68 Cradock and Smith Guerre Révolutionnaire and the Battle of Algiers “No Fixed Values” A Reinterpretation of the Influence of the Theory of Guerre Révolutionnaire and the Battle of Algiers, 1956–1957 ✣ Christopher Cradock and M. L. R. Smith “F or our generation there are no ªxed values.” 1 So said Major Denoix de Saint-Marc, a Légionnaire, St. Cyrian, wartime resistance veteran, Buchenwald survivor, and veteran of Indochina, Suez, and the Battle of Al- giers, at his trial in 1962 for conspiring in the so-called Generals’ Putsch. Few people familiar with the events in Algeria from 1954 to 1962 could deny that “ªxed values” were rare during that period. This lacuna is what inspired Saint- Marc and his confrères in the French Army to attempt to codify a new set of operational and strategic “ªxed values” by developing the theory of guerre rév- olutionnaire (revolutionary war, though frequently rendered in English trans- lation as “counterrevolutionary war”), 2 which reached its most graphic expres- sion in the Battle of Algiers. The Battle of Algiers was controversial at the time and has remained the subject of often heated debate. The dearth of systematic analysis of guerre révolutionnaire, which formed the strategic backdrop against which the Battle of Algiers was conducted, is therefore surprising. The neglect is evident in French-language sources, though the paucity of analysis of guerre révolution- naire in English is even starker. A notable gap exists in the historiography be- tween the publication of General Jacques Massu’s two memoirs in 1971 and 1972 and the body of work produced when debate about the Battle of Algiers 1. Philip M. Williams, Plots and Scandals in Post-War France (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 192. 2. See, for example, John J. McCuen, The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War: The Strategy of Counter- Insurgency (London: Faber, 1966). McCuen’s work was heavily inºuenced by French writings of the period. Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 9, No. 4, Fall 2007, pp. 68–105 © 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology