BOOK REVIEW: Irwin M. Wall. Les États-Unis et la guerre d’Algérie, préface de Georges-Henri Soutou, traduit de l’anglais par Philippe-Étienne Raviart.

Irwin M. Wall. Les États-Unis et la guerre d’Algérie, préface de Georges-Henri Soutou, traduit de l’anglais par Philippe-Étienne Raviart.

464 pp. €29. Paris: Éditions Soleb, October 2006. ISBN: 978-2952372619.

 

Reviewed by Kim Munholland, University of Minnesota, Emeritus Published by H-Diplo on 10 January 2008

 

Originally published in 2001 by the University of California Press as France, the United States, and the Algerian War, Irwin Wall’s book was immediately hailed as an important, revisionist account of the war by placing what the French preferred to consider an internal matter into an international context with emphasis upon the crucial relationship between France and the United States. Previous accounts had dealt with the war’s impact on French society, producing a domestic political crisis that ended the Fourth Republic and brought Charles de Gaulle to power. While this national drama and its memory continues to inspire a number of important studies that focus upon the way the war has shaped contemporary French identity, the internationalization of the war was innovative and marked a new dimension to the conflict seen in other contemporary studies that emphasized the significance of the Algerian war for international history.1 In a military sense the French Army had won the battle but they lost the war, due to pressure from the international community, the United Nations, and persistent demands from the United States. Wall argues that American policy was more important than a growing domestic disillusion with the war or protests by intellectuals against the use of torture in convincing de Gaulle to abandon the effort to retain l’Algérie française, but he did so at the cost of his own objectives at the time of his coming to power.

 

Wall began his research intending to follow up his earlier study, The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945-1954. While the sequel under review confirmed his earlier argument about the significance of American influence in shaping postwar France, his research in the archives caused him to revise certain assumptions or hypotheses that he had developed about the way in which the Fourth Republic collapsed as a result of a colonial war and the way de Gaulle’s return would skillfully guide France out of its imbroglio in Algeria.

Evidence from the American and recently published French documents challenged these hypotheses.

 

French documents revealed the extent to which the Algerian conflict dominated French diplomacy from 1954 to 1962, dwarfing all other concerns including the formation of NATO and security in Europe. The Algerian conflict and the French view that Nasser’s support for the FLN was a major obstacle to the French attempt to pacify Algeria led to French engagement in the Suez crisis, which severely tested the recently created NATO alliance. A second issue had to do with the domestic problems and political rivalries that paralyzed the Fourth Republic and prevented it from resolving the Algerian war despite the military success during the 1957 battle of Algiers. As a result the Americans lost interest in preserving the Fourth Republic and actually favored the return of de Gaulle to power, despite the difficult wartime relationship with de Gaulle.

 

Perhaps the most important of Wall’s revisionist positions was a rethinking of de Gaulle’s policy, particularly during his first two years in office from 1958 to 1960. Until his excursion into American archives and French documents Wall shared the view of Gaullists, who argued that his adroit maneuvers saved France a second time by ending the Algerian conflict, which he intended to do from the moment he came to power, despite the uprising of military officers and colons who had made his return possible and were determined to hold onto Algeria whatever the costs. Many of us, this reviewer included, explained de Gaulle in admiring terms for the way he moved gradually from the Delphic ambiguities of his “Je vous ai compris” speech in Algiers shortly after taking power that was followed by greater concessions leading to his granting independence four years later—to the fury of certain generals and the European settlers, who then tried to assassinate him. Wall argues that de Gaulle was not misleading the crowd in Algiers that day.

He agreed with its message of keeping Algeria French. In taking this position, Irwin Wall challenged a generation of Gaullist scholarship that portrays the General in a prescient, heroic mode. In Wall’s account de Gaulle was forced to change his policy once the Americans refused to buy into his grand designs for France in the postwar world.

 

The reason for de Gaulle’s commitment to a French Algeria, or at least an Algeria closely tied to metropolitan France, was that Algeria was the key to a pan-African and Mediterranean role for France in a world of international politics. As part of this grand design de Gaulle would use France’s African presence to claim a stronger role in the councils of the Anglo-Saxon world, particularly his desire to have France the third partner in a triumvirate within NATO but obviously looking beyond that horizon as well. The Algerian Sahara provided the testing ground for development of nuclear weapons, a program begun under the Fourth Republic. Recent oil discoveries made the Sahara doubly appealing for French military and economic interests. De Gaulle’s Algerian policy, then, represented a continuation of the Fourth Republic’s, not a break at least until 1960. To sustain French Algeria de Gaulle, no less than the Fourth Republic, relied upon American military and economic aid, but the price of this assistance was American pressure upon de Gaulle to begin a liberalization of French policies in Algeria. Instead, de Gaulle allowed the French Army the free hand it wanted to continue its counter-revolutionary war, employing the methods of torture, roundups, resettlement of Muslim populations, and crackdowns upon dissidents and anti-war protesters in France and Algeria.

 

In his last years in office Eisenhower tried to ease de Gaulle away from preserving Algeria at any cost, and he showed some sympathy for de Gaulle’s desire to speak on equal terms with his Anglo-Saxon partners.

But both Kennedy, who was far more determined to see France get out of Algeria, and Eisenhower refused to give de Gaulle any cooperation in the development of nuclear weapons. When de Gaulle realized that he could expect no aid from the United States, only exhortations to relent on Algeria, he decided that he would have to grant Algeria its independence, but then he would pursue a policy of French independence laced with a good dose of anti-Americanism. From the ruins of his grand designs de Gaulle would fashion a course that would lead France out of NATO’s military command in 1966, thus getting some revenge on the Americans who believed that the Algerian war was draining French ability to strengthen NATO in Europe. Wall does not go very far, however, beyond

1962 and the granting of independence on terms that fell far short of what de Gaulle hoped to achieve, leading to tragedy for all concerned: a flight of Europeans from Algiers and a bitter hostility toward France among Algerians. De Gaulle pulled out of Algeria not because of a military defeat—the FLN was reduced to some 15,000 guerilla fighters still in the field—but as a result of international pressures from the United States and international opinion that had turned against France as early as the 1958 Sakiet episode. Although Wall does not make this a central argument, the FLN successfully played its hand in the public relations war that it fought in parallel with the anti-colonial struggle on the ground.

 

These revisionist points were made in the English version and widely recognized in several reviews in Anglo-American literature. What did the French make of all this? Getting Anglo-American scholarship on France translated into French has been something of a challenge, particularly for those of Irwin Wall’s generation, which was initially under the influence of mentors who argued that American scholars did not have the opportunity that French historians had in gaining access to original, archival sources and therefore could not contribute to basic research on French history. Beginning in the 1960s the separate spheres of French and Anglo-American scholarship began to break down. Transatlantic travel became cheaper and support for research for historians improved.

Scholarly exchanges grew, and American works on France reached an interested audience among French scholars. These exchanges were valuable in many fields, but particularly for International relations as Americans combed French archives and French scholars came to America.

Still, translation into French or into English for French scholars remained limited. Irwin Wall has been among those American historians of France who have had an influence as a result of translations of his work. His L’influence Américaine sur la politique française 1945-1954 (also translated by Philippe-Étienne Ravieart) appeared before the English version, The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945-1954. It took Wall longer to get the French translation of his book on the Algerian War, evidence of the publishing industry’s reluctance to invest in translations of topics that they consider to have limited audience appeal, but at least the author was successful, thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of a young publishing company, Éditions Soleb..

 

The translation is an elegant job that remains faithful to the original.

However, in the interim between the American and French version a number of events have intervened, notably the emergence of a more critical literature on de Gaulle2 and, of course, the war in Iraq, which produced a crisis in French-American relations. For the French edition Irwin Wall has added a postscript “Fifty Years Later” that discusses French-American differences in light of the Iraq war and French opposition to a precipitous American invasion, which several commentators on both sides of the Atlantic have seen to be a deep and perhaps fatal crisis for the relationship. Wall brings some perspective to this argument by noting that despite an alliance in two world wars, the relationship has always been difficult, and the blowup over Iraq in 2003 was not appreciably worse than, say, relations at the end of the Fourth Republic when American disgust with the instability of the regime was matched by French anti-Americanism and resentment. At this point Wall states that relations could hardly have become worse. (111)

 

The comparison between the Algerian and Iraq wars reveals both parallels and divergences. Both could be considered occupations of Muslim lands that produced violent reactions against Western forces. Both occupying forces had recourse to torture to defeat terrorism but without success in ending resistance to the occupations. Chirac, as de Gaulle before him with Vietnam, tried to warn the Americans by citing the French experience. Bush and his advisors were aware of the French experiences but drew the wrong lessons. The differences are also instructive and reveal the ways in which international politics has changed during the past fifty years. In Algeria the French had the support of the Europeans, who constituted one-tenth of a population of some nine million inhabitants and an army of elite troops plus draftees totaling over 500,000 troops. The American invasion force never surpassed 160,000, plus British support and troops sent by the ‘coalition of the willing’ to maintain security in a population of 25 million Iraqis.

There were no colons to support the American-led invasion. The French argued that they were preserving a colony, which they insisted was part of France, whereas the Americans were invading a sovereign state.

 

The Algerian war came in the midst of the Cold War when the French were still dependent upon an American nuclear umbrella. In addition, the Americans financed eighty percent of the French war in Algeria with supplies and equipment that otherwise might have been used to strengthen NATO. By the time of Iraq the bipolar world was gone for over a decade with the emergence of American military dominance and American actions that became increasingly unipolar and indifferent to international opinion. Chirac noted with some regret that ‘l’Amérique du Papa’ was gone. In many ways the French and American roles were reversed, at least from the time of the Suez crisis in which Eisenhower opposed the Suez venture in favor of multilateralism at the UN and an appeal to a respect for the rule of international law to force the Israeli, British and French troops to withdraw. At Suez the French were fighting Arab nationalism and Nasser’s support for the FLN. The French wanted regime change in the ways that the Americans, among other less plausible arguments, were seeking to topple Saddam Hussein. In Suez the Americans won their point at the UN and stopped France and Great Britain. In the buildup to the Iraq war France tried but failed to deter the United States even with the support of Germany, Russia and China. France’s position was that war should only be a last resort, not a preventive strike, and like Eisenhower in 1956 Chirac mobilized international opinion against the United States. Nevertheless the American plunge into Iraq went forward, revealing the contours of the new rules of international behavior as defined in Washington.

 

How, then, did the French respond to the critique of de Gaulle and, in the post face, the contrasts in roles played by the United States and France in the Algerian conflict and in the Iraq war? The answer is that Les États-Unis et la guerre d’Algerie has caught their attention at least in the revisionism on de Gaulle’s role in ending the conflict and his subsequent decision to regain French independence and room to oppose the United States. Among the reviews of Irwin Wall’s book in French was a favorable notice by Éric Roussel in Le Figaro that appreciated the contribution of Wall’s revisionism and his willingness to challenge orthodox opinion, whether on Algeria or Iraq. American and French scholars have discovered that when it comes to bilateral relations or international history, they have much to offer each other, whether or not statesmen are prepared to pay attention to what they have to say.

 

 

Author’s Response by Irwin Wall, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Riverside and Visiting Scholar, NYU Published by H-Diplo on 10 January 2008

 

There is little an author can do, other than say thank you, when a reviewer summarizes his work with admirable clarity and accepts for the most part its conclusions, however controversial. And so in these few words I will neither nitpick with Kim Munholland’s wonderful job nor blow my own horn any further than he has done. He did raise the issue of the reception of the book in France, however, and that raises some interesting additional questions that I thought H-Diplo readers might find of interest. The book was reviewed extremely favorably here and in England when it came out in 2001, with most scholars accepting its conclusions. Ditto for Matt Connelly’s book, A Diplomatic Revolution, which came out a year later, and took a similar view of de Gaulle. The dissenters in my case were Stanley Hoffmann, in Foreign Affairs, not surprising, since I questioned his view of de Gaulle as consummate political artist, rather depicting him as a stubborn pursuer of failed policies, and Richard Vinen in the TLS, who thought I had little new to say, or rather that I said what he knew all the time. The most enthusiastic favorable reviewer was the H-Diplo reviewer then, Bill Irvine, and I invite readers to check his review out along with that of Kim Munholland.3

 

I did not expect the same reception in France, where I was taking on some strongly-held beliefs and where the de Gaulle reverence has assumed the status of a national myth. Indeed, I had a foretaste: H-France gave the book to Romain Souillac of the University of Bordeaux, and he took me to task for over-emphasizing the importance the American attitude toward the war in France, and neglecting the strong evidence that indicates that de Gaulle intended all along to emancipate Algeria from French rule. In short Souillac ably defended the existing

historiography.4 In a review of the American edition in the Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, Anne-Marie Duranton-Crabol also complimented my scholarship, and then argued similarly that de Gaulle intended to leave Algeria. I expected more of the same therefore from the appearance of the French edition. When the French edition came out I held my breath, and I read with great pleasure the review of Eric Roussel, which Munholland mentions, in Le Figaro Littéraire. Roussel was willing to admit that I had perhaps made my case based on the archival materials thus far; but he thought that not everything was in the archives. Hopefully more will one day be uncovered, especially when the General’s papers see the light of day, but it is hard for me to imagine that something other than what appears in French diplomatic documents with regard to Algeria will emerge; but until then I think my argument can stand. There was also a mention of my book by Jean Daniel, in an editorial in Le Nouvel Observateur, but he did not address Algeria, rather my postscript on Iraq, finding there confirmation of evolving opposition to the American war there by American opinion (hardly representative, alas, in my case). But for the rest of the French media, which generously reviewed my earlier book, The United States and the Making of Postwar France in its French version, there has been stony silence. Not for lack of my publishers trying; we hosted a luncheon for the major publications, and most of them did send reporters to hear what I had to say. They seem to have been unimpressed, by me and by the book.

I get two explanations from French colleagues: that the Gaullist myth is so widely believed that contrary views are rejected out of hand as unworthy of notice, and that worse, the major press, in crisis, no longer devotes as much space as before to reviewing academic books. Even the Communist newspaper L’Humanité, which enthusiastically reviewed my earlier book, ignored this one; I was told by someone highly placed that the Gaullist myth holds sway even there.

 

In fact the sole favorable review of the book in French (and the very best one) is not a review; it is the introduction to the French edition by Georges-Henri Soutou. On the other hand there was a very lengthy diatribe in an obscure publication the politics of which I find it hard to discern: De Defensa, which is published in Belgium. The reviewer, whom I assume was the editor, accuses me of being a spokesman for the American system which I objectify into the incarnation of virtue and use as a yardstick to browbeat the unruly French colonialists who failed to live up to Washington’s expectations. In fact I am the inventor of a new kind of history, partisan “Americanist” history and values objectified, “le parti-pris objectif ou l’objectivation partisan,” which I take to mean the imposition of American—indeed pro-American government—standards and views upon the world. The same reviewer dismisses my comparison of the Iraq and Algeria wars and the contrasting roles France and the United States as unworthy of notice, although I make it perfectly clear that I identify with the French policy during the Iraq war, not the American. I can only express my astonishment; being an apologist for American imperialism is the last thing of which I ever thought anyone would accuse me, but I did write a book in which Eisenhower, during a crisis over decolonization, despite his limitations, comes off better than de Gaulle.

 

I await the academic reviews in France which will take more time. In the meantime the lesson I take from all this is that the Franco-American divide, in diplomacy and in Weltanschauung, exists as well in scholarship, at least with regard to de Gaulle.

 

 

Copyright © 2007 by H-Diplo, all rights reserved. H-Diplo and H-Net permit the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, H-Diplo, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the H-Diplo Editors at h-diplo@h-net.msu.edu.

 

Commissioned for H-Diplo by Diane Labrosse

 

Notes

 

1 Martin Thomas, The French North African Crisis: Colonial Breakdown and Anglo-French Relations, 1945-1962 (New York: Palgrave, 2001); Mathew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); and an important volume of essays edited by Martin Alexander and J.F.V. Keiger, France and the Algerian War, 1954-1962 (London: Frank Cass, 2002).

 

2 See, for example, Éric Roussel, Charles de Gaulle (Paris, Gallimard, 2002).

 

3 William D. Irvine. “Review of Irwin M. Wall, France, the United States and the Algerian War,” H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews, May, 2002.

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=211021023296606 .

 

4 Romain Souillac. “Review of Irwin M. Wall, France, the United States and the Algerian War,” H-France Review Vol. 2 (March 2002), No. 30.

http://www.h-france.net/vol2reviews/souillac.html .

BRITISH COLONIZATION OF KENYA

Eastern Africa was home to a variety of populations, primarily Cushites and Niloites from the north and Bantus from the south. Local culture and language came from the blending of these populations, which had little contact with the outside world until around 500 C.E. with the arrival of the Arabs, who began colonization and trade, linking local products with markets farther east. They also began trading in slaves. On a more positive note, the blend of the local language and Arabic ultimately emerged as Swahili, which became the dominant language of eastern Africa. Successful trading brought other countries to the area, with the Persians establishing in the fourteenth century what became the modern city of Mombasa. Chinese and Malaysian ships are also known to have docked in regional ports.

European interest in the area began with the Portuguese arrival on 7 April 1498. They sailed into Mombasa briefly, but were driven off by the Arabs who forced them further east. Seeing the ready-made harbors and markets, however, the Portuguese returned in force and began laying siege to the coastal cities. It took almost a century for the Portuguese to establish themselves, since local resistance was fierce, especially in Mombasa, which was besieged three times before finally being conquered in 1588. The Portuguese, however, ruled little other than the coastline and had a minimal impact on the interior except for the introduction of some new crops. Almost immediately upon seizing control, however, Portugal was challenged by the Ottoman Empire. After some intense fighting and widespread destruction in Mombasa, the Portuguese built a fortress, Fort Jesus. It was the bulwark of Portuguese resistance for more than a century, but ultimately the Sultan of Oman drove the Portuguese out in 1698. The Omanis ruled the region from their home in Muscat until the early 1800s, when the British and French began taking an interest in the region.

After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, however, the British began to spread their dominion over the western Indian Ocean. The Sultan of Oman, Seyyid Said, allied with the British against the French and used that relationship to tighten his grip on eastern Africa. Local forces led by the Mazrui clan launched a rebellion against the Omani and appealed to the British for aid. They refused until 1824, when a Royal Navy captain decided (without authorization) to support the Mazruis in order to establish a British foothold. The London government ultimately withdrew their support, but the Mazrui clan was strengthened by the temporary assistance. Seyyid Said decided to relocate his sultanate to Zanzibar around 1840, from where he began to establish diplomatic ties with most European countries. After his death in 1856, however, a dispute between his heirs ended in a division of the realm, half to Zanzibar and half to Muscat; Zanzibar kept control over the region that came to be called Kenya.

British interest in the region grew over the next several decades owing to the establishment of a number of Christian missions and the explorations into the interior by notables such as David Livingstone, Richard Stanley, and Richard Burton, discoverer of the source of the Nile. Joseph Thomson, representing the Royal Geographic Society, also explored and mapped the interior in the 1880s, just as European powers were beginning the “scramble for Africa.” When German businessmen began staking out spheres of influence in eastern Africa, British merchants were not far behind. William McKinnon began the British East Africa Association in 1887, which gained royal support the following year and became the British East Africa Company. The group wedged itself between the Germans to the south in German East Africa (later Tanganyika, modern Tanzania) and the Italians to the north in Somalia. This was not only to curb the ambitions of other European powers, but also to gain land for a proposed Cape-to-Cairo railroad project of which the imperialists in the British government had long dreamed.

Further, the British were developing a serious interest in Uganda, and Kenya was a necessary possession to secure that colony and to provide an outlet for Ugandan exports to the coast. The British government declared Uganda a protectorate in 1894 and did the same for British East Africa the following year. Soon, work started on a railroad from the interior, across the Great Rift Valley, through swampland to Africa’s eastern coast. It was immediately known as the Lunatic Express. “The works progressed quickly, at the expense of the lives of many workers who died from malaria, dysentery, scurvy, cholera, ulcers, and typhus. Tsetse flies decimated the pack animals and camps were always [subject] to raids and attacks from the local tribes. Besides, the workers had to face a danger that became legendary: the man-eating lions of Tsavo” (Kenyalogy). In 1902, the line running from Mombasa to Lake Victoria was completed after seven years of work.

British colonization was slow, but those who emigrated established themselves strongly under the leadership of the largest landowner, Lord Delamere. In 1905, protectorate status was upgraded to that of colony, with a population of about 3,000 whites by 1912. The city which ultimately became the capital, Nairobi, was established in that time period and the English settlers took over lands along the frontier of the two largest local populations, the Masai and the Kikuyu. They soon bought a large portion of land from the Masai, who moved farther south, but the main trouble the settlers faced was a lack of labor for the large farming estates they were founding. The Kikuyu became the targets of exploitation, in a process of forced labor in lieu of taxes. The Kikuyu soon rebelled, but were brutally suppressed by the Third Regiment of the King’s African Rifles, a unit established to protect the settlers. This force was all that was available when war broke out in 1914 in Europe; it was too small to face the German forces in German East Africa to the south. British and South African operations in German East Africa kept the forces under General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in that colony, although they were unable to suppress his guerrilla operations until war’s end. After 1918, Germany lost all its colonies and Britain was in sole possession of East Africa. London’s encouragement of settlement in the area took the white population up to 10,000.

In 1920, British East Africa officially became Kenya and the current borders were established. During the postwar era, white rule over Kenya kept the Kikuyu in a subservient and increasingly poverty-stricken condition. Resistance movements began, the first in 1922 under Harry Thuku, leader of the Young Kikuyu. His arrest brought about the first major violence between Kikuyu and whites. Also in this decade came the emergence of the future Kenyan leader Johnstone Kamau Wa Ngengi, better known as Jomo Kenyatta. Political movements sprang up as well, and between the world wars, Kikuyu nationalism grew. When Kenyans were recruited to aid Britain in World War II, they not only saw the vulnerability of the whites but also gained a sense of self-worth, much as occurred in the United States with black troops fighting in the Civil War. During World War II, in 1944, the first black Kenyan was allowed into the government after decades of participation by Arab and Asian citizens.

 

In the wake of the war, and with the emergence of the Cold War, Britain realized both the strategic necessity of Kenya and the need to promote progress so it could maintain order. As is the nature of reforms, however, they did not appear quickly enough for those awaiting them. Kikuyu activists split into two major groups. The more politically motivated joined the Kenyan African Union (KAU) under Jomo Kenyatta. The Kikuyu Central Association, originally dedicated to civil disobedience, later merged with a failed trade union movement and a secret group of veterans called Forty Group, later known as the Mau Mau. When the British started a local constabulary manned by Kikuyus, the violence which ensued (the Mau Mau Rebellion) was as much or more an internal Kikuyu struggle as it was a rebellion or race war.

In the wake of major strikes in 1950, the white administration engaged in mass arrests and a major show of military force. The less radical KAU called for a greater number of black representatives in the government, but when that was rejected in 1951, they called for independence. Also in that year a radical Central Committee seized control of the resistance movement in Nairobi and began enforcing ritual oath-taking to mold a tightly knit organization. It was from these oaths, sometimes involving animal sacrifice, that the Mau Mau began to gain its horrific reputation among whites. Kenyatta at times spoke out against the Mau Mau, but in the end was suspected by both Mau Mau and the British of collaborating with the other side. In 1953, rumors of an uprising were rife and the newly arrived governor, Sir Evelyn Baring, declared a state of emergency.

What happened in Kenya from 1953 to 1956 was widespread intimidation and depredation by both white and black. The Mau Mau, numbering probably 15,000 guerrillas, operated out of the mountains and forests, attacking farms and killing some white farmers but mostly their black laborers. For many Kikuyu, their choice was forced membership in the local Mau Mau group, or death. The London government, hearing gruesome tales of Mau Mau atrocities, sent in an increasing number of security forces. Some 5,500 guerrillas in the mountains were captured in Operation Hammer in early 1954. A sweep of eastern Nairobi soon afterward, Operation Anvil, cleaned out most of the rebels in the city. In standard counter-guerrilla strategy, possible supporters of the Mau Mau were rounded up and held in camps, often in deplorable conditions. Recently declassified documents give details of a massive torture campaign by the authorities. The British employed not only the King’s African Rifles, but also the Home Guard and (late in the campaign) groups who were little more than gangs of thugs.

The final casualty count in the Mau Mau uprising was indeed large. “Only 32 European settlers died in the subsequent fighting, but more than 1,800 African civilians, over 3,000 African police and soldiers, and 12,000 Mau Mau rebels were killed. Between 1953 and 1956 Britain sent over a thousand Kenyans to the gallows, often on trumped up or nonexistent charges. Meanwhile 70,000 people were imprisoned in camps without trial for between two and six years.” (Anderson lecture). Although it was an overwhelming military victory for the British, the final result was the implementation of the reforms that Kenyatta had called for in 1951. With land reform instituted and restrictions on coffee growing relaxed, Kikuyu landowners found themselves rising in economic status. By 1960, the British administration allowed full suffrage and majority rule. In 1963, free elections established a majority black government which received independence from Britain. Kenya’s first elected leader was Jomo Kenyatta, who had spent almost 10 years in prison.

In 2003, a reparations commission was created in London to deal with claims presented by the victims of British activities during the rebellion.

Pancho Villa

(June 5, 1878–July 20, 1923)

 

Mexican Guerrilla (Revolutionary)

 

For a decade, the colorful but murderous Francisco “Pancho” Villa symbolized the heroic sacrifice as well as brutal excesses of the Mexican Revolution. He is best remembered for staging a daring and bloody raid upon Columbus, New Mexico, and evading a determined pursuit by American forces.

 

Doroteo Arango was born in Hacienda de Rio Grande, San Juan del Rio, in the Mexican state of Durango. The son of field laborers, he matured and worked at a time when most peasants were landless and trapped in a web of grinding poverty. Doroteo eked out a hardscrabble existence after his father died, becoming the head of a large family at the age of 12. Five years later, he killed a man attempting to rape his sister and fled to the mountains of northern Mexico. Restless and angered by privilege, Doroteo joined a bandit gang headed by Ignacio Parra, who specialized in rustling cattle. Once Parra was killed, Doroteo adopted the name Francisco “Pancho” Villa after a legendary bandit and formed his own band. Villa proved clever, successful, and utterly ruthless toward his victims, mostly rich landowners. However, he demonstrated a benevolent streak by sharing his plundered goods with the truly poor and needy. In this manner Villa gained popular, near-legendary status among the peasants of Chihuahua as a modern-day Robin Hood. By 1909, the semiliterate bandit was among Mexico’s most wanted criminals—and a popular figure among Mexico’s downtrodden.

 

 

Villa’s villainous career dramatically changed polarity in 1910, following the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. Many peasants, outraged by the excesses of the aristocratic dictator Porfirio Diaz, rallied behind a new reformer, Francisco Madero. Although high-born, Madero treated his social inferiors with kindness, and he allegedly was the first aristocrat to accord Villa any genuine respect. “This is a rich man who fights for the good of the poor,” he declared. “If all the rich and powerful in Mexico were like him, there would be no suffering.” The former bandit was smitten by such civility and threw his weight behind Madero’s forces. Commencing in 1910, when Villa defeated federal forces at the town of San Andreas, he quickly established himself as one of Mexico’s most capable military leaders. His reputation was solidly confirmed in May 1911, when he scored a smashing victory by capturing Ciudad Juarez on the U.S. border. This calamity forced Diaz to resign from office, and he fled to Europe. Madero then became president, and expectations ran high for much-needed social reforms. Villa, who evinced no interest in politics, then settled down and established a meatpacking plant in Chihuahua.

 

Unfortunately for Mexico, the revolution had gathered momentum and was about to devour its own children. What began as a crusade for social justice degenerated into an internecine struggle between forceful personalities. Villa came out of retirement and agreed to serve the Madero regime, although he was subordinate to Gen. Victoriano Huerta, another headstrong leader. Owing to a clash of personalities, Huerta nearly executed Villa for insubordination in June 1912, when Madero suddenly issued a last-minute reprieve. Villa was then sent to Mexico City and jailed, but he subsequently escaped and made his way to Texas. He smoldered in El Paso for several months, until March 1913, when Huerta usurped the presidency, killing Madero in the process. The loss of his former benefactor enraged the volatile Villa, and he reentered Mexico determined to settle the score. Within months he emerged as the undisputed leader of the anti-Huerta forces in Chihuahua and cleared that state of armed opposition. His army, the Division of the North, was also the best-equipped and best-led of the revolutionary armies. In December 1913, he scored another brilliant victory by capturing Ciudad Juarez a second time and was hailed as the “Centaur of the North.” Having undisputed control of his region, Villa proved himself a man of the people and embarked on social reforms. Foremost among them was the foundation of schools, which the barely literate general saw as the salvation of the poor.

 

Villa scored several more impressive victories, and the Huerta regime was finally overthrown in 1915. But for the next five years, competing factions across the political spectrum fought for control. As Mexico disintegrated into violence and chaos, bloodshed and destruction became rampant and widespread. At length the so-called Constitutionalists under Venustiano Carranza assumed power and claimed control of the entire country. This included regions nominally dominated by Villa, who refused to recognize Carranza and, with southern rebel leader Emiliano Zapata, formed their own faction, the Conventionalists. After much civil strife, the turning point occurred with Gen. Alvaro Obregon soundly defeated Villa at the Battle of Celaya in April 1915 and forced him to retreat to Chihuahua. Thereafter, Villa’s influence declined. Meanwhile, the United States, eager to see the fighting stop before it spilled over the border, also gave diplomatic recognition to Carranza’s regime. To underscore U.S. support, Carranza’s forces were allowed to travel across U.S. territory to Agua Prieta in November 1915, and their presence contributed to the rebel defeat there. Villa, who had previously enjoyed good relations with the Americans, regarded this move as treason. He became determined to stage an international incident that would force President Woodrow Wilson to declare war on Mexico, thereby humiliating Carranza even further. Through this expedient—or so Villa hoped—he could dramatically return to power.

 

At length various groups of Villa men began indiscriminately murdering Americans working in northern Mexico. In January 1916, they stopped a train at Santa Ysabel, Chihuahua, and executed 17 engineers. When this failed to achieve the desired result, on March 9, 1916, Villa led a force of 500 men across the international boundary into the sleeping town of Columbus, New Mexico. The raiders rode down the streets, shooting, looting, and burning. Fortunately, Columbus was garrisoned by 400 troopers of the 13th U.S. Cavalry under Col. Herbert J. Slocum, who after some initial confusion met the attackers head-on. An intense firefight broke out that lasted until dawn, when the Mexicans finally retreated. They left behind 67 bandits’ bodies and 17 dead Americans. Soon after, the Americans mounted a hard-riding pursuit of the invaders, chasing them back over the boundary and into Mexico. By the time the shooting stopped, Villa, who was himself wounded, suffered the loss of 170 soldiers. However, he had achieved his goal.

 

Within days of the Columbus raid, President Wilson authorized a 10,000-man punitive expedition under Gen. John J. Pershing to corner and kill the elusive bandit-general. Strong columns, aided by aerial reconnaissance, set out into the Mexican countryside but received no help from the overwhelmingly unsympathetic populace. Several minor skirmishes erupted, and in one fight Capt. George S. Patton slew several of Villa’s aides, but the general escaped. Carranza also protested this violation of Mexican sovereignty and refused to assist the Americans. After nearly a year of fruitless marching and riding, the Americans withdrew back to their country. The attack on Columbus may have proved tactically disastrous, but it heightened Villa’s near-mythical abilities in the eyes of his countrymen.

 

Villa subsequently conducted several minor forays into the United States and against Constitutionalist forces until 1920, when President Carranza was murdered in office. The new provisional president, Adolfo de la Huerta, then extended an olive branch to the Centaur, and the two men forged a truce. In return the former bandit was given a large ranch and a personal bodyguard in Chihuahua, where he lived peacefully for three years. However, a man of Villa’s disposition had acquired many enemies over the previous decade, and on July 20, 1913, he and several friends were suddenly gunned down near the town of Parral. Thus perished the avenging angel of the Mexican Revolution.

 

Historians conjecture that Villa was murdered at the behest of Obregon, a former general and president, who feared him as a potential rival. This colorful, crude guerrilla—a military leader of real ability—had literally shot his way into the headlines by deeds of great daring and cruelty. Very much a product of his age, he embodied the violence, treachery, and romanticism of the Mexican Revolution and was an inspiration to the poor and powerless. As such, Pancho Villa is still looked upon as a folk hero to Mexicans even to this day.

 

Bibliography

 

Anderson, Mark C. Pancho Villa’s Revolution by Headlines. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000; Eisenhower, John S.D. Intervention! The United States and the Mexican Revolution, 1913–1917. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993; Guzman, Martin L., ed. The Memoirs of Pancho Villa. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965; Hall, Linda B., and Don M. Coerver. Revolution on the Border: The United States and Mexico, 1910–1920. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988; Hurst, James W. The Villista Prisoners of 1916–1917. Las Cruces, NM: Yucca Tree Press, 2000; Katz, Friedrich. The Life and Times of Pancho Villa. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998; Machado, Manuel. Centaur of the North: Francisco Villa, the Mexican Revolution, and Northern Mexico. Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1988; McLynn, Frank. Villa and Zapata: A Biography of the Mexican Revolution. London: Jonathan Cape, 2000; O’Brien, Steven. Pancho Villa. New York: Chelsea House, 1994; Stout, Joseph A. Border Conflict: Villistas, Carrancistas, and the Punitive Expeditionary Force, 1915–1920. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1999.