18 November 2003

Faire Camerone

The headlines say it best. "TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) - U.S. forces attacked dozens of suspected guerrilla hideouts in Saddam Hussein's hometown, killing six alleged insurgents as they pressed their search for a former Saddam deputy believed to be orchestrating attacks on Americans."

That would be Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the number two honcho of the former Iraqi government and the most senior ex-Iraqi leader still unaccounted for, apart from Saddam Hussein himself. This is a critical part of the current campaign, as U.S. forces demonstrate a get-tough attitude with the insurgents. They may be on the right track with this. But there is a lot of blather going on out there, whether this is good or bad or what the consequences might be. There is an instructive film about the revolutionary struggle against the French.

Not the one in Indochina, which they lost, but the other big one they lost. Or maybe I am being redundant. The film is the 1965 semi-documentary adapted from revolutionary memoirs called "The Battle for Algiers." Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who they say was a resistance fighter against the Germans, made a hell of a film.

It was released here in 1966. A propitious year, just like this one. I was old enough to get my learner’s permit and started driving with my terrified parents and America was ramping up a presence in South Vietnam.

I haven't seen the film for years. It was actually on celluloid when I saw it on campus at Ann Arbor. It was hard to find at the video store, but I always remembered how it affected me and I searched for a copy of the movie at Amazon.com last night. Unfortunately it is only available in England. What with the Presidential visit coming up today, they are a bit preoccupied. I heard that they are going to erect a giant statue of George Bush in Trafalgar Square and plan to pull it down with a pink tank. I love the Brits. What with everyone in a tizzy, I decided to wait. I do need to have the film in my library, though.

When I saw the film for the first time it struck me as being one of the most effective political films I had ever seen. I could see myself in the characters on both sides. There are tired French paratroopers exchanging knowing glances. There is a suspect who looks like today's Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who cracks after interrogation that is brutal but necessary. He tells the French where Ali La Pointe, the last leader of the Algerian Front Liberation Nationale is holed up. I see myself with the rebels, indomitable. When the operation is complete, they will have annihilated the rebellion and order will be restored. Not to mention the honor of the Legion and La Belle France after that awful experience at Dien Bein Phu.

By the end of the film, the Legion will have crushed the FLN, eager to prove its virility. That is a dangerous way to formulate any policy, personal or public. Or for that matter, foreign or domestic. But there were reasons for bold action completely aside from wounded imperial pride. Algeria was in both foreign and domestic. It was almost fully integrated into the national life of the Republic. It was a Department, rather than a colony, and the French settlers were numerous. They were called Pieds-noire, or Black Feet, after the military boots worn by the French Army and the Foreign Legion. There were thousands of military retirees in the country, which lead to a muscular reaction to the rising sentiment amongst the non-French residents for independence.

The Legion was prohibited in those days from having a presence in France proper, a legacy of their historic formation from the assorted rag-rag remnants of foreign militaries and Napoleon’s Grand Armee who were causing problems in Paris. They were organized and shipped overseas to cause trouble in the interest of France. The Legion Etrangere was headquartered at the Sidi bel-Abbes Barracks, just south of Oran and west of Mascara, in 1831.

To understand Algeria, which is to understand Indochina, I should mention the story of Capt. Jean Danjou, who fought for Maximilian in the mad adventure in Mexico, another sun drenched nation with host national issues. The U.S. was preoccupied with he Civil War and Napoleon III sent occupation forces to Mexico in 1862. He placed Maximilian and his consort Carlotta on the throne. Their reign lasted three years, ending just about the time the Americans could turn their attention from slaughtering each other to the Monroe Doctrine again.

It is a tale that evokes the romantic myth of the Alamo, and is another link between our two peoples. Danjou and sixty-five Legionnaires were surrounded at the little garrison in Camerone on April 30, 1863. They faced 2,000 armed Mexican soldiers, and like the Texans they held out with valor and refused to surrender. Probably a good bet, under the circumstances, since they doubtless would have been cut to ribbons anyway. But the siege ran its course, taking them one by one. Ultimately only six men remained. Each had a single round remaining in their smooth-bore rifles. On command, with phlegmatic fatalism, the six fixed their bayonets and charged.

Danjou had lost his left hand in previous much-decorated service. He had a cosmetic replacement carved from wood. It was recovered from Mexico years later, where it had been held as a souvenir of the engagement. It is now the icon of heroism for the Legion. It was held in a place of reverence at Sidi bel Abbes until the ejection of the Legion from their home. It is now at the new Legion Headquarters at Aubagne, in Provence. Each April 30 the Legion celebrates Camerone Day, and the hand is paraded before the Regiment and cheering crowds.

In the Legion, the phrase "faire Camerone" means to fight to the end.

The Indochina war began in 1945, when Uncle Ho and his band of patriots determined that the French should not return after the defeat of the Japanese. The U.S. was luke-warm to the whole idea of imperial restoration. But the French were allies, after all. The Vietnamese even came to the Embassy in Hanoi to ask for a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We missed a chance, then, but that is how it was going to be. The French adventure in Indochina featured every regiment in the Legion, and they fought well at Phu Tong Hoa, Colonial Road 4, and Dien Bien Phu. But there it ended in May 1954, when months of heavy cloud-cover prevented U.S. Navy airpower from launching off carriers waiting in the South China Sea. Some Legionnaires were marched out of Deni Bien Phu, their last stand. But most chose faire Cameone. The Legion still has many missing in action and 11,000 men are buried in Vietnam.

It was a historic battle, and it provides as valid a lesson as any in history, if you read it properly. I ran into an American Green Beret one time at the bar in the old Sanno Hotel in Tokyo. He was so interested in the lesson that he arranged a combat mission to visit the battlefield in 1969. Deep in North Vietnam. With a war on. Touring the battlefield like a group from the National War College visiting Gettysburg.

There really are warriors out there in the world, mad ones, on all sides.

In time, and on their terms, the Vietnamese were very accommodating. They have permitted the Legion to erect a simple white monument to les mort aux Indochine at the site of the battle, near some of the old brick dugouts that remain. It is a commemoration of the final faire Camerone in Asia.

By the end of 1954 the entire Legion was back in Algeria, those that lived. Its regiments were at first in charge of security, but soon sending out major intervention forces. The Secret Army Organization (OAS) was formed from active and retired French military personnel and began to commit their own atrocities. At the height of the struggle, over 300,000 French troops were deployed to fight the revolution. It was all over by 1962 and Legion marched out of Sidi bel Abbes for the last time, in good order. The FLN established a working government and began to suppress Islamic radicals. For the French, the process had been an amputation without anesthetic. When the Battle for Algiers was first shown, Directors Francois Truffaut and Cartier-Bresson walked out of the Venice film festival in protest. The film was banned in France for six more years.

According to the New York Times, the Pentagon recently organized a viewing of the film to give the leadership some perspective on revolutionary movements. My suspicion is that they will come out of it with grudging admiration for the French military officers who made tough decisions to crush the revolution. And miss the point altogether.

Which takes us back to the Battle for the Sunni Triangle and how I came to be seated in a firm formal chair in a sumptuous reception hall in Hanoi, on May 31,1995.

I was nodding politely at a veteran of Dien Bien Phu. He wasn't French. His name was Le Duc Ahn, and his job was being President of the united Socialist Republic of Vietnam.