Algerian War

Not to be confused with Algerian Civil War.
For other uses, see List of wars involving Algeria.

Algerian War
ثورة التحرير الجزائرية
Guerre d'Algérie
Part of the Cold War and the decolonisation of Africa

Collage of the French war in Algeria
Date1 November 1954 – 19 March 1962
(7 years, 4 months, 2 weeks and 4 days)
Location
French Algeria
Result Algerian victory
Territorial
changes
Belligerents
  • FAF
    (1960–61)
  • OAS
    (1961–62)
Commanders and leaders
Politicians:
Politicians:
Strength
300,000 identified
40,000 civilian support
  • 470,000 troops (maximum reached and maintained by the French military from 1956 to 1962)[6] or 700,000 men[7] (it is unclear whether the latter estimate includes the Harkis or not)
    90,000[8][9] to 180,000 Harkis[10] (pro-French Algerian auxiliaries)
    1.5 million men mobilized[11]
 3,000 (OAS)
Casualties and losses
  • 140,000[12] to 152,863[13][14] FLN soldiers killed (including 12,000 internal purges[15] and 4,300 Algerians from the FLN and MNA killed in metropolitan France)
  • Unknown wounded
  • 198 executed[16]
  • 17,456[15]: 538  to 30,000[17] French soldiers killed
  • 65,000 wounded[18]
  • 50,000 Harkis killed or missing[19][20]
  • 6,000 European civilian deaths
    		•
  • 100 dead
  • 2,000 jailed
  • 4 executed
    • 250,000–300,000 (including 55,000[21] to 250,000[22][23] civilians) Algerian casualties (French estimate)

    ~1,500,000 total Algerian deaths (Algerian historians' estimate)[24]
    ~1,000,000 total Algerian deaths (Horne's estimate)[15]
    ~400,000 total deaths (French historians' estimate)[24]

    Part of a series on the
    History of Algeria
    Prehistory
    Antiquity
    Middle Ages
    Modern times
    Regency of Algiers (16th–19th centuries)

    French Algeria (19th–20th centuries)

    Algerian War (1954–1962)

    Contemporary era
    1960s–80s

    1990s–2000s

    2010s to present

    Related topics

    The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence)[nb 1] was a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France.[29] An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and war crimes. The conflict also became a civil war between the different communities and within the communities.[30] The war took place mainly on the territory of Algeria, with repercussions in metropolitan France.

    Effectively started by members of the FLN on 1 November 1954, during the Toussaint Rouge ("Red All Saints' Day"), the conflict led to serious political crises in France, causing the fall of the Fourth Republic (1946–58), to be replaced by the Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency. The brutality of the methods employed by the French forces failed to win hearts and minds in Algeria, alienated support in metropolitan France, and discredited French prestige abroad.[31][32] As the war dragged on, the French public slowly turned against it[33] and many of France's key allies, including the United States, switched from supporting France to abstaining in the UN debate on Algeria.[34] After major demonstrations in Algiers and several other cities in favor of independence (1960)[35][36] and a United Nations resolution recognizing the right to independence,[37] Charles de Gaulle, the first president of the Fifth Republic, decided to open a series of negotiations with the FLN. These concluded with the signing of the Évian Accords in March 1962. A referendum took place on 8 April 1962 and the French electorate approved the Évian Accords. The final result was 91% in favor of the ratification of this agreement[38] and on 1 July, the Accords were subject to a second referendum in Algeria, where 99.72% voted for independence and just 0.28% against.[39]

    The planned French withdrawal led to a state crisis. This included various assassination attempts on de Gaulle as well as some attempts at military coups. Most of the former were carried out by the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), an underground organization formed mainly from French military personnel supporting a French Algeria, which committed a large number of bombings and murders both in Algeria and in the homeland to stop the planned independence.

    The war caused the deaths of between 400,000 and 1.5 million Algerians,[40][24][22] 25,600 French soldiers,[15]: 538  and 6,000 Europeans. War crimes committed during the war included massacres of civilians, rape, and torture; the French destroyed over 8,000 villages and relocated over 2 million Algerians to concentration camps.[41][42] Upon independence in 1962, 900,000 European-Algerians (Pieds-noirs) fled to France within a few months for fear of the FLN's revenge. The French government was unprepared to receive such a vast number of refugees, which caused turmoil in France. The majority of Algerian Muslims who had worked for the French were disarmed and left behind, as the agreement between French and Algerian authorities declared that no actions could be taken against them.[43] However, the Harkis in particular, having served as auxiliaries with the French army, were regarded as traitors and many were murdered [fr] by the FLN or by lynch mobs, often after being abducted and tortured.[15]: 537 [44] About 20,000 Harki families (around 90,000 people) managed to flee to France, some with help from their French officers acting against orders, and today they and their descendants form a significant part of the population of Algerians in France.[citation needed]

    1. ^ Alec G. Hargreaves (2005). Memory, Empire, and Postcolonialism: Legacies of French Colonialism. Lexington Books. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-7391-0821-5. The death knell of the French empire was sounded by the bitterly fought Algerian war of independence, which ended in 1962.
    2. ^ "The French defeat in the war effectively signaled the end of the French Empire". Jo McCormack (2010). Collective Memory: France and the Algerian War (1954–1962).
    3. ^ Paul Allatson; Jo McCormack (2008). Exile Cultures, Misplaced Identities. Rodopi. p. 117. ISBN 978-90-420-2406-9. The Algerian War came to an end in 1962, and with it closed some 130 years of French colonial presence in Algeria (and North Africa). With this outcome, the French Empire, celebrated in pomp in Paris in the Exposition coloniale of 1931 ... received its decisive death blow.
    4. ^ Yves Beigbeder (2006). Judging War Crimes And Torture: French Justice And International Criminal Tribunals And Commissions (1940–2005). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 35. ISBN 978-90-04-15329-5. The independence of Algeria in 1962, after a long and bitter war, marked the end of the French Empire.
    5. ^ France's Colonial Legacies: Memory, Identity and Narrative. University of Wales Press. 15 October 2013. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-78316-585-8. The difficult relationship which France has with the period of history dominated by the Algerian war has been well documented. The reluctance, which ended only in 1999, to acknowledge 'les évenements' as a war, the shame over the fate of the harki detachments, the amnesty covering many of the deeds committed during the war and the humiliation of a colonial defeat which marked the end of the French empire are just some of the reasons why France has preferred to look towards a Eurocentric future, rather than confront the painful aspects of its colonial past.
    6. ^ Windrow, Martin; Chappell, Mike (1997). The Algerian War 1954–62. Osprey Publishing. p. 11. ISBN 9781855326583.
    7. ^ Ottaway, David; Ottaway, Marina (25 March 2022). Algeria: The Politics of a Socialist Revolution. Univ of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-35711-2. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
    8. ^ Stora, Benjamin (2004). Algeria 1830-2000: A Short History. Cornell University Press. p. 101. ISBN 0-8014-8916-4.
    9. ^ General Faivre, Les combatants musulmans de la guerre d'Algérie, L'Harmattan, 1995, p.125
    10. ^ Major Gregory D. Peterson, The French Experience in Algeria, 1954–62: Blueprint for U.S. Operations in Iraq, p.33
    11. ^ "Algérie : Une guerre d'appelés". Le Figaro. 19 March 2012. Archived from the original on 29 September 2017. Retrieved 16 June 2017.
    12. ^ Travis, Hannibal (2013). Genocide, Ethnonationalism, and the United Nations: Exploring the Causes of Mass Killing Since 1945. Routledge. p. 137.
    13. ^ Martin S. Alexander; Martin Evans; J. F. V. Keiger (2002). "The 'War without a Name', the French Army and the Algerians: Recovering Experiences, Images and Testimonies". Algerian War and the French Army, 1954-62: Experiences, Images, Testimonies (PDF). Palgrave Macmillan. p. 6. ISBN 978-0333774564. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 April 2021. Retrieved 11 August 2020. The Algerian Ministry of War Veterans gives the figure of 152,863 FLN killed.
    14. ^ Katherine Draper (2013). "Why a War Without a Name May Need One: Policy-Based Application of International Humanitarian Law in the Algerian War" (PDF). Texas International Law Journal. 48 (3): 576. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 November 2016. The Algerian Ministry of War Veterans calculates 152,863 Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) deaths (French sources), and although the death toll among Algerian civilians may never be accurately known estimate of 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 were killed.
    15. ^ a b c d e Horne, Alistair (1978). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962. New York Review of Books. p. 358. ISBN 9781590172186.
    16. ^ Beigbeder, Yves (1 September 2006). Judging War Crimes and Torture: French Justice and International Criminal Tribunals and Commissions (1940-2005). BRILL. p. 198. ISBN 978-90-474-1070-6. Archived from the original on 21 May 2024. Retrieved 5 April 2024.
    17. ^ "Déclaration de M. Emmanuel Macron, président de la République, sur le 60ème anniversaire des accords d'Évian et la guerre d'Algérie, à Paris le 19 mars 2022". Archived from the original on 1 December 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
    18. ^ Stapleton, T.J. (2013). A Military History of Africa. ABC-CLIO. pp. 1–272. ISBN 9780313395703. Archived from the original on 21 May 2024. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
    19. ^ Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict: Po – Z, index. 3, Academic Press, 1999 (ISBN 9780122270109, lire en ligne [archive]), p. 86.
    20. ^ Crandall, R., America's Dirty Wars: Irregular Warfare from 1776 to the War on Terror, Cambridge University Press, 2014 (ISBN 9781139915823, lire en ligne [archive]), p. 184.
    21. ^ From "Algeria: War of independence". Mass Atrocity Endings. Archived from the original on 14 May 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2017.:

      He also argues that the least controversial of all the numbers put forward by various groups are those concerning the French soldiers, where government numbers are largely accepted as sound. Most controversial are the numbers of civilians killed. On this subject, he turns to the work of Meynier, who, citing French army documents (not the official number) posits the range of 55,000–60,000 deaths. Meynier further argues that the best number to capture the harkis deaths is 30,000. If we add to this, the number of European civilians, which government figures posit as 2,788.

      Meynier's work cited was: Meynier, Gilbert (15 May 2024). "Histoire intérieure du FLN. 1954–1962". Revue d'Histoire Moderne & Contemporaine. 50–4 (4): 205–206. doi:10.3917/rhmc.504.0205. Archived from the original on 13 August 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2017.

    22. ^ a b Rummel, Rudolph J. "STATISTICS OF DEMOCIDE Chapter 14 THE HORDE OF CENTI-KILO MURDERERS Estimates, Calculations, And Sources". Table 14.1 B; row 664. Archived from the original on 17 February 2021. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
    23. ^ Rummel, Rudolph J. "STATISTICS OF DEMOCIDE Chapter 14 THE HORDE OF CENTI-KILO MURDERERS Estimates, Calculations, And Sources". Table 14.1 B; row 694. Archived from the original on 17 February 2021. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
    24. ^ a b c "France remembers the Algerian War, 50 years on". 16 March 2012. Archived from the original on 7 December 2017. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
    25. ^ Cutts, M.; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2000). The State of the World's Refugees, 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action. Oxford University Press. p. 38. ISBN 9780199241040. Archived from the original on 21 May 2024. Retrieved 13 January 2017. Referring to Evans, Martin. 2012. Algeria: France's Undeclared War. New York: Oxford University Press.
    26. ^ Hobson, Faure L. (2009). "The Migration of Jews from Algeria to France: An Opportunity for French Jews to Recover Their Independence in the Face of American Judaism in Postwar France?". Archives Juives. 42 (2): 67–81. doi:10.3917/aj.422.0067. Archived from the original on 13 October 2022. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
    27. ^ Cite error: The named reference Fabien was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
    28. ^ "Algeria – The Revolution and Social Change". countrystudies.us. Archived from the original on 3 November 2016. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
    29. ^ Matthew James Connelly (2002). A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-cold War Era. Oxford University Press. pp. 263–277. ISBN 978-0-19-514513-7. The Algerians' victory enabled the French to become free--free from their colonial charges, and free from the United States....... Although France was obviously eager to get out, it had to accept the terms of its defeat.

      Robert Malley (20 November 1996). The Call From Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution, and the Turn to Islam. University of California Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-520-91702-6. Then, in 1962, came the FLN's victory in Algeria, a defining moment in the history of the Third Worldism, for the battle had lasted so long, had been so violent, and had been won by a movement so acutely aware of its international dimension.

      Ruud van Dijk; William Glenn Gray; Svetlana Savranskaya (13 May 2013). Encyclopedia of the Cold War. Routledge. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-135-92311-2. During this war of independence, Algeria was at the center of world politics. The FLN's victory made the country one of the most prominent in the Third World during the 1960s and 1970s.
    30. ^ Guy Pervillé, Pour une histoire de la guerre d´Algérie, chap. "Une double guerre civile", Picard, 2002, pp.132–139
    31. ^ Keith Brannum. "The Victory Without Laurels: The French Military Tragedy in Algeria (1954–1962)" (PDF). University of North Carolina Asheville. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 October 2014.
    32. ^ Irwin M. Wall (20 July 2001). France, the United States, and the Algerian War. University of California Press. pp. 68–69. ISBN 9780520925687.
    33. ^ Benjamin Stora (2004). Algeria, 1830-2000: A Short History. Cornell University Press. p. 87. ISBN 0-8014-8916-4.
    34. ^ Mathilde Von Bulow (22 August 2016). West Germany, Cold War Europe and the Algerian War. Cambridge University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-1-107-08859-7.
    35. ^ Stora, Benjamin (2004). Algeria, 1830-2000: A Short History. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801489167.
    36. ^ Pervillé, G. (2012). Les accords d'Evian (1962): Succès ou échec de la réconciliation franco-algérienne (1954–2012). Armand Colin. ISBN 9782200281977. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
    37. ^ "Document officiel des Nations Unies". un.org. Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
    38. ^ "référendum 1962 Algérie". france-politique.fr. Archived from the original on 4 July 2017. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
    39. ^ "Proclamation des résultats du référendum d'autodétermination du 1er juillet 1962" (PDF). Journal Officiel de l'État Algérien. 6 July 1962. Archived (PDF) from the original on 31 December 2018. Retrieved 8 April 2009.
    40. ^ "Ombres et lumières de la révolution algérienne". Le Monde diplomatique (in French). 1 November 1982. Archived from the original on 29 September 2017. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
    41. ^ Kevin Shillington (2013). Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set. Routledge. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-135-45670-2. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 28 October 2022. The Algerian war for independence had lasted eight years. More than 8,000 villages had been destroyed in the fighting. Some three million people were displaced, and more than one million Algerians and some 10,000 colons lost their lives.
    42. ^ Cite error: The named reference Aoudjit was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
    43. ^ Évian accords, Chapitre II, partie A, article 2
    44. ^ See http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/qa-happened-algeria-harkis-150531082955192.html Archived 7 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine and Pierre Daum's "The Last Taboo: Harkis Who Stayed in Algeria After 1962". November 2017


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