The commander of allied forces in Afghanistan found lessons in strategy in "The Centurions" by Jean Larteguy book on the wars in Indochina and Algeria.
A copy of the novel by John Larteguy, The Centurions, exhausted in the English language dealing with paratroopers in Algeria and Indochina, can reach $ 1,700 (just over 1,200 euros) on Amazon.com. This simple fact may explain its reissue this month of January by Amereon LTD, for a suggested retail price of 59.95 dollars. But when I had a phone call to the editor, Jed Clauss, he informed me that the money was not the main reason: "Look, I'm an old man," me- he said. "I'm at the end of my publishing career. I no longer starts in projects that amuse me. But David Petraeus wanted this book to be reissued. So I re-edited. "
It is a question of general well David Petraeus, the man credited with turning the war in Iraq, now chief of the allied troops in Afghanistan. I read the translation of this novel in 1960, for which, until recently, the status of cult book among military personnel-and I liked it. But after talking with Clauss, I asked myself this question: "Why The Centurions they reach similar prices and why this book he likes the most influential strategist of his generation?".
My husband who served under Petraeus in Iraq, I managed to get his e-mail him directly and I asked the question. He answered, asked me to congratulate my husband then added, rather enigmatically: "Glad to hear that. Greetings from Kabul to Dave Petraeus. "That was all. Had he deliberately ignored the issue? Or, rather, had he read my mail on the diagonal and thought I contented myself with informing him of the reappearance of the Centurions? Whatever the answer, I was delighted with the "Dave".
Inspired by General Bigeard
But "Dave" had not responded much. So I tried to answer that question myself. And, while I was reading this thick historical novel, his interest seemed to me fairly clear. The novel follows the adventures of Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre Raspeguy, who must transform a military unit accustomed to conventional war in a unit capable of performing tasks more complex and difficult war against the insurgency. The "centurions" to which the title refers are Raspeguy French soldiers, a term that refers to naturally officers Roman antiquity, which, at the end of the empire, fought on its outskirts, while the empire s' collapse of the interior. Remind you of anything?
As General Marcel Bigeard, which his character is clearly inspired, Raspeguy meet again one time in a prison camp in Indochina where he and his soldiers are "their individualities soaked in a bath of quicklime" until none remains more than " the bare essential. " During this process of "soaking" Raspeguy and his men take the opportunity to study their enemy, the Viet Minh. They realize that the Viet Minh does not follow conventional rules of war and motivates his supporters relied mainly on ideology and dogma. It is therefore a force as political as military, and defeat such an enemy requires new thinking, new leaders and new tactics. "For this kind of war," muses Raspeguy, "we need of the crafty and cunning, able to fight off the herd and who demonstrate leadership ... that can perform all tasks, poachers and missionaries."
After a difficult return to France, Raspeguy and his company are sent to Algeria. While the rest of the army-vegetate contained in garrisons, not caring that the Settlement and the views of senior officers-, Raspeguy and his men realize they must "cut the rebels of the population, their provides information and feeds them. Only then we can fight on equal terms. "
The chapters that take place in Algeria are quite similar to the experiences of Petraeus in Iraq. In 2005, when it became increasingly clear that the U.S. was losing the war, Petraeus made himself the advocate of a new approach, that of the cons-insurgency (COIN or) that differs from the traditional military doctrine, focusing on political rather than military insurrection. In 2006, he oversaw the drafting of the new Field Manual 3-24, the first update of the American doctrine for insurgency-cons twenty years and the only manual of the army to have been the subject of criticism in The New York Times. The FM 3-24 Petraeus gave the status of "military theorist, and swung the priorities of the American doctrine of employment brief but devastating power of fire, patience and adaptability in particular emphasis on adoption as soon as possible lessons from the field. Raspeguy was delighted.
The similarities between the Centurions and the current strategy of COIN are not accidental. We know that Petraeus regularly reads passages from the book and that is also a disciple of Marcel Bigeard. As Greg Jaffe and David Cloud point out in The Fourth Star (a book dealing with general Petraeus, Peter Chiarelli, George Casey Jr. and John Abizaid), Petraeus has corresponded with Bigeard for nearly three decades and keeps an autographed photo of General on his desk.
But despite all the strategic lessons that can draw Centurions, I think the military like the book mainly for emotional reasons. Larteguy has a knack for staging taut psychological situations that are both heavily loaded with military ideals (loyalty, command frontline, courage) and to the agonies of war. He also attributed the invention of the spring screenplay of "race against time bomb": Raspeguy and his company captured a rebel leader who knows the location of fifteen bombs have exploded in different European stores of Algiers in exactly 24 hours and they must, of course, obtain this information before the appointed hour. Many details of the scene, including a clock counting out the time remaining, were used repeatedly in the television series 24 hours clock.
But in 24 hours flat, the "race cons bomb "is used to raise the dramatic tension and, some would say, to justify the use of" all necessary means "to talk about terrorists. The Centurions in this part of the plot is primarily psychological and the officer in charge of the interrogation sincerely tries to avoid any use of violence. He tries to break the resolution of his prisoner by telling her own experience of torture: "You will not take the blow and then you'll know what it feels like to be a coward and having to live with this the rest of cowardice your days "(which is, frankly, much more sophisticated and realistic than what we are told in 24 hours clock. The hero of the series, Jack Bauer would have endured two years of torture without uttering a word). If the character ends up using Raspeguy physical pressure, it does so because he lets himself completely overwhelmed by his own emotions, a decision that will cause real trauma.
McChrystal, a character Larteguy
acuity of about Larteguy beyond the purely military field and extends to the relationship between the company and its warriors. Paratroopers especially hate the general round-of-leather criticizing their conduct without having the experience of their suffering and their moral dilemma. When the centurions learn that legal proceedings will be instituted against them for "excessive cruelty" Raspeguy said: "Now they are shit scared more over, they send their little square of paper." In The Centurions the fate of the fighter is the fraternity with his comrades-at the expense of all others. This alienation becomes naturally more severe when these men return home. As Lartéguy writes:
"The paradise they both had dreamed of in prison camps approached slowly and had already lost its attractiveness. They dreamed of another paradise: Indochina ... they were not burdened son returning home to lick their wounds. They were foreigners. "
General Petraeus seems to have avoided an extreme disappointment. But General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, seems out of the mold Lartéguy. It is clear that McChrystal has read The Centurions and he could feel the esprit de corps that Larteguy described. In one of his last big interviews, he said, in the columns of The Atlantic:
" Within the JSOC [Integrated Command Special Operations, ed], we had the sense ... of the mission, passion ... call it what you want . The rebels had a cause to defend and we reverse. We had a high degree of cohesion within units, as in Les Centurions. "
It is also clear that nurtures a deep resentment against foreign military at its condition. In the portrait of Rolling Stone, who ruined his career, he openly mocked diplomats and politicians who wanted to meddle in this war-rattling by receiving an email from Richard Holbrooke (he compares to a wounded animal) and telling how he had to "kiss" and would have to attend a dinner with French ministers.
When it was released in France in 1960, The Centurions were a bestseller with over 450,000 copies sold, and allowed John Larteguy to carve a name in publishing. Opinions varied on its literary merits. United States, when it was published in English shortly after, the views were clearly negative. The Harvard Crimson described him as "A very bad novel" and the New York Times wrote that "it was impossible to follow who was who and more to be interested." But as we enter the tenth year of the war in Afghanistan, as we debate the merits of the COIN and we see an increase in the gap between civil society and those who wage war in its name, this book seems to uncanny acuteness. Soldiers use a cliché to describe those who have never fought in designating them as people who have never "heard a shot fired in the heat of anger." It is impossible to understand the impact émotionnel du combat sans l’avoir vécu, mais la lecture des Centurions en est un très bon substitut.
http://www.slate.fr/story/33521/petraeus-larteguy-centurions-roman-guerre
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