Thinking Like a Historian: Violence and the Algerian War

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Violence and the Algerian War

In the course of the eight-year-long Algerian War, French soldiers and police, FLN insurgents, and OAS militiamen all used ferocious violence in pursuit of their military-political objectives. Though casualty numbers were small at the start, the Algerian War would ultimately claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. What sort of tactics did the combatants use, and how did they justify their actions?

1 An argument for revolutionary violence. While thinkers like Frantz Fanon called for anti-imperial violence in historical-psychological terms (see “Evaluating the Evidence 28.3: Frantz Fanon on Violence, Decolonization, and Human Dignity”), radicals like Brazilian urban guerrilla Carlos Marighella laid out the justification in chilling, practical terms. Similar ideas inspired the FLN.

image It is necessary to turn political crisis into armed conflict by performing violent actions that will force those in power to transform the political situation of the country into a military situation. That will alienate the masses, who, from then on, will revolt against the army and the police and blame them for the state of things.

2 An argument for torture. French soldiers and police routinely tortured FLN members and other Algerians suspected of supporting the insurgents in order to gain information and intimidate the general population. Colonel Antoine Argoud, a commander of a French paratroop force sent to Algeria, argued for the necessity of torture.

image Muslims will not talk as long . . . as long as we do not inflict acts of violence on them. . . . They will rally [to] our camp only if it [justice] responds to their respect and thirst for authority. . . . From our perspective, torture and capital executions are acts of war. Now, war is an act of violence aimed at compelling the enemy to execute our will, and violence is the means [by which to do it]. . . .

Torture is an act of violence just like the bullet shot from a gun, the [cannon] shell, the flame-thrower, the bomb, napalm, or gas. Where does torture really start, with a blow with the fist, the threat of reprisal, or electricity? Torture is different from other methods in that it is not anonymous. . . . Torture brings the torturer and his victim face to face. The torturer at least has the merit of operating in the open. It is true that with torture the victim is disarmed, but so are the inhabitants of a city being bombed, aren’t they? . . .

It is my choice. I will carry out public executions, I’ll shoot those absolutely guilty. Justice will therefore be just. It will conform to the first criterion of Christian justice. I’ll expose their corpses to the public . . . not out of some sadist feeling, but to enhance the virtue of exemplary justice. . . .

To the great astonishment of my men, I then decided to bring the corpses [of presumed insurgents killed in an air strike] back to M’sila to expose them to the population. . . . I ordered the driver to unload [the corpses] in M’sila on the main square [where they remained exposed for twenty-four hours]. When we left, the ambiance had completely changed. No more attacks, and the population, initially mute, opened up, and information began to pour out.

3 The Philippeville massacres, August 20, 1955. Faced by setbacks, the FLN decided to mount an open attack on the coastal region of Philippeville. A violent group, encouraged by FLN insurgents, massacred 123 European settlers. Enraged by the atrocities — the mob had brutally assaulted elderly men, women, and children — French army units, police, and settler vigilantes retaliated by killing at least 1,273 insurgents and Muslim-Arab residents; the FLN claimed that the actual number was 12,000. A French paratrooper described the scene.

image [The bodies of French colonial settlers] literally strewed the town. The Arab children, wild with enthusiasm — to them it was a great holiday — rushed about yelling among the grown-ups. They finished off the dying. In one alley we found two of them kicking in an old woman’s head. Yes, kicking it in! We had to kill them on the spot: they were crazed. . . .

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[Catching up with a group of “rebels,” mingled with civilians,] we opened fire into the thick of them, at random. Then as we moved on and found more bodies, our company commanders finally gave us the order to shoot down every Arab we met. You should have seen the result. . . . For two hours all we heard was automatic rifles spitting fire into the crowd. Apart from a dozen fellagha [“bandit,” or FLN insurgent] stragglers, weapons in hand, whom we shot down, there were at least a hundred and fifty boukaks [another derogatory term for Muslims]. . . .

At midday, fresh orders: take prisoners. That complicated everything. It was easy when it was merely a matter of killing. . . . At six o’clock next morning all the l.m.g.s [light machine guns] and machine-guns were lined up in front of the crowd of prisoners, who immediately began to yell. But we opened fire; ten minutes later, it was practically over. There were so many of them they had to be buried with bulldozers.

4 A 1956 FLN terror bombing in Algiers. The violence continued to escalate after the Philippeville massacres, and in 1956 the FLN formally embraced terrorism, expanding its attacks on the colonial state to include European civilians. This FLN bomb attack, intended to strike a French police patrol in a working-class district of Algiers, missed its target and hit customers in a coffeehouse instead. In the background, suspects are under arrest.
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(ullstein-bild/akg-images)
5 Pacification of the Algerian countryside. Fighting took place in the capital of Algiers and other cities, but the Algerian War was largely fought in the countryside. In attempts to “pacify” the Algerian peasantry, French forces undertook numerous campaigns in rural areas like the one pictured here. Soldiers checked identity cards, searched for weapons, arrested villagers and moved them to internment centers, and at times tortured and summarily executed those they suspected of supporting the FLN.
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(Jacques Grevin/AFP/Getty Images)

ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE

  1. What are the main arguments made for the use of violence and terror in Sources 1 and 2, and in the Frantz Fanon selection (see “Evaluating the Evidence 28.3: Frantz Fanon on Violence, Decolonization, and Human Dignity)? Are any of these arguments legitimate?
  2. Review the firsthand accounts by French soldiers who fought against FLN insurgents (Sources 2 and 3). What is their attitude toward Algerian Muslims?
  3. Consider Sources 2–5. Did the use of violence and terror have unintended consequences?

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

War inevitably involves the use of deadly, unrestrained violence, but historians agree that the Algerian War was particularly brutal. Using the sources above, along with what you have learned in class and in this chapter, write a short essay that explores the use of violence in the process of decolonization. Why was violence so central — and so savage — in the Algerian struggle for independence?

Sources: (1) Alejandro Colás and Richard Saull, eds., The War on Terrorism and the American “Empire” After the Cold War (New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 190; (2) Marnia Lazreg, Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 89–92; (3) Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962 (New York: Viking, 1978), p. 121.