Word: massue
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Eleventh Hour. For a few hours it appeared that perhaps Pflimlin and Coty had turned the trick that easily. The first response to their appeals was hopeful: General Massu acknowledged General Salan's authority. But then, in a speech of masterful ambiguity, Salan acknowledged himself in authority but finished off with the rallying cry of the French colons in Algeria: "Vive De Gaulle!" On top of that came De Gaulle's "I am ready" statements from Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, neither endorsing nor disavowing Massu's coup -a fact sure to put new heart into the insurgents...
World War II. On the day France surrendered to the Nazis in 1940, Jacques Massu, still a lieutenant commanding a fort in the Sahara scribbled a "rude French word'' in his diary and beneath it the pledge: "Nous vainerons" (We shall win). Hearing De Gaulle's radio appeal from London, Massu joined the Free French in Africa, was nicked in the calf by an Italian bullet in a desert battle, calmly cauterized the wound himself with a cigarette, fought on across North Africa and into France and Germany as a lieutenant colonel with General Le-clerc...
...Berets. In January 1957, with the Algerian rebellion in full tilt and the capital city terrorized by bomb attacks, Massu was named Military Commander of Algiers. With 20,000 paratroopers, spearheaded by his own loth Parachute Division, he directed the cleanup of terrorists with thudding thoroughness and violence. He came under fire in France for the "police state" operations of his network of 1,500 block informants, and the torture methods admittedly used by his men on captured Moslems...
...victory of Algiers" Massu became a hero to the 1,000,000 European settlers in Algeria, and his paratroopers -and their alumni, in veterans organizations in both France and Algeria -became a rallying point for the right wing in France. Veterans proudly wore the distinctive berets of their old regiments -red for the Colonials recruited overseas, blue for paratroopers of Metropolitan France, green for Foreign Legionnaires...
Appearance & Attitudes. Tall (6 ft. 1 in.) and wiry, capable of doing anything he asks his men to do, Massu is what the French call, in a word borrowed from the Arabs, baronder, a hardheaded fighter. His bristling mustache, gigantic nose and fiery eyes are set in a face that looks like a well-worn chopping block. For all his outward appearance of strength. Massu has frequently betrayed an inner uncertainty. Like his hero De Gaulle, he has often wondered whether to suffer under authority that he believes is wrong or to strike out alone. At Suez, irritated...