Maurice Challe

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Maurice Challe (5 September 1905 - 18 January 1979) was a French general during the Algerian War, one of four generals who took part in the Algiers putsch. General Maurice Challe was a brilliant French airforce general whose greatest military success was in the realm of counter-insurgency operations during the French-Algerian conflict of 1954-1962. His offensive, begun in March of 1959 and also known as the Challe Plan succeeded in substantially weakening the F.L.N. (Front de Libération Nationale) in Algeria. Through the use of speed and concentration of force, Challe kept the F.L.N. insurgents in constant retreat and disorder. His innovative tactics would be studied and emulated by others seeking to keep insurgency at bay and off-balance. The Challe Plan was only partially completed before he was reasigned to France.

Under his command, French army won the war on the field but this victory proved undecisive as De Gaulle felt the international community and the algerian muslim population where now in favour of the independance and took knowledge of the cost of the war. Finally, De Gaulle decided, despite his army had almost destroyed the ALN, to organise a referendum of self-determination in algeria.

Challe was one of the heads of the Algiers putsch of 1961, along with Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud and André Zeller. Unlike the other putschists Challe did not have authoritarian sympathies but participated in the coup because he felt that France betrayed pro-France Muslims. After the putsch failed, he was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment. He was freed in December 1966 and amnistied by De Gaulle in 1968.

Challe died on 18 January 1979.

[edit] Bibliography

Horne, Alistair. A Savage War Of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New York Review of Books, New York: NY, 1977.