Raoul Salan

Raoul Salan (1961)

Raoul Salan (born June 10, 1899 in Roquecourbe , Département Tarn ; † July 3, 1984 in Paris ) was a French army officer, most recently with the rank of Général d'armée .

From 1952 to 1953 he was commander-in-chief of the French troops in the Indochina War , from 1956 to 1958 he was in command of the French troops in the Algerian war . There he used the so-called French doctrine (arrest, systematic torture, illegal killing and "disappearance" of suspected insurgents).

He was a leader of the Putsch d'Alger on May 13, 1958, which led to the end of the Fourth Republic. After retiring from active military service, he was one of the founders of the right-wing extremist terrorist group Organization de l'armée secrète and took part in the (failed) putsch des généraux on April 21, 1961. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1962, but pardoned in 1968.

soldier

First World War

Raoul Albin Louis Salan came from Roquecourbe in the Tarn department. After attending school, he was admitted to the Saint-Cyr Military Academy on August 2, 1917 . He was transferred to the colonial infantry on August 14, 1918 and took part in the fighting near Verdun in the last weeks of the war . After the armistice, he was part of the French occupation forces in western Germany until May 1919 . After returning to Saint-Cyr, he became a sous-lieutenant on September 21st . On December 3, 1919, he went back to Germany and served in a Moroccan regiment in Landau .

Interwar period

With the 17th regiment of the Tirailleurs sénégalais (RTS) he was then transferred to the Mandate Syria on the border with Turkey . On September 11, 1921, he was promoted to lieutenant . On October 21, 1921, he was seriously wounded in a battle. He was still in the hospital in Aleppo when he was made Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French High Commissioner . After hospital stays in Toulon and Val-de-Grâce in Paris, he was transferred to Indochina on January 2, 1924 at his own request . With a few brief interruptions, he continued his career in Indochina until his return to France on April 8, 1937.

From September 1, 1937 he worked for the Enlightenment in the Colonial Ministry in Paris. Salan married on March 14, 1939 and the family had three children.

Second World War

After the outbreak of war he was sent on a secret mission to Cairo and then to Khartoum to help the Ethiopian resistance against Italy , which was not yet at war with France. In November 1939 he returned to Paris and in January 1940 became chief de bataillon in a colonial infantry regiment . During the Battle of France in May and June 1940, his battalion was involved in the fighting on the Somme . Salan received other awards during this time.

On July 16, 1940, he was transferred to the Colonial Ministry of the Vichy government , on June 25, 1941, he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel , before he was transferred to French West Africa on September 24, 1941 . He reached Dakar via Algiers in March 1942 .

He switched sides and joined the Forces françaises libres . He became a Colonel on June 25, 1943 . The next station was Corsica in May 1944 , where he was given command of a regiment of the 9e division d'infanterie coloniale (9th Colonial Infantry Division) and met General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny . In August 1944 he took part in the landing in southern France and was involved in heavy fighting for Toulon . The further course of the war led Salan to Alsace in the autumn and winter of 1944 , and on December 25, 1944, he became general de brigade and commander of the division. Other awards followed, including being appointed commander of the Legion of Honor . The first meeting with Charles de Gaulle took place in Mulhouse on February 10, 1945 . Salan experienced the end of the war in Donaueschingen .

Indochina War

In October 1945 he returned to Indochina after an eight-year absence . In early 1946 he took part in the negotiations with the Chinese in Chongqing , in which it was a question of their withdrawal from Indochina. In Hanoi he got to know Ho Chi Minh on February 8, 1946 and was involved in the negotiations between France and the Việt Minh in Dalat in April and May 1946.

Admiral Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu appointed him as Ho Chi Minh's companion at the Fontainebleau Conference . After the war broke out openly in December 1946, he took command of the French troops in northern Indochina on May 25, 1947 . On September 1, 1947, he became General de division . In October 1947, he led Operation Lea , which nearly captured Ho Chi Minh.

In the following years he was involved in numerous missions in Tongking under Commander-in-Chief Jean de Lattre de Tassigny . On August 1, 1951, he became Commissioner for South Vietnam in Saigon , a month later he received his fourth star as Général de corps d'armée and on August 28, 1952 the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. In May 1953 he left Indochina again and became General Inspector of the Army for metropolitan France.

After the fall of Điện Biên Phủ , he accompanied Chief of Staff Paul Ély to Indochina, who took over the supreme command there. In October 1954 he finally said goodbye to Indochina.

Algerian war

He spent the next two years in high military posts in Paris until he took command of the Algiers region on November 12, 1956 . On December 1, 1956, he was Général d'armée . The Algerian war was now in full swing, and on January 16, 1957, Salan survived a bazooka attack by French extremists in Algiers . His adjutant at the time, military attaché Michel Houet, warned him in good time of the attack. The leader of the group, René Kovacs, accused the later long-time minister and prime minister Michel Debré of being behind the attack, but was unable to provide any evidence.

During the riots in Algiers in May 1958 , the outgoing Prime Minister Félix Gaillard commissioned him to restore order. When the fourth republic collapsed , he and General Jacques Massu supported Charles de Gaulle's takeover. He was recalled from Algeria and on December 19, 1958, Inspector General of the French Army. With the abolition of this office in early 1959, he received the honorable, but now rather meaningless, post of military governor of Paris .

On June 10, 1960, General Salan resigned from active service, two days earlier a private family meal with President de Gaulle had taken place. He moved to Algiers at the end of July. During a visit to Paris in September, Defense Minister Pierre Messmer prohibited him from returning to Algiers. At a press conference at the end of October, Salan reaffirmed his commitment to a French Algeria. Shortly afterwards he went into exile in Spain .

OAS

He joined the Organization de l'armée secrète (OAS), returned to Algiers and tried de Gaulle's policy with Generals Maurice Challe , Edmond Jouhaud and André Zeller through the putsch des généraux on April 21, 1961, which is now recognizable the independence of Algeria came to an end. Salan himself arrived from Spain on April 23rd. The endeavor of the four, called "un quarteron" (quartet) by de Gaulle, quickly failed and Salan went underground. During this time he made the front cover of American Time magazine on January 26, 1962 . Salan escalated violence in Algeria and, in February 1962, ordered French gendarmes to be shot. De Gaulle himself and also the Minister of Culture André Malraux survived the attacks by the OAS.

jail

On April 20, 1962 Salan was arrested in Algiers, he and Edmond Jouhaud now called on the supporters of the OAS to stop the fight. In the trial before the High Military Tribunal, Salan was defended by Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour . On May 23, 1962, the court found him guilty of meeting and participating in gang-style attacks against the security of the state in order to eradicate constitutional order. It carried the death penalty, but Salan was only sentenced to life imprisonment . He was pardoned on June 15, 1968 by de Gaulle and released from prison.

Last years

Between 1970 and 1974 Salan published his autobiography about the period between 1918 and 1960, and another book in 1975 - this time about Indochina. Through an amnesty by the National Assembly , he regained his rights as a general and as a bearer of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. He died on July 3, 1984 after a brief illness in the Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris and was buried in Vichy .

Fonts (selection)

• Indochine rouge. Le message d'Hồ Chi Minh . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1975.
• Mémoires. Fin d'un empire . Presses de la Cité, Paris 1970

1. Le sens d'un engagement. juin 1899 - semptembre 1946 .
2. Le Viêt-Minh, mon anniversaire. octobre 1946 - octobre 1954 .
3. Algérie française. November 1, 1954 - June 6, 1958 .
4. L'Algérie, de Gaulle et moi. 7. juin 1958 - 10. juin 1960 .

• Lettres de prison . Table Ronde, Paris 1969.

literature

• Paul Aussaresses: The battle of the Casbah. Terrorism and counter-terrorism in Algeria . Enigma Books, New York 2002, ISBN 1-929631-12-X .
• Philippe Castille (Author), Bob Maloubier (Arr.): Bazooka . Filipacchi, Paris 1988, ISBN 2-85018-504-3 .
• André Figueras: Salan, Raoul. Ex-général ... (L'ordre du jour). Table Ronde, Paris 1965.
• André Figueras: Raoul Salan. Général, rebelle (Documents pour l'histoire). Éditions Déterna, Coulommiers 2008, ISBN 978-2-913044-73-9 .
• Maurice Garçon (Ed.): Le procès de Raoul Salan. Comte rendu sténographique (Les grands procès contemporains). Michel, Paris 1962.
• Dominique Salan: Raoul Salan. Le destin d'un homme simple . Atlantica, Anglet 2003, ISBN 2-84394-616-6 .
• Jacques Valette: Salan, délégué général en Algérie. La fin de l'illusion . L'Esprit du Livre, Sceaux 2010, ISBN 978-2-915960-78-5 .
• Jacques Valette: Salan contre le Viêt-Minh . L'Esprit du Livre, Sceaux 2011, ISBN 978-2-915960-94-5 .

Web links

• Association of Friends of Salans (French)