Des Fusils Aux Idée: Technological Skepticism and Maculinity in the French Army, 1954–1962

Chapter 14 Des Fusils Aux Idée: Technological Skepticism and Maculinity in the French Army, 1954–1962

William Waddell

The opposite of manliness isn’t cowardice; it’s technology. nassim nicholas taleb1

Président de la République Charles de Gaulle announced a debatably overdue triumph in his New Years’ address to the army in 1962. Henceforth, French arms would be dedicated to “modernization,” to a return of its units from the winding-down Algerian War, and to a reduction in effectives. Specifically, he had in view the creation of a smaller, more technologically sophisticated force, built to defend the métropole against Soviet aggression and backed by the de- terrent power of France’s relatively new force de frappe. It was unwelcome news to many who had spent their careers fighting in the “dirty wars” for France’s shrinking overseas empire, particularly the paratroops and the members of the Foreign Legion. Given the failure of the April 1961 putsch against de Gaulle, further resistance on the part of the professional troops d’outre-mer (overseas) was out of the question, though, as Le Monde journalist Jean Planchais noted at the time, their tempers remained “heated.”2 Most of this animus came, for these men, from de Gaulle’s perceived aban- donment of the empire; but, it was also rooted quite strongly in his turn to technology and to Europe. In many ways, and especially in the minds of many of the long-serving colonial professionals, these were closely related phenom- ena. De Gaulle had quite nearly said as much several years earlier at an address to l’École Militaire. In touting the as-yet-to-be-realized force de frappe in 1959, de Gaulle spoke broadly and gave a “mission planétaire” to this coming

1 Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (New York: Random House, 2010), 13. 2 Jean Planchais, “Une nouvelle étape vers une armée modernisée et regroupée en Europe,” Le Monde, January 1, 1962.

DES FUSILS AUX IDÉE 305 arm of French power. Nuclear weapons would restore prestige and flexibility to French diplomacy, redraw in brighter colors the dismal failure of the colonial venture, and, eventually, allow France’s rupture with nato. To do these things, however, as observers then recognized, was expensive, and required a funda- mental reorientation of France away from endless combat in Algeria. Building de Gaulle’s new, modern Army in Europe meant ipso facto abandoning the old war in North Africa.3 This was almost certainly to de Gaulle’s liking; he had no more mind to fight the war in Africa, and the cost of making France “modern” provided more ground from which to make that case. Abandoning that war was more difficult, however, than recognizing new political realities for many of the forces involved. For a small but important minority within the French military elite, these wars (Algeria and Indochina) were almost all that they knew. These were defining events; ones that had inscribed their lessons in blood across two decades, on two continents, and against two tenacious opponents. Though, we often think of Western armies as particularly keen to embrace technology, things were somewhat different for a vocal subset of the French professional soldier during the wars of decoloni- zation.4 Embracing technology and abandoning their struggle in this context meant betraying who they believed they were as soldiers and as men. To fight these wars had required the cultivation of specific characteristics, a certain virtus, among France’s fighting class. Chief among them was a commit- ment to the la parole donnée, the word of honor. Indochina and Algeria were arenas where responsibility mattered; this was a brand of visceral leadership, the “close communion in hardship, danger and death” that Jean Lartéguy put into the mouth of his character, Colonel Raspéguy, the fictional avatar for the famed para commander, Marcel Bigeard.5 Physical courage, trust, and fighting prowess on a near intimate level were the things that mattered in the myriad, bloody encounters that made up these wars. Writing long after the wars, and his own rebellion against the State at the head of a regiment of legionnaires, Hélie Denoix de Saint-Marc recalled that “an army is not a mechanical body…

3 Jean Planchais, “La France doit avoir sa force de frappe atomique déclare le général de Gaulle,” Le Monde, November 6, 1959. 4 Geoffrey Parker, “The Western Way of War,” in Geoffrey Parker, ed., The Cambridge History of Warfare (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 1–2. Among the five “foundations” upon which Parker argues Western warfare rests, number one is “heavy reliance on superior technology.” Parker goes so far as to argue that the West has been “preternaturally receptive to new technology…” 5 Jean Lartéguy, The Centurions, trans., Xan Fielding (New York: Penguin Books, 2015), 295.