Re: I know for a fact we have a program the name escapes me that is one offered to our students.
Morice!! The name is Morice --clue:
In 1954, France sent many of its Indochina veterans to Algeria when civil war broke out there. In Algeria the French would fight with a passion that was lacking in Indochina. Algeria was home to one million settlers of European origin who looked to France for protection and France felt a moral obligation to look after their interests. In addition, and unlike Indochina, Algeria was considered to be an integral part of metropolitan France.
The Algerian nationalists (Front de Libération Nationale, or FLN) formed two military forces: an "internal" army that operated in Algeria proper and an "external" army that resided in the neighboring states of Tunisia and Morocco. The function of the external army was to provide men and military supplies for the nationalist forces in Algeria. The French military was denied permission by the French government for [geo]political reasons to enter into military operations against the external army forces in Tunisia and Morocco. The military situation in Algeria suggested that the situation was ripe for the implementation of the barrier concept.
This barrier, like the Maginot Line before World War II, was named after the minister of defense in office at the time of its construction. The Morice Line in Algeria was completed in 1957 and ran along the Algerian-Tunisian frontier for 460 kilometers and along the Algerian-Moroccan border for 750 kilometers, from the Mediterranean Sea to the barren Sahara Desert. At the core of this barrier was an eight foot high electric fence charged with five thousand volts. On either side of the fence was a fifty yard area heavily sprinkled with antipersonnel mines. At the edge of the mine fields was a continuous row of barbed wire of the style common on the Western Front in World War I.
The electric fence was designed to kill anyone who came into contact with it. Beyond the barbed wire on the Algerian side, roads were constructed over which passed frequent armed ground patrols equipped with Alsatian tracker dogs to detect and destroy infiltrators who attempted to breach the line. Assault helicopters conducted aerial patrols. Powerful searchlights illuminated the barrier at night. Electronic sensors could determine with precision the location of enemy raiding parties. Radar was situated to automatically sight and fire 105 mm howitzers.
The French manned this barrier with 80,000 combat troops, the strongest concentration of French forces in Algeria. These troops included paratroop regiments, mechanized units, and armored units. Successful night crossings by the Algerian nationalists were usually engaged and destroyed before the end of the following day.
The FLN soldiers tried every means to break through the French barrier. High voltage wire cutters were obtained from Germany. Hooks were employed to lift up the wire to allow troops to pass underneath. Soldiers tried to dig under the wire and to throw insulated materials over it. Bangalore torpedos were used to blast holes through it. Diversions were attempted by small groups setting off the alarms while larger groups attempted to cross in other places. The FLN tried to outflank the line by crossing in the desert sands of the Sahara. In almost all cases, however, the French were able to bring massive firepower against the nationalist soldiers and destroy them. The overwhelming superiority of French airborne troops and the lavish use of transport helicopters usually ensured tactical success for the French and failure for the nationalists. In the first seven months that the Morice Line was operational, the FLN lost 6,000 men and 4,300 weapons.
The Morice Line was successful in reducing infiltration into Algeria by as much as 90 percent. By denying external support to the FLN, the barriers established "a kind of closed hunting preserve" for the French military. Any nationalist soldiers who successfully breached the line were dealt with by commandos de chasse, company-sized units composed of French and Algerian troops who pursued the nationalist soldiers wherever they went until they could be located and destroyed. The FLN was forced to end large-scale attempts to breach the barrier. The internal Algerian army was effectively cut off from external support.
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