The Centurions

The Centurions (this edition 1962, E.P. Dutton, originally published in French as Les Centurions, 1960, Presses de la Cité) is the last in my impromptu trilogy of books-about-irregular-warfare.  But the best!  Despite some structural issues (plot deviations and narrative oddities that could simply be a result of translation), this novel was transporting and thought-provoking and ultimately fascinating.  Not unlike the French wars in Indochina and Algeria, it was unwieldy and disturbing and a long slog but I couldn't put it down.

Once you read the wikipedia entry on author Jean Lartéguy, The Centurions makes so much more sense.  Lartéguy was a soldier and war correspondent, which of course informs his work of fiction about soldiers who are part of the end of French engagement in Indochina and the beginning of the end of French Algeria.  He basically says this in his Author's Note at the beginning, but if you don't know much about the Algerian War, it won't make a big impact on you.  In any case, this isn't really a novel about geopolitics (although some would argue that it is that before anything else) but a story of soldiers at the tail-end of the modern imperial era, their relationship to the mother country, and the profound changes in warfare wrought by the ideological conflicts of the second half of the 20th c. The Centurions is about how soldiers engage with these issues, especially the last one.

In addition to the Author's Note, Lartéguy prefaces his story with a quote from Marcus Flavinius, a Centurion in the 2nd Cohort of the Augusta Legion.  Flavinius is depressed to learn that the citizens of Rome may no longer support those fighting to protect the far reaches of the Roman Empire.  He warns the cousin to whom is writing that "if it should be otherwise, if we should have to leave our bleached bones on these desert sands in vain, then beware of the anger of the Legions!"  You don't need a sheepskin from Harvard to see where Lartéguy is going with this.

The novel is divided into three parts:  Camp One (Indochina), The Colonel from Indochina (France), and Rue de la Bombe (Algieria).  The story opens with French soldiers having just surrendered to the Vietminh at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.  You follow a loose group of soldiers that has a band-of-brothers sensibility to it:  there is the aristrocrat (de Glatigny), the risen-through-the-ranks colonel (Raspéguy), the intellectual (Esclavier), the mercenary/intelligence agent (Boisfeuras) - I'm essentializing terribly here, but that's kind of how war novels go.  All of them are veterans of the war against Germany - some in the Resistance, some in the Regular forces, but all had participated, and bravely.  There are also some peripheral characters in the prison camp, who stay part of the story as it moves forward.  It took me a while to sort out who was who, and I'm not sure if this is because Lartéguy didn't draw his characters sharply enough, or if I'm displaying some kind of microaggression (all French names sound the same!).  At any rate, it really took me almost until the second section to gain a deeper understanding of all of them.

The prisoners endure terrible conditions, of course, and some die (many, actually, in the real thing), but the point of this section is to a) show how enduring extreme hardship bonds these men closer than family and b) what it means to fight an ideological war.  The more thoughtful of the soldiers, while they decry the absolute power that Communism requires in order to achieve its goals, understand and even in some way admire the dedication and sacrifice that the Vietminh are making.  They return to a France that considers them kind-of heroes (they fought bravely) but also kind of wants to forget them (France lost because of them).  No one wants to hear what they have to say about this new kind of enemy for which national honor is meaningless unless it comes with an absolute power dynamic that turns every resource toward the goal of victory.  Soldiers who speak of the former enemy in this manner are tagged Communists.  Basically, the survivors return, nobody understands them, and they find that they can only be understood by their former brothers-in-arms.

Does this sound familiar?  Yes, we did not learn from the French, perhaps foolishly assuming that they were just shedding the last remnants of a has-been empire while we were defeating an evil one.  You know, just because it is recent history doesn't mean you can't learn from it.

But I digress from the plot.  After returning, Colonel Raspéguy, who doesn't care much what anyone in charge thinks, and has so many medals from displaying so much crazy courage in the far east that he basically tells the French command that he's going to start his own regiment, with hand-picked officers (guess who) and a bunch of rag-tag, mutineering recruits, and they'll go to Algeria and show those rebels there what for.  And they do, the recruits are transformed by his tough leaders into soldiers who fight first for each other, then to win, then to punish whomever they are supposed to punish, and only then maybe for some vague ideal of France.  In short, they are a kind of mercenary band, under French command.  They battle the Algerian nationalists brutally, are pulled out to deal with the Suez crisis, are pissed that they can't just take Cairo, then are brought back to forcibly suppress nationalist activity in Algiers.  They must use questionable tactics to accomplish this, and claim to be unhappy about it (they are soldiers, they say, not policemen), and end up back in the Algerian mountains, patrolling the perimeter of the French empire, like Marcus Flavinius above.  The end is rather obvious, but, I gather, based in reality, so Lartéguy's overlay of ancient history isn't entirely off-base.

Distractingly, there are some love interests toward the end of the book, including the almost-laughable one where the French paratrooper thaws the beautiful-but-frigid French Algerian woman, or the colonel beds a teenager much to the delight of her family.  Oh wait, and how about the officer and prisoner who fall on each other passionately as soon as the other interrogator is out of the room?  I found these unnecessary but suppose they are part of what happens when soldiers hang around long enough.  Still, there is a sense that if only the rest of the population had fallen at their feet like the ladies did, none of that Algerian messiness would have happened.

This is, of course, a terribly brief and not very good synopsis of this almost 500-page novel.  The narrative is more or less clear, but there are a lot of characters to keep track of, and if you don't buy into the basic premise of our-army-knows-better-than-your-government you will not want to stick with it.  And I'm not quoting as I usually do because I didn't have enough bookmarks to save all the places I wanted to save, and couldn't turn the corners of the pages down else Bill would get mad at me for defacing library books.  But I do want to make it clear that if you are interested in soldiers, modern warfare, 20th c. world history, the West's engagement with Communism and Islam (for that, not the former, is the issue in Algeria - more prescience from Lartéguy!), or even just France (because it isn't all croissants and the Tour Eiffel), you should read this book as an artifact, or primary source, if nothing else.*  I've encountered the notion of combat bonds before, and if you read about soldiers at all you know about this, but the scope of the story - from Vietnam to France to Algeria - and the clearly-developed agenda is what sets this apart.  Were there really soldiers who drew so inward, who used the military to advance their own aims, who learned in Vietnam what they thought they needed to do in Algeria?  Did France really just not know what to do with herself?  If you are a follower of wikipedia threads as I am, you will learn that this is all more or less true.  Per the entry on Lartéguy, some of his characters are pretty clearly based on real-life figures.  And they weren't nice people.  They may have thought they were doing the right thing but there is a whole means-and-ends question surrounding that war.  And as for Algeria, it is important to remember (or to learn because who in America actually knows anything about the Algerian War?) that this was a terribly nasty modern war, where French actions offer yet another recent-history lesson in counterinsurgency.

Hoo boy, I am rambling here.  I've read a series of books, just happening to go in order from idolizing our Communist comrades during the Second World War to being beaten by them afterwards.  By The Centurions the ideology has receded, replaced by force for force' sake.  It is hard to condense this compelling tale, and I suppose many of you won't read it unless you have to for school or something.  There is apparently a movie, "Lost Command," and a sequel - The Praetorians.  I don't know if I need more justification of French brutality in Algeria, but the movie, well, et tu, Netflix?


*And there are the the larger questions of nationalism, colonization, ideology, and self-determination.  We think it is awesome that we threw off the British yoke (with French help!), so why demonize the Algerians, as the French generally did, when they tried to do the same?

The Day of the Jackal

Crime Pays continues our salute to great beach reading with the classic thriller, Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal.  This 1971 political page-turner follows the development and execution of a sophisticated plot to kill then-French president Charles de Gaulle, alongside the state's effort to thwart that plot.

There are those who say that The Day of the Jackal was, briefly, a how-to for hitmen, given it's extraordinary research and consequent deep plausibility.  Every move that the Jackal makes, countered by equally precise movements from the authorities, makes perfect sense, thanks in large part to Forsyth's extraordinarily patient prose.  The author carefully explains each step in the process, and while sometimes it seems maybe a little boring, the sum these detailed parts is a grippingly realistic tale of political mahyem.  Forsyth has written plenty more books, there are those who feel this is by far the best.  I haven't read them, so I can't say.  But here, you never ever find yourself saying, OK, that's just ridiculous.  Instead you say, of course!

Given all of this, it took me a little longer to get into the story than I expected.  This is due mostly to  Forsyth's need to provide background on the French-Algerian conflict, and the highly complex fallout of de Gaulle's decision to remove Algeria from French rule.  Basically, Army officers, some enlisted  men, and right-wingers generally felt betrayed by de Gaulle, whom they had seen as saving Algeria for France.  But dG, more of a pragmatist than one might think, apparently decided that Algeria was not worth the struggle, and agreed to grant independence.  This outraged the Algérie Française crowd, and terroristic chaos ensued with groups viciously battling for and against through targeted killings of political, social, and military leaders, bombings, kidnappings, and the like.  Martin Walker's Black Diamond gave an entree to the topic, and I guess that wikipedia is as good a place as any to get an overview of this complex and nasty conflict,  You can also scan a brief chronology here.

My god it is taking me forever to get this written.  And I really enjoyed reading it!

The characters, while detailed with backstories, are not particularly inventive.  The French are deeply patriotic even if their patriotism takes radically different forms, the assassin is smart and suave, the tracking detectives smart and dogged.

Which is good, because at heart, this is a detective story.  There is a scene not quite half-way through, where the heads of all the security arms in France are sitting in an emergency meeting, having just been alerted to a plot to kill the president.  They know only that someone has been hired to do this, but nothing else, and they must decide how to proceed.

This scene also provides an excellent example of the depth of research and detail deployed.  About three pages are given over to describing the table, the fourteen men around it, the agencies that they represent and what those agencies do, before we even get to the discussion!  Acronym Alert:  don't even try to stay on top of them.  The French make Harvard look totally bush-league in this respect.  If you can keep track of the OAS, FLN (OK, those are easy, but just wait), SDECE, PJ, CRS, RG, BSP, DST, etc., etc., well you are a more careful reader than I.

Still, with all this firepower in one room, it becomes apparent than no one has a good way forward. The police commissioner, who has not spoken, is asked his opinion.  "It seems to me, Minister, that the SDECE cannot disclose this man through their agents in the OAS, since not even the OAS know who he is; that the Action Service cannot destroy him since they do not know whom to destroy.  The DST cannot pick him up at the border for they do not know whom to intercept, and the RG can give us no documentary information about him because they do not know what documents to search for.  The Police cannot arrest him, for they do not know whom to arrest, and the CRS cannot pursue him, since they are unaware whom they are pursuing.  The entire structure of the security forces of France is powerless for want of a name.  With a name we get a face, with a face a passport, with a passport an arrest.  But to find the name, and do it in secret, is a job for pure detective work."  (194)  Alors, mes amis, les jeux sont faits.

And so The Day of the Jackal comes down to a long slog through agencies and files and paperwork, with just a wee bit of intuition to leaven the process.  Similar to Eye of the Needle, you see both sides unfolding at the same time - the rabbit and the chase.

I'll end by noting that as Lumiere said, after all, miss, this is France!  And the French do drama and grandeur as well as anyone.  There are lots of big black Citroen sweeping into courtyards, smartly uniformed guards slapping their rifle butts with white-gloved hands, flags snapping in the breeze, and the stately de Gaulle towering over it all, refusing to acknowledge any threats to his person.  Wine is drunk, both fine and rough red, sex is had, and many, many cigarettes are smoked.  But my favorite bit comes right after the Commissaire's speech, above.
  "And who, Commissaire, is the best detective in France?" asked the Minister quietly.  Bouvier considered for a few seconds before removing his pipe again.
  "The best detective in France, messieurs, is my own deputy, Commissaire Claude Lebel."
  "Summon him," said the Minister of the Interior.
Wouldn't you like to be known as the best detective in France?  It has such a marvelously permanent sound to it, as if there could be no other finer detective in all the world than the best detective in France.  Of course, it also puts one in mind of Inspector Clouseau, perhaps the second-best detective in France.

Black Diamond

Martin Walker gets his journalism wonk on in this latest installment of the delicieux Bruno Courrèges series, Black Diamond (Knopf, 2011). What exactly do Perigord truffles have to do with the demise of France’s empire in the middle of the 20^th c.?  Not a heck of a lot, except that gatherings at meetings and meals and funerals provide an opportunity for lots of expository dialogue about the dark underside of covert ops during Algerian War, the demise of French empire in Indochina, illegal immigrant trafficking, Green politics, and whatever else is on Walker’s mind.   It is a pretty complicated mix, and while Bruno is as satisfying as always, the setting is spectacular as usual (hunting season in November!), and this installment provides the best meal yet, the overall affect is unnecessarily kaleidoscopic.

It is November in Perigord, and that means hunting season – of the animal and plant variety.  Bruno has been learning the lore of the truffle trade from his old and respected Hercule Vendrot.  There is also social unrest in St. Denis, as a tough old businessman is shutting down a sawmill after newly-passed environmental regulations make it impossible for him to stay in business.  So, there is an unhappy proletariat, and more jubilant Greens (we seem them in all of the Bruno stories, they are clearly a group who have Walker’s attention).  And while there are some new unsavory characters – local business types and would-be politicians – Bruno is as always supported by his fabulous coterie of pals:  the Baron, Pamela (formerly known as The Mad Englishwoman), Fabiola and the Mayor all from St. Denis; JJ, the Brigadier, and even Isabelle from various security operations.  There may be some underhanded doings at the local truffle market, and there is clearly something very complicated and Oedipal going on in the mayoral race, where are father and son are running against each other, threatening the good work of Bruno’s friend the mayor.  There’s a gruesome murder, and I haven’t even gotten to the Asian turf wars yet between the established Vietnamese community in France and the emerging and largely illegal Chinese population. 
 
So, yeah, there is a lot going on.  But we need a lot of background to prepare us for the action that actually moves the plot forward, and so we must endure long conversations that include exchanges like this between Bruno, Hercule, and the baron.
“’One thing I wanted to ask you,’ Bruno said quickly.  ‘That place you mentioned – Bab el-Oued.  What was it?’
‘It’s a suburb of Algiers, where the pieds-noirs used to live before we lost the war and they fled back to France.  They were French settlers, the poorer ones, but the wanted Algeria to stay French.  When de Gaulle decided to pull out, Bab el-Oued became the heart of the OAS,  But that phone was taken before then, when they still loved us, before de Gaulle decided that there was no choice but to grant Algeria its independence.’
‘Like the rest of the army, I found some very welcoming girlfriends there,’ said the baron.  He was staring into the fire.  He looked up.  ‘You were already married, Hercule.’
‘This was all before I was born,’ Bruno said, who read enough history to know the broad outlines of the Algerian War.  ‘Still, every time I ride in the baron’s Citroën, he tells me how the car saved de Gaulle’s life when the OAS tried to assassinate him.’ 
‘Organisation de l’Armée Secrète.  Not only did they come close to killing de Gaulle, they came damn close to staging a military coup back in sixty-one, with half the army on their side.  They took over Algiers and people were panicking about parachute drops in Paris.  De Gaulle ordered the air force to patrol the Mediterranean coast with orders to shoot down any transport planes headed north.  The baron was one of the few in his unit who did not join the OAS.’
‘Would you still be friends if he had?’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Hercule.  ‘I’d probably have shot him.’”  (29-30)
If Bruno read enough history to understand the broad outlines of the Algerian war, and has heard about how the baron’s Citroën saved de Gaulle, he probably doesn’t need it spelled out for him.  But we do, whether it ultimately has anything to do with the plot of this story or not.  It is all interesting background, but you feel a little bit lectured. 

Still, even with all of these history lessons, Walker’s writing about life in Perigord still bewitches.  It is autumn, and there are cold walks and frosty ridges and crackling leaves.  There are lots and lots of fires, and it is often dark when Bruno gets up to walk Gigi.  But best of all, as always, is the food.  It’s France!  How can it be otherwise?  The murder victim is a hunter, and apparently the tradition in hunting circles is to wake a deceased comrade with vast banquet that includes meat the hunter procured.  Over the course of chapters 12-14, Walker intersperses various bits of action and exposition with absolutely drool-worthy descriptions of Bruno preparing a venison casserole, a crème brûlée with truffles, and a truffle soup.  The venison, and wild boar bones used for the soup stock came from the deceased hunter.  To this, other hunters add a pâté that the deceased had helped to make, roast pigeon, a salade, pommes de terre sarladaises (which is potatoes cooked in duck fat), and a cabbage and bacon and red wine dish.  There is champagne, and wine of course, and it goes on all night, causing massive hangovers the next morning that are remedied by the baron’s private recipe of raw egg, orange juice, and harissa.  The whole event is just an evening, but it takes three chapters to do justice to the tradition’s execution and consumption.  “Bruno never ceased to be amazed at how these cooking tasks almost automatically, the legacy of dozens of hunters’ dinners such as this and feasts for family and neighbors after the annual slaughter of a pig.”  (164)  Me too.