HistoryMemes.com

Making Sense of History

Algerian War: A Visual History

Get My 10 Best History Memes:

Visual history of a war

Eight years of insurgency, torture and terror that ended 132 years of French Algeria, brought down the Fourth Republic and drove a million pieds-noirs into exile.

Fought
1954 to 1962
Duration
8 years
Dates
1 November 1954 to 19 March 1962 (ceasefire); independence 5 July 1962
Deaths
About 25,000 French soldiers; Algerian deaths estimated 300,000 to 1 million; 30,000 to 150,000 harkis killed after the war
France
French army, settlers, harkis; later the OAS
Algeria
FLN and its army the ALN; support from Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, USSR
Result
Algerian independence; end of the Fourth Republic

The Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962) began on 1 November 1954 with attacks by the National Liberation Front (FLN). France, treating Algeria as part of the Republic and defending a million European settlers, sent 400,000 troops; the Battle of Algiers (1957) saw paratroopers break the FLN's urban network with systematic torture. The army's fear of a sell-out brought de Gaulle to power in May 1958, but he moved to self-determination, surviving the generals' putsch of April 1961 and the OAS terror campaign. The Evian Accords of March 1962 and a referendum brought independence on 5 July 1962; the pieds-noirs fled and tens of thousands of harkis who had served France were massacred.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Algerian War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

14001500160017001800190020002100Algerian War (1954 to 1962)Open: Spanish EmpireSpanish Empire (1492 to 1976)Open: British EmpireBritish Empire (1583 to 1997)Open: Dutch EmpireDutch Empire (1602 to 1975)Open: Second French colonial empireSecond French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)Open: French conquest of AlgeriaFrench conquest of Algeria (1830 to 1903)Open: Italian EmpireItalian Empire (1882 to 1947)Open: Belgian colonial empireBelgian colonial empire (1885 to 1962)Open: World War IIWorld War II (1939 to 1945)Open: First Indochina WarFirst Indochina War (1946 to 1954)Open: Cold WarCold War (1947 to 1991)Open: Portuguese Colonial WarPortuguese Colonial War (1961 to 1974)Open: Algerian Civil WarAlgerian Civil War (1991 to 2002)

European population of Algeria

025050075010001954: 10001960: 10001962: 9001963: 1001970: 501955196019651970thousands

Timeline of the Algerian War

  1. 1954
    Toussaint Rouge1 November.
  2. 1955
    Philippeville massacres
  3. 1957
    Battle of Algiers
  4. 1958
    May crisis; de Gaulle returns
  5. 1959
    De Gaulle offers self-determination
  6. 1961
    Generals' putsch; OAS; Paris massacre
  7. 1962
    Evian Accords; independenceMarch to July.

Toussaint Rouge to the Battle of Algiers

Algeria had been French since 1830, with 1 million Europeans dominating 9 million Muslims who lacked equal rights; the Setif massacre of 1945 had killed thousands. The FLN's attacks of 1 November 1954 were small but France responded with mass arrests and the Philippeville massacres of 1955 turned it into war. In 1957 General Massu's paratroopers were given police powers in Algiers and destroyed the FLN's bombing cells by torture and 3,000 'disappearances', winning the battle and losing the moral argument as Alleg's La Question and other testimonies reached France.

De Gaulle

In May 1958 settlers and generals seized Algiers, demanding de Gaulle; he returned to power, founded the Fifth Republic and told the crowd 'I have understood you'. The Morice Line sealed the Tunisian border and the Challe offensives crippled the ALN inside Algeria, but de Gaulle concluded the war was unwinnable politically and offered self-determination in September 1959. Barricades week in 1960 and the putsch of four generals in April 1961 failed; the OAS killed thousands in a scorched-earth terror campaign and tried repeatedly to assassinate de Gaulle. In Paris police killed dozens of Algerian demonstrators on 17 October 1961.

Evian and exodus

The Evian Accords of 18 March 1962 provided a ceasefire, a referendum and guarantees for settlers that proved worthless. Almost all the pieds-noirs left within months, 'the suitcase or the coffin'; the harkis were disarmed and abandoned, and thousands were tortured and killed. Algeria voted for independence on 1 July, proclaimed 5 July, the anniversary of the French landing in 1830. Ben Bella became president; the FLN ruled a one-party state until 1989. France did not officially call it a war until 1999.

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

Wars of the same era and region

8 surprising things about the Algerian War

  1. France did not officially recognise the conflict as a 'war' rather than 'events' or 'operations to maintain order' until 1999.
  2. Gillo Pontecorvo's film The Battle of Algiers (1966) was banned in France for five years and later screened at the Pentagon.
  3. The Morice Line along the Tunisian border was 320 km of electrified fence, mines and radar.
  4. The OAS tried to kill de Gaulle several times; the Petit-Clamart ambush of 1962 inspired The Day of the Jackal.
  5. About 1.5 million French conscripts served in Algeria.
  6. Albert Camus, born in Algeria, refused to endorse the FLN, saying he would defend his mother before justice.
  7. Frantz Fanon, a Martinican psychiatrist in Algeria, wrote The Wretched of the Earth as the FLN's manifesto.
  8. The FLN's Ben Bella was hijacked from a Moroccan plane by France in 1956 and imprisoned until independence; he became first president.

Sources

Back to all empires and wars