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Leiden University, History of the Modern Middle East, 2021-22

I am a student enrolled in the course above, whose assessment entails editing a Simple Wikipedia entry. I will be using the space below to draft this entry.

I am currently editing the following page Algerian War

It brought France to the verge of military coup d'état; which caused the fall of the Fourth Republic (1946-58), and transformed the French constitution.[1]


Background and causes

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Conquest of Algeria

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Until the early nineteenth century, Algeria or the Regency of Algiers was part of the Ottoman Empire. The area was governed by local governors called Dey. The population was made up largely of Arabs or Berbers, but there were other tribal communities spread throughout the provinces and the Sahara. After the French Revolution and the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the French Republic had bought 8 million francs worth of grain from the Algerians. This would be refunded later but this did not happen.[2]

In 1827, the Dey invited a French ambassador to pay some of the debt. The encounter resulted into a conflict in which the Algerian Dey hit the French consul in the face with a fly-whisk. The French were furious and decided to blockade the Algerian city of Algiers. However, historians agree that the fly-whisk incident, as serious as it was, was merely a pretext.[3]

The initial French conquest of Algeria was relatively easy. French troops left Toulon on May 25 1830, landed in Algeria on June 14, and by July 5, Algiers had capitulated. The French troops slaughtered civilians, looted, and destroyed mosques and cemeteries.[4] In 1834, the Dey was overthrown and Algeria became a colony of France. In 1848, France added the region to its own empire and divided it into three departments: Alger, Oran and Constantine.[2][5] The French thought that they were going to conquer the rest of the country in a matter of time; nonetheless the French faced a strong resistance from Algerians that could not be put down until 1857 with the bloody campaign of Kabylie and the battle of Icheridden.[6] Moreover, French became the official language.

Many French people migrated to Algeria. These immigrants are known as pieds-noirs (literally "black feet"). They were Algerian-born French and often often cruel against indigenous populations. They killed the local inhabitants en masse or expelled them. According to American historian Jennifer Sessions, the local population shrank from more than 4 million to 2.3 million in the first twenty-five years of French colonisation (1830-1855).[7]

Algerian Nationalism

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The first expressions of Algerian nationalism started with the revolt of the Algerian chief, Emir Abdelkader, against French colonial rule in the 1830s. Though it was merely a stubborn and unsuccessful opposition, Abdelkader's defence of his country can be seen as the first step to an eventual nationalist identity.[8] It was, however, by no means the end of the resistance to the French presence in Algeria; outbreaks of armed rebellion continued throughout the nineteenth century. The Kabyles in the mountains east of Algiers, for example, fought in the battle of Icheridden in 1857 and rose again in 1871. Anti-French revolts came up in the southern towns of Touggourt and Ouargla about the same time.[9]

In the beginning of the twentieth century, Algerians were again seeking for equality of rights and the removal of special administrative powers over Muslims. Algerian nationalism arose out of the efforts of four different groups.

  1. The first group, the Young Algerians (Jeunesse Algérienne), established in 1907, consisted of French educated intellectuals and elites, among which Khalid ibn Hashim and Ferhat Abbas. They were assimilationists and wanted to foster political, legal, social and economic assimilation by demanding French citizenship while keeping their Muslim personal status. Citizenship in Algeria was governed by the 1865 sénatus-consulte legislation, which stated that Algerians were French, but not citizens of France. To become citizens, they had to renounce their Muslim civil status. The Blum-Viollette Proposal would have allowed a small number of Algerians to obtain full French citizenship without forcing them to renounce their Muslim civil status, however the proposal never made it to the debate in the parliament.[10][11] The Young Algerians published a number of newspapers and journals, among which L'Islam, known as "the democratic organ of the Algerian Muslims" and El-Hack.[12]
  2. The second group consisted of Muslim teachers and students who founded the Association of Algerian Muslim Ulama (Association des Oulémas Musulmans Algériens; AUMA) in 1931. They were inspired by al-Afghani and Egyptian reformers Muhammad 'Abduh and Muhammad Rashid Rida. They stressed the Arab and Islamic roots of the country and promoted a purification of Islam in Algeria and a return to the Qur'an and the Sunnah. This group was not a political party, but created a strong sense of Muslim Algerian nationality among the Algerian masses. The slogan of founder Ben Badis was: "Islam is our religion, Arabic our language, and Algeria our country."[13][14]
  3. The third group was more radical and originated in Paris. It was organised among North African and other emigrants to France in the 1920s under the leadership of Ahmed Messali Hadj. He organised the North African Star (Étoile Nord-Africain) and when it was banned in 1937, the Algerian People's Party (Parti du peuple algérien; PPA). He called for an uprising against French colonial rule and total independence. The PPA laid the foundation for modern nationalism in Algeria.[13]
  4. The communists constituted another group with the Algerian Communist Party in 1935. However, there was no real sense of class consciousness because the group consisted predominantly of Europeans, thus leaving a minimal political role in the nationalist struggle for independence. [15]

The National Liberation Front (Front de libération nationale; FLN), founded in 1954, succeeded Hadj's Algerian People's Party (PPA) and immediately after its creations, the FLN established a military wing and called it the National Liberation Army (Armée de libération nationale; ALN), calling on all Algerians to rise and fight for their freedom. By 1957, the ALN reached 40,000 well-disciplined men, some in the country and others stationed in Morocco and Tunisia. The revolution had begun.[15][16]

Sétif and Guelma Massacre

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On May 8 1945, shortly after the end of the Great War, Algerian civilians organised a demonstration in which they demanded independence. The demonstrations turned into a blood bath. The protesters killed more than 100 European settlers. The French army killed at least 6,000 and 50,000 Algerian civilians (estimates vary widely).[17] John P. Entelis estimated the number of Algerians civilians killed as a result of the suppression of the riots to be 15,000.[15]

Effects of French colonialism on Algeria

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French colonialism had a devastating effect on lives of Algerians. By World War I, the number of settlers from France and other southern European countries, Italy, Spain, and Malta, reached 800,000 for a native population of 4,5 to 5 million. About half of the European settlers were working-class wage-earners. Their standard of living was in general lower than that of their equivalents in metropolitan France, but much higher than that of Algerians.[18] French settlers took possession of 6 millions acres which represented 40% of all agricultural and 98% of the country's most productive land. [19] The European population had also total control of almost all the country's infrastructure, industry, and commerce. The European population dominated the government and the judicial and educational systems. In sum, the French government created a feudal system in which a few thousand Europeans ruled over millions of Algerians.[20]

Only the European settlers and a tiny minority of privileged Algerians enjoyed full French citizenship; most of Algerians were French subjects but not French citizens and had little voice on how their country was run. The Code de L'Indigenat (Native status code), established at the end of the conquest in 1881 and in effect until 1944, obliged Algerians to pay special taxes. The harm done to Algerians was not only economic, it was educational and cultural as well. The government took over religious institutions; it distributed them a budget and appointed the imams. Moreover, the French destroyed the Algerian educational system; before the French conquest, the literacy rate in Algeria was higher than in France, but by 1954 only 25% of Algerian children attended school.[18]

The course of the war (1954-1962)

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Beginning of Hostilities

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On November 1 1954, the FLN started the struggle for national independence in Algeria and declared war on France. Algerian armed troops revolted in several places. They were supported by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), who promoted Arab nationalism and decolonisation throughout Africa.[21][22]

In the beginning, it was mainly a guerrilla war in which Algerian maquisards (guerrillas) attacked French-Algerian settlers. The FLN called on Muslims in Algeria to unite and join in a national struggle for the 'restoration of the Algerian state, sovereign, democratic, and social, of the principles of Islam'. Independence was not enough. The French Minister of the Interior, François Mitterrand, responded that 'the only possible negotiation is war'. [23] Initially the higher-ranking French were the target, but from August 1955 the FLN also targeted the civilian population. This began with the slaughter of 123 French-Algerian civilians, the murders of women and children and the mutilation of corpses in Philippeville by the FLN on August 20 1955 and the death of some 50 Muslims.[24][25][26] The FLN was also engaged in civil wars with the Algerian National Movement (Mouvement national algérien; MNA) founded by Messali Hadj. The MNA had a similar policy of violent revolution and total independence but the FLN largely wiped out the MNA in Algeria. The MNA's remaining support was among Algerians within France. Their fights during the war also took place in France itself and are called the "café wars", where FLN and MNA supporters assassinated one another in French cafés and restaurants. Nearly 5,000 people were killed through these "café wars", throughout the Algerian war of independence.[27] French troops took revenge after the Battle of Philippeville and killed 1,270 (French numbers) to 12,000 (Algerian numbers) of local Algerian Muslims. Moreover, after this attack, the French increased their troops to 250,000.[24]

Moreover, as soon as Tunisia and Morocco became independent from France in March 1956, both countries supported Algerian rebels in their fight against the French, so that Algeria, too, could become independent. They issued passports to FLN representatives to enable them to travel abroad and to make necessary arrangements for the purchase of arms. Egypt and the other Arab states of the Middle East also supported the Algerian rebels. One of the purposes of the formation of the League of Arab States in 1945 had been to enable independent Arab countries to help other Arab peoples achieve independence.[28]

Battle of Algiers

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Meanwhile, as a way to draw attention to their struggle, FLN began to target urban areas and bigger cities. On September 30 1956, the Battle of Algiers had begun when three women in alliance with the FLN simultaneously placed bombs in public places in Algiers, including an Air France terminus and a popular bar for pieds-noirs.[29] Both sides were fighting against each other: Algerian nationalists bombed and waged guerrilla warfare, while the French in turn repeatedly tortured and murdered Algerian prisoners.

From 1957 to 1960, the French tried to deal with the guerrillas by attacking villages and bombing or burning them if they suspected guerrillas were present. Over 800 villages, especially in the mountains, were completely destroyed.[30] The inhabitants were moved from their villages and regrouped in camps on flat areas where it was difficult to rebuild their previous economic and social systems. This regroupement program was a French strategy to fight against the guerrillas of the FLN. It led to the displacement of more than 2,5 million Algerians and the weakening of peasant communities and populations already weakened in the colonial context.[31]

The so-called Harkis, from the Algerian-Arabic dialect word harki (soldier), were indigenous Muslim Algerians who fought alongside the French during the colonial period. The term also came to include civilian indigenous Algerians who supported a French Algeria, such as Spahis, Tirailleurs, and Moghaznis. According to French archives, there were around 200,000 Algerian Muslims who fought alongside the French army during the Algerian war, and by extension, their families.[32] The French recruited and trained harkis using guerrilla tactics similar to those of the FLN. They were an ideal instrument of counterinsurgency warfare for the French.

An important turning point in the war, was the appointment of Charles de Gaulle as president of the Fifth Republic in 1959. De Gaulle wanted to end the war through negotiations. From May 1961 the first negotiations between the French army and the FLN started in Évian. Initially this went smoothly. In the Évian Accords of 18 March 1962, the negotiating parties (France, the Algerian Republic and the FLN) reached agreement on a cease-fire, the release of prisoners, the recognition of Algeria's sovereignty and independence. However, this did not mean that the war was immediately over. From March to June 1962, French pieds-noirs of the Secret Armed Organisation (Organisation armée secrète; OAS) carried out numerous terrorist attacks, both in Algeria and metropolitan France. OAS terrorist bombed, assassinated, blew up schools, burned libraries, and set fire to oil wells and pipelines. Finally, in June 1962, the FLN and the OAS concluded a cease-fire. In April 1962, a referendum was held in France, in which more than 90 percent voted for Algeria's independence. Finally, also due to increasing pressure from the United Nations, France was unable to stop the movement and De Gaulle declared Algerian independence on 3 July 1962. On July 5 1962, Algeria became independent.[33]

Consequences of the Algerian War

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Immediately after Algerian independence, a massive outflow started. About 650,000 people left Algeria, most of them withdrawing to France. Over the time span of four months, the total refugee population equalled five years of former migration waves during French colonisation. This sudden migration occurred during the period between the Évian agreements and the first months following Algeria’s independence.[34]

This migration was understandable, because after the war the FLN took revenge on former opponents and collaborators. The harkis were particularly hard hit. The peace agreements did not contain enough to save them from the wrath of their countrymen, in whose eyes they were nothing but traitors. Out of the quarter of a million who had worked for the French less than 15,000 succeeded to escape from Algeria. Estimates of the numbers of Algerians killed vary between 30,000 and 150,000.[35]

  1. ↑ Windrow, Martin (1997). The Algerian War 1954-62. Great Britain: Osprey. p. 3. ISBN 9781472804495.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Choi, Sung (2017). "French Algeria, 1830-1962". The Routledge Handbook of the History of Settler Colonialism. Routledge Handbooks.
  3. ↑ Horne, Alistair (1977). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New York: New York Review Books. p. 44.
  4. ↑ Kaddache, Mahfoud (2000). L'Algérie des Algériens - De la préhistoire à 1954. Algiers: Edif. pp. 571–574. ISBN 2842721667.
  5. ↑ Entelis, John P. (1980). Comparative Politics of North Africa: Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. pp. 18–19. ISBN 0-8156-2214-7.
  6. ↑ Aoudjit, Abdelkader (2010). The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse: Witnessing to a Différend. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. pp. 164–165.
  7. ↑ Sessions, Jennifer E. (2011). By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-8014-4975-8.
  8. ↑ Entelis, John P. (1980). Comparative Politics of North Africa: Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. pp. 39–40. ISBN 0-8156-2214-7.
  9. ↑ Aoudjit, Abdelkader (2010). The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse: Witnessing to a Différend. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. p. 166.
  10. ↑ Lawrence, Adria K., "Indigènes into Frenchmen? Seeking Political Equality in Morocco and Algeria*", Imperial Rule and the Politics of Nationalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 74–75, retrieved 2022-05-05
  11. ↑ Ruedy, John (2005). Modern Algeria : The Origins and Development of a Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 75–76. ISBN 0-253-34624-X.
  12. ↑ Ruedy, John (2005). Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 107.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Entelis, John P. Entelis (1980). Comparative Politics of North Africa: Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. p. 41. ISBN 0-8156-2214-7.
  14. ↑ Lawrence, Adria K., "Indigènes into Frenchmen? Seeking Political Equality in Morocco and Algeria*", Imperial Rule and the Politics of Nationalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 79, retrieved 2022-05-05
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Entelis, John P. (1980). Comparative Politics of North Africa. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. pp. 43–44. ISBN 0-8156-2214-7.
  16. ↑ Aoudjit, Abdelkader (2010). The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse: Witnessing to a Différend. New York: Peter Long Publishing. p. 174.
  17. ↑ Horne, Alistair (1977). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New York: New York Review Books. pp. 25–26.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Aoudjit, Abdelkader (2010). The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse: Witnessing to a Différend. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. pp. 166–167.
  19. ↑ Stora, Benjamin (2001). Algeria 1830-1962: A short history. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. pp. 6–7.
  20. ↑ Stora, Benjamin (2001). Algeria, 1830-1962: A short history. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. p. 24.
  21. ↑ Adi, Hakim; Sherwood, Marika (2003). Pan-African History: Political figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787. London and New-York: Routledge. p. 140.
  22. ↑ Paul, Christopher; Clarke, Colin P.; Grill, Beth; Dunigan, Molly (2013). "Algerian Independence, 1954–1962 Case Outcome: COIN Loss". Paths to Victory: Detailed Insurgency Case Studies. RAND Corporation. pp. 77–78.
  23. ↑ Robinson, Adam (2002). "An Own Goal in Algeria". The Terror on the Pitch: How Bin Laden Targeted Beckham and the England Football Team. Mainstream Publishing.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Horne, Alistair (1977). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New-York: New York Review Books. p. 154. ISBN 9780140051377.
  25. ↑ McDougall, James (2017). A History of Algeria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 201–202. ISBN 978 0 521 61730 7.
  26. ↑ Ruedy, John (2005). Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 163. ISBN 0-253-34624-X.
  27. ↑ Falola, Toyin; Roberts, Kevin D., eds. (2008). The Atlantic World, 1450-2000. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 264–265.
  28. ↑ Fraleigh, Arnold (April 27–29, 1967). "The Algerian War of Independence". Proceedings of the American Society of International Law at Its Annual Meeting (1921-1969). 61: 7–8.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
  29. ↑ Horne, Alistair (1977). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New-York: New York Review Books. p. 230.
  30. ↑ Aoudjit, Abdelkader (2010). The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse: Witnessing to a Différend. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. p. 179.
  31. ↑ Sacriste, Fabien (2018). "Les "regroupements" de la guerre d'Algérie, des "villages stratégiques"?". Critique Internationale. 79: 25–26 – via Cairn.info.
  32. ↑ "Les sources relatives aux Harkis : introduction générale". FranceArchives. 31 March 2022. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  33. ↑ Aoudjit, Abdelkader (2010). The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse: Witnessing to a Différend. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. pp. 180–185.
  34. ↑ Moumen, Abderrahmen (2010). "De l'Algérie à la France: Les conditions de départ et d'accueil des rapatriés, pieds-noirs et harkis en 1962". Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps. 99: 60 – via Cairn.info.
  35. ↑ Horne, Alistair (2006). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New York: New York Review Books. pp. 675–676.

{{unblock|I believe I have been blocked by mistake, I haven't edited since my last entries on the Algerian War (see above) }}

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