A war of sorts, over issues of a sort, was being fought last week by two countries who were sort of friends the day before hostilities. Tunisia and France, joined in the dubious nostalgia of ex-colony and motherland, were firing at each other on Tunisian soil and exchanging bitter charges in the august echo chamber of the United Nations Security Council.
There was every sign that nobody was more astonished than Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba at what he had touched off. True enough, he had some provocation. After giving Tunisia independence in 1956, and promising to negotiate the future of the great Bizerte naval airbase, France has since refused to budge. Then Bourguiba learned that the French, instead of preparing to leave, were planning to lengthen the airstrip.
That was outrage enough for Bourguiba to organize a stylized, Arab-type demonstration. Orators wailed that Tunisians would fight to remove the last remnant of evil colonialism. Crowds ecstatically shouted for action. Roads to the base were blockaded, and Bourguiba warned the French to keep their planes out of Tunisian airspace. Barricades were erected at a safe distance from French outposts.
When the French defiantly sent a helicopter aloft. Tunisians fired a few "warning shots" in its direction. Then, to reinforce the base in the face of these alarums and excursions, the French flew in 800 paratroopers. As the parachutes blossomed down onto the airfield, Tunisians sprayed them with machine guns.
We Will Die. This twist of the tiger's tail was one too many. With a savagery that stunned the Tunisians, the French struck back. Jet airplanes thundered down on roadblocks, blasting them with rockets. Tunisian troops, armed with rifles and light machine guns, were flattened under barrages from 105-mm. howitzers. Evidently disregarding orders from Paris—a tradition with the French army—tanks and armored cars roared 15 miles outside the Bizerte base. Tanks sprayed bullets into the town of Menzel-Bourguiba, nine miles from Bizerte, where the French maintain an arsenal and shipyard. Soon there were 27 Tunisian corpses laid out beneath the stadium bleachers near a sign reading "HalfTime resting place." Ten were civilians. In Tunis thousands had demonstrated, chanting "Na Moutou [We will die]." Few thought they would be taken seriously.
Not content with destroying the barricades and breaking the Tunisian blockade, the French next day launched a full-scale attack on the town of Bizerte itself, which commands the narrow entrance to the Bay of Bizerte (see map). Rocket-carrying planes swiftly blasted out the Tunisians' few artillery posts. Tanks and tough paratroopers pushed into the city from the south; marines swarmed ashore on the harbor side in landing craft, as three French cruisers lurked offshore. The Tunisians fought raggedly through the streets, but they were no match for French striking power. Bizerte was quickly in French hands.