The War in Algeria: A French soldier's experience

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In the late 1950s a young Frenchman, who now goes by the name Ted Morgan, was conscripted to fight for France against Algeria's independence fighters. He served as an intelligence officer during the Battle of Algiers, and over sixty years later he is still haunted by what he saw, and did. This included involvement in the systematic torture by the French of members of Algeria's National Liberation Front or FLN. Ted Morgan spoke to Roger Hardy in 2010.

(Photo: French soldiers in the Casbah of Algiers in 1960. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello and thank you for downloading the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:41.0	All this week we're hearing stories from Algeria's War of Independence
0:44.8	which ended 60 years ago. In 2010, Roger Hardy spoke to a French soldier
0:51.4	who admitted to being involved in the torture which was widespread during the conflict.
0:57.6	And a warning the listeners may find some parts of this program disturbing. It's January 1957 and a 25 year old French soldier arrives in Algiers in the mid-stavan epic struggle,
1:10.0	a struggle later made famous in a classic film.
1:17.0	The film was the Battle of Algiers,
1:19.0	and the soldier was Ted Morgan.
1:21.0	That was the name he'd adopted while living in the United States.
1:24.8	In fact he was the son of a French diplomat and as far as France was concerned he was
1:30.0	still French. I was living in the United States in 1955 when I was very
1:38.6	surprised to get a conscription notice since I was still a French citizen to report to the Army in September.
1:48.0	I was against the war in Algeria. I was an anti-colonialist. My purpose was to avoid being sent to Algeria.
1:58.0	I wanted to stay in France as long as I could.
2:01.0	But he was sent to Algeria anyway and soon became immersed in a brutal
	...

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