Organisation armée secrète
Encyclopedia
The Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS — or Organisation armée secrète, lit. "Organization of the Secret Army" or "Secret Armed Organization") was a short-lived, French far-right nationalist militant
and underground organization during the Algerian War (1954–62). The OAS used armed struggle in an attempt to prevent Algeria's independence. The OAS's motto was "Algeria is French and will remain so" (L’Algérie est française et le restera).
The OAS was formed out of existing networks, calling themselves "counter-terrorists", "self-defence groups", or "resistance", which had carried out attacks on the FLN
and their perceived supporters since early in the war. It was officially formed in Francoist Spain
, in Madrid in January 1961, as a response by some French politicians and French military officers to the 8 January 1961 referendum on self-determination
concerning Algeria, which had been organized by General de Gaulle
.
After the March 1962 Evian agreements, which granted independence to Algeria and marked the beginning of the exodus of the pieds-noirs (European settlers), the OAS attempted to prevent the on-going political process by a campaign of assassination
s and bombings. This campaign culminated in Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry
's 1962 assassination attempt against president Charles de Gaulle
in the Paris suburb of Le Petit-Clamart
.
The OAS still has followers among the far right movement. In July 2006, some OAS nostalgics attempted to relight the flame of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to commemorate the Oran massacre
on 5 July 1962.
. It was founded in Spain, on January 1961, by former officers, Pierre Lagaillarde
(who led the 1960 Siege of Algiers), General Raoul Salan
(who took part in the 1961 Algiers putsch
or "Generals' Uprising") and Jean-Jacques Susini
, along with other members of the French Army
, including Yves Guérin-Sérac, and former members of the French Foreign Legion
from the First Indochina War
(1946–54). OAS-Métro, the branch in metropolitan France
, was led by captain Pierre Sergent. These officers united earlier anti-FLN networks such as the Organisation de Résistance de L'Algérie Française.
There was resistance against Algerian independence in January 1960 by the settlers
and Pieds-Noirs who again took up arms in April 1961, during the Generals' Uprising, with some of the Algerian Jews siding with the OAS after synagogue
s were attacked by the National Liberation Front
(Front de libération nationale, FLN) in Algeria. Daniele Ganser of the ETH
Parallel History Project claims that Gladio
stay-behind
networks, directed by NATO, were involved, but no definitive proof has been found. Both of these insurrections were swiftly suppressed and many of the leaders who had created the OAS were imprisoned.
By acts of sabotage
and assassination
in both metropolitan France and French Algerian territories, the OAS attempted to prevent Algerian independence. The first victim was Pierre Popie, attorney and president of the People's Republican Movement (Mouvement Républicain Populaire, MRP), who stated on TV, "French Algeria is dead" (L’Algérie française est morte). Roger Gavoury
, head of the French police in Algiers
, was assassinated at the direction of Roger Degueldre
, leader of the OAS Delta Commando, with the actual killing done by Claude Piegts
and Albert Dovecar
on 31 May 1961 (Piegts and Dovecar were executed by a firing-squad on 7 June 1962. Degueldre on 6 July). The OAS became notorious for stroungas, attacks using plastic explosives (stroungas comes from the Italian stroncare, to rip down; many pied-noirs were of southern Italian descent which influenced local French).
In October 1961 Pierre Lagaillarde
, who had escaped to Francoist Spain following the 1960 barricades week, was arrested in Madrid, along with the Italian neofascist Guido Giannettini
. Franco
then exiled him to the Canary Islands
.
The Delta commandos engaged in indiscriminate killing sprees, on 17 March 1962; against cleaning-ladies on 5 May; on 15 March 1962 against six inspectors of the National Education Ministry, who directed the "Educative Social Centres" (Centres sociaux éducatifs), including Mouloud Feraoun
, an Algerian writer, etc.
The OAS attempted several times to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle
. The most prominent attempt was a 22 August 1962 ambush at Petit-Clamart
, a Paris suburb, planned by a military engineer who was not an OAS member, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry
. Bastien-Thiry was executed in March 1963 after de Gaulle refused to grant him amnesty. A fictionalized version of this attack was recreated in the 1971 book by Frederick Forsyth
, The Day of the Jackal
, and in the 1973 film of the same name
.
The OAS use of extreme violence created strong opposition from some pied-noirs and in mainland France. As a result the OAS eventually found itself in violent clandestine conflict with not only the FLN but also French secret services and with a Gaullist paramilitary, the Mouvement pour la Communauté (the MPC). Originally a political movement in Algiers, the MPC eventually became a paramilitary force in response to OAS violence. The group obtained valuable information which was routinely passed on to the French secret services, but was eventually destroyed by OAS assassinations.
where they proclaimed that the French military had become an "occupation force." It organized car bombings: 25 killed in Oran on 28 February 1962 and 62 killed in Algiers on 2 May, among others. On 22 March, they took the control of Bab el-Oued and attacked French soldiers, killing six. The French military then surrounded them and stormed the neighbourhood. The battle killed 35 and injured 150. On 26 March, the leaders of the OAS proclaimed a general strike
in Algiers and called for the European settlers to come to Bab el-Oued in order to break the blockade by military forces loyal to de Gaulle and the Republic
. A detachment of tirailleurs (Muslim troops in the French Army) fired on the demonstrators, killing 54, injuring 140, and traumatising the settlers' population in what is known as the "gunfight of the Rue d'Isly". In coincidence with the uprising of Bab-el Oued, 200 OAS maquis
marched from Algiers to Ouarsenis, a mountainous region between Oran and Algiers. They tried to overrun two French military outpost and gain support for local Muslim tribes loyal to France, but instead they were harassed by local FLN guerrillas and eventually defeated by Legion units led by Colonel Albert Brothier after several days of fighting.
In April 1962 the OAS leader, Raoul Salan
was captured. Despite the OAS bombing campaign, the FLN remained resolute in its agreement to the ceasefire and on 17 June 1962 the OAS also began a ceasefire. The Algerian authority officially guaranteed the security of the remaining Europeans, but in early July 1962 occurred the Oran massacre of 1962
: hundreds of armed people came down to European areas of the city, attacking European civilians. The violence lasted several hours, including lynching and acts of torture in public places in all areas of Oran
by civilians supported by the ALN
—the armed wing of the FLN, at the time evolving into the Algerian Army— resulting in 3,000 missing people:
The OAS was effectively eliminated by 1963. Roger Degueldre
, Claude Piegts
and Albert Dovecar
were executed by firing squad on 7 June 1962. Jean Bastien-Thiry, who had attempted the Petit-Clamart assassination on de Gaulle, but was not formally a member of the OAS, was also executed on 11 March 1963. All others' penal sentences were amnestied by a July 1968 act. Putschist generals still alive in November 1982 were reintegrated into the Army by another amnesty law: Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud
, and six other generals benefited from this law.
, Georges Grasset, organized the flight of OAS members, from a route going from Paris to Francoist Spain and finally to Argentina. Grasset arrived in 1962 in Buenos Aires to take charge of the Argentine branch of the Cité Catholique
, a Catholic fundamentalist group formed by Jean Ousset
, the personal secretary of Charles Maurras
, as an off-shoot of the monarchist Action Française
. This anti-communist religious organization was formed of many Algerian war veterans and close to the OAS. Charles Lacheroy
, Colonel Trinquier
, who theorized the systemic use of torture
in counter-insurgency
doctrine in Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency (1961), were members of it. Along with Colonel Jean Gardes, who had first theorized counter-insurgency tactics during the Indochina War (1947–1954), Jean Ousset developed the concept of "subversion
" referring to an essential enemy threatening the existence of Occident itself. Gardes arrived in Argentina in 1963, a year after the end of the Algerian War. There, he delivered counter-insurgency courses at the ESMA
, the Navy Mechanics Schools, which became infamous during the "Dirty War
" in the 1970s for being used as an internment and torture center. Soon after Gardes met Federico Lucas Roussillon, an Argentine naval lieutenant commander, the Cadets at the ESMA were shown the film The Battle of Algiers
(1966) by Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo
, during which the fictional Lieutenant-Colonel Mathieu and his paratroops make systematic use of torture
, block warden system, and death flights (dubbed "Crevettes Bigeard", or "Bigeard's Shrimps").
The Argentine admiral Luis María Mendía
testified in January 2007 that a French intelligence agent, Bertrand de Perseval, had participated in the "disappearance" of the two French nuns, Léonie Duquet
and Alice Domon
. Perseval, who lives today in Thailand, denied any links with the abduction, but did admit being a former OAS member who escaped to Argentina after the Evian agreements.
by Frederick Forsyth, and its film adaptation
. The story deals primarily with a fictional assassination plot against De Gaulle, where the organization hires a contract killer (the Jackal) to kill De Gaulle. Bastien-Thiry and the Petit-Clamart plot figure prominently in the early sections of the story.
Forsyth also mentions the OAS in The Dogs of War, with several of its protagonists having joined the movement. The fictional Colonel Rodin from Jackal is also alluded to.
The OAS is referenced in the Oliver Stone
film JFK
, as suspected conspirator Clay Shaw
(played by Tommy Lee Jones
) is alleged to have business connections with them. The plot to assassinate De Gaulle at the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart is also mentioned several times in the film.
Militant
The word militant, which is both an adjective and a noun, usually is used to mean vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in 'militant reformers'. It comes from the 15th century Latin "militare" meaning "to serve as a soldier"...
and underground organization during the Algerian War (1954–62). The OAS used armed struggle in an attempt to prevent Algeria's independence. The OAS's motto was "Algeria is French and will remain so" (L’Algérie est française et le restera).
The OAS was formed out of existing networks, calling themselves "counter-terrorists", "self-defence groups", or "resistance", which had carried out attacks on the FLN
National Liberation Front (Algeria)
The National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on November 1, 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France.- Anticolonial struggle :...
and their perceived supporters since early in the war. It was officially formed in Francoist Spain
Spanish State
Francoist Spain refers to a period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975 when Spain was under the authoritarian dictatorship of Francisco Franco....
, in Madrid in January 1961, as a response by some French politicians and French military officers to the 8 January 1961 referendum on self-determination
French referendum on Algerian self-determination, 1961
A referendum on self-determination for Algeria was held in France on 8 January 1961. It was approved by 75.0% of voters overall and 69.5% in Algeria. Voter turnout was 92.2%.-Results:-Algeria:...
concerning Algeria, which had been organized by General de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
.
After the March 1962 Evian agreements, which granted independence to Algeria and marked the beginning of the exodus of the pieds-noirs (European settlers), the OAS attempted to prevent the on-going political process by a campaign of assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
s and bombings. This campaign culminated in Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry
Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry
Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry was a French military air weaponry engineer who attempted to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle on 22 August 1962, following Algerian independence...
's 1962 assassination attempt against president Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
in the Paris suburb of Le Petit-Clamart
Clamart
Clamart is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.The town is divided into two parts, separated by a forest: bas Clamart, the historical centre, and petit Clamart with urbanization developed in the 1960s replacing pea fields. The canton of...
.
The OAS still has followers among the far right movement. In July 2006, some OAS nostalgics attempted to relight the flame of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to commemorate the Oran massacre
Oran massacre of 1962
The Oran massacre of 1962 was a massacre of European—mostly French—civilians in Oran, Algeria on July 5, 1962, at the end of the Algerian War . Although the majority of deaths were European, Algerians were also massacred. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, from a low of 95 to a high of 3,500....
on 5 July 1962.
History
The OAS was created in response to the January 1961 referendum on self-determination for AlgeriaFrench referendum on Algerian self-determination, 1961
A referendum on self-determination for Algeria was held in France on 8 January 1961. It was approved by 75.0% of voters overall and 69.5% in Algeria. Voter turnout was 92.2%.-Results:-Algeria:...
. It was founded in Spain, on January 1961, by former officers, Pierre Lagaillarde
Pierre Lagaillarde
Pierre Lagaillarde was French politician, and a founder of the Organisation armée secrète .Lagaillarde was a lawyer at Blida in Algeria, a reserve officer of the paratroopers, and an elected deputy of Algiers...
(who led the 1960 Siege of Algiers), General Raoul Salan
Raoul Salan
Raoul Albin Louis Salan was a French Army general and the fourth French commanding general during the First Indochina War. Salan was one of four generals who organized the 1961 Algiers Putsch operation and then founded the Organisation de l'armée secrète....
(who took part in the 1961 Algiers putsch
Algiers putsch
The Algiers putsch , also known as the Generals' putsch , was a failed coup d'état to overthrow French President Charles De Gaulle and establish an anti-communist military junta...
or "Generals' Uprising") and Jean-Jacques Susini
Jean-Jacques Susini
Jean-Jacques Susini is a political figure and cofounder of the Organisation de l'armée secrète , a far-right organization opposing Algerian independence from France.-Life:...
, along with other members of the French Army
French Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
, including Yves Guérin-Sérac, and former members of the French Foreign Legion
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...
from the First Indochina War
First Indochina War
The First Indochina War was fought in French Indochina from December 19, 1946, until August 1, 1954, between the French Union's French Far East...
(1946–54). OAS-Métro, the branch in metropolitan France
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France is the part of France located in Europe. It can also be described as mainland France or as the French mainland and the island of Corsica...
, was led by captain Pierre Sergent. These officers united earlier anti-FLN networks such as the Organisation de Résistance de L'Algérie Française.
There was resistance against Algerian independence in January 1960 by the settlers
Colonisation
Colonization occurs whenever any one or more species populate an area. The term, which is derived from the Latin colere, "to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect", originally related to humans. However, 19th century biogeographers dominated the term to describe the...
and Pieds-Noirs who again took up arms in April 1961, during the Generals' Uprising, with some of the Algerian Jews siding with the OAS after synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
s were attacked by the National Liberation Front
National Liberation Front (Algeria)
The National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on November 1, 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France.- Anticolonial struggle :...
(Front de libération nationale, FLN) in Algeria. Daniele Ganser of the ETH
ETH Zurich
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....
Parallel History Project claims that Gladio
Operation Gladio
Operation Gladio is the codename for a clandestine NATO "stay-behind" operation in Italy after World War II. Its purpose was to continue anti-communist actions in the event of a shift to a Communist party led government...
stay-behind
Stay-behind
In a stay-behind operation, a country places secret operatives or organisations in its own territory, for use in the event that the territory is overrun by an enemy. If this occurs, the operatives would then form the basis of a resistance movement, or would act as spies from behind enemy lines...
networks, directed by NATO, were involved, but no definitive proof has been found. Both of these insurrections were swiftly suppressed and many of the leaders who had created the OAS were imprisoned.
By acts of sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
and assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
in both metropolitan France and French Algerian territories, the OAS attempted to prevent Algerian independence. The first victim was Pierre Popie, attorney and president of the People's Republican Movement (Mouvement Républicain Populaire, MRP), who stated on TV, "French Algeria is dead" (L’Algérie française est morte). Roger Gavoury
Roger Gavoury
Roger Gavoury, born 7 April, 1911 at Mello, in Oise. Gavouy was Divisional Commissaire of the French National Police and Central Commissaire of Algiers, in addition to duties associated with French Morocco. He was assassinated by two members of the OAS, Claude Piegts and Albert Dovecar, at the...
, head of the French police in Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, was assassinated at the direction of Roger Degueldre
Roger Degueldre
Lieutenant Roger Hercule Gustave Degueldre was a leader of the OAS Delta Commandos in the last months of French rule in Algeria. There is some dispute about his origins...
, leader of the OAS Delta Commando, with the actual killing done by Claude Piegts
Claude Piegts
Claude Piegts, born 1 January 1934 at Castiglione, French Algeria, shot by firing squad in France at the Fort du Trou d'Enfer 7 June 1962, was a pied-noir and a member of the Organisation de l'armée secrète...
and Albert Dovecar
Albert Dovecar
Albert Dovecar was a sergeant in the French 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment of the French Foreign Legion. He was executed by firing squad at the Fort du Trou d'Enfer for his part in the assassination of French National Police Divisional Commissaire Roger Gavoury during the Algerian War.- Biography...
on 31 May 1961 (Piegts and Dovecar were executed by a firing-squad on 7 June 1962. Degueldre on 6 July). The OAS became notorious for stroungas, attacks using plastic explosives (stroungas comes from the Italian stroncare, to rip down; many pied-noirs were of southern Italian descent which influenced local French).
In October 1961 Pierre Lagaillarde
Pierre Lagaillarde
Pierre Lagaillarde was French politician, and a founder of the Organisation armée secrète .Lagaillarde was a lawyer at Blida in Algeria, a reserve officer of the paratroopers, and an elected deputy of Algiers...
, who had escaped to Francoist Spain following the 1960 barricades week, was arrested in Madrid, along with the Italian neofascist Guido Giannettini
Guido Giannettini
- Activism :He was active in the OAS support networks, and arrested in 1961 in Madrid along with Pierre Lagaillarde.Giannettini participated to the newspapers Il Roma and Il Secolo d'Italia, as well as to L'Italiano, headed by Pino Romualdi...
. Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
then exiled him to the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
.
The Delta commandos engaged in indiscriminate killing sprees, on 17 March 1962; against cleaning-ladies on 5 May; on 15 March 1962 against six inspectors of the National Education Ministry, who directed the "Educative Social Centres" (Centres sociaux éducatifs), including Mouloud Feraoun
Mouloud Feraoun
Mouloud Feraoun was an Algerian writer and martyr of the Algerian revolution born in Tizi Hibel, Kabylia. Some of his books, written in French, have been translated into several languages including English and German...
, an Algerian writer, etc.
The OAS attempted several times to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
. The most prominent attempt was a 22 August 1962 ambush at Petit-Clamart
Clamart
Clamart is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.The town is divided into two parts, separated by a forest: bas Clamart, the historical centre, and petit Clamart with urbanization developed in the 1960s replacing pea fields. The canton of...
, a Paris suburb, planned by a military engineer who was not an OAS member, Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry
Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry
Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry was a French military air weaponry engineer who attempted to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle on 22 August 1962, following Algerian independence...
. Bastien-Thiry was executed in March 1963 after de Gaulle refused to grant him amnesty. A fictionalized version of this attack was recreated in the 1971 book by Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth, CBE is an English author and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan and The Cobra.-...
, The Day of the Jackal
The Day of the Jackal
The Day of the Jackal is a thriller novel by English writer Frederick Forsyth, about a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French terrorist group of the early 1960s, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France....
, and in the 1973 film of the same name
The Day of the Jackal (film)
The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 Anglo-French film, set in August 1963 and based on the novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, it stars Edward Fox as the assassin known only as "the Jackal" who is hired to assassinate Charles de Gaulle.- Synopsis :The film opens...
.
The OAS use of extreme violence created strong opposition from some pied-noirs and in mainland France. As a result the OAS eventually found itself in violent clandestine conflict with not only the FLN but also French secret services and with a Gaullist paramilitary, the Mouvement pour la Communauté (the MPC). Originally a political movement in Algiers, the MPC eventually became a paramilitary force in response to OAS violence. The group obtained valuable information which was routinely passed on to the French secret services, but was eventually destroyed by OAS assassinations.
The March 1962 Evian agreements and the struggle of the OAS
The main hope of the OAS was to prove that the FLN was secretly restarting military action after a ceasefire was agreed in the Evian agreements of 19 March 1962 and the referendum of June 1962; So, during these three months, the OAS unleashed a new terrorist campaign to force the FLN to abandon the ceasefire. Over 100 bombs a day were detonated by the OAS in March in pursuit of this end. It was the most wanton carnage that Algeria had witnessed in eight years of savage warfare. OAS operatives set off an average of 120 bombs per day in March, with targets including hospitals and schools. On 21 March, the OAS issued a flyerFlyer (pamphlet)
__notoc__A flyer or flier, also called a circular, handbill or leaflet, is a form of paper advertisement intended for wide distribution and typically posted or distributed in public place....
where they proclaimed that the French military had become an "occupation force." It organized car bombings: 25 killed in Oran on 28 February 1962 and 62 killed in Algiers on 2 May, among others. On 22 March, they took the control of Bab el-Oued and attacked French soldiers, killing six. The French military then surrounded them and stormed the neighbourhood. The battle killed 35 and injured 150. On 26 March, the leaders of the OAS proclaimed a general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
in Algiers and called for the European settlers to come to Bab el-Oued in order to break the blockade by military forces loyal to de Gaulle and the Republic
French Fifth Republic
The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, introduced on 4 October 1958. The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the French Fourth Republic, replacing the prior parliamentary government with a semi-presidential system...
. A detachment of tirailleurs (Muslim troops in the French Army) fired on the demonstrators, killing 54, injuring 140, and traumatising the settlers' population in what is known as the "gunfight of the Rue d'Isly". In coincidence with the uprising of Bab-el Oued, 200 OAS maquis
Maquis (World War II)
The Maquis were the predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance. Initially they were composed of men who had escaped into the mountains to avoid conscription into Vichy France's Service du travail obligatoire to provide forced labour for Germany...
marched from Algiers to Ouarsenis, a mountainous region between Oran and Algiers. They tried to overrun two French military outpost and gain support for local Muslim tribes loyal to France, but instead they were harassed by local FLN guerrillas and eventually defeated by Legion units led by Colonel Albert Brothier after several days of fighting.
In April 1962 the OAS leader, Raoul Salan
Raoul Salan
Raoul Albin Louis Salan was a French Army general and the fourth French commanding general during the First Indochina War. Salan was one of four generals who organized the 1961 Algiers Putsch operation and then founded the Organisation de l'armée secrète....
was captured. Despite the OAS bombing campaign, the FLN remained resolute in its agreement to the ceasefire and on 17 June 1962 the OAS also began a ceasefire. The Algerian authority officially guaranteed the security of the remaining Europeans, but in early July 1962 occurred the Oran massacre of 1962
Oran massacre of 1962
The Oran massacre of 1962 was a massacre of European—mostly French—civilians in Oran, Algeria on July 5, 1962, at the end of the Algerian War . Although the majority of deaths were European, Algerians were also massacred. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, from a low of 95 to a high of 3,500....
: hundreds of armed people came down to European areas of the city, attacking European civilians. The violence lasted several hours, including lynching and acts of torture in public places in all areas of Oran
Oran
Oran is a major city on the northwestern Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and the second largest city of the country.It is the capital of the Oran Province . The city has a population of 759,645 , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000, making it the second largest...
by civilians supported by the ALN
Armée de Libération Nationale
The Armée de Libération Nationale or ALN was the armed wing of the nationalist Front de Libération National during the Algerian War of Independence...
—the armed wing of the FLN, at the time evolving into the Algerian Army— resulting in 3,000 missing people:
The OAS was effectively eliminated by 1963. Roger Degueldre
Roger Degueldre
Lieutenant Roger Hercule Gustave Degueldre was a leader of the OAS Delta Commandos in the last months of French rule in Algeria. There is some dispute about his origins...
, Claude Piegts
Claude Piegts
Claude Piegts, born 1 January 1934 at Castiglione, French Algeria, shot by firing squad in France at the Fort du Trou d'Enfer 7 June 1962, was a pied-noir and a member of the Organisation de l'armée secrète...
and Albert Dovecar
Albert Dovecar
Albert Dovecar was a sergeant in the French 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment of the French Foreign Legion. He was executed by firing squad at the Fort du Trou d'Enfer for his part in the assassination of French National Police Divisional Commissaire Roger Gavoury during the Algerian War.- Biography...
were executed by firing squad on 7 June 1962. Jean Bastien-Thiry, who had attempted the Petit-Clamart assassination on de Gaulle, but was not formally a member of the OAS, was also executed on 11 March 1963. All others' penal sentences were amnestied by a July 1968 act. Putschist generals still alive in November 1982 were reintegrated into the Army by another amnesty law: Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud
Edmond Jouhaud
Edmond Jouhaud was one of four French generals who briefly staged a putsch in Algeria in April 1961. As Army General he had been the Inspector General of the Air Force in French North Africa. After the failure of the putsch, he became the deputy of Raoul Salan in the Organisation de l'Armée Secrète...
, and six other generals benefited from this law.
Legacy
Many OAS members later took part in various anti-communist struggles around the world. Following the disbandment of the organization, and the execution of several of its members, the OAS chaplainChaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
, Georges Grasset, organized the flight of OAS members, from a route going from Paris to Francoist Spain and finally to Argentina. Grasset arrived in 1962 in Buenos Aires to take charge of the Argentine branch of the Cité Catholique
Cité catholique
The Cité Catholique is a Traditionalist Catholic organisation created in 1946 by Jean Ousset, originally a follower of Charles Maurras and Jean Masson , not to be confused with Jacques Desoubrie, who also used the pseudonym Jean Masson...
, a Catholic fundamentalist group formed by Jean Ousset
Jean Ousset
Jean Ousset was a French ideologist of National Catholicism born in Porto, Portugal. He was an activist of the Action française monarchist movement in the 1930s, and personal secretary of its leader, Charles Maurras...
, the personal secretary of Charles Maurras
Charles Maurras
Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and "nationalisme...
, as an off-shoot of the monarchist Action Française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
. This anti-communist religious organization was formed of many Algerian war veterans and close to the OAS. Charles Lacheroy
Charles Lacheroy
Charles Lacheroy was a French Army officer, theorist of Counter-insurgency warfare, and member of the Organisation de l'armée secrète.-Biography:...
, Colonel Trinquier
Roger Trinquier
Roger Trinquier was a French Army officer during World War II, the First Indochina War and the Algerian War, serving mainly in airborne and Special forces units...
, who theorized the systemic use of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
in counter-insurgency
Counter-insurgency
A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...
doctrine in Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency (1961), were members of it. Along with Colonel Jean Gardes, who had first theorized counter-insurgency tactics during the Indochina War (1947–1954), Jean Ousset developed the concept of "subversion
Subversion (politics)
Subversion refers to an attempt to transform the established social order, its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy; examples of such structures include the State. In this context, a "subversive" is sometimes called a "traitor" with respect to the government in-power. A subversive is...
" referring to an essential enemy threatening the existence of Occident itself. Gardes arrived in Argentina in 1963, a year after the end of the Algerian War. There, he delivered counter-insurgency courses at the ESMA
ESMA
The Navy Petty-Officers School of Mechanics , commonly referred to by its abbreviation ESMA, is a facility of the Argentine Navy that was employed as an illegal detention center during the dictatorial rule of the National Reorganization Process...
, the Navy Mechanics Schools, which became infamous during the "Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
" in the 1970s for being used as an internment and torture center. Soon after Gardes met Federico Lucas Roussillon, an Argentine naval lieutenant commander, the Cadets at the ESMA were shown the film The Battle of Algiers
The Battle of Algiers (film)
The Battle of Algiers is a 1966 war film based on occurrences during the Algerian War against French colonial occupation in North Africa, the most prominent being the titular Battle of Algiers. It was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo...
(1966) by Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo
Gillo Pontecorvo
Gillo Pontecorvo was an Italian filmmaker. He worked as a film director for more than a decade before his best known film La battaglia di Algeri was released...
, during which the fictional Lieutenant-Colonel Mathieu and his paratroops make systematic use of torture
Torture during the Algerian War
Elements of the French Armed Forces as well as of the opposing Algerian National Liberation Front made use of torture during the Algerian War of Independence , creating an ongoing public controversy. Pierre Vidal-Naquet estimates that there were "possibly hundreds of thousands of instances of...
, block warden system, and death flights (dubbed "Crevettes Bigeard", or "Bigeard's Shrimps").
The Argentine admiral Luis María Mendía
Luis María Mendía
Luis María Mendía was the Argentine Chief of Naval Operations in 1976-77, with the rank of vice-admiral. According to confessions gathered by Horacio Verbitsky and made by Adolfo Scilingo , Luis María Mendía was the architect of the "death flight" assassination method whereby the Argentine state...
testified in January 2007 that a French intelligence agent, Bertrand de Perseval, had participated in the "disappearance" of the two French nuns, Léonie Duquet
Leonie Duquet
Léonie Duquet was a French nun who was killed by the military regime of Argentine President Jorge Rafael Videla during the Dirty War.-Biography:...
and Alice Domon
Alice Domon
Alice Domon, Caty, was a Roman Catholic nun from France whose forced disappearance occurred in Argentina during the military dictatorship of the "National Reorganization Process" .-Life:Alice Domon was born in Charquemont in France's Doubs region...
. Perseval, who lives today in Thailand, denied any links with the abduction, but did admit being a former OAS member who escaped to Argentina after the Evian agreements.
In popular culture
The OAS featured prominently in the novel The Day of the JackalThe Day of the Jackal
The Day of the Jackal is a thriller novel by English writer Frederick Forsyth, about a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French terrorist group of the early 1960s, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France....
by Frederick Forsyth, and its film adaptation
The Day of the Jackal (film)
The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 Anglo-French film, set in August 1963 and based on the novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, it stars Edward Fox as the assassin known only as "the Jackal" who is hired to assassinate Charles de Gaulle.- Synopsis :The film opens...
. The story deals primarily with a fictional assassination plot against De Gaulle, where the organization hires a contract killer (the Jackal) to kill De Gaulle. Bastien-Thiry and the Petit-Clamart plot figure prominently in the early sections of the story.
Forsyth also mentions the OAS in The Dogs of War, with several of its protagonists having joined the movement. The fictional Colonel Rodin from Jackal is also alluded to.
The OAS is referenced in the Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
film JFK
JFK (film)
JFK is a 1991 American film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up, through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison .Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay...
, as suspected conspirator Clay Shaw
Clay Shaw
Clay Laverne Shaw was a businessman in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the only person prosecuted in connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and was found not guilty.-Biography:...
(played by Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive....
) is alleged to have business connections with them. The plot to assassinate De Gaulle at the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart is also mentioned several times in the film.
Chain of command
The secret army was a three-part organization, each segment having its own action commando squads.| Section (Divisions) | Role | Director | Squads |
|---|---|---|---|
| ODM Organisation-Des-Masses Mass Organization |
OAS recruitment | Colonel Jean Gardes Michel Leroy |
none |
| APP Action-Psychologique-Propagande Psychological Warfare & Propaganda |
OAS propaganda | Jean-Jacques Susini Jean-Jacques Susini Jean-Jacques Susini is a political figure and cofounder of the Organisation de l'armée secrète , a far-right organization opposing Algerian independence from France.-Life:... |
-Commandos Z (Z for Jean-Marcel Zagamé, founder) |
| ORO Organisation-Renseignement-Opération Organization, Intelligence & Planning -BCR Intelligence Central Bureau -BAO Operational Action Bureau |
OAS field ops planning | Jean-Claude Perez Jean Lalanne (BCR) Roger Degueldre Roger Degueldre Lieutenant Roger Hercule Gustave Degueldre was a leader of the OAS Delta Commandos in the last months of French rule in Algeria. There is some dispute about his origins... (BAO) Albert Dovecar Albert Dovecar Albert Dovecar was a sergeant in the French 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment of the French Foreign Legion. He was executed by firing squad at the Fort du Trou d'Enfer for his part in the assassination of French National Police Divisional Commissaire Roger Gavoury during the Algerian War.- Biography... (Delta 1) |
-Commandos Delta (D for Roger Degueldre, founder) Delta 1 Delta 2 Delta 3 |
Oranie district
- General Edmond JouhaudEdmond JouhaudEdmond Jouhaud was one of four French generals who briefly staged a putsch in Algeria in April 1961. As Army General he had been the Inspector General of the Air Force in French North Africa. After the failure of the putsch, he became the deputy of Raoul Salan in the Organisation de l'Armée Secrète...
- Commander Pierre Guillaume
- aide
- Charles Micheletti
- civilian
- Colonel Dufour
- replacing Gen. Jouhaud
- General Gardy
- Capitaine Pierre Sergent
- Revolutionary Directory member
- Christian Léger
- Revolutionary Directory member
- Jean-Marie Curutchet
- Revolutionary Directory member
- Denis Baille
- Revolutionary Directory member
- Jean-René Souètre
- Revolutionary Directory member
Algérois district
- Colonel Vaudrey
- Pierre Delhomme
- in charge of El-Biar, near AlgiersAlgiers' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
Constantinois district
- Colonel Pierre Château-Jobert
- Robert Martel
- aka the chouan de la Mitidja ("chouanChouanChouan is a French surname. It was used as a nom de guerre by the Chouan brothers, most notably Jean Cottereau, better known as Jean Chouan, who led a major revolt in Bas-Maine against the French Revolution...
of the MitidjaGeography of AlgeriaAlgeria comprises 2,381,741 square kilometers of land, more than four-fifths of which is desert, in northern Africa, between Morocco and Tunisia. It is the largest country in Africa. Its Arabic name, Al Jazair , derives from the name of the capital Algiers , after the small islands formerly found...
")
OAS-Métropole
- Captain Pierre Sergent
- Chief of Staff
- Lieutenant Daniel Godot
- ODM-Métropole Director
- Jacques Chadeyron
- APP-Métropole
- Captain Jean-Marie Curutchet
- ORO-Métropole
OAS-Madrid
Short living dissident group claiming the organization's direction. All members were arrested by the Guardia Civil military police.- Colonel Antoine ArgoudAntoine ArgoudAntoine Argoud was a French Army officer specializing in counter-insurgency during the Algerian War of Independence...
- Colonel Charles LacheroyCharles LacheroyCharles Lacheroy was a French Army officer, theorist of Counter-insurgency warfare, and member of the Organisation de l'armée secrète.-Biography:...
- Commander Pierre LagaillardePierre LagaillardePierre Lagaillarde was French politician, and a founder of the Organisation armée secrète .Lagaillarde was a lawyer at Blida in Algeria, a reserve officer of the paratroopers, and an elected deputy of Algiers...
Commanding officers
- General Raoul SalanRaoul SalanRaoul Albin Louis Salan was a French Army general and the fourth French commanding general during the First Indochina War. Salan was one of four generals who organized the 1961 Algiers Putsch operation and then founded the Organisation de l'armée secrète....
- aka Soleil ("Sun" surname for Louis XIV of FranceLouis XIV of FranceLouis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
) - Chief of Staff
- General Paul Gardy
- Chief of Staff
- Colonel Yves GodardYves Godard (French officer)Yves Godard was a French Army officer who fought in World War II, First Indochina War and Algerian War. A graduate of Saint-Cyr and Chasseur Alpin, he served as a ski instructor in Poland during 1939, but after World War II begun he returned to France...
- Colonel Yves Godard
- Chief Aide
- Doctor Jean-Claude Perez
- ORO Director
- Captain Jean-Marie Curutchet
- ORO Director, replacing Dr. Perez on 1 January 1962
- Colonel Jean Gardes
- ODM Director
- Jean-Jacques SusiniJean-Jacques SusiniJean-Jacques Susini is a political figure and cofounder of the Organisation de l'armée secrète , a far-right organization opposing Algerian independence from France.-Life:...
- Jean-Jacques Susini
- APP Director
See also
- Alfredo AstizAlfredo AstizAlfredo Ignacio Astiz was a Commander, intelligence office and maritime commando in the Argentine Navy during the dictatorial rule of Jorge Rafael Videla in the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional...
- Cité catholiqueCité catholiqueThe Cité Catholique is a Traditionalist Catholic organisation created in 1946 by Jean Ousset, originally a follower of Charles Maurras and Jean Masson , not to be confused with Jacques Desoubrie, who also used the pseudonym Jean Masson...
, a Catholic fundamentalist group which included OAS members and had an important role in teaching counter-insurgencyCounter-insurgencyA counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency involves actions taken by the recognized government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it...
doctrines to the Argentine Armed Forces - Yves Guérin-Sérac, one of the founder of the OAS
- Albert SpaggiariAlbert SpaggiariAlbert Spaggiari , nicknamed Bert, was a French criminal chiefly known as the organizer of a break-in into a Société Générale bank in Nice, France in 1976.-Earlier life:...
, who would later work with the PinochetAugusto PinochetAugusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
's DINA, was an OAS member. - Jean-Marie Le PenJean-Marie Le PenJean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...
, current head of the National Front (FN), was Tixier-VignancourJean-Louis Tixier-VignancourJean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour was a lawyer and French nationalist politician. He was a candidate in the 1965 French presidential election when his campaign manager was Jean-Marie Le Pen. He won 1,260,208 votes, which was 5.2% of the total, giving him fourth place after De Gaulle, Mitterrand and...
's campaign director in 1965 - Roger HoleindreRoger HoleindreRoger Holeindre is a French politician, vice-president of the National Front far-right party. He is a representant of the “national-conservative” tendency, opposed to the “nationalist revolutionaries”...
, former OAS activist and current vice-president of the FN - Jacques BompardJacques BompardJacques Bompard is a French politician. Bompard is the mayor of Orange, elected in June 1995 and reelected in 2001 and 2008. He was originally a member of the Front National , but left the party in 2005. He joined the Mouvement pour la France later the same year...
, former OAS supporter, member of the FN since its 1972 creation, and member since December 2005 of Philippe de VilliersPhilippe de VilliersViscount Philippe Le Jolis de Villiers de Saintignon, known as Philippe de Villiers, born on 25 March 1949, is a French politician. He was the Mouvement pour la France nominee for the French presidential election of 2007. He received 2.23% of the vote, putting him in sixth place. As only the top...
' Movement for FranceMovement for FranceThe Movement for France , abbreviated to MPF, is a French conservative and eurosceptic political party, founded on 20 November 1994, with a marked regional stronghold in the Vendée. It is led by Philippe de Villiers, once communications minister under Jacques Chirac.The party is considered...
(MPF) - Enrico MatteiEnrico MatteiEnrico Mattei was an Italian public administrator. After World War II he was given the task of dismantling the Italian Petroleum Agency Agip, a state enterprise established by the Fascist regime. Instead Mattei enlarged and reorganized it into the National Fuel Trust Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi...
, head of the Italian EniEniEni S.p.A. is an Italian multinational oil and gas company, present in 70 countries, and currently Italy's largest industrial company with a market capitalization of 87.7 billion euros , as of July 24, 2008...
oil company and supporter of Algerian independence was threatened by the OAS. He died in an airplane accident in October 1962. - Jacques MesrineJacques MesrineJacques Mesrine was the most famous criminal in modern French history. He was responsible for numerous bank robberies, burglaries, and kidnappings in France and Canada. Mesrine repeatedly escaped from prison and made international headlines during a final period as a fugitive when his exploits...
- Jean-Pierre Maïone-LibaudeJean-Pierre Maïone-LibaudeJean-Pierre Maïone-Libaude was a French veteran of the Algerian War , former member of the OAS' Delta commando, a nationalist terrorist group. He then became the informant of police officer Lucien Aimé-Blanc, former vice chief of staff of the Antigang brigade and of the Narcotics brigade...
, former member of the OAS Delta commando who allegedly assassinated Pierre GoldmanPierre GoldmanPierre Goldman, was a French left-wing intellectual who was convicted of several robberies and mysteriously assassinated. It has been suspected that the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación death squad was involved in his murder...
in 1979 on behalf of the Grupos Antiterroristas de LiberaciónGrupos Antiterroristas de LiberaciónGrupos Antiterroristas de Liberación were death squads established illegally by officials of the Spanish government to fight ETA, the principal Basque separatist militant group. They were active from 1983 until 1987, under Spanish Socialist Workers Party -led governments...
(GAL) and may also have killed Henri CurielHenri CurielHenri Curiel was a left-wing political activist. Born in Egypt, Curiel led the communist Democratic Movement for National Liberation until he was expelled from the country in 1950. Settling in France, Curiel aided the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale and other national liberation causes...
in 1978 (Curiel took part in the Jeanson networkJeanson networkThe Jeanson network was a group of French communist militants led by Francis Jeanson who helped Algerian National Liberation Front agents operating in the French metropolitan territory during the Algerian War. They were mainly involved in carrying money and papers for the Algerians and were...
which supported the FLNFront de Libération NationaleFront de Libération Nationale may refer to:* National Liberation Front , a socialist political party founded in 1954 for independence from France for Algeria...
) - Jean Pierre CheridJean Pierre CheridJean-Pierre Cherid was a far right French activist and later mercenary of Moroccan descent. A former French paratrooper, he first became a member of the Organisation de l'armée secrète during the Algerian War .Afterwards, Cherid appeared in Spain in 1976...
, OAS member who then took a central part in the organization of the Spanish GAL - Front Algérie FrançaiseFront Algérie FrançaiseThe Front de l'Algérie Française was a political and militant movement in favour of French Algeria, created in 1960 in Algiers...
An earlier extremist group
Further reading
- Aussaresses, General Paul. The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria, 1955–1957. (New York: Enigma Books, 2010) ISBN 978-1-929631-30-8.
- Harrison, Alexander. Challenging De Gaulle: The O.A.S and the Counter-Revolution in Algeria, 1954-1962. New York: Praeger, 1989 .
- Horne, AlistairAlistair HorneSir Alistair Allan Horne is a British historian of modern France. He is the son of Sir James Horne and Lady Auriol Horne ....
, A Savage War of Peace:Algeria 1954–1962, New York: New York Review Books, 1977 - Robin, Marie-MoniqueMarie-Monique RobinMarie-Monique Robin is an award-winning French journalist. She received the Albert Londres Prize in 1995 for Voleurs d'yeux, an expose about organ theft...
, Escadrons de la mort, l'école française,La Découverte (15 September 2004). Collection: Cahiers libres. (ISBN 2707141631) (transl. in Spanish)(Presentation)