French North Africa in World War II

After the German victory over France in June 1940, Algeria , Tunisia and Morocco initially belonged to Vichy France . After Operation Torch , the Allies took over military power in these countries, but left civil administration in French hands. The German occupation of all of France on November 11, 1942 (" Company Anton ") exacerbated the situation that two French camps faced each other in North Africa. They negotiated with each other under Allied pressure.

initial situation

After the Armistice of Compiègne on June 22, 1940, metropolitan France and the French territories in Africa were politically and militarily subordinate to the Vichy regime under Marshal Philippe Pétain . He collaborated with Hitler and, with the support of the extreme French right, installed the “ État français ”, in which the French left and the trade unions were persecuted, democracy was abolished, the press censored and, among other things, racial laws based on the model of the Nuremberg Laws were applied.

By contrast was Charles de Gaulle . From his exile in London, Radio London propagated the continuation of the French armed resistance against the German occupation on the side of the Allies with the “ Appeal of June 18 ” .

Changed military situation since 1942

After the Allies landed in French North Africa ( Operation Torch ) on November 8, 1942, members of the Resistance supported the Allies. In French literature, this support is known as the November 8, 1942 coup . After the victory of the Allied forces, they expected the exchange of the people discredited by collaboration and, within the context of the war, the restoration of democratic freedoms (e.g. freedom of the press, abolition of discrimination against Jews, liberation of imprisoned supporters of the Resistance).

Instead, the commander-in-chief of the Vichy armed forces, Admiral François Darlan , who happened to be present and who could only be persuaded to cease fire after the death and wounding of many Allies and French soldiers, was appointed ruler of French North Africa liberated by the Allies. After his death he was followed by General Henri Giraud . In an interview , US President Franklin D. Roosevelt described this situation, in which the Vichy regime in North Africa under the protection of the Allies continued for a few months and in which de Gaulle was prevented from gaining real power over French territory .

American Intelligence Service, Vichy Army and Resistance

Robert Murphy , a diplomat from the US State Department and political head of operations for the newly established COI , had toured French North Africa during the phase of American neutrality , negotiated a trade agreement with General Maxime Weygand as French commander-in-chief in North Africa and thus the dispatch of twelve as Vice consuls allow cloaked agents. Reports from local informants about economic and military events reached Murphy through this network.

When Colonel William Alfred Eddy then took over responsibility for intelligence , sabotage and resistance in Tangier under his disguise as a naval attaché, a conspiratorial radio network was set up along the North African coast in the first half of 1942 , which kept the Allies informed of all important changes . With the resurgent influence of Pierre Laval , however, Murphy's contacts with the Vichy-French military and civil administration were threatened.

In order not to weaken this colonial administration any further, Murphy refrained from informing the well-organized Resistance with around 15,000 Europeans, including many demobilized soldiers, about the imminent Allied landing. Against a conceivable German advance through Spanish Morocco , the COI succeeded in recruiting a guerrilla group from among the Berber tribes of the Rif Mountains. An Islamic brotherhood served as an information network. Murphy and Eddy owed their involvement of the COI in Operation Torch not least to these successes. In a memorandum , Murphy made himself the spokesman for the Vichy-French generals, whose cooperation he saw guaranteed in an American intervention if it was to be under French command. He interpreted their hitherto unclear attitude as an expression of military weakness towards the Wehrmacht .

The continuation of the Vichy regime under Darlan

Refusal of the Vichy generals to cease firing in Oran and Morocco

Admiral François Darlan (1881–1942), after all the number three of the Vichy regime after Pétain and Laval, and General Alphonse Juin , the commander of the Vichy-loyal army in North Africa, were initially promoted by young French patriots of the Resistance, mostly members of the Chantiers de la Jeunesse captured under the leadership of Colonel Van Hecke, but freed a little later by the regime-loyal Guard Mobile . So they were able to take over their old positions during the Allied landing after a short time. Without meeting any resistance, the Allies trapped Algiers , which surrendered that evening.

However, Darlan and Juin refused for three days to order the cessation of fire for the rest of French North Africa, where the Vichy Army fought a bloody battle with the Allies with heavy material losses. After General Henri Giraud's arrival on November 9, 1942 in the wake of the Allies, Darlan feared he would be replaced by Giraud. Until November 10th - the day of the German occupation of the previously unoccupied southern zone ( Operation Anton ) - he did not surrender and was also not ready to sign an armistice for North Africa. Not least because of 50 fallen Allied Marines, the American General Mark W. Clark put massive pressure on Darlan. But for Darlan, " Pétain's deep thoughts " were still decisive for his resistance to the Allied attack, which he had received in a secret telegram from Vichy before the start of Operation Torch.

In Tunisia , the chief of the Vichy Army, General Barré, was asked by General Juin to hand over power to a handful of Germans and Italians and to exercise persistent resistance against the Allies. It was not until November 12 that the French Africa Corps joined the Allies against the Axis powers in North Africa.

Ultimately, the armistice came into force on November 10th in Oran and on November 11th in Morocco , which saved the lives of the patriotic French officers who were revolting on the side of the Allies (General Antoine Béthouart , Magan and others) in Meknes . Thereupon Giraud Darlan placed the command of the French land and air forces in North Africa.

Vichy regime in Africa under American protectorate

In his order to cease fire of November 10th, Darlan stated: “ I take command of French North Africa on behalf of the Marshal. The military commanders remain in command and the civilian politicians and administrators remain in their posts. There will be no change until I receive new orders . "

On November 11, 1942, Vichy, the provisional capital of the previously unoccupied southern zone of France, was taken by the Wehrmacht without a fight. In French North Africa, now liberated by the Allies, Darlan made use of the constitutional acts that declared him to be Marshal Pétain's successor in the fourth chapter in the event of his death. On November 14, 1942, Darlan proclaimed himself " in the name of the absent marshal " as the " High Commissioner of France in Africa ". He declared General Bergeret , a former Pétain minister, to be his deputy and deputy high commissioner. On November 15, he nominated "secretaries" (German ministers), including two résistants of the extreme right and a banker, Rigault, as Minister of the Interior, Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil (1894–1955) for relations with the Americans and pose as Minister of Finance. Shortly thereafter, Darlan recruited Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie as police chief, who was supported by Father Cordier as Secretary of State in the Ministry of the Interior, in the hope of being able to bind them both to himself. His high commissioner was completed by a "Conseil Impérial" (dt. Reichsrat), to which Darlan himself, Bergeret and Giraud and additionally some different pro-consuls, General Charles Noguès for Morocco, Châtel for Algeria and two days later Boisson for French West Africa belonged . On November 13, Darlan unsuccessfully ordered the rest of the Vichy French fleet to join him. The next day, French West Africa came under his control.

Darlan signed the "Darlan-Clark" agreement reached with General Clark at Cherchell. It offered fewer advantages for France than the " accord des Checkers " of August 7, 1940 , signed by de Gaulle with Churchill . a. the following provisions:

• Art. 2: All regrouping of the French armed forces must be approved by the American military commanders.
• Art. 11: The arrested persons who helped the Allies during the invasion must be released.
• Art. 14: No direct or indirect taxes are owed to the Allied Forces.
• Art. 15: Extraterritoriality of citizens and armed forces under the command of the General Commander of the US Army.
• Art. 16: The regions in French North Africa that were regarded as important could be declared military regions by the Allied commander and placed under his command.
• The exchange rate to the US dollar was set at 43.80 FF.

The mobilization was proclaimed on the grounds that “ around the Marshal [d. H. Pétain] to liberate ".

Without any German pressure, Vichy's discrimination laws continued to be applied. The political prisoners deported by the Vichy regime continued to be incarcerated in concentration camps in southern Algeria. The officers who joined the Resistance on November 8th, Colonels Jousse, Baril and Magnan, as well as Generals Monsabert , Béthouart and Charles Mast, had since been removed from their command and placed under house arrest . By a circular from Giraud of November 15, 1942, Jews were excluded from combat units. This happened to the disadvantage of the French Army of Africa. Jews were mobilized for pioneer units, used for terracing work or, for example, as volunteers for shock troops .

Opposition to Darlan

De Gaulle was excluded from Operation Torch , but on November 8th published an appeal for French North Africa to join the war on the side of the Allies. After the successful landing, General de Gaulle officially announced on November 16 that he himself and the French National Committee in London would not take part in the Allied negotiations with Darlan. Ignoring Darlan, de Gaulle shortly afterwards dispatched General François d'Astier de la Vigerie to contact Algiers. The Mouvements Unis de Résistance (MUR) condemned the policy of compromise between the Allies and the collaborator Darlan.

In their articles, the Allied war correspondents criticized the Allies' establishment of a Vichy regime in French North Africa. They were joined by great editorialists such as Walter Lippmann and Dorothy Thompson , who sparked public criticism of the policies of Roosevelt and Murphys based on Vichy generals. Churchill also had to justify himself to the House of Commons in Great Britain . President Roosevelt, who tried to minimize the external implications, defended his policy as militarily expedient. The reporter René Gosset apostrophized it as a " temporary way out ". General Dwight D. Eisenhower defended the resulting constellation as an emergency solution that arose under the pressure of military constraints.

The November 8 volunteers opposed the Clark-Darlan agreements and opposed the Admiral's regime. Some banded together and received weapons from young British officers who were indignant about the deal with Darlan. Their group was led by Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie. On November 11, 1942, the French Africa Corps was formed, mostly with November 8 volunteers. The first meetings of the Corps found at the home of Professor Henri Aboulker , a disabled veteran of the First World War held in the Rue Michelet 26 in Algiers. Meetings were also held at 7 rue Charras, thanks to the candidate Pauphilet, who had temporarily arrested Juin and Darlan. The members of the French Africa Corps spent their nights decorating the walls of Algiers with graffiti , the most moderate of which was called " the admiral to the fleet ". However, other slogans aimed at more radical solutions.

The group Combat René Capitant, several of them on November 8 participants (Duboucher, Morali, Colonel Tubert etc.), emerged from the underground and published their magazine "Combat" in which they their Gaullism explained. Likewise, the youth organization of Combat spread Gaullist propaganda in schools and on the walls of the city. Another semi-secret publication, " Le Canard ", also contradicted Darlan's Allied confirmation.

The communists, who had previously refused to attend on November 8, have now joined the opposition. They demanded the liberation of their members, who were interned under inhumane conditions in Algiers and in the camps in the south, among them their later General Secretary Waldeck Émile Rochet .

The Jewish community also called for the abolition of discrimination laws and the inclusion of Jewish soldiers in combat units, like other French people. Henri Aboulker addressed a letter to Darlan demanding the repeal of Hitler-inspired laws and the right for all Jewish soldiers to go to the front like other French.

The successor to Darlan

In general, Darlan's withdrawal was expected to allow rapprochement between the two French sides. The fact that Darlan's well-known collaboration went unpunished could only discourage the resistance movements in all of the Nazi-occupied countries. Even the local Vichysten held him against changing sides. Apart from a few personalities and Vichy officers from French North Africa who saw him as their ideological connection to Pétain, the majority wanted Darlan's removal.

Finally, four armed men from the French Africa Corps drew the 20-year-old patriot Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle to shoot the admiral on December 24, 1942. Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie called in Father Cordier, who gave Bonnier absolution in advance . He broke into the Summer Palace, shot Darlan and was immediately arrested. The members of the Conseil Impérial were looking for a successor for Darlan. Their preferences were for Noguès, but the Allied commanders let them know that only Giraud would have their support. De Gaulle's most important French rival among the Americans, General Giraud, was appointed High Commissioner by the Vichy-loyal proconsuls on December 26, 1942 and to the favor of the former Pétain minister General Bergeret . He assumed the curious title of " highest civil and military chief ".

The execution of Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelles

After Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle was hastily interrogated, he was sentenced to death the following day in 1942. As army chief and member of the Conseil Impérial, Giraud did not advocate a pardon for de La Chapelle, nor did he seek commutation. The execution of La Chapelles took place in a hurry. Posthumously, he was rehabilitated : In the appeal on the Court of Appeals in Algiers was judged on 21 December 1945 that the motive effective " in the interests of the liberation of France had been lying."

Since the liberation of Algiers there has been a proposal that Darlan should resign in order to form a unified, democratic government in which de Gaulle was assured political leadership and Giraud military leadership. The election of Giraud put an end to the hopes of the Orléanist French pretender to the throne , the Count of Paris , whom Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie had sent to Algiers and who had relied on a unified government of the Gaullist and Giraudist currents. Giraud, who was known as a monarchist , as well as the Vichy proconsuls, hoped to support Giraud-de Gaulle's collaboration. But after Darlan's death, Giraud referred to himself as a " Giraudist ". According to one version, de La Chapelles was encouraged by Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie and Father Cordier to murder Darlan in order to clear the way for a successor. According to another version, he received the order from General François d'Astier de la Vigerie (Henri's brother), de Gaulle's envoy.

After Darlan's death

Giraud ordered a partial investigation into the assassination attempt on Admiral Darlan. With Bonnier's hasty execution he had stolen the most important witness from the investigators. The military judges Laroubine and Voituriez were ready to lead their investigations in the direction Giraud and Bergeret wanted. To the annoyance of Giraud, Voituriez requested precise instructions on this according to his own statements . At no time did they take into account the fact that Darlan, while signing the 1941 Paris Accords, had said that he had surrendered the Aleppo military base in Syria and that the Iraqi forces allied with the Axis powers were armed and in violation of the provisions of Article 75 of the Criminal Code at that time with ammunition . For this reason too, Bonnier's act can be rated as legitimate on a larger scale. Bergeret and the other Vichy loyalists in the vicinity of Giraud sought revenge, to take revenge on the chiefs of the Resistance who prevented them from shooting their allies on November 8, 1942 and wanted to put de Gaulle in their place.

De facto, a mass arrest of the Resistants was arranged on December 30th by Bergeret and Rigault, supported by Vichy-loyal commanders Jules Defrance , de Beaufort and de la Tour du Pin.

The Gardes mobiles appeared in the apartments of the most important résistants. The first thing they did was arrest at 26 rue Michelet, Professor José Aboulker , who led the November 8 coup in Algiers, his aide-de-camp, Bernard Karsenty and Henri Aboulker. The French NCOs brutally threatened the professor's grandsons, Yves and Philippe Danan (13 and nine years old) with their automatic weapons. Her father Sam Danan protested by shouting: “ But these are children! “Whereupon the little ones could continue their game. The Gardes mobiles also arrested Pierre and Armand Alexandre , Raphaël Aboulker , René Moatti , Henri Capitant and Doctor Fernand Morali, and the patriotic police officers Achiary, Bringard and Muscatelli. The former resistance chiefs of Oran, René Capitant and Roger Carcassonne , managed to hide.

After the Gardes mobiles had withdrawn, Aboulker's daughter and son-in-law went to the Hôtel de Cornouailles that night , where they alerted the American and British war correspondents and various Allied officers. Robert Murphy, who knew some of those arrested personally, who owed his importance to the OSS and knew that they had risked their lives on November 8th to prevent the Vichy supporters from shooting at his country's soldiers, declined to intervene on the pretext that it is " an internal French matter ". The resists were moved to a place near Laghouat . At a press conference on December 31, 1942, Giraud justified the arrests with an alleged plot against himself. On January 10, 1943, Henri d'Astier was arrested on the orders of Rigault. It was clear that this arrest, like that of the other heads of the Resistance, was based on the fact that Bonnier had had breakfast with d'Astier on the morning of the attack. But one detail was not mentioned: that Darlan's collaboration activities and his impunity had been discussed as a patriotic motive for the attack.

Giraud strictly adhered to the discriminatory measures of the Vichy regime and did everything possible to maintain the legitimacy of his government from the " absent marshal ".

When a circular from the Vichy-loyal diplomat Tarbé de Saint-Hardouin , secretary in the foreign ministry, addressed to all diplomatic posts that the justification offered by Darlan had taken power by virtue of constitutional act No. 4, took over and concluded that Giraud would be his successor the admiral was qualified, Giraud's legitimacy was to run the Empire " in the name of the absent marshal ".

In order not to change anything, Giraud used the slogan “ a single purpose, victory ” in his apocryphal speech of November 8, 1942, which was announced at this point by Radio Algiers by one of the resists, while he himself carried out the results in Gibraltar without any personal risk Waiting for Operation Torch. On the grounds of subordinating everything to the war effort, he wanted to justify his decision not to repeal the Vichy order and, in particular, not to affect Pétain's laws inspired by Hitler. He wanted to uphold the discriminatory laws that kept French Jews out of the fighting units. He left the internees of the Vichy regime in the concentration camps in the south.

Allied pressure to merge

The complications of the coexistence of two French authorities were beyond what the Allied commanders expected. They put pressure on them to unite. Roosevelt and Churchill decided to meet in Morocco ( Casablanca Conference 1943 ), where they also espoused Giraud and de Gaulle. The disagreements between the two generals could only be stated there.

Since Darlan's death, de Gaulle had suggested that Giraud discuss the merger under certain conditions. That is why de Gaulle saw Giraud's duty to answer him. Conversely, because of his higher rank, Giraud saw de Gaulle as having a military duty to submit to his orders. The US government preferred Giraud not only because of his docility and his higher rank, but also because Roosevelt was biased against de Gaulle on the basis of allegations made by some French in the USA, including Alexis Léger or Jean Monnet and the diplomats William D. Leahy and Robert Murphy was. They hoped de Gaulle would eventually pull out. De Gaulle was ready to negotiate on an equal footing on the condition of forming a government that would freely restore the laws of the republic with the Allies, free the interned resists and remove dignitaries loyal to the Vichy from their positions of power.

Roosevelt and Churchill viewed with suspicion de Gaulle's demand for an independent French government. But since they were preaching a crusade against the totalitarian powers, they had to make concessions to de Gaulle's demands for democracy. The pressure of war correspondents and the Allied press on public opinion in Great Britain and the USA and the continued existence of the Vichy regime in the hinterland of the Tunisian front obliged the Allied commanders to ultimately urge Giraud to democratize.

Forced and incomplete democratization

The liberation of the chiefs of the November 8, 1942 coup took place after the Casablanca Conference . Giraud's adjutants tried to prevent or delay the liberation of political prisoners from the camps in southern Algeria, even claiming “ the housing shortage in Algiers ”. The Allies sent Jean Monnet to Giraud as political advisor, who was highly valued by Roosevelt for his economic competence and his organizational skills. He understood that the continuation of the dictatorial regime and the concentration camps of the Vichy regime under Allied responsibility was no longer possible. Monnet persuaded Giraud to partially restore the democratic institutions under his orders of March 18, 1943. However, he could not curb its pathological anti-Semitism . The Crémieux decree , which guaranteed the Jews of Algeria their French citizenship, was suspended; Likewise, the Jews were denied the right to serve in the fighting units. Bergeret, a former minister at Pétain and Rigault, who had arrested the heads of the Resistance in December 1942, resigned as the highest civilian and military chief . Lemaigre-Dubreuil also resigned. At the same time, mutual representation of the two French authorities was established through the exchange of two missions: that of General Catroux in Algiers and that of General Bouscat in London.

General de Gaulle's growing prestige

By placing part of Giraud's troops under de Gaulle, General de Gaulle's prestige increased. The fighting in Tunisia came to an end in April / May. The French Free Forces under the orders of Marie-Pierre Kœnig and Leclerc , initially called in to open the Mareth Line of the 8th Army, advanced north and took part in the triumphal march of liberation in Tunis. At this point in the fighting in Tunisia, around half of the French Africa Corps switched to the side of the Free French Armed Forces. This model was followed by countless soldiers from Giraud's army who no longer wanted to serve the officers who had shot at the Allies in November 1942 and who had seriously preached to them about the “ liberation of the marshal ”. The front vacationers of the Lorraine Cross now came to Algiers. Everyone wore different French uniforms . While the Combat movement welcomed young Algerian volunteers to their command post “ at de Gaulle ”, they put on the uniforms that the holidaymakers had worn as an alternative and returned to Tunisia on covered trucks as the Free French Armed Forces. At the same time, about 300 Marines of the Richelieu requested after their arrival in New York to join the Free French Navy, while various merchant ships, including the Ville d'Oran and the Eridan , declared their connection to the warring France after their arrival in Allied ports. This military plebiscite was declared a " desertion " by the Vichy-loyal authorities in Algiers , because those who left wanted to continue the fight voluntarily, but under a more secure hierarchy. This movement, too, condemned by the Allies, leads to doubts about the reliability of Giraud, just as it was registered that there was no “desertion” in the other direction.

In order to underline the political unity of his France libre committee in London with the resistance of the Résistance interieur in occupied France, de Gaulle replaced the name Free France with Fighting France . At a secret meeting of the Conseil National de la Résistance CNR in the French capital Paris, convened by Jean Moulin , de Gaulle received political confirmation: The CNR declared in its first meeting on May 15, 1943: “ The people of France never recognize subordination from General de Gaulle under General Giraud, but calls for the rapid establishment of a provisional government under the presidency of General de Gaulle, General Giraud becomes military chief ... "

Negotiations between de Gaulle and Giraud

De Gaulle pushed for a meeting in Algiers, which Giraud accepted on May 17; de Gaulle accepted his invitation on May 25th and reached Algiers on May 30th. De Gaulle ended up in Boufarik. The discretion imposed by Giraud on the coming of de Gaulle failed, because when de Gaulle went to the Monument of the Fallen in the center of Algiers, he was welcomed by an impressive demonstration by René Capitant and Roger Carcassonne, ex-head of the Resistance in Oran organized undercover. The very next day de Gaulle began the negotiations with the demand for a “real government” and the disappearance of the proconsuls; he received the same evening without the knowledge of Giraud the resignation of Marcel Peyrouton (1887-1983), the former minister of Pétain and spiritual father of the bad Nazi laws of the " État français ", who had shortly before been appointed governor general of Algeria by Giraud was. Giraud responded on June 2 by appointing two of de Gaulle's personal enemies in key positions, Admiral Émile Muselier and André Labarthe . After Pierre Billotte (Colonel of the Free French Armed Forces) learned that Muselier had requested two regiments to Algiers on the pretext that de Gaulle was planning a coup there , he managed to meet de Gaulle at night with the commanders of these two regiments. For his part, Noguès resigned from his position as General Resident in Morocco on June 2nd.

Comité français de la Liberation nationale

Under these conditions, a French government was finally constituted on June 3rd under the name Comité Français de la Liberation Nationale (CFLN). Her two co-presidents were Giraud and de Gaulle. Two Gaullist commissioners ( André Philip for interior and René Massigli for exterior) took part, as well as two Giraudist commissioners (Jean Monnet for armaments and General Alphonse Georges as state commissioner). This committee was completed by General Catroux, who was in charge of the coordination, of whom a bad word said that he was neither for de Gaulle nor for Giraud, but for Catroux .

Replacement of the territorial chiefs

After renewed negotiations, de Gaulle finally reached a compromise, replacing all territorial chiefs: in Morocco General Gabriel Puaux was appointed General Resident , in Algeria General Georges Catroux was appointed Governor General. At the head of the Levant territories stood Jean Helleu and in Tunisia General Charles Mast . The replacement of Boisson in French West Africa was agreed but initially postponed.

De Gaulle, who had initially come to Algiers with uncertain prospects, was at their head after a few months despite an enemy army command and administration, despite all Anglo-American pressure. He had achieved this through the support of representatives of the Resistance, the political parties and the metropolitan trade unions , who a few months later legitimized his authority on the ground in the consultative assembly.

See also

• Commission d'Épuration - review of collaborators (mostly) after the liberation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schulz, Gerhard (Ed.), Secret Services and Resistance Movements in World War II, Göttingen, 1982, ISBN 3-525-01327-2 , pp. 84ff.
2. ↑ Schulz, Gerhard (Ed.), Secret Services and Resistance Movements in World War II, Göttingen, 1982, ISBN 3-525-01327-2 , p. 87.

literature

Reports

• René Pierre Gosset: Expédients provisoires , Paris, Fasquelle, 1945.
• Melvin K. Whiteleather (war correspondent): Main street's new neigbors , Chapt. 11, African episode extraordinary, JB Lippincot, Philadelphie & New York, 1945.

Scientific works

• Professeur Yves Maxime Danan: La vie politique à Alger de 1940 à 1944 , Paris, LGDJ, 1963.
• Henri Michel: Darlan , Hachette, Paris, 1993.
• Romain Durand: De Giraud à de Gaulle: Les Corps francs d'Afrique , L'Harmattan, Paris, 1999.
• Christine Levisse-Touzet: L'Afrique du Nord dans la guerre, 1939–1945, Paris, Albin Michel, 1998.
• Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac : La France Libre , Paris, Gallimard, 1997.
• Jacques Cantier: L'Algérie sous le régime de Vichy , Paris, Odile Jacob, 2002.
• José Aboulker and Christine Levisse-Touzet: «November 8th 1942: les armées américaine et anglaise prennent Alger en quinze heures», Paris, Espoir, n ° 133, 2002.

Memoirs of the main protagonists

• Général de Gaulle: Mémoires de Guerre , 2 vol., 1- L'appel et 2- L'unité, Le Livre de Poche , Paris, 1999.
• Général Giraud: Un seul but: la victoire, Alger 1942–1944 , Paris, Julliard, 1949.