My Battle Of Algiers is just that

My Battle Of Algiers: A Memoir
Ted Morgan
Published by Collins, 31 January 2006
ISBN 0060852240


I received a dated pre-release copy of Ted Morgan’s My Battle Of Algiers as a free bonus when I recently dropped $20.00 at the local used book store. Intrigued and delighted by a Free Bonus Book I picked it up and raced through it before even touching the other four in the bag; Mr. McMurtry’s westerns and Mr. Kierkegaard’s laboured prose could wait a few more days. I finished the 270-page work in little more than an afternoon on the beach; despite the serious subject matter and attention to detail the book never drags and never bogs down.

Mr. Morgan’s memoir starts with his reasons for publication (more on that preface later), followed by what I consider to be the most important part of the book from an American perspective: the Introduction. Titled “A Child’s History of Algeria”, it is actually a 25 page, concise, incisive, comprehensive introduction to colonial Algeria from a sometimes-French, sometimes-Algerian, sometimes-objective mix of perspectives that somehow never gets confusing. Skimming briefly through the centuries in a page or two, Mr. Morgan seems eager to run through the history, damn the context style, until 29 April, 1827 when the slap of a fly whisk against the cheek of French consul Pierre Duval brings him to a sudden halt. From this point on, Mr. Morgan dances through the following 130 years, briefly pulling key events, people and ideas out of the crowd of history for us to see, then turning to the next with hardly a pause, keeping the swirl of events intact without ever losing the beat. His pace slows as the situation grows ever more complex after the Second World War, eventually coming to a deliberate halt in October of 1956 when France hijacked a plane carrying four leaders of the rebellious Front de Libération Nationale (FLN – National Liberation Front of Algeria, the main rebel group in Algeria). Wistfully and with the air of fatalism pervading the memoir, Mr. Morgan sets aside his historian’s pen and turns to his own story. In his words, “It was at this point, in the fall of 1956, that Algeria entered my life.”

With the body of the memoir we see Mr. Morgan’s intentions in writing and publishing. He made it clear in the preface, but I’d forgotten those three pages halfway through the marvelous introduction. Mr. Morgan plainly sees parallels between the French colonial history in Algeria and the U.S. occupation of Iraq, between the FLN and the Iraqi resistence groups, between the brutal behavior of the French paras and Légion Étrangère, and the behavior of American and British Soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo. Make no mistake, this book is intended as a glimpse into the pit and seems to serve as a sort of confessional for the author (he beat a captive to death early in his tour while trying to get information). It is a protest and a warning, one man’s wake-up call to the reader. It was, unfortunately, not particularly successful in my case.

Mr. Morgan tells much of the story as a first-person account of life as a young French officer in the bleds of Algeria and the teeming streets of Algiers and the country collapses into chaos. He intersperses the narrative with occasional anecdotes, additional context, or brief paragraphs describing the greater impact of events. In this way he confines himself to an intensely personal account, and not one I find particularly convincing as a political lesson. He offers example after example of the brutality of the French troops, colons, and government while treating the FLN with kid gloves. I do not question the justice of the Algerian rebels, but jus ad bellum does not give either side a pass on jus in bello, nor does the lack of one justify the lack of the other. What struck me most vividly from his account is the casual brutality on both sides, the glimpses behind the scenes at some of the demonized and iconized figures of the conflict, and the view of Algiers as a city trying to carry on business as usual while engulfed in bitter, bloody strife. His personal experiences do not lend themselves to making wide-reaching geo-political judgements, but they do offer a rarely seen glimpse of the details, the day-to-day insanity of a city engulfed by guerilla warfare against a foreign occupier.

I recommend this book rather strongly, particularly for those who are sick and tired of big-picture coverage of Iraq and broad histories of prior wars. You will learn something, and you will enjoy doing so.

Mr. Morgan, né Sanche de Gramont, is a noted biographer and the only French citizen to win a Pulitzer (he took the name "Ted Morgan" later when he received his American citizenship). When drafted he returned to France from Worcester, MA where he worked as a fledgling journalist for the Worcester Telegram. Mr. Morgan went through the hierarchy of French military schooling, eventually receiving his 2nd Lieuenant’s bars and a billet in Algeria upon graduation in the fall of 1956.