In the gleaming marble offices of the Governor General in Algiers, a French official fended off newsmen: "But there is no war in Algeria." At first sight, the evidence supported him. In Algiers' sidewalk cafes, French colons sipped their Pernods, while in the gutters, Arab urchins drowsily peddled postcards. But as night fell over the casbah, shots rang out in Algiers and in every other big city in the country. In eleven months, Algerian terrorists killed 457 Frenchmen and 505 pro-French Arabs, wounded close to 1,000.
Dwarfing the Mau Mau. The killers call themselves fellagha (outlaws). They are nationalists-turned-terrorists, who are fast transforming France's most prized colony (technically a part of metropolitan France) into its greatest colonial hazard. In the first nine days of December, in the single departement of Constantine, they stormed five towns and villages, shot up six others, burned 34 houses, farms and schools, chopped down 2,244 vines and fruit trees belonging to French colons, destroyed 458 farm animals, killed or wounded 46 French soldiers, 49 civilians. Last week they ambushed a French armored column and killed 16 soldiers.
French revenge is efficient. So far this year, the French army in Algeria has killed 2,200 suspected fellagha. Yet far from being stamped out, the fellagha revolt is spreading. It has long since dwarfed the Mau Mau war in Kenya; it now threatens France with another Indo-China, this time in Europe's backyard.
State of Siege. At 1 a.m. on Nov. 1, 1954, the fellagha revolt began. At that moment, across Algeria, some 30 fellagha bands fell on the nearest French settlements and slit the colons' throats. The French sent armored columns to smash the fellagha, and the revolt seemed to fizzle out. Prefect Pierre Dupuch of the huge Constantine département announced that he had 8,000 troops and with 8,000 more could clean up the entire revolt.
Last week Prefect Dupuch had 80,000 French troops in action in his département. He said he needed 80,000 more. Fully one-third of Algeria north of the Sahara was in a state of siege. Stations, tent camps, truck parks and supply dumps were corseted in barbed wire and surmounted by steel watchtowers. The road to Batna, metropolis of the Aures Mountains, was strewn with sabotaged telegraph poles and bloated dead cattle.
Marksmen Without Mortars. The revolt that the French refuse to call a war has driven hundreds of French settlers from the irrigated farms they had carved out in the Algerian hills, closed down mines and quarries, converted scores of villages into sandbagged strongpoints. It has sucked into Algeria over 200,000 French troops, including the best part of France's NATO divisions, and the bulk of the colonial army now being brought home from South Viet Nam. By contrast, the fellagha's armed strength is less than 10,000 men, possibly less than 5,000. They have no mortars, no artillery, no radios, no armored vehicles. Some fellagha are armed with rifles and Tommy guns, but most have only knives. Lacking explosives, they use axes to chop down telegraph posts; lacking ammunition, some have been known to attack French strongpoints with spears and clubs.