War by Little Packets?

In Paris the atmosphere was reminiscent of the bitter closing days of the Indo-China war. Editorialists summoned their darkest tones, politicians warned of "the line of last defense," headlines cried: TO LOSE ALGERIA IS TO LOSE FRANCE. Premier Guy Mollet, in the center of it all, havered uncomfortably. Once again irresolution was at the helm in France.

Minister Resident in Algeria Robert Lacoste hurried back to Paris in a mood of desperate urgency, and with a proposal that combined threat and promise. He asked for another 200,000 men to reinforce the 230,000 troops already in Algeria, and for a huge investment program in Algeria totaling $570 million. Not until order was restored, he argued, should France negotiate with the rebels. The most influential man in Mollet's Cabinet, Minister-Without-Portfolio Pierre Mendes-France, backed Lacoste's military plans, but demanded that the government open negotiations with the rebels at once.

The Compromiser. By instinct and his Socialist upbringing a pacifist and anticolonialist, Guy Mollet did not like the role he was cast in. Lacoste's 200,000 men would mean calling up French youths months early and keeping others in the army past their time, outraging thousands of French mothers with votes. On the other hand, talk of negotiations with "the murderers of French women and children" would antagonize thousands of others. For eight hours the Cabinet debated and argued. Lacoste at one point resigned, then was persuaded to reconsider. Finally Mollet compromised on a crash economic program of $70 million and the dispatch of 50,000 troops. These could be obtained without any special call-ups by robbing France's already skeletonized NATO forces. General Augustin Guillaume, chief of the French general staff, who as Morocco's Resident General dethroned Sultan Ben Youssef two years ago, resigned in protest. He was replaced by General Paul Ely, whose name to Frenchmen unfortunately calls up the last despairing days of Indo-China.

Mollet took to the air, appealing to the rebels: "If you lay down your arms, free and loyal elections will be organized within three months after the end of the combat and acts of violence." But "first, the guns must be silenced." He promised to discuss a new deal with the elected leaders that would respect "the originality and rights of the Moslem community," but he reiterated the familiar refrain: "Algeria is and will remain indissolubly linked to France." If these offers were rejected, "France would then be constrained to mobilize all her resources to insure by every means the security of the population."

Useless Blood. Mollet's program did not sit well with anybody. "A fake attempt to negotiate peace and half measures to prepare for war!" cried Jean Jacques Servan-Schreiber in L'Express (the newspaper of the Mendes-France camp, which this week gave up its costly attempt to become a Parisian daily and went back to being a weekly). The left-wing Combat warned: "It is the Indo-China solution. The shameful war by petits paquets [little packets], the blood spilled uselessly, with the prospect of an increasing extension of hostilities, capped by a new Dienbienphu." The government itself was showing telltale signs of dissension, and Mendes-France was talking of quitting.

In Algeria 300 were killed in one of the bloodiest weeks in the 16 months of crisis. In theory, if it comes to war in Algeria, the odds should favor the government, which has 200,000 French soldiers pitted against perhaps 15,000 armed rebels. But as in Indo-China, the rebels can count on the encouragement, tacit support or at least the silence of 8,000,000 Algerians.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.