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PARTISAN REVIEW
to sixty days' fortress arrest. Yet only a few days before that a semi–
official paper, the
M essage des Forces Armees,
had asserted that officers
fighting in Algeria, "of different backgrounds, with brilliant military
records, had expressed their moral despair concerning certain pro–
cedures used in tracking down terrorism.... The moral elite of the
officers," the publication continued, "feels repugnance at this task,
which it knows to be as degrading as
it
is futile." These words, stronger
and clearer than those written by General de la Bollardiere and as sig–
nificant as his gesture, nevertheless provoked no reaction, for the
M essage des Forces Armees
is not read by the general public. But from
the moment that public opinion was, for once, brought face to face
with reality, not by a journalist, an intellectual, a political militant or
a priest (all of whom fall into categories often set down as knowing
little and judging badly), but by one of those who, having acted, after–
wards passed judgment on his own action, the necessity for punishment
arose.
But it happened that this necessity raised problems which those
who had bowed to it had doubtless not perceived clearly in advance.
By the simple fact of expressing an opinion, General de la Bollardiere
had indisputably violated not only the traditions of the army, but its
code. Therefore he had to be disciplined. However, let us look back–
ward a few years and compare this with another situation which re–
sembles it not in the facts but in the legal principles behind it: that
of the German generals who were condemned as war criminals, who
were sentenced precisely because they had not dared to act as General
de la Bollardiere did. By associating herself with those condemnations,
France therefore declared herself in favor of a radical modification of
military discipline: she subscribed to the opinion that generals ought
to think, not only about what they do, but also about what they are
ordered to do. From that time on, the government had not only to give
commands to its soldiers, but also to convince them of the morality of
its commands; and once it had declared that some generals had to die
because they had lacked scruples, how could it now punish others who
had expressed theirs?
However it may in the end turn out, an act like that of General
de la Bollardiere, and the support and sympathy which
it
evoked from
the public (and even, as is also known, in the army), is a · profoundly
satisfying sign of moral health. The French government felt this so
strongly that after having imposed sixty days of fortress arrest on the
culprit, it then promoted him-thus respecting at the same time the
tradition which obliged it to condemn
him
and a sort of rectitude which
