Obtain Immediately Os Centuriões Devised By Jean Lartéguy Ready In PDF

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: sitelink wsj. com/articles/theange 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 intermissionlike 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 abovementioned 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 intactwithout 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.
A complex and cerebral book,

It can be viewed as a thinly disguised polemic on counterinsurgency, an anticommunist screed, or the wine of sour grapes by an Imperialist bitterly lamenting the loss of his possessions.


And theres sex, Lots and lots of sex, In fact, it seems that part of Larteguys 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 timeI 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 buildup to the next installment , The Praetorians, which Im dying to read,

Larteguy skewers civilians in France, and the PiedNoirs in Algeria, He skewers intellectuals and the bloated cowards in the military that are not of the paratrooper community,

Its 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 Raspeguys 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.


Im 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, and the final abandonment of Algeria.


If you're looking for a bloodandguts, thrillride 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", 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 themile 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. I gave this bookbecause I think it is an important book, but you will leave it feeling nauseous from theyear old stale Gauloises smoke in your lungs, and with the taste of stale, gonerancid and likely poisonous latte in your mouth.
Or anyway, I sure felt like I did, There are real insights here, such as the parallels between Christianity and Communism and any system claiming a univocal lock on The Truth.
There are apt character studies and a keen observational eye, and insights to be gained on the alienation of fighting soldiers from the governments who put them to use.
But there is also the most horrifyingly naked racism and homophobia, colonialist justification, a soul crushing, wearying cynicism about everyone and everything, and appallingly sexist gender essentialist concepts of womanhood and femininity.


As a novel, it is thinly plotted, something like a Platonic Dialog or perhaps a book like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance the events mainly serve as a foil for various discussions of ideas and observations about people.
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, This novel is so veryFrench, I understand its recent popular resurgence with Americas recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and totally appreciate the broader themes this book raisesbut 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 dont 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 conflictincluding 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 lipservice to its brave soldiers but dont 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,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.
”

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