A Spectator's Notebook
THE HOMERIC LEGENDS which the French have woven about sonic of their latter-day military comman- ders usually leave me unmoved, except to admire the Gallic skill of obliterating fact by fantasy. But Jacques Massu, whom I saw at the time of the Suez expedition, was different. To begin with, he displayed no interest in punctilio or panache, which seemed the main concern of the other French senior officers. At the time he was in com- mand of France's airborne troops, as he has latterly been in Algeria. He lived with his men, tramped forty miles a day across the dust of midsummer Cyprus with them and then back at camp shared theft' rouge ordinaire. The men had much more than ordinary respect for their dreamy-eyed, Cyrano-nosed commander; they venerated him. He had given them a sense of purpose in life; they were filled 'with a philosophy which centred around the worship of physical strength. Applied to such matters as interroga- tion of prisoners, Massu's philosophy has come into conflict with accepted moral standards. But his deep inner faith that only physical strength can overcome moral evil must have had a com- pelling attraction to most of the young French in Algeria, girls as well as boys.
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