Putsch of the Generals

Voir also Putsch of Algiers (homonymy), for the other putsch which was held in Algiers .

The putsch of the Generals of the April 23rd 1961, also called putsch of Algiers , is a missed attempt at Coup d'etat, fomented by part of the military careers of the French Army in Algérie, and led by four generals (Maurice Challe, Edmond Jouhaud, Raoul Salan and André Zeller). They started this operation when they learned that the government negotiated in secrecy the Indépendance of the Algérie with FLN. The general Raoul Salan was called upon by the putschists, but, if this one did not disapprove such a method, it therefore had not been informed of the preparations by the plotters.

Context

The January 8th 1961, by a Referendum organized in metropolis, the French had decided in majority in favor of the self-determination of the Algérie. At this point in time secret negotiations had been open between the French government and the Provisional government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) related to the Front of national release. Part of the executives of the armed , which had carried out seven years of hard combat under the direction of several governments since the beginning of the Guerre of Algeria, felt betrayed by the Parisian capacity, the general de Gaulle, and wanted to be opposed thus to the projects of independence of the Algérie. The capacity gaullist was well informed by the judicial police of Algiers and the intelligence services of the intentions of certain soldiers. January 25th, colonel Antoine Argoud had even discussed with Michel Debré to ask for a policy change, or else “a junta of colonels” would reverse the government to maintain Algeria like French territory. A possibility of coup d'etat is then in all the spirits in particular in spring 1961.

Unfolding

Friday, April 21

April 21st, the generals reprocesses of it Raoul Salan, André Zeller, Maurice Challe and Edmond Jouhaud, assisted by the colonels Antoine Argoud, Jean Gardes, like Joseph Ortiz and Jean-Jacques Susini, takes the control of Algiers. Challe there then criticizes the “ treason and the lies ” of the government towards the Algerians who trusted him, and announces that:

the command holds its rights to extend its action to the metropolis and to reconstitute an constitutional order and republican seriously compromised by a government whose illegality bursts with the eyes of the nation.

In the night, the 1st foreign regiment parachutists (REFERENCE MARK) under the orders of the commander Hélie Denoix of Saint-Marc seizes in three hours the strategic points Algiers, in particular of the general Gouvernement, the town hall and the airport. The chances of success are however mean, because the first REFERENCE MARK represents only thousand men, that is to say hardly 0,3% of French military manpower present in Algeria. The blow is not sufficiently prepared to rejoin other the civil regiments, or civils servant (police, prefectoral administration).

The prefect of police of Paris, Maurice Papon, and the director of the National security, assemble an crisis cell in a living room of the Comédie-Française, where the de Gaulle general witnesses a presentation of Britannicus . The Head of the State is informed during the interval by Jacques Foccart, general secretary with the African and Malagasy Businesses, his nearer collaborator.

Saturday, April 22

The population of Algiers is awaked, at 7 o'clock in the morning, by a message read with the radio: the army took the control of Algeria and the Sahara . The three rebellious generals, Maurice Shawl, Edmond Jouhaud, and Andre Zeller, in agreement with the colonels Godart, Argoud and Lacheroy, make stop the acting general of the government, Jean Morin, the Minister for transport, Robert Buron, which were on a journey, and a certain number of civil authorities and military. Some regiments are put under the orders of the generals.

In Paris, the police force stops in the morning the general Jacques Faure, six other officers and some civilians. At the time of the the Council of Ministers at 5 p.m., de Gaulle, serene, declares What is serious in this business, Sirs, it is that it is not serious . The state of emergency is issued in Algérie. The parties of left, the Trade unions and the League of the human rights, invite to express opposition of the workers and the democrats to the takeover by force of Algiers .

Towards 19:00, Challe is expressed with the radio of Algiers:

I am in Algiers with the generals Zeller and Jouhaud, and in connection with the Salan general to hold our oath, the oath of the army to keep Algeria so that our deaths died for nothing. A government of abandonment […] be today on the point of definitively delivering Algeria to the organization external of the rebellion. […] The army will not fail in its mission and the orders that I will give you will not never have other goals.

Sunday, April 23

Salan arrives of Spain. Shawl, insulated more and more, refuses to arm the civil activists.

At 8 p.m., the president Charles de Gaulle, vêtu of his old uniform of general, appears on television, and makes a speech calling the soldiers of Algeria, the French, of Algeria or metropolis, to refuse the Coup d'etat; he also informs of measurements that he takes:

an insurrectionary capacity was established in Algeria by a military Pronunciamiento . This capacity has an appearance: a quarter of generals in retirement. It has a reality: a group of officers, partisans, ambitious and fanatic. This group and this quarter have an expeditious and limited know-how. But they do not see and include/understand the Nation and the world only deformed through their frenzy. Their company leads straight to a national disaster. Here the ridiculed State, the defied Nation, our shaken power, our lowered international prestige, our place and our role in compromised Africa. And by which? Alas! alas! alas! by men of which it was the duty, the honor, the raison d'être to be used and as obéir.
In the name of France, I order that all the means, I say all the means, are employed to bar everywhere the road with these men, while waiting to reduce them. I prohibit with any French and, initially, with any soldier, to carry out any of their kinds.
Devant the misfortune which planes on the fatherland and the threat which weighs on the Republic, having taken the official opinion of the Constitutional council, the Prime Minister, the president of the Senate, the president of the National Assembly, I decided to blame article 16 of our Constitution. Starting from aujourd' today, I will take, with the need directly, measurements who will appear required to me by the circonstances.
Françaises, French! Help - me!

In accordance with article 16 of the constitution, the general de Gaulle seizes full powerss then.

Five hundred and thousand strapping men provided with transistors , as the general de Gaulle in connection with the quota will say, heard its call to legitimate disobedience, and of many called refused to carry out the orders of the rebellious officers.

With 0:45, the Prime Minister Michel Debré appears on television and invites the population to go on the airports with foot, with horse or in car , as soon as the sirens resound , for to convince the misled committed soldiers of their heavy error and to push back the putschists: one indeed expected parachutings or landings of factious troops on the airports. But the instruction launched by Debré in its panic would have been likely, if it had been followed, to encumber the ways leading to the aerodromes, and to more obstruct the response of the police force that the parachutists factieux.
Volunteers, old of Free France and young gaullists of Left (UDT), gathered as of Monday morning in Paris, at the Petit Palais, to support de Gaulle militarily, but, contrary to a legend, it does not seem that weapons were distributed to them. As for the trade unions they decided for the following day a one hour general strike which was strongly followed.

According to the journalist Pierre Abramovici and the politist Gabriel Périès in their book Great Handling , the putschists did not have the means of sending parachutists to Paris, because the transport aircraft of troop were too very few and incompetents to transport vehicles. The government knew this weakness, but, of another with dimensions, absolute loyalty of the executives of active of metropolis was not sure.

Tuesday, April 25

The generals putschists are made acclaim last once.

Wednesday, April 26

Gradually, the troops having followed the generals go. The insurrectionists withdraw themselves with the parachutists with Zéralda to 30 km of Algiers. The commander Denoix of Saint-Marc, who had the first follow-up the generals, constitutes himself captive. The general Challe goes to the authorities (it is transferred at once in metropolis). The putsch failed, but article 16 remains in force for five months to avoid all new rising.

Lawsuit and amnesties

A military tribunal condemns Challe and André Zeller to 15 years of reclusion. They are amnestied and reinstated in their military dignities 5 years later. Salan and Jouhaud flees, before being condemned the first to the capital punishment by Contumace (commuted then to detention with perpetuity) and the second, who was pied-noir, with the capital punishment by Contumace. The keen partisans of the French Algérie enter the clandestine action with the secret armed Organization (OAS). Salan and Jouhaud takes of it the head with Jean-Jacques Susini. The penal judgments are erased by the law of amnesty of July 1968.

The generals still alive putschists are reinstated in the army (body of reserve) in November 1982, by a law of amnesty. It is of Raoul Salan and Edmond Jouhaud, like six generals having played of the less important roles:

Pierre-Marie Religious bigot, 73 years, old ordering air area of Algiers, released in 1965
Jacques Faure, 77 years, representative of the putschists with Paris, released in 1966
Marie-Michel Gouraud, 77 years, ordering the Army corps of Constantine, released in 1965
Gustave Mentré, 73 years, which will not make a prison
Jean-Louis Nicot, 71 years, major general of the Air force, which had not wanted to organize the protection of the metropolis against a possible airborne operation of the putschists, released in 1965.
Andre Petit, 72 years, which had accepted the military command of Algiers, and had been released in 1964.

Remarks

the expression quarter of generals was raised like unsuitable, in what it does reference to the number four, whereas quarter indicates originally a quarter of one hundred is 25. Nevertheless the word can be employed with the direction of small group.
With foot, horse and in the car refers to a filmed comedy of 1957, with Christmas-Christmas, Darry Cowl and Sophie Daumier, which had been very popular in France. The formulation of Michel Debré, had thus, involuntarily or not covered a facetious side, with an aim of perhaps showing that the generals " did not impress pas" the government.

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