France: The Army Disease

Frost still silvered the trees on Strasbourg's Avenue de la Paix last week as Charles de Gaulle stood up and peeled off his khaki greatcoat. Before 2,800 officers summoned from Algeria, Germany and France, he launched into a sonorous speech commemorating the 17th anniversary of Strasbourg's liberation by French tanks. "France," declared its President, "is again menaced, body and soul." Later, staring icily at a tight-lipped audience that included 80 generals and admirals, President de Gaulle turned abruptly to the force that menaces France more urgently than any outside invader: its divided, disaffected army.

It is not for the army, snapped De Gaulle, to dictate a solution "contrary to reality" for France's seven-year war in Algeria. Said he: "Self-determination is the solution laid down by the chief of state, adopted by the government, approved by Parliament and ratified by the French people. Now that state and nation have chosen their path, the duty of the military is fixed once and for all." In the sternest rebuke he has ever addressed to the army, General de Gaulle warned: "Outside this duty, there are and can be only doomed soldiers." He concluded: "I ask you all to sing with one voice the Marseillaise.'' Dozens of officers stood stonily silent.

The New Opposition. Under De Gaulle's one-man regime, the army has taken over the role of the political opposition. Instead of the Fourth Republic's recurring crises, it has substituted putsches. Since the 1958 uprising that cleared the way for De Gaulle's accession to power, the military crises have come annually, exercising a constant blackmail threat against government action it opposes. So mistrustful of the army is De Gaulle that its fuel, food, ammunition and other supplies are being doled out in quantities sufficient to last only a few days, after which any putsch would theoretically be "asphyxiated." Disaffection has gradually spread from the 400,000-man force in Algeria to the French army in France and in West Germany, where two divisions recently returned from Algeria have become hotbeds of anti-Gaullist intrigue.

The malaise de I'armée has infected probably two-thirds of France's 10,000 regular officers in Algeria; 300 generals and colonels and 1,000 majors are reported to have taken an oath not to accept Algerian independence. As a further symptom of army disease, 1,300 officers have handed in their resignations. Though the government found it almost impossible to gather evidence against officers who took part in the April 1961 revolt, eleven of its top generals were condemned to death in absentia or to prison terms. The chief of staff, General Paul Ely, resigned last year in open disagreement with De Gaulle, and his successor, General Jean Olié, resigned last month, pleading ill health. For his new chief, De Gaulle for the first time picked an air force officer, General André Puget, promoted him over half a dozen ranking officers, and prudently trimmed his powers.