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The Centurions
The military cult classic with resonance to the wars in Iraq and Vietnam—now back in print
When The Centurions was first published in 1960, readers were riveted by the thrilling account of soldiers fighting for survival in hostile environments. They were equally transfixed by the chilling moral question the novel how to fight when the “age of heroics is over.” As relevant today as it was half a century ago, The Centurions is a gripping military adventure, an extended symposium on waging war in a new global order, and an essential investigation of the ethics of counterinsurgency. Featuring a foreword by renowned military expert Robert D. Kaplan, this important wartime novel will again spark debate about controversial tactics in hot spots around the world.
When The Centurions was first published in 1960, readers were riveted by the thrilling account of soldiers fighting for survival in hostile environments. They were equally transfixed by the chilling moral question the novel how to fight when the “age of heroics is over.” As relevant today as it was half a century ago, The Centurions is a gripping military adventure, an extended symposium on waging war in a new global order, and an essential investigation of the ethics of counterinsurgency. Featuring a foreword by renowned military expert Robert D. Kaplan, this important wartime novel will again spark debate about controversial tactics in hot spots around the world.
544 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 19, 2015
248 people are currently reading
2144 people want to read
About the author
Jean Lartéguy
115 books58 followersLartéguy was born into what he called "one of those families of poor mountain peasants whose names are found inscribed on war memorials, but not in history books." Both his father and uncle had served in the First World War. With his country conquered by the Germans, Lartéguy escaped from France into Spain in March 1942. He remained there for nine months and spent time in a Francoist jail before joining the Free French Forces as an officer in the 1st Commando Group (1er groupe de commandos). During the war, he fought in Italy; Vosges and Belfort, France; and Germany. He remained on active duty for seven years until becoming a captain in the reserves in order to enter the field of journalism. Lartéguy received numerous military awards, to include: Légion d'honneur, Croix de guerre 1939-1945, and the Croix de guerre T.O.E.
After his military service, Lartéguy worked as a war correspondent, particularly for the magazine Paris Match. He covered conflicts in Azerbaijan, Korea, Palestine, Indochina, Algeria, and Vietnam. In pursuit of a story at the start of the Korean War, Lartéguy volunteered for the French Battalion and was wounded by an enemy hand grenade during the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge. In Latin America, he reported on various revolutions and insurgencies, and in 1967 encountered Che Guevara shortly before his capture and execution. In the July 1967 issue of Paris Match, Lartéguy wrote a major article entitled "Les Guerilleros", where he wrote: "At a time when Cuban revolutionaries want to create Vietnam's all over the world, the Americans run the risk of finding their own Algeria in Latin America."
In 1955, he received the Albert Londres Prize for journalism
His experiences as a soldier and war correspondent influenced his writing. Some of the most emphasized topics in his writing are decolonization, nationalism, the expansion of Communism, the state of post-war French society, and the unglamorous nature of war. His novel Les chimères noires evokes the role played by Roger Trinquier during the Katanga Crisis. Published in 1963 it portrays vividly the chaos of civil war in the Congo after the murder of Patrice Lumumba and the conflict between Moise Tshombe secessionist government and the United Nations Forces. The novel is very critical of Belgian colonialism and is also a reliable expression of European views of Central Africa after independence. Several of his book titles were translated into English, with the most successful being his Algerian War series: The Centurions and The Praetorians. The former was adapted into a major motion picture in 1966, entitled Lost Command and starred Anthony Quinn.
Also, with his novel The Centurions, Lartéguy is credited with being the first to envision the 'ticking time bomb' scenario, which has regained relevance in recent debates on the use of torture in a counter-terrorism role. His novels have been read by military professionals, including General David Petraeus, in the new context of modern terrorism.
After his military service, Lartéguy worked as a war correspondent, particularly for the magazine Paris Match. He covered conflicts in Azerbaijan, Korea, Palestine, Indochina, Algeria, and Vietnam. In pursuit of a story at the start of the Korean War, Lartéguy volunteered for the French Battalion and was wounded by an enemy hand grenade during the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge. In Latin America, he reported on various revolutions and insurgencies, and in 1967 encountered Che Guevara shortly before his capture and execution. In the July 1967 issue of Paris Match, Lartéguy wrote a major article entitled "Les Guerilleros", where he wrote: "At a time when Cuban revolutionaries want to create Vietnam's all over the world, the Americans run the risk of finding their own Algeria in Latin America."
In 1955, he received the Albert Londres Prize for journalism
His experiences as a soldier and war correspondent influenced his writing. Some of the most emphasized topics in his writing are decolonization, nationalism, the expansion of Communism, the state of post-war French society, and the unglamorous nature of war. His novel Les chimères noires evokes the role played by Roger Trinquier during the Katanga Crisis. Published in 1963 it portrays vividly the chaos of civil war in the Congo after the murder of Patrice Lumumba and the conflict between Moise Tshombe secessionist government and the United Nations Forces. The novel is very critical of Belgian colonialism and is also a reliable expression of European views of Central Africa after independence. Several of his book titles were translated into English, with the most successful being his Algerian War series: The Centurions and The Praetorians. The former was adapted into a major motion picture in 1966, entitled Lost Command and starred Anthony Quinn.
Also, with his novel The Centurions, Lartéguy is credited with being the first to envision the 'ticking time bomb' scenario, which has regained relevance in recent debates on the use of torture in a counter-terrorism role. His novels have been read by military professionals, including General David Petraeus, in the new context of modern terrorism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
June 17, 2015
How many times has the story recounted in this classic novel about war been writ in the history of mankind? Ask our soldiers to find a way to save the nation and they do, only to be blamed for their actions in the end. The thing about violence is that it destroys the actor and the acted-upon. There is no safe place.
Penguin Classics has just reissued this title with a Foreword by Robert D. Kaplan, revised from a 2007 article in The Atlantic called "Rereading Vietnam." In his Foreword, Kaplan brings Lartéguy's work up-to-date, relating it to Iraq: "In...extreme and difficult situations like Iraq, cynics may actually serve a purpose... Lartéguy immortalizes such soldiers." The longest and most lavishly described section of the novel focuses on Vietnam and a group of paratroopers imprisoned there. We learn what makes up their natures just as they do, undergoing the hardships, failed escape attempts, sickness, and final release back to France.
We chart their crisscrossing and overlapping lives as they try to put themselves back together on home soil and lament with them the changes to their character that forbid surrender to their old pleasures. Called once again to perform in Algiers, the men reassemble and rely upon one another to build an unusual type of flattened, anti-hierarchical and discrete fighting structure that relies on adopting the guerrilla tactics of the enemy. Knowing each other so intimately allows each to play to their strengths, but every man is damaged in the course of their work.
In the end, the French paratroopers’ closeness with ordinary Algerians is both their strength and a sword that cuts them. Their very integration into a society rebelling French rule gives them access to information but also requires recognizing the humanity of those they strive to overcome. Later, their tactics are deniable by higher ups in the French military, leaving the soldiers to bear the brunt of saving Algiers' Kasbah.
A friend has remarked that a "key weakness [in the novel] is its understanding of women." It is true that Lartéguy does not develop the female characters—they are something "other." But I did not think it distracted from the reading, nor the verisimilitude of the novel. Men absorbed as they are in war and with fellow officers often do not see women as the whole people they undoubtedly are. Women are apart. Many times the reverse is also true. Men who return from war are something apart. Neither side can comprehend the other: the gulf is too wide. Lartéguy’s work therefore is a fair reflection of what is in these men’s minds. Their primary loyalty is with other men, whom they see with exceptional clarity and sympathy.
It is easy to see why this book is the classic it has become. It has a vivid relevance and feel even now. Initially published in 1960 in French, the English translation by Xan Fielding, himself a Special Operations executive for the British Army in Crete, France and the Far East, was published in Great Britain in 1961. Immediately it was hailed as a classic, a true example of the immediacy of classic status when a book carries with it such honesty and a sense of history in the making.
There was a film produced in 1965, released in 1967, called 'The Battle of Algiers' . It is a harrowing and almost unbearably lifelike reenactment of the scene when the paratroopers described in this book arrive in Algiers. The docudrama won awards in Venice, London, and Alcapulco immediately on release and even today is described as electrifying and eerily resonant. There was palpable excitement in the NYTimes review of the premier of the film at the opening of the New York Film Festival at the Philharmonic in the fall of 1967. Zbigniew Brzezinski was quoted as saying "If you want to understand what’s happening right now in Iraq, I recommend 'The Battle of Algiers'."
A word or two about Lartéguy’s style: he is graceful and immersive. I loved the French-ness of the book, which did not at all distract from the universality of its message. This book is one of a trilogy, consisting of The Mercenaries (1954), The Centurions (1960), and The Praetorians (1961). Lartéguy died in 2011.
Penguin Classics has just reissued this title with a Foreword by Robert D. Kaplan, revised from a 2007 article in The Atlantic called "Rereading Vietnam." In his Foreword, Kaplan brings Lartéguy's work up-to-date, relating it to Iraq: "In...extreme and difficult situations like Iraq, cynics may actually serve a purpose... Lartéguy immortalizes such soldiers." The longest and most lavishly described section of the novel focuses on Vietnam and a group of paratroopers imprisoned there. We learn what makes up their natures just as they do, undergoing the hardships, failed escape attempts, sickness, and final release back to France.
We chart their crisscrossing and overlapping lives as they try to put themselves back together on home soil and lament with them the changes to their character that forbid surrender to their old pleasures. Called once again to perform in Algiers, the men reassemble and rely upon one another to build an unusual type of flattened, anti-hierarchical and discrete fighting structure that relies on adopting the guerrilla tactics of the enemy. Knowing each other so intimately allows each to play to their strengths, but every man is damaged in the course of their work.
In the end, the French paratroopers’ closeness with ordinary Algerians is both their strength and a sword that cuts them. Their very integration into a society rebelling French rule gives them access to information but also requires recognizing the humanity of those they strive to overcome. Later, their tactics are deniable by higher ups in the French military, leaving the soldiers to bear the brunt of saving Algiers' Kasbah.
”Let Rome beware the anger of the legions.”Soldiers must relate to descriptions of the ways men can be torn from their moorings, to the bond between men harboring together in unbearable conditions, to the uncertainty and fear and the unexpected heroism. All soldiers returning to the home country must also experience the confusion and alienation, the regret for what they’d left behind, the familiarity with a country that had long imprisoned them. And they must feel also the loss of the constraints of discipline and danger.
A friend has remarked that a "key weakness [in the novel] is its understanding of women." It is true that Lartéguy does not develop the female characters—they are something "other." But I did not think it distracted from the reading, nor the verisimilitude of the novel. Men absorbed as they are in war and with fellow officers often do not see women as the whole people they undoubtedly are. Women are apart. Many times the reverse is also true. Men who return from war are something apart. Neither side can comprehend the other: the gulf is too wide. Lartéguy’s work therefore is a fair reflection of what is in these men’s minds. Their primary loyalty is with other men, whom they see with exceptional clarity and sympathy.
It is easy to see why this book is the classic it has become. It has a vivid relevance and feel even now. Initially published in 1960 in French, the English translation by Xan Fielding, himself a Special Operations executive for the British Army in Crete, France and the Far East, was published in Great Britain in 1961. Immediately it was hailed as a classic, a true example of the immediacy of classic status when a book carries with it such honesty and a sense of history in the making.
There was a film produced in 1965, released in 1967, called 'The Battle of Algiers' . It is a harrowing and almost unbearably lifelike reenactment of the scene when the paratroopers described in this book arrive in Algiers. The docudrama won awards in Venice, London, and Alcapulco immediately on release and even today is described as electrifying and eerily resonant. There was palpable excitement in the NYTimes review of the premier of the film at the opening of the New York Film Festival at the Philharmonic in the fall of 1967. Zbigniew Brzezinski was quoted as saying "If you want to understand what’s happening right now in Iraq, I recommend 'The Battle of Algiers'."
A word or two about Lartéguy’s style: he is graceful and immersive. I loved the French-ness of the book, which did not at all distract from the universality of its message. This book is one of a trilogy, consisting of The Mercenaries (1954), The Centurions (1960), and The Praetorians (1961). Lartéguy died in 2011.
May 26, 2015
According to Wikipedia The Centurions was one of the most popular novels in France in the 1960s, and its author "partly responsible for a revival of novel reading in France where, at the time … 38% of adults had never read a book." I'd never heard of it, until prompted by Thomas Powers' 2013 essay on Warrior Petraeus in The New York Review of Books, I tried to find a used copy and found the few copies available priced in the low hundreds. So I was very happy to see Penguin reissue the book in its original translation by Xan Fielding, an author and soldier as colorful as Lartéguy himself.
I'll limit my review to a few comments because I don't want to spoil the story itself. (And if you don't want to know anything, stop here.) Focused on a small group of French paratroopers, the tale unfolds in three acts: the first in Vietnam after the fall of Dien Bien Phu when the soldiers are prisoners of the Việt Minh; the second set back in France where they endure the corruption and incomprehension of the civilization they were fighting for; and the third in Algeria during the Suez Crisis and the Battle of Algiers. Much about the book is artificial, in the way of high drama. The characters speak brilliantly, in fine beautifully composed sentences. It is suffused with the warrior's creed, an ethos that often has more in common with its counterpart on the enemy side than with the Christian culture it defends (but which does not defend them in turn). All of this made excellent reading. Its key weakness, for me, is its understanding of women – and that's all I'll say about that.
A book like this casts a spell. Readers like David Petraeus or Robert Kaplan (who provides the introduction to this edition) are riveted by the insurgent soldier-saint aspect, the "band of brothers." Kaplan cites its famous "two armies" speech, in which a paratrooper opines:
(But not completely. There is also a quite different characterization of these men placed in the mouth of a French journalist, which the reader is free to accept or discard.)
Almost by chance, I finished this novel the same afternoon I finished A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning. Camus was trapped in the same moral dilemma as these soldiers (in fact, one of the Algerian "terrorists" quotes Camus to her captor), the chasm which divides the soldier not from a corrupt society but from its fundamental values. In the night thoughts of one of the more appealing paratroopers:
I'll limit my review to a few comments because I don't want to spoil the story itself. (And if you don't want to know anything, stop here.) Focused on a small group of French paratroopers, the tale unfolds in three acts: the first in Vietnam after the fall of Dien Bien Phu when the soldiers are prisoners of the Việt Minh; the second set back in France where they endure the corruption and incomprehension of the civilization they were fighting for; and the third in Algeria during the Suez Crisis and the Battle of Algiers. Much about the book is artificial, in the way of high drama. The characters speak brilliantly, in fine beautifully composed sentences. It is suffused with the warrior's creed, an ethos that often has more in common with its counterpart on the enemy side than with the Christian culture it defends (but which does not defend them in turn). All of this made excellent reading. Its key weakness, for me, is its understanding of women – and that's all I'll say about that.
A book like this casts a spell. Readers like David Petraeus or Robert Kaplan (who provides the introduction to this edition) are riveted by the insurgent soldier-saint aspect, the "band of brothers." Kaplan cites its famous "two armies" speech, in which a paratrooper opines:
I'd like France to have two armies: one for display, with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, fanfares, staffs, distinguished and doddering generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their general's bowel movements or their colonel's piles…Here are resonant echoes of European literature going all the way back to The Song of Roland and the Crusades, if not to the Iliad – and little of the light mockery that appears as early as Orlando Furioso (1516) and Don Quixote a hundred years later or the black comedy of antiwar literature in the 20th century. The men of The Centurions are as noble (and isolated) as their Roman precursors. In this respect the novel is a romance.
The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage battledress, who would not be put on display but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That's the army in which I should like to fight.
(But not completely. There is also a quite different characterization of these men placed in the mouth of a French journalist, which the reader is free to accept or discard.)
Almost by chance, I finished this novel the same afternoon I finished A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning. Camus was trapped in the same moral dilemma as these soldiers (in fact, one of the Algerian "terrorists" quotes Camus to her captor), the chasm which divides the soldier not from a corrupt society but from its fundamental values. In the night thoughts of one of the more appealing paratroopers:
He knew it had to come to this, that this was the ghastly law of the new type of war. But he had to get accustomed to it, to harden himself and shed all those deeply ingrained, out-of-date notions which make for the greatness of Western man but at the same time prevent him from protecting himself.It is the genius of Lartéguy's novel to dramatize this contradiction at the same time as it undermines its legitimacy.
June 1, 2017
A complex and cerebral book.
It can be viewed as a thinly disguised polemic on counterinsurgency, an anti-communist screed, or the wine of sour grapes by an Imperialist bitterly lamenting the loss of his possessions.
And there’s sex. Lots and lots of sex. In fact, it seems that part of Larteguy’s anger over the loss of Indochina and Algeria is a lament for the loss of exotic fleshpots. Larteguy voices several times over the moral superiority of France, as evinced in how its men allow the women of their colonial possessions to be sexually liberated, compared to their oppressive countrymen. (All the while, continuing to sexually objectify them. Apparently the freedoms inherent in Sexual Egalitarianism do not include Feminism...)
But, it was a different time…I suppose…
Regardless of those social mores, this is a book about changing the mindset of conventional warriors, and the eternal isolation of the combatant from the civilians he “protects”. Indeed, most of the book justifies the insularity of the military from its country, and beyond that- the insularity of “elite” units from the conventional military. (An interesting build-up to the next installment , The Praetorians, which I’m dying to read.)
Larteguy skewers civilians in France, and the Pied-Noirs in Algeria. He skewers intellectuals and the bloated cowards in the military that are not of the paratrooper community.
It’s an angry book.
However, it is fascinating.
The first third of the book takes place in a prison camp after the fall of Dien Bien Phu. In this portion, a collection of officers attempt to resist the indoctrination of their Vietnminh jailers. Each of the officers learns a different lesson from this experience, and the alpha officer, Raspeguy, later uses communist methods to indoctrinate conscripts assigned to fight with him in Algeria.
The second portion of the book sees many of these officers return to France, and the intellectual, ideological and emotional battles they fight with the people they'd left behind. This portion speaks to the alienation of the returning combatant and their disconnect with an indifferent, and often scornful nation.
Finally, under Raspeguy’s banner, they go to Algeria and are thrust into a dirty war, forced to transgress conventional morality. Our heroes grapple with the issue of torture, which further goes to develop their disconnect with their civilian masters, and even their own high military leadership.
All in all, it was a powerful book. Lots of food for thought and an interesting document of that era. Americans would do well to read it, and see how other countries have conceptualized wars very similar to the ones we fight now.
I’m very much looking forward to reading the sequel "The Praetorians" to see how these characters deal with the plot against de Gaulle (Algiers Putsch of 1961), and the final abandonment of Algeria.
If you're looking for a blood-and-guts, thrill-ride of an action novel, this isn't for you, While there is some kinetic combat (very, very little in fact, most of the violence is implied), the majority of this book is a psychological battle of wills and ideology.
For Further Reading: The main characters of this novel are all inspired and based on real French military officers. The book, "A Savage War of Peace" by Alistair Horne provides strong background for them, and is also an excellent companion if you want a broad and concise overview of the entire conflict from its earliest origins to the bitter end. "The Centurions" most intriguing character, Julien Boisferas is based on General Paul Aussaresses and Colonel Roger Triniquier. Triniquier features in the exhaustive history of the OAS phase of the war, "Wolves in the City: The Death of French Algeria" by Paul Henissart, and is author of a book on counterinsurgency theory called, "Modern Warfare". Aussaresses wrote an account of his service entitled, "Battle of the Casbah".
It can be viewed as a thinly disguised polemic on counterinsurgency, an anti-communist screed, or the wine of sour grapes by an Imperialist bitterly lamenting the loss of his possessions.
And there’s sex. Lots and lots of sex. In fact, it seems that part of Larteguy’s anger over the loss of Indochina and Algeria is a lament for the loss of exotic fleshpots. Larteguy voices several times over the moral superiority of France, as evinced in how its men allow the women of their colonial possessions to be sexually liberated, compared to their oppressive countrymen. (All the while, continuing to sexually objectify them. Apparently the freedoms inherent in Sexual Egalitarianism do not include Feminism...)
But, it was a different time…I suppose…
Regardless of those social mores, this is a book about changing the mindset of conventional warriors, and the eternal isolation of the combatant from the civilians he “protects”. Indeed, most of the book justifies the insularity of the military from its country, and beyond that- the insularity of “elite” units from the conventional military. (An interesting build-up to the next installment , The Praetorians, which I’m dying to read.)
Larteguy skewers civilians in France, and the Pied-Noirs in Algeria. He skewers intellectuals and the bloated cowards in the military that are not of the paratrooper community.
It’s an angry book.
However, it is fascinating.
The first third of the book takes place in a prison camp after the fall of Dien Bien Phu. In this portion, a collection of officers attempt to resist the indoctrination of their Vietnminh jailers. Each of the officers learns a different lesson from this experience, and the alpha officer, Raspeguy, later uses communist methods to indoctrinate conscripts assigned to fight with him in Algeria.
The second portion of the book sees many of these officers return to France, and the intellectual, ideological and emotional battles they fight with the people they'd left behind. This portion speaks to the alienation of the returning combatant and their disconnect with an indifferent, and often scornful nation.
Finally, under Raspeguy’s banner, they go to Algeria and are thrust into a dirty war, forced to transgress conventional morality. Our heroes grapple with the issue of torture, which further goes to develop their disconnect with their civilian masters, and even their own high military leadership.
All in all, it was a powerful book. Lots of food for thought and an interesting document of that era. Americans would do well to read it, and see how other countries have conceptualized wars very similar to the ones we fight now.
I’m very much looking forward to reading the sequel "The Praetorians" to see how these characters deal with the plot against de Gaulle (Algiers Putsch of 1961), and the final abandonment of Algeria.
If you're looking for a blood-and-guts, thrill-ride of an action novel, this isn't for you, While there is some kinetic combat (very, very little in fact, most of the violence is implied), the majority of this book is a psychological battle of wills and ideology.
For Further Reading: The main characters of this novel are all inspired and based on real French military officers. The book, "A Savage War of Peace" by Alistair Horne provides strong background for them, and is also an excellent companion if you want a broad and concise overview of the entire conflict from its earliest origins to the bitter end. "The Centurions" most intriguing character, Julien Boisferas is based on General Paul Aussaresses and Colonel Roger Triniquier. Triniquier features in the exhaustive history of the OAS phase of the war, "Wolves in the City: The Death of French Algeria" by Paul Henissart, and is author of a book on counterinsurgency theory called, "Modern Warfare". Aussaresses wrote an account of his service entitled, "Battle of the Casbah".
October 13, 2023
A profound, mind-blowing, thinking-man's war novel on the savagery and impossible circumstances of modern warfare
The Centurions traces the epic struggle of a band of French paratroopers from the 1954 French debacle at Dien Bien Phu through their internment as POWs of the Vietminh, then their repatriation back to France, and finally, as the core elements of a patched together unit, the 10th Colonial Parachute Regiment, sent to Algeria to put down the guerrillas fighting for independence. The novel has a large cast of characters (resulting in unsettling jumping from one point of view to another that may bother some readers) representing the different political, ethnic and class distinctions of the men who fought France's wars in the mid 20th century. What they all shared were the bitter experiences of WWII, defeat at Dien Bien Phu, and imprisonment by the Vietminh communists who first exposed them to the methods and doctrines of guerrilla warfare and the geo-political realities of globalism. The main characters are Raspeguy, the Basque colonel who insists his Indo-China comrades accompany him to Algeria; Glatigny, the pious nobleman from a military family, adjusting to war without honor; Esclavier, the book's most compelling character, from a family of leftists who don't understand his passion for war; Dia, the African colonial doctor and unit confessor; Boisfeuras, the cagey intelligence agent, a Frenchman born in Vietnam, raised in China, with no desire to live in France; Mahmoudi, the Muslim Algerian patriot with divided loyalties; Pinieres, the giant lieutenant who represents the new breed of elite professional soldier epitomized by the paratroopers; and Marindelle, the love-sick genius who masters communist propaganda so well that his own government regards him with suspicion. There are more including several female characters who complicate loyalties and stir passions among these jaded men. There are also two cynical, opportunistic journalists who represent another facet of the new reality -- journalism tainted by political agendas and global audiences. Brilliant prose, a moving story line and fine character development distinguish The Centurions as a literary novel that rises above genre.
The Centurions was the second by Jean Larteguy (a French Marine Paratrooper combat veteran before becoming a journalist and novelist) in a trilogy of novels he wrote on the political, ethical, and strategic challenges of modern warfare using Indo-China (Vietnam) and Algeria as backdrops. Originally published in French in 1960, The Centurions is the best of the three and still sells well. This review is for the 2007 Penguin version which includes a forward by Robert D. Kaplan and a cover blurb from General Stanley McChrystal. The other two books in the trilogy, The Mercenaries and The Praetorians are out of print and very difficult to find unless you are willing to pay for a collector's copy. Like most French novelists of the mid-20th Century, Larteguy was a bit of an existentialist. And as his characters discover, the new paradigm of war in Indo-China and Algeria poses an enormous existential problem for the modern soldier. Based on real characters and set in real history, The Centurions has been widely read and praised by American military leaders. It illustrates perfectly the challenges faced today by military professionals in a 21st century world where all the rules are against them. Military service professionals: read this book. Students of history, politics and conflict: read this book. Readers who want to become engrossed in a profound, mind-blowing war novel that will make you think: read The Centurions. Highly, highly recommended.
The Centurions traces the epic struggle of a band of French paratroopers from the 1954 French debacle at Dien Bien Phu through their internment as POWs of the Vietminh, then their repatriation back to France, and finally, as the core elements of a patched together unit, the 10th Colonial Parachute Regiment, sent to Algeria to put down the guerrillas fighting for independence. The novel has a large cast of characters (resulting in unsettling jumping from one point of view to another that may bother some readers) representing the different political, ethnic and class distinctions of the men who fought France's wars in the mid 20th century. What they all shared were the bitter experiences of WWII, defeat at Dien Bien Phu, and imprisonment by the Vietminh communists who first exposed them to the methods and doctrines of guerrilla warfare and the geo-political realities of globalism. The main characters are Raspeguy, the Basque colonel who insists his Indo-China comrades accompany him to Algeria; Glatigny, the pious nobleman from a military family, adjusting to war without honor; Esclavier, the book's most compelling character, from a family of leftists who don't understand his passion for war; Dia, the African colonial doctor and unit confessor; Boisfeuras, the cagey intelligence agent, a Frenchman born in Vietnam, raised in China, with no desire to live in France; Mahmoudi, the Muslim Algerian patriot with divided loyalties; Pinieres, the giant lieutenant who represents the new breed of elite professional soldier epitomized by the paratroopers; and Marindelle, the love-sick genius who masters communist propaganda so well that his own government regards him with suspicion. There are more including several female characters who complicate loyalties and stir passions among these jaded men. There are also two cynical, opportunistic journalists who represent another facet of the new reality -- journalism tainted by political agendas and global audiences. Brilliant prose, a moving story line and fine character development distinguish The Centurions as a literary novel that rises above genre.
The Centurions was the second by Jean Larteguy (a French Marine Paratrooper combat veteran before becoming a journalist and novelist) in a trilogy of novels he wrote on the political, ethical, and strategic challenges of modern warfare using Indo-China (Vietnam) and Algeria as backdrops. Originally published in French in 1960, The Centurions is the best of the three and still sells well. This review is for the 2007 Penguin version which includes a forward by Robert D. Kaplan and a cover blurb from General Stanley McChrystal. The other two books in the trilogy, The Mercenaries and The Praetorians are out of print and very difficult to find unless you are willing to pay for a collector's copy. Like most French novelists of the mid-20th Century, Larteguy was a bit of an existentialist. And as his characters discover, the new paradigm of war in Indo-China and Algeria poses an enormous existential problem for the modern soldier. Based on real characters and set in real history, The Centurions has been widely read and praised by American military leaders. It illustrates perfectly the challenges faced today by military professionals in a 21st century world where all the rules are against them. Military service professionals: read this book. Students of history, politics and conflict: read this book. Readers who want to become engrossed in a profound, mind-blowing war novel that will make you think: read The Centurions. Highly, highly recommended.
May 6, 2013
This is a book about soldiers, but not so much about war. It's a treatise on class, race, communism and colonialism as told through the experience of French paratroopers in Indochina and Algeria. Female readers may object some because many the female characters are judged as lusty, unfaithful, or both while the same characteristics in the men is portrayed as simply understandable. While the book is a little disjointed in the telling, and the characters at times hard to sort out, it is worth reading because it is more about subject and character than violence. It is a good look at a time in history that seems long ago and far away, but it is not.
March 5, 2013
I do not recommend books very often. Having read all my life I am difficult to please. As an author, I am also a harsh critic, however this book demands that it is recommended to readers.
The writing, its style, the content and psychological explanations of character are excellent.
This description of the French war in Indochina deserves to be read in all college history classes, as does the account of the war in Algeria.
The writing, its style, the content and psychological explanations of character are excellent.
This description of the French war in Indochina deserves to be read in all college history classes, as does the account of the war in Algeria.
September 8, 2016
If anyone in the Johnson or Bush administrations had ever readThe Centurions by Jean Lartéguy, they might never have ventured into Southeast Asia or the Middle East. In both cases, France went there first and failed first, before the United States did. The intro to the Penguin edition of The Centurions lets us know that by now, you'll find copies of this superb novel on the desks of many prominent soldiers, including Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, who showed such competence (whatever else happened to them later) in their superintendence of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively.
The Centurions is the middle book of Lartéguy's masterful trilogy about the French struggle to keep Vietnam and Algeria in the empire. That struggle is doomed and the soldiers know it, whether they let themselves realize it or not. Larteguy is a reporter, soldier, and writer who knows his material, knows war, knows history, and cares about people and the meanings of their actions. We see some unforgettable characters -- Captain Philippe Esclavier, brilliant, world-weary, and first to see that this is a new kind of war, spearheaded by a new brand of nationalist fervor expressed in guerrilla and terror tactics; Colonel Raspeguy, a Basque soldier with a flair for heroism; Major de Glatigny, an upper-class soldier with higher thoughts and lower drives; and many more. All suffer as prisoners of war in Vietnam after the fall of Diem Bien Phu. When they return to France, they suffer the ennui of the demobbed soldier. So they sign up again, this time for Algeria. There, they learn that to succeed, they must think and act as their opponents do, as guerrillas willing to do anything to further the cause.
It is a worldly, knowing, propulsive book, one of the best-selling novels of its time in the French-speaking world, and remade into a couple of films. For a war novel, it devotes less space to the violence and savagery of war than to discussion of their meaning -- and yet, perhaps because of this, when savagery does erupt, it seems all the more savage. Near the end, there is an especially splendid account of a showdown with a rebel force, told with equal parts thrill and cold-blooded detachment. I admire how Lartéguy moves from mind to mind, giving us the life stories of these men, their motives, their nuanced viewpoints. All of them are coming unwillingly to realize that the world is changing, war is changing, and France, too, the France they have loved and fought for, is changing, shrinking, losing its grip on the far-off lands it once controlled. They all become increasingly impatient with the hidebound, old-fashioned ideas of the men who command them, and all go off campus, go against orders, to achieve something lasting if they can.
A word about the title. The centurions referred to are those of Rome, who were dispatched to distant corners of the known world in the name of Rome ... and then were forgotten, ignored, and even disparaged, much as returning soldiers from Vietnam were hooted and hollered at in the United States. More and more, the centurion, abandoned by the country he has served, must not hope for thanks, but must fight for his own ideals, and if those fail, then for victory, for his mates on the battlefield, and if not those, then himself. There's not much place for women or love in The Centurions, although I count two true loves, one of a woman (unreturned, and fatal) for the soldier she is caring for, and another of a man (surprised) for a rich woman whose Algerian farm is burned down by rebels. Our French centurions end this book huddled on a far-off hillside in the cold and rain; they have only one another.
It's a tremendous trilogy -- you could read The Mercenaries first, then this one, then the final one, The Pretorians. They follow several of these figures from their beginnings as soldiers for France, some in the Foreign Legion, all the way to their several destinies.
What if you win the battle and lose the war? What if you win the war and lose yourself? What if you always beat the enemy but in the end lose the French Empire? I wish our leaders *had* read these books before stepping into place behind the failed French army in Indochina and the Middle East. If we had read their warnings, we might never have gone.
The Centurions is the middle book of Lartéguy's masterful trilogy about the French struggle to keep Vietnam and Algeria in the empire. That struggle is doomed and the soldiers know it, whether they let themselves realize it or not. Larteguy is a reporter, soldier, and writer who knows his material, knows war, knows history, and cares about people and the meanings of their actions. We see some unforgettable characters -- Captain Philippe Esclavier, brilliant, world-weary, and first to see that this is a new kind of war, spearheaded by a new brand of nationalist fervor expressed in guerrilla and terror tactics; Colonel Raspeguy, a Basque soldier with a flair for heroism; Major de Glatigny, an upper-class soldier with higher thoughts and lower drives; and many more. All suffer as prisoners of war in Vietnam after the fall of Diem Bien Phu. When they return to France, they suffer the ennui of the demobbed soldier. So they sign up again, this time for Algeria. There, they learn that to succeed, they must think and act as their opponents do, as guerrillas willing to do anything to further the cause.
It is a worldly, knowing, propulsive book, one of the best-selling novels of its time in the French-speaking world, and remade into a couple of films. For a war novel, it devotes less space to the violence and savagery of war than to discussion of their meaning -- and yet, perhaps because of this, when savagery does erupt, it seems all the more savage. Near the end, there is an especially splendid account of a showdown with a rebel force, told with equal parts thrill and cold-blooded detachment. I admire how Lartéguy moves from mind to mind, giving us the life stories of these men, their motives, their nuanced viewpoints. All of them are coming unwillingly to realize that the world is changing, war is changing, and France, too, the France they have loved and fought for, is changing, shrinking, losing its grip on the far-off lands it once controlled. They all become increasingly impatient with the hidebound, old-fashioned ideas of the men who command them, and all go off campus, go against orders, to achieve something lasting if they can.
A word about the title. The centurions referred to are those of Rome, who were dispatched to distant corners of the known world in the name of Rome ... and then were forgotten, ignored, and even disparaged, much as returning soldiers from Vietnam were hooted and hollered at in the United States. More and more, the centurion, abandoned by the country he has served, must not hope for thanks, but must fight for his own ideals, and if those fail, then for victory, for his mates on the battlefield, and if not those, then himself. There's not much place for women or love in The Centurions, although I count two true loves, one of a woman (unreturned, and fatal) for the soldier she is caring for, and another of a man (surprised) for a rich woman whose Algerian farm is burned down by rebels. Our French centurions end this book huddled on a far-off hillside in the cold and rain; they have only one another.
It's a tremendous trilogy -- you could read The Mercenaries first, then this one, then the final one, The Pretorians. They follow several of these figures from their beginnings as soldiers for France, some in the Foreign Legion, all the way to their several destinies.
What if you win the battle and lose the war? What if you win the war and lose yourself? What if you always beat the enemy but in the end lose the French Empire? I wish our leaders *had* read these books before stepping into place behind the failed French army in Indochina and the Middle East. If we had read their warnings, we might never have gone.
May 17, 2009
An excellent book which gives a good understanding of the French military mindset during the First Vietnam War. I recommend it to my students at Glasgow University as a 'must-read' for American History - Vietnam studies.
I read this book as a young Parachute Regiment officer and have remembered its lessons to this day as they have been applicable to all subsequent wars.
I read this book as a young Parachute Regiment officer and have remembered its lessons to this day as they have been applicable to all subsequent wars.
January 28, 2009
This book was ONE of the main books that inspired me to join the Marine Corps and helped me so much in Vietnam. I have this book in my library, and consider it a treasure.
February 15, 2024
Um romance absolutamente magnífico, não só sobre a guerra e a instituição militar, mas também sobre a natureza humana, no esplendor das suas encruzilhadas morais e conflitos de lealdade.
Em relação ao aspeto bélico ou castrense, os homens de armas são retratados como só um deles seria capaz. São os centuriões de Roma, veteranos das guerras do Império, em que o século XX foi fértil. Conheceram a Resistência contra os alemães, a Indochina contra os Viets e a Argélia contra o FLN. Do grande ideal até à vitória última, da guerra para lá das linhas à guerra para lá da moral. O amontoar das cicatrizes que foi formando o grito de revolta das legiões contra a Sodoma que Roma-Paris decadente se tornara é uma evolução que o leitor acompanha ao longo da narrativa.
“Os Centuriões” é também um belíssimo retrato social da França, essa magnífica nação na profundeza das suas clivagens: com a sua esquerda aristocrata e internacionalista, a sua direita católica e ultramontana e o seu operariado ferozmente soberanista, sem esquecer as “franjas” do Império, nos Pirinéus bascos ou na remota China.
Soberbo.
Em relação ao aspeto bélico ou castrense, os homens de armas são retratados como só um deles seria capaz. São os centuriões de Roma, veteranos das guerras do Império, em que o século XX foi fértil. Conheceram a Resistência contra os alemães, a Indochina contra os Viets e a Argélia contra o FLN. Do grande ideal até à vitória última, da guerra para lá das linhas à guerra para lá da moral. O amontoar das cicatrizes que foi formando o grito de revolta das legiões contra a Sodoma que Roma-Paris decadente se tornara é uma evolução que o leitor acompanha ao longo da narrativa.
“Os Centuriões” é também um belíssimo retrato social da França, essa magnífica nação na profundeza das suas clivagens: com a sua esquerda aristocrata e internacionalista, a sua direita católica e ultramontana e o seu operariado ferozmente soberanista, sem esquecer as “franjas” do Império, nos Pirinéus bascos ou na remota China.
Soberbo.
November 23, 2024
Célèbre roman qui raconte l’histoire d’officiers parachutistes de la cuvette de Dien Bien Phu à la bataille d’Alger. De défaite en défaite. Troublant.
March 11, 2023
This novel is so very…French. I understand its recent popular resurgence (with America’s recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) and totally appreciate the broader themes this book raises…but in all honesty I had a hard time getting into this one. The sexual escapades of the protagonists were so ubiquitous throughout the narrative that it simply overshadowed everything else for me, including the wartime experiences and lessons learned of the main characters. Hardly a chapter passes without some sexual exploit by the French paratroopers over some French/Vietnamese/Algerian prostitute, tart, whore, adulteress, floozy, etc. I really just don’t care about all that.
The novel follows a handful of French soldiers through their defeat in Indochina at Dien Bien Phu, their imprisonment and Communist “reeducation”, their release and inability to reintegrate into French society that seems to have moved on without them (or even come to despise them), their shared combat experience and fraternal brotherhood drawing them back together and into the war in Algeria, and their attempt to apply the lessons learned in Vietnam to this new conflict…including the use of insurgent tactics (like torture and ignoring Western rules of war to achieve their objectives). While occasionally effective on the battlefield, these tactics seem to further alienate them from the people and nation they are fighting for, which only fuels the resentment of the soldiers forced to bear the burden of these wars of empire.
Their experience is compared to that of the Roman Centurions left behind at far flung outposts in defense of Empire. In the course of defending the Roman Empire, life back in Rome became unrecognizable to them and their rulers sank into debauchery. The empire/nation is great at paying lip-service to its brave soldiers but don’t really want to be exposed to the brutal reality of modern warfare and all it entails. And when they do hear, choose instead to distance themselves from the war being waged in their name.
Again, I actually enjoyed the parts that explored these aspects of war and the psychology of soldiers (brotherhood, loyalty, cynicism, etc). I just tired of constant descriptions of their sex lives which for me overshadowed the rest of the narrative. 2 stars.
Some good quotes from the book:
On what it takes to win:
“I'd like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their General's bowel movements or their Colonel's piles, an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country. The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That's the army in which I should like to fight.”
On politics in war:
“All warfare is bound to become political, Colonel, and an officer with no political training will soon prove ineffective. Frequently the word ‘tradition’ only serves to conceal our laziness.”
On fighting for an empire:
“What passed through the minds of the Roman centurions who were left behind in Africa and who, with a few veterans, a few barbarian auxiliaries ever ready to turn traitor, tried to maintain the outposts of the Empire while the people back in Rome were sinking into Christianity, and the Caesars into debauchery.”
The novel follows a handful of French soldiers through their defeat in Indochina at Dien Bien Phu, their imprisonment and Communist “reeducation”, their release and inability to reintegrate into French society that seems to have moved on without them (or even come to despise them), their shared combat experience and fraternal brotherhood drawing them back together and into the war in Algeria, and their attempt to apply the lessons learned in Vietnam to this new conflict…including the use of insurgent tactics (like torture and ignoring Western rules of war to achieve their objectives). While occasionally effective on the battlefield, these tactics seem to further alienate them from the people and nation they are fighting for, which only fuels the resentment of the soldiers forced to bear the burden of these wars of empire.
Their experience is compared to that of the Roman Centurions left behind at far flung outposts in defense of Empire. In the course of defending the Roman Empire, life back in Rome became unrecognizable to them and their rulers sank into debauchery. The empire/nation is great at paying lip-service to its brave soldiers but don’t really want to be exposed to the brutal reality of modern warfare and all it entails. And when they do hear, choose instead to distance themselves from the war being waged in their name.
Again, I actually enjoyed the parts that explored these aspects of war and the psychology of soldiers (brotherhood, loyalty, cynicism, etc). I just tired of constant descriptions of their sex lives which for me overshadowed the rest of the narrative. 2 stars.
Some good quotes from the book:
On what it takes to win:
“I'd like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their General's bowel movements or their Colonel's piles, an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country. The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That's the army in which I should like to fight.”
On politics in war:
“All warfare is bound to become political, Colonel, and an officer with no political training will soon prove ineffective. Frequently the word ‘tradition’ only serves to conceal our laziness.”
On fighting for an empire:
“What passed through the minds of the Roman centurions who were left behind in Africa and who, with a few veterans, a few barbarian auxiliaries ever ready to turn traitor, tried to maintain the outposts of the Empire while the people back in Rome were sinking into Christianity, and the Caesars into debauchery.”
February 19, 2017
So this is the book that got Frenchmen reading again? Telling. A notorious read, if there ever was one. Well known for being on the short list of David Petraeus' favorite books, as well as providing literary justification for torture, rape and murder by military forces in order to combat against the western world's new enemies. In broad strokes, the story surrounds the educational process a group of French officers undergo while held prisoner by communists in Vietnam. There they learn that conventional warfare is insufficient for dealing with the new, superior soldier who has jettisoned emotions, traditions and moral conventions. Once released, these officers take what they have learned and practice their newly learned lessons in Algeria. Through disregard of civilian rights, application of merciless torture, and the occasional rape which transforms victim into lover, these French officers save the day, prevent a series of terrorist bombings, and dismantle an entire nationalist network. This book is known for its message that the successful armies of the future will have to conduct battles through surgical strikes, using ideology when available, but always emphasizing focused ruthlessness in achieving the goal of victory. Peace is given little thought in this work as being false or repugnant. Good dialogue seems to suffer the same fate. I do not know if this is a translation issue; too much of the characters sentences are either wooden or outright improbable. A French officer discussing his "loins" with another male is comically surreal. Much is made of alliances and divisions. The Centurions see themselves as beyond the parade ground armies of the past. They see themselves as disconnected from the politics, the people, and even the morals of their country. All are viewed in an adversarial light. Yet part of the lessons learned by the Centurions in Vietnam is the importance of co-opting the general populace as efficiently as possible. Civilians are to be controlled or disposed of. This philosophy is hardly mitigated by the duplicity which the French government inflicts time and time again against the Centurion, first in Vietnam, then in Egypt, and finally in Algiers. The Centurions have more in common with their terrorist counterparts than the average citizen they're supposed to protect. As they have adopted their tactics, it's hardly surprising that strategy would follow. This is not high literature. The book expresses viewpoints which must have intrigued some in the 50s when it was written, but when read today such viewpoints can only be seen as inherently pathological. Penguin is soon to release the sequel to this work, The Praetorians. In that work I believe the officers of this novel are brought back to France to be tried for crimes committed while combating the Algerian terrorist group. These officers attempt to overthrow De Gaulle's regime in response. There is much to think about in this novel; the problem is that most of it is extremely unsettling. Larteguy was something of an embedded journalist in his time and the reader feels a degree of authenticity through portions of the story. Unfortunately, Larteguy dealt with very difficult and nasty problems, though one would have to say if his "solutions" do eliminate the difficult they certainly enhance all that is nasty.
Read
September 15, 2015Held in immensely high esteem within the Special Forces community around the world, The Centurions tells the story of a group of French paratroopers who are captured after the debacle at Dien Bien Phu and survive the communist camps only to return home and discover themselves estranged from capitalist, bourgeois France. I've actually been looking for this one for years, as being a classic text on the mind state of today's all-volunteer army, and it did not disappoint. Although it did depress—Larteguy's portrait of a society utterly consumed by hedonistic excess and bereft of a moral code; and of the men sworn to defend that society, who defend but are secretly loathed by it; both hit home in uncomfortable ways. I told Myke Cole he should read it, and he told me he was reading the Builders already, and I said this was better than the Builders, and he told me that was the sort of thing I shouldn't write in public, and then I went ahead and ignored him. Anyway – this was really excellent, deserving of the regard it is held in by a small portion of the population, definitely worth trying to find.
Were there swords: No, but there was some well-written, unheroic, realistic-seeming action, as would be appropriate for a book of this sort.
December 21, 2024
I’m not the kid who joined the Army because I already know so much about history, or at least past military operations. I’m not the kid that came out of the basement after re-enacting with my models, or simulating gunfire on a video game console.
According to the foreword, this book is scripture to the green berets and other special forces units. Not to mention on General David Petraeus’ reading list. I get it. Counter-insurgency, huh? Moral war, huh?
And only at the low, low cost of the best soldiers’ souls.
This really should be required reading for officers. It’s a Field Manual for sympathetic, nuanced morality.
—“The Vietminh taught me a number of things… among others, that the world was doomed…”
—“It’s doomed in Algeria just as much as in the Far East. Why are you fighting to preserve it?”
—“My friend Boisfeuras would say: ‘To give the lie to History.’ History is on the side of the Nationalists, as it’s on the side of the Communists. Anyone who tries to turn a man into a submissive robot is traveling with the flow of History. What I’m fighting against in Algeria is this mechanization of man.”
—“the army is the biggest collection of dirty dogs and idiots that I’ve ever come across”
—“Well , why are you in it then?”
—“It’s also where you meet the most unselfish men and most loyal friends.”
EDIT: The more I think about this the more I LOVE it. I'm thinking A LOT. Which I didn't even realize I could do anymore. I'm not, like, drawing conclusions or anything... but I'm getting there.
According to the foreword, this book is scripture to the green berets and other special forces units. Not to mention on General David Petraeus’ reading list. I get it. Counter-insurgency, huh? Moral war, huh?
And only at the low, low cost of the best soldiers’ souls.
This really should be required reading for officers. It’s a Field Manual for sympathetic, nuanced morality.
—“The Vietminh taught me a number of things… among others, that the world was doomed…”
—“It’s doomed in Algeria just as much as in the Far East. Why are you fighting to preserve it?”
—“My friend Boisfeuras would say: ‘To give the lie to History.’ History is on the side of the Nationalists, as it’s on the side of the Communists. Anyone who tries to turn a man into a submissive robot is traveling with the flow of History. What I’m fighting against in Algeria is this mechanization of man.”
—“the army is the biggest collection of dirty dogs and idiots that I’ve ever come across”
—“Well , why are you in it then?”
—“It’s also where you meet the most unselfish men and most loyal friends.”
EDIT: The more I think about this the more I LOVE it. I'm thinking A LOT. Which I didn't even realize I could do anymore. I'm not, like, drawing conclusions or anything... but I'm getting there.
December 16, 2023
In many ways, this book reminded me of a French counterinsurgency version of Once an Eagle. If you liked that book, you will enjoy this one.
There are valuable lessons on counterinsurgency tactics and their intersection with warrior ethos or creed. Told through high drama and deep character development, three wars are told through the experiences of Soldiers.
This barely received 4⭐️ for me but it was a worthwhile read I suppose.
There are valuable lessons on counterinsurgency tactics and their intersection with warrior ethos or creed. Told through high drama and deep character development, three wars are told through the experiences of Soldiers.
This barely received 4⭐️ for me but it was a worthwhile read I suppose.
September 12, 2015
Jean Lartéguy’s The Centurions seems to me to be centered around two basic things: 1) the threat posed by a global communism in its various forms and 2) soldiers. The former is necessarily tied to a time and place in history, the latter appears to be timeless. The former coincides with the demise of European attempts to colonize the entire world and the latter are the instruments caught up in it all. The threat posed by a global communism is the loss of human individuality; the Viet Minh are often referred to by the soldiers as “insects.” They are depicted as indistinct humans governed by an ideal that forces them to suppress things like human love. Their success depends on a logic of efficiency. They are numerous. Their struggle, first depicted in Vietnam, carries over to Algeria. Communism in Asia is thus depicted as a close sibling to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. The struggle is the same. All of this is very specifically twentieth century history.
On the other side we have the soldiers. But note: we do not have just any soldiers: we are told about soldiers by means of the best soldiers, the officers, the leaders of soldiers. These soldiers in particular emerge out of the final evaporating whiffs of French aristocracy. They are the very opposite of the communists and Islamic fundamentalists they fight. They are radically unequal in the eyes of Property or Allah. And these particular soldiers, as the name of the book strongly implies and specific events in the book make explicit, are atavisms of a kind of man that emerged from the aristocracy from which the French aristocracy was born, the Roman aristocracy. Centurions are ahistoric.
If Centurions are timeless, are the foes they face timeless as well? Perhaps this book suggests that they are. If that is the case, then the book points to a basic difference between noble and base. Perhaps Lartéguy is suggesting that there is always a contest between the rare and the common. One question raised is this: if the common can only be defeated by using the logical efficiency employed by the common (fight in Algiers as one was fought against in Vietnam), do the uncommon lose that which makes them uncommon? The answer seems to be “Yes.” The uncommon is thus depicted as perennially doomed. And yet, and yet…whether scratching graffiti on a Roman column in the concluding evening of the Roman Empire or reading that very graffiti in the late sunset of the French “Empire,” Centurions keep cropping up who defy the common.
On the other side we have the soldiers. But note: we do not have just any soldiers: we are told about soldiers by means of the best soldiers, the officers, the leaders of soldiers. These soldiers in particular emerge out of the final evaporating whiffs of French aristocracy. They are the very opposite of the communists and Islamic fundamentalists they fight. They are radically unequal in the eyes of Property or Allah. And these particular soldiers, as the name of the book strongly implies and specific events in the book make explicit, are atavisms of a kind of man that emerged from the aristocracy from which the French aristocracy was born, the Roman aristocracy. Centurions are ahistoric.
If Centurions are timeless, are the foes they face timeless as well? Perhaps this book suggests that they are. If that is the case, then the book points to a basic difference between noble and base. Perhaps Lartéguy is suggesting that there is always a contest between the rare and the common. One question raised is this: if the common can only be defeated by using the logical efficiency employed by the common (fight in Algiers as one was fought against in Vietnam), do the uncommon lose that which makes them uncommon? The answer seems to be “Yes.” The uncommon is thus depicted as perennially doomed. And yet, and yet…whether scratching graffiti on a Roman column in the concluding evening of the Roman Empire or reading that very graffiti in the late sunset of the French “Empire,” Centurions keep cropping up who defy the common.
January 23, 2016
An outstanding piece of work. It follows the trials of the survivors of Dien Bien Phu in captivity by the Viet Minh who were none too delicate in their handling of these courageous men. Many died on the 500 mile death march into Camp One and many subsequently from starvation and illness. Thoroughly schooled in the art of guerrilla warfare in Indochina and embittered by the incompetence of the traditional French military establishment and the amoral fickleness displayed by the revolving door of spineless and witless politicians, they all pass on to Algeria where they are determined to employ the lessons they have learned in a brutal war. The book was written by a fellow veteran and though a novel is loosely styled on many of the principal historical characters of Dien Bien Phu and its Algerian corollary. It has the solidity of experience and the substance of a history told by participants. An absolute classic.
August 29, 2016
Less a story than a presentation of the character, personality, and motivation of the men and women (primarily men) who go into battle and wage war. This did give some good insights into the mindset of these warriors when faced with difficult tasks in which loss of life or severe injury are ever present. Where I wanted more from the book was a deeper exploration into the most difficult situations. These included being a prisoner of war for years or participating in torture, both being tortured and inflicting torture. While acknowledging how they hated doing some of these things it wasn't taken much past that and I felt it could have been taken a little further. Perhaps that is by design since I am not sure there is an answer to the question of how far one would go with torturing one person, for example, to save the lives of many innocents. The themes presented are timeless and are certainly applicable to the world today.
December 23, 2021
Famous for being on the reading list of the US Marines, written by an experienced French war journalist Jean Larteguy, it introduces French paratroopers who survived loss and imprisonment in Vietnam only to return to France feeling alienated and signing up for fighting resistance in Algiers. The first changes of modern war from understood rules to being completely politicized by Communism and ideology. It has aged well. As a work of fiction it clearly relies on real history and real experiences but also leans on some quaint ideas of culture. It still is a compelling read. The reader is left having to think about Imperialism, about Communism and about the dirty deeds done for both ideologies.
April 3, 2013
Even when the story itself was hard to follow I loved the ideas behind the narrative, the presentation of guerrilla and counter-guerrilla theory - really the clash of societies - found in the discussions between Vietnamese, French, and Algerians.
One thing to take away - the Basques that provide the hero in this story represent the hill- and mountain-folk of every country. Never a good idea to provoke those who dwell in the high and rugged places. You can reach into history and come away with double-handfuls of people - as individuals, mighty warriors, as groups, fearsome soldiers - that support an argument for the martial excellence of highlanders.
One thing to take away - the Basques that provide the hero in this story represent the hill- and mountain-folk of every country. Never a good idea to provoke those who dwell in the high and rugged places. You can reach into history and come away with double-handfuls of people - as individuals, mighty warriors, as groups, fearsome soldiers - that support an argument for the martial excellence of highlanders.
October 13, 2023
I read this in 1962, when I was beginning my senior year in high school. Perhaps I shouldn’t have. At that time it was very recently translated into English. I remember that I had to read it in the public library over the course of three consecutive autumn saturdays because it was too new to be permitted out of the building. I also remember that it was about good and evil and that it was difficult to tell which was which. It fascinated me. I lost more innocence reading this book than I did in the back seat of my Oldsmobile.
I’ve thought about rereading it, but I doubt that I will.
I’ve thought about rereading it, but I doubt that I will.
June 10, 2015
Easily one of the best books I've ever read. Not only because the writing is superb, and the political and military complexities are articulated extremely well. I love this novel because the characters' stories are familiar to me - the motivations, the anguish, the uncertainty, and most of all, the camaraderie. The themes and commentary are as relevant to day following years of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in Afghanistan and the Middle East as they were in the 1950s and 1960s in Vietnam and Algeria. A perfect follow-on read to Alistair Horne's non-fiction "A Savage War of Peace."
February 10, 2020
After all the hype that I have seen on this book I was expecting more from it. I found it confusing with the author switching scenes and viewpoints that I almost didn't finish it. In the end the book is worth reading but I think it could have done better if it could have focused on less characters and developed each of them more. The story was good but very little of it had to do with the war in Algeria, with the first two hundred pages taking place in a POW camp in Indo-China I felt it was a bit misleading.
January 13, 2021
Written in 1960, this story of several paratroop officers, captured at Dien Bien Phu, and, after repatriation and failure to adjust to civilian life, involved in the counter-insurgency struggle in Algeria, is a reflective, realistic novel of the military mind, as they see themselves as the new Roman Centurions, guarding the empire for a blasé public and having to fight a modern kind of warfare “taught” them by the Viet Minh. These are characters you feel for despite their brutality and the novel is also a scathing indictment of politicians
June 27, 2016
I read this in college, probably 1962. I just reread it. The parallels to our disconnect from those who serve in the military and the population they serve is more true today. With the all volunteer military, and the lack of military experience in government, our troops are faced with the dichotomy of carrying out self-destructive policies. Criticism of the command structure still results in career suicide.
December 19, 2022
excessively French and overly long. I have issues with the translation too. Nobody uses the word "tart." This has made much of this book unpleasant, despite flashes of deep insights. There are also too many characters, and their stories were too French to keep track of.
June 4, 2018
I had never heard of this book when it got selected for a book club. I'm not much for war novels, let alone ones set in obscure French military conflicts that I know nothing about. And the reviews I read (for example, here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ange...) did not inspire much confidence. So I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this book.
The Centurions is the first of two books by Jean Larteguy that follows a platoon of French paratroopers (the sequel, which I've ordered, is The Praetorians). The book is divided into three sections: the first covers the paratroopers role in the First Indochina War, beginning almost immediately with their capture and internment by the Viet Minh; the second, much shorter intermission-like section, covers their return to France following the war; and the third, their involvement in the Algerian war.
I knew very little about these conflicts before beginning the reading, and that made particularly the first section a bit tough. Like the American Vietnam war, the French Indochina War is a complicated affair involving a fair number of confusing sides and objectives. Larteguy was writing in French for a French audience shortly after the conclusion of the war, and he takes for granted that the reader knows the broad contours of the conflict, which I definitely did not. I did a reasonable amount of googling trying to get at least a bit up to speed.
The book also somewhat suffers for having a large cast of characters that I found difficult to keep straight. Especially in the early going, it is difficult to discern which of the myriad characters deserve to be tracked and which are bit players. For example, the summary on the back cover (and the above-mentioned review) both highlight Colonel Raspeguy as the main character, but for the first half the book, he is in the background and only briefly mentioned. Additionally, the vast majority of the time, characters are referred to only by their last names (Esclavier, Glatigny, etc.), but then every so often someone gets called by their first name (Phillipe, Jacques); I had to start keeping a running list of full names written down.
But those complaints are minor relative to how much I enjoyed the book. The narrative is a bit episodic in nature, but it is by turns hilarious, heartbreaking, and poignant. For example, in the first section of the book, the paratroopers are taken prisoner and marched to an internment camp where the Viet Minh attempt to convert them to communism. The reflections on the nature of Communists and their brainwashing attempts were fascinating; the charade of soldiers playing along while essentially trolling their captors is hilarious; some of incidents that happen during this captivity are heartbreaking; and they build to this poignant passage reflecting on the nature of Communism:
The second and third parts of the book are just as interesting but with a different focus, exploring how the events of their internment have changed the soldiers. The middle section discusses their attempts to try (and mostly fail) to adjust to life back in Paris. The final section on the Algerian war shows how they apply the lessons learned in captivity to a new kind of guerrilla warfare.
It is this final section that is the most morally ambiguous, because we see that the lessons learned in captivity enable the paratroopers to achieve success far beyond their countrymen who did not endure the same Indochinese experience. But that success often comes from an amoral bloodthirstiness and willingness to do anything to win. Larteguy presents those developments with all the messiness intact—without appearing to take a defined position against their moral compromise or in favor of the rapid success that results in a swift victory that saves countless civilian lives.
The book even ends on an appropriate cliffhanger of sorts. Larteguy closes out the soldier portion of the narrative by showing their success in the war (like the Roman Centurions that give the book its name), but gestures toward the growing conflict between those triumphant warriors and the French political system (like the Roman Praetorians that gives the sequel its name).
I'm looking forward to reading the next book, which I would never have guessed before I started this one.
The Centurions is the first of two books by Jean Larteguy that follows a platoon of French paratroopers (the sequel, which I've ordered, is The Praetorians). The book is divided into three sections: the first covers the paratroopers role in the First Indochina War, beginning almost immediately with their capture and internment by the Viet Minh; the second, much shorter intermission-like section, covers their return to France following the war; and the third, their involvement in the Algerian war.
I knew very little about these conflicts before beginning the reading, and that made particularly the first section a bit tough. Like the American Vietnam war, the French Indochina War is a complicated affair involving a fair number of confusing sides and objectives. Larteguy was writing in French for a French audience shortly after the conclusion of the war, and he takes for granted that the reader knows the broad contours of the conflict, which I definitely did not. I did a reasonable amount of googling trying to get at least a bit up to speed.
The book also somewhat suffers for having a large cast of characters that I found difficult to keep straight. Especially in the early going, it is difficult to discern which of the myriad characters deserve to be tracked and which are bit players. For example, the summary on the back cover (and the above-mentioned review) both highlight Colonel Raspeguy as the main character, but for the first half the book, he is in the background and only briefly mentioned. Additionally, the vast majority of the time, characters are referred to only by their last names (Esclavier, Glatigny, etc.), but then every so often someone gets called by their first name (Phillipe, Jacques); I had to start keeping a running list of full names written down.
But those complaints are minor relative to how much I enjoyed the book. The narrative is a bit episodic in nature, but it is by turns hilarious, heartbreaking, and poignant. For example, in the first section of the book, the paratroopers are taken prisoner and marched to an internment camp where the Viet Minh attempt to convert them to communism. The reflections on the nature of Communists and their brainwashing attempts were fascinating; the charade of soldiers playing along while essentially trolling their captors is hilarious; some of incidents that happen during this captivity are heartbreaking; and they build to this poignant passage reflecting on the nature of Communism:
It would be difficult to establish Communism completely as long as men and women still existed, with their instincts and their passions, their beauty and their youth. In the old days the Chinese used to bind their women's feet to make them smaller; that was the fashion; it must have had some religious or erotic significance. Now, in the name of Communism, they bound the whole human frame, they frustrated and distorted it.
That also might be nothing but a fashion. Souen had discovered love and kicked everything else overboard, recovering at the same time her freedom of action and speech. A fashion! To kill thousands of creatures in the name of a fashion! To disrupt their lives and habits until one day someone would speak up and declare that Communism was out of fashion!
The second and third parts of the book are just as interesting but with a different focus, exploring how the events of their internment have changed the soldiers. The middle section discusses their attempts to try (and mostly fail) to adjust to life back in Paris. The final section on the Algerian war shows how they apply the lessons learned in captivity to a new kind of guerrilla warfare.
It is this final section that is the most morally ambiguous, because we see that the lessons learned in captivity enable the paratroopers to achieve success far beyond their countrymen who did not endure the same Indochinese experience. But that success often comes from an amoral bloodthirstiness and willingness to do anything to win. Larteguy presents those developments with all the messiness intact—without appearing to take a defined position against their moral compromise or in favor of the rapid success that results in a swift victory that saves countless civilian lives.
The book even ends on an appropriate cliffhanger of sorts. Larteguy closes out the soldier portion of the narrative by showing their success in the war (like the Roman Centurions that give the book its name), but gestures toward the growing conflict between those triumphant warriors and the French political system (like the Roman Praetorians that gives the sequel its name).
I'm looking forward to reading the next book, which I would never have guessed before I started this one.
March 3, 2025
I'm no expert on post-war French literature, so I can't speak to how important nor how critically lauded Lartéguy's novel about a group of soldiers fighting colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria is. There is certainly a cachet to The Centurions that surely places it somewhere in the front rank of fictional explorations as to how France struggled to resolve its identity and role in a world that seemed to heap indignities on it continuously. In some respects evocative of later American texts that explored the Vietnam War, Lartéguy's work is perhaps less self-flagellating and more willing to embrace dysfunction, whether it be on the national scale or for any one of the soldiers featured in the narrative. Lartéguy offers characters within a narrative that suggest that for all the problems and failures he recounts in the novel, the very Frenchness of their identity makes them redeemed, worthy, even admirable. This is a novel about war, yes, and about soldiers as well. However, it's also an attempt to navigate through a phase in French history when hammer blows to both national and individual egos were being felt, and to show how perhaps one could not just survive but triumph.
The Centurions is a novel in three parts, with the first section perhaps the best. Focused on the experiences of a group of French soldiers who have been captured after the fall of the isolated bases at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 by the Communist Viet Minh, Lartéguy documents his characters' experiences with vivid writing that reeks of the jungle, of suffering and of disorientation. Each of his main characters have to find a way to both resolve their past lives, including both their efforts in the war to retain French Indochina, and earlier experiences perhaps back home in France, with the humiliation and pain of being POWs of an insurgent army. Lartéguy undoubtedly provides the reader with 'truthful' characters, and he constructs their personas with some elegant and effective prose. Having said that, it can be hard to develop connections with them individually, and it might be that Lartéguy is more invested in depicting and exploring his characters as a group or community. Boisfeuras, Esclavier, de Glatigny, Marindelle and Raspéguy might be considered as different faces of a French 'entity' that had to answer to the decline and fall of France's power post-WW2.
Some of the philosophical and political aspects of Lartéguy's narrative in this first part of The Centurions is rather dated nowadays, and his depiction of the Vietnamese is on occasion crude and simplistic. It is intriguing to see Lartéguy also provide some of the Viet Minh troops, both and male and female, some rather unlikely romantic and sexual motivations. Perhaps this is an intentional fetishisation of the Vietnamese, and perhaps this is also a rather French perspective that might escape Anglo-American writers. It may be a cliche, but this novel is consistently riven with episodes and musings upon differeing representations of the French characters as inveterate sexual beings. It's certainly something less prominent in similar American novels.
The short interlude between Lartéguy's depictions of the defeat in Indochina and the war in Algeria is spent showing the paratroopers back home on leave, and this is perhaps the most culturally consistent part of the novel, when compared with similar works. The men who are the core characters in The Centurions come home to a country and people that doesn't really understand them, respect them, and perhaps even wants them. Like so many veterans of wars before and after they can only really find personal connections and dare one say peace by reuniting with each other. The author spends little time showing his paratroopers at home because they are fish out of water there. It is in battle, in fighting for France that they become worthy of each other and in themselves.
It is probable that the Algerian section of the novel might be seen as a slightly inferior part of the novel, because at times the author becomes somewhat melodramatic in his narrative, including some rather dubious plot points. Also, as the focus switches more to colonial warfare as opposed to responding to defeat away from the battlefield, there is a dilution of the characters' crises of identity. With respect to the former issue, the depiction of how both de Glatigny and Marindelle develop different romantic and sexual relations with local women is rather silly and probably offensive to many contemporary readers.
I can't deny that I enjoyed The Centurions and I certainly admire what Lartéguy achieved with this work. It's an engaging text that, for its faults and age, will find a receptive audience in those intrigued by French identity, society, politics and its soldiers in the declining years of that nation's empire. I suspect if you aren't as curious as I was about these aspects of the book, or perhaps more importantly, you're not French then you'll give The Centurions a pass. C'est la vie...c'est la guerre.
The Centurions is a novel in three parts, with the first section perhaps the best. Focused on the experiences of a group of French soldiers who have been captured after the fall of the isolated bases at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 by the Communist Viet Minh, Lartéguy documents his characters' experiences with vivid writing that reeks of the jungle, of suffering and of disorientation. Each of his main characters have to find a way to both resolve their past lives, including both their efforts in the war to retain French Indochina, and earlier experiences perhaps back home in France, with the humiliation and pain of being POWs of an insurgent army. Lartéguy undoubtedly provides the reader with 'truthful' characters, and he constructs their personas with some elegant and effective prose. Having said that, it can be hard to develop connections with them individually, and it might be that Lartéguy is more invested in depicting and exploring his characters as a group or community. Boisfeuras, Esclavier, de Glatigny, Marindelle and Raspéguy might be considered as different faces of a French 'entity' that had to answer to the decline and fall of France's power post-WW2.
Some of the philosophical and political aspects of Lartéguy's narrative in this first part of The Centurions is rather dated nowadays, and his depiction of the Vietnamese is on occasion crude and simplistic. It is intriguing to see Lartéguy also provide some of the Viet Minh troops, both and male and female, some rather unlikely romantic and sexual motivations. Perhaps this is an intentional fetishisation of the Vietnamese, and perhaps this is also a rather French perspective that might escape Anglo-American writers. It may be a cliche, but this novel is consistently riven with episodes and musings upon differeing representations of the French characters as inveterate sexual beings. It's certainly something less prominent in similar American novels.
The short interlude between Lartéguy's depictions of the defeat in Indochina and the war in Algeria is spent showing the paratroopers back home on leave, and this is perhaps the most culturally consistent part of the novel, when compared with similar works. The men who are the core characters in The Centurions come home to a country and people that doesn't really understand them, respect them, and perhaps even wants them. Like so many veterans of wars before and after they can only really find personal connections and dare one say peace by reuniting with each other. The author spends little time showing his paratroopers at home because they are fish out of water there. It is in battle, in fighting for France that they become worthy of each other and in themselves.
It is probable that the Algerian section of the novel might be seen as a slightly inferior part of the novel, because at times the author becomes somewhat melodramatic in his narrative, including some rather dubious plot points. Also, as the focus switches more to colonial warfare as opposed to responding to defeat away from the battlefield, there is a dilution of the characters' crises of identity. With respect to the former issue, the depiction of how both de Glatigny and Marindelle develop different romantic and sexual relations with local women is rather silly and probably offensive to many contemporary readers.
I can't deny that I enjoyed The Centurions and I certainly admire what Lartéguy achieved with this work. It's an engaging text that, for its faults and age, will find a receptive audience in those intrigued by French identity, society, politics and its soldiers in the declining years of that nation's empire. I suspect if you aren't as curious as I was about these aspects of the book, or perhaps more importantly, you're not French then you'll give The Centurions a pass. C'est la vie...c'est la guerre.
May 7, 2024
"What passed through the minds of the Roman Centurions who were left behind in Africa and who, with a few veterans, a few barbarian auxiliaries ever ready to turn traitor, tried to maintain the outposts of the Empire while the people back in Rome were sinking into Christianity, and the Caesars into debauchery?"
1. Recently in an international law class, a question was raised: "Can you win a counterinsurgency in a civilized manner? Please give an example." Not one of us could. Larteguy and the French Paratroopers in this book would likely agree.
2. For a war novel, this has very little actual war in it, at least compared to the likes of the "The Unknown Soldier" or "For Whom the Bells Toll." No battle descriptions, no precise descriptions of maneuvers. Really, its more a psychological examination of what particularly brutal and nasty war(s) does to the psyche of people fighting for the "wrong" side of history, the aforementioned last centurions of a gallic Rome. Unfortunately for the author, much of the psychological examination happens through romantic liaisons with the paratroopers, none of which were believable and invariably sexist.
3. I expected a full-throated defense of colonialism, but thankfully it was not. Many valid, pointed criticisms were made against the enterprise, often given to the "antagonists" of the novel to say. The whole book seemed to have a begrudging respect for those nationalist movements fighting against the French, either Vietnamese or Algerian. Some of worst people portrayed in the novel were French, either the large landowners in Algeria, the French high-command who had neither knowledge nor respect for the people they were fighting, or French journalists who benefit from bloodshed regardless of who bleeds. In a way its similar to Caesar's "Gallic War" and its romanticization of Vercingetorix and all the other brave enemies of Rome.
4. Last thing on the Rome metaphor, is France really like Rome? In a way, no. France is still here, it is still a great nuclear-armed power even without Vietnam or Algeria. Macron is meeting with Xi Jinping as I write and has been threatening to send a grand armee against Russia. French restauranteurs dominate every major city and a French fashion mogul is richer than every Saudi oil Baron or American tech bro. But is this France? "Rome" existed well into the medieval ages until it was finally euthanized by the Turks, but no one except the Byzantines themselves would've thought them Roman.
One character near the end of the novel commits an act of great brutality in order to delay Algerian independence. His justification was that "Algeria was the ball and chain which kept France fettered to her role of a great power and obliged her to behave with more nobility and generosity than a nation of complacent bourgeois shopkeepers." Interesting.
1. Recently in an international law class, a question was raised: "Can you win a counterinsurgency in a civilized manner? Please give an example." Not one of us could. Larteguy and the French Paratroopers in this book would likely agree.
2. For a war novel, this has very little actual war in it, at least compared to the likes of the "The Unknown Soldier" or "For Whom the Bells Toll." No battle descriptions, no precise descriptions of maneuvers. Really, its more a psychological examination of what particularly brutal and nasty war(s) does to the psyche of people fighting for the "wrong" side of history, the aforementioned last centurions of a gallic Rome. Unfortunately for the author, much of the psychological examination happens through romantic liaisons with the paratroopers, none of which were believable and invariably sexist.
3. I expected a full-throated defense of colonialism, but thankfully it was not. Many valid, pointed criticisms were made against the enterprise, often given to the "antagonists" of the novel to say. The whole book seemed to have a begrudging respect for those nationalist movements fighting against the French, either Vietnamese or Algerian. Some of worst people portrayed in the novel were French, either the large landowners in Algeria, the French high-command who had neither knowledge nor respect for the people they were fighting, or French journalists who benefit from bloodshed regardless of who bleeds. In a way its similar to Caesar's "Gallic War" and its romanticization of Vercingetorix and all the other brave enemies of Rome.
4. Last thing on the Rome metaphor, is France really like Rome? In a way, no. France is still here, it is still a great nuclear-armed power even without Vietnam or Algeria. Macron is meeting with Xi Jinping as I write and has been threatening to send a grand armee against Russia. French restauranteurs dominate every major city and a French fashion mogul is richer than every Saudi oil Baron or American tech bro. But is this France? "Rome" existed well into the medieval ages until it was finally euthanized by the Turks, but no one except the Byzantines themselves would've thought them Roman.
One character near the end of the novel commits an act of great brutality in order to delay Algerian independence. His justification was that "Algeria was the ball and chain which kept France fettered to her role of a great power and obliged her to behave with more nobility and generosity than a nation of complacent bourgeois shopkeepers." Interesting.
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