COLUMN ONE : Beau Geste in Bosnia Goes Awry : When French Gen. Philippe Morillon joined the besieged Muslims of Srebrenica, he became an instant hero. But he misjudged the world’s willingness to follow him.

ZAGREB, Croatia —  For a few heady days, hope rose from among the horrors of eastern Bosnia when one desperate enclave of Muslims paid tribute to their heroic protector by proclaiming themselves subjects of “Morillon-grad.”

With only courage as his armor, French Gen. Philippe Morillon had charged through Serbian rebel lines to stand between the embattled civilians of Srebrenica and the relentless blaze of encircling Serbian guns. As Srebrenica’s wounded and starving wept with gratitude and conferred symbolic honors, he vowed to stay by their side and spare one of the last Muslim refuges from conquest by Serbs.

The commander of U.N. forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina rocketed to hero status in his homeland last month and won wide acclaim among aid officials for propelling to world attention the plight of Srebrenica, which, according to a French Foreign Ministry report, was entered Friday by Serbian forces, more than a year after their siege began.

But the beau geste of the charismatic commander was undermined by a tragic miscalculation--one that may prove as fatal to his career as to the residents of Srebrenica he sought to defend. According to those closest to him, Morillon wrongly assumed that the international community was as outraged as he and would be compelled by his example to stop Serbs in their acts of willful slaughter.

“What Morillon was trying to do was to induce military intervention. . . . He was dragging the United Nations and the world by the nose,” said one of the top U.N. peacekeeping officials here.

But, instead, what Morillon’s dramatic gesture has done is spotlight the West’s deep reluctance to use force to halt a deadly, determined Serbian campaign to capture all of eastern Bosnia. By demanding a show of Western strength and coming away empty-handed, Morillon--who has been shuttling in and out of Srebrenica for almost a month--has called the United Nations’ bluff in the Balkans.

Describing the 57-year-old Frenchman as a valued friend prone to unpredictable moves, the U.N. official disclosed that Morillon’s actions had been made without consultation with force commander Gen. Lars-Erik Wahlgren or with any heed of the mission’s limited mandate. U.N. headquarters here has been in turmoil in the wake of Morillon’s most recent and failed attempt to bolster the defense of Srebrenica by deploying 150 Canadian troops to act as a deterrent to Serbian attacks.

Defeated last week by rock-throwing Serbs who blocked the path of his advance party, Morillon’s promise to the hungry, terrified Muslims now seems unlikely to be fulfilled and has dealt another embarrassment to what may be one of the most ineffectual peacekeeping missions in U.N. history.

Morillon’s unilateral actions have also angered his superiors, both at U.N. headquarters and in Paris. French Defense Minister Francois Leotard confirmed in a recent television interview that Morillon was likely to be recalled from his Sarajevo post by month’s end.

“We do not have a peacekeeping mandate in Bosnia, only a mandate to support the delivery of humanitarian aid,” Cedric Thornberry, deputy chief of the U.N. mission in the former Yugoslav federation, said of Morillon’s implied promise to defend Srebrenica. Thornberry underscored that U.N. troops can do nothing more than they are authorized to do by the Security Council in New York.

“A peacekeeping force cannot be expected to make up in its operations on the ground for any lack of international support to find long-term solutions,” he said.

Some see Morillon as a Balkan war martyr, a soldier spurred by honor and conscience to risk all to protect vulnerable women, children and elderly. Others praise the trim, gravel-voiced general for departing from the U.N. mission’s refusal to take sides in a conflict so brutally unbalanced that many observers have termed it genocide.

But Morillon’s rise to prominence has been neither steady nor without costs. He undertook the dramatic defense of Srebrenica after handing the rampaging Serbian nationalist forces an unexpected propaganda coup.

After the Muslim village of Cerska fell to a concerted Serbian advance in early March, the bespectacled general paid a cursory visit to the vanquished region and declared in the presence of his rebel hosts that he saw no evidence of an alleged massacre in which Bosnian government officials and foreign aid workers said hundreds had died.

Belgrade daily newspapers trumpeted his statement that he “couldn’t smell death” in Cerska as categorical evidence that there had been no atrocities during the siege.

One source close to Morillon says he was angered by the Serbs’ political abuse of his visit and went to Srebrenica both to repair his reputation among the distressed Muslims and to personally investigate conditions medical workers had described as appalling.

Moved by the suffering of nearly 60,000 Muslims crowded into the gutted city by Serbian “ethnic cleansing,” Morillon announced, without consulting anyone at headquarters here, that he would not allow Serbian conquest of Srebrenica. “I will stay here until the cease-fire is established and the corridor is opened” for food supplies and evacuations, Morillon told the people of Srebrenica.

After conceding to Serbian rebel demands that he travel without an armed escort, Morillon rode at the head of a desperately needed convoy of food and medicine into encircled Srebrenica on March 19.

It was that “incredible act of personal courage,” as Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Lyndall Sachs described it, that focused the media spotlight on Morillon.

Jose Maria Mendiluce, the U.N. refugee agency’s special envoy to the former republics of Yugoslavia, says Morillon deserves praise for using the power of his senior office to draw global attention to moral injustice. “We have to thank Morillon for this,” Mendiluce said of the general’s success in elevating Srebrenica to international notoriety.

The attention lavished on Morillon when he piloted the aid convoy to Srebrenica seemed to embolden him to take further matters into his own hands, and usually in the company of a French television crew.

For more than two weeks, he shuttled among the fractious warlords to gain guarantees of safe passage for civilians and aid. He promised the people of Srebrenica that he would send the company of U.N. soldiers to protect them--a proposal that amounted to a call for a human shield around the enclave, as the peacekeepers have no mandate to organize any defense.

As rebel attacks on Srebrenica intensified and Bosnian Serb warlords vetoed the Canadian deployment, U.N. officials began to grumble that Morillon’s much-publicized campaign was making matters worse.

During Morillon’s standoff in Srebrenica, irked U.N. spokesmen often bridled at press inquiries about the Bosnian U.N. commander’s actions. “What would we know?” snapped one official. “Why don’t you ask French TV.” (To a Times request for an interview with Morillon, one U.N. public affairs official said the general was keeping a low profile and added by way of friendly dissuasion, “you’re not the right nationality, anyway.”)

Morillon has brushed off criticism of the constant media attention, claiming publicity has a vital role to play in putting pressure on the Bosnian Serbs.

Some Bosnian government officials, like Vice President Ejup Ganic, have lauded Morillon’s engagement for its humanitarian intent. But others claim he has been a metaphor for the frustrated U.N. mission here. Nearing a strength of 30,000 and easily the most expensive deployment in the world body’s history, the U.N. Protection Force for the former Yugoslav federation has accomplished little, save getting in harm’s way.

In the year since U.N. “blue helmets” began deploying in Croatia and Bosnia, 37 have been killed and more than 400 others wounded, while the lines of confrontation have extended and casualties among the Balkan combatants soared.

“Morillon is being made to wait like a dog” by the Serbs, Ekrem Avdic, a spokesman for the Bosnian army 2nd Corps, said of the general’s failure to get the Canadian troops across Serbian lines.

Although he clearly enjoyed the attention, Morillon’s motivations for muscling his way onto the world stage remain something of a mystery. His ego is said to be healthy but checked by a commitment to his job. At times he strikes an overly confident pose with his blue ascot and cigarette holder, while at others he exudes a soldier’s disregard for comfort and convention.

When Serbian forces shot at a medical airlift under his direction on March 25, he stormed into the highest offices in Belgrade straight from the privations of Srebrenica without delay for even a much-needed bath.

The silver-haired, Moroccan-born general has also shown himself skilled at handling the media, seeming always to be available, while disclosing little of consequence. He is usually ready with brief, cautious statements after hours of negotiation with the warring sides, repeating them in fluent German or halting English for the benefit of the foreign journalists moving in his wake.

The enigmatic Morillon, however, is greatly protective of his privacy despite his affinity for cameras.

He has given strict orders to the Ministry of Defense in Paris to disclose no information about his family or personal life. But he is married with four grown children and is known to be a grandfather; he has spent little time home in France since being posted to the Balkans 13 months ago.

Educated at the French equivalent of West Point, the School for Officers at Saint-Cyr, Morillon bears both military medals and political scars from his initiation into the soldier’s life during Algeria’s bitter seven-year war for independence from France. He served as a platoon leader in the French Foreign Legion until the colonial forces were humiliated and driven out in 1962.

The Algerian experience and longstanding French ties with Serbia probably combined to persuade Morillon, until recently, to toe a neutral line amid the Bosnian horrors or lean toward the rebel view that the republic’s proclaimed independence was the cause of the conflict.

But when the four-star general witnessed the suffering of civilians in Srebrenica last month, he displayed a mercurial nature by vowing to protect those he had long ignored and had no authority to defend.

A decorated career officer whose only known diversion is sailing, Morillon has a history of landing on his feet--which may come in handy if he is to find an escape from what currently appears an ignoble end.

Morillon’s fiasco in Srebrenica coincided with a French power shift that has dethroned the general’s staunchest supporters, as the general is closely identified with the increasingly unpopular circles around French President Francois Mitterrand.

At age 57, Morillon may have few opportunities with the new conservative regime. But his spell in the media limelight has equipped him with a heroic public image, which may encourage the departing general to pursue a political career.

Liberation, the left-leaning daily, suggested Morillon had stirred great upset within the Defense Ministry but that the government was hesitant to blatantly order him home “because of his international popularity.”

What the French army seems most concerned about is that Morillon could become a target for Serbian retaliation, provoking public outrage and pressuring Paris to venture into the deadly conflict.

The authoritative French daily Le Monde claimed Morillon’s efforts to alleviate the suffering of Muslims have instigated Serbian rebel threats to his safety.

Statements like those of Zeljko Simic, a top Serbian presidential adviser, that “Morillon has apparently taken the side of the Muslims in recent days,” only increase official fears for his safety, along with Morillon’s willingness to put himself in the line of fire.

Morillon rejects such speculations with a note of injured pride. “What I deny is this idea that I could be made to come back only because personal security is threatened,” the general said in comments to French TV. “My safety is no more on the line today than it has been at any time since I’ve been here.”

Times staff writer Rone Tempest in Paris contributed to this report. Williams was recently on assignment in Zagreb.