn't feel particularly attached to it. The police corps in Algiers was corrupt, under the thumb of the Corsican mafia (these are the author's recollections, remember). Only a large minority of the one million colons, or colonists, were actually French in origin: the rest were Maltese, Spanish, Italian, Jewish, German. Furthermore at least 15% of the non-Arab population of Algeria were Jews. Many were of Sephardic background--they'd been there for hundreds of years--yet unlike the Arabs they were given full French citizenship. The Algerian War was therefore not really a matter of Arab vs. European. Morgan tells us that funding and encouragement for the FLN came as much from European activists as from pan-Arab ideologues. The army regarded the colons are selfish and annoying, a tail wagging the dog, a colonial mistake well past its sell-by date. I had vaguely imagined that the army in Algiers was a seething nest of disgrunted OAS men, but that does not seem to have been the case in 1957. The book has two endings, the convent

A strange fate

There should be no question about whether everything in this book is exact or not- it is the truth of a worldly man reflecting upon the truth of his experience as a young man in war. All wars resemble each other. Algeria seems especially notable because of its brutality and in some ways its simplicity. The inherent contradictions of a split society of colonials and arabs were thrown into relief during the war forcing, as planned, the untenability of French rule. The violence was staggering in its casualness: everything was permitted. Similarities of the battle of Algiers to current conflicts are there to be made and perhaps should be made placing the course of future wars along a continuum beginning after WWII. There might be some utility in that. As a report from an ardent young man compelled by duty and conscience the war was a hard reckoning. There is not an ounce of self pity here but a reader can't help but wonder if without his charm and line whether he would have not ended up like his friend Dourakine, hardened and antinomian, indifferent to the result when passed, prepared for more of the same, likeable but inexorable. Morgan is charmed ( he has amazing luck) but the cost must have been immense despite the hand of serendipity which after all can explain only so much. He writes well and I'm glad he told his story in his clear unflinching prose.

A Great Read!

This book is a real pageturner. I had a hard time putting it down and finished it in record time. This is the kind of book you will refer back to. It has many memorable passages. I don't want to say too much in order not to ruin the story for anyone. But I particulary enjoyed how events kind of turned the tables on the writer. The fact that it is all based on real events makes it that much more interesting. The author mixes the story telling between a first person account of his experiences and an overview of what was happening at that time in the larger picture. He also fills you in on what becomes of all the characters you are introduced to in the story. As far as the criticism I read in another review that the author doesn't document enough, I don't agree with that criticism because it's very clear that this is an account of his experience as he percieved it. When the author is writing of events that others told him about, he says so. He leaves it up to you to decide whether to believe what others told him or not. If someone doesn't agree with one of the authors opinions then they should just say so instead of inventing phoney criticisms. I didn't agree with all of the authors opinions but I appreciate knowing them. Again when the author of this book is expressing his opinion it is clear from the writing style. Over all I enjoyed this book tremendously and recommend it to anyone interested in the subject matter. This one is a keeper.

Very well done indeed

A somewhat forgotten war gets a fresh on-the-ground look from a young lieutenant. Well-written, full of interesting details, and also contains some passages of more general history to put the Algerian war into historical and political perspective for those unfamiliar with it. Fascinating exploration of a young soldier's ambivalent experiences and feelings for the war of his times (I was a young lieutenant in Vietnam in 1968-69 so this book has a special resonance for me). Ignore the first section which is a silly attempt to link the current war in Iraq with France's colonial war in Algeria 50 years ago -- the parallels are forced and false, and I can think of no reason why they were included except to help sell books or curry favor with liberal reviewers. Extremely fine prose and structure. Deflates a few egos invested in the "Battle of Algiers" movie as an interesting sidelight. If you want to read more after finishing this book, Alistair Horne's "A Savage War of Peace" remains the best and longest overall history of the Algerian war for independence.

French failure in Algeria

Journalist and biographer Morgan was born Sanche de Gramont. In 1955 he had just finished college in the U.S., was working for a newspaper, and was called up for conscription by the French Army, which was ratcheting up for a major colonial war in Algeria. He went through officer training, and was sent to Algiers as a writer of an Army propaganda sheet. There he observed the behavior of the Arabs and the French colons. The Army decisively won the battle of Algiers, using torture brutally and effectively. However, the response from France, international condemnation, and increasing Arab resistance caused them to lose the war and brought about the collapse of the Fourth Republic and an abortive uprising by Army officers. Morgan sees many parallels between Algeria and Iraq. He asserts that most of the tools of modern urban warfare (with the exception of suicide bombing) were invented in Algeria, where a campaign of assassinations and popular resistance eventually drove Europeans out. While torture was very effective in breaking the Arab nationalist organizations, in the end it did more harm to the French than to the Arab cause. Including a generous helping of history, this absorbing personal narrative will capture readers.