Timeline of the "ALGERIAN WAR"

Timeline of the "ALGERIAN WAR"

Woodrow Wilson's 14 points

WHY ALGERIA?

Beginning of Algerian War

Long-term

Causes

Short-term

Causes

SUPERIORITY

RELIGIOUS REASON

"A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon [...]the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight [...]"

• Both Muslim and European Algerians took part in World War I, fighting for France
• With Wilson's 1918 proclamation of the Fourteen Points ( fifth point):

• Muslim Algerian intellectuals began to nurture the desire for independence or, at least, autonomy and self-rule

• "Algeria is France" President François Mitterrand 1954
• Arabs ere called "Sandneger"

• „Frankreich ist die Herrin Algeriens, weil Gott dies gewollt hat.“
• the longest colony of French history (130 years) : "christian" mission of civilization"

• Economic inequalities

for Arabs

• 75 % of Muslim population was illiterate in Arabic

• Unemployment , extreme income differentials

Outside influences:

• Mao’s example (1949) -> give hope, everything seemed possible

• Dien Bien Phu -> French defeat in indo- china war in Viet Nam,

• Main Rouge:  French terrorist organisation
• its goal: eliminate the supporters of Algerian independence and the leading members of the FLN

• Toussaint Rouge: starting date for the Algerian war
• series of attacks: 1 November 1954 in French Algeria
• National Liberation Front FLN guerrillas attacked military and civilian targets throughout
• Algeria FLN broadcast a proclamation calling Algerians to join in a national struggle

"Auch [...] hat der Westen die Araber oft als Untermenschen auf der Stufe eines höheren Affen behandelt. "

Jean-Paul Sartre

ECONOMY

• "Racial" inequalitiy

PIED NOIRS

seemed to

present a historic opportunity for Algerian nationalists

• Independe of Marocco 1956
• Independence of Tunesia 1956

• discovery of large oil deposits in the Sahara
• widths of the Algerian desert are suitable as a testing ground for the first French atomic bomb that was detonated on 13 February 1960

• Floods of European settlers come to take advantage of:

• land, resources
• Job opportunities

Aftermath of French Coloniliazation

„Die Lichter sind erloschen. Wir haben die muslimische Gesellschaft ärmer, unwissender und unmenschlicher gemacht.“

- the French colinialist Tocqueville

1961

1981

1954

2010

1827

WAR CRIMES

FRENCH conquest of ALGERIA

"Scorched earth" Policy

• Ali Ammar (la Pointe)

• FLN attention: increase international and domestic French attention to their struggle

• created doubt in France about its role in Algeria
• originally called "pacification" or "public order operation"
• whole tribes, who had taken refuge in caves, were "smoked out"
• Louis de Baudicour, French author and colonialist in Algeria, in his diary:
• „Hier schnitt ein Soldat aus Spaß einer Frau die Brust ab, dort nahm ein anderer ein Kind an den Beinen und zerschmetterte seinen Schädel an einer Mauer.“
• Victor Hugo: soldiers played with heads of children to cope them with the peak of their bayonets
• "Für in Salz eingelegte Ohren gab es 100 Sous. Abgeschnittene Köpfe wurden noch höher prämiert. Arabische Gebeine wurden zeitweise zu Tierkohle verarbeitet."

"Indigenous Code"

RESISTANCE GROUPS

• a military strategy  which involves:
• destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy such as:
• food sources, transportation, communications, industrial resources, the civilian population
• practices include massacres and mass rapes

• Algiers, Oran, Constantine
• French and other Europeans settled in Algeria "Pied noir"
• 1 Million christian "pied noir"
• 9 Million muslim Algiers
• the state was ruled by the "pied noirs" , because they were considered to be superior ethnitically and religiously

• the French invaded Algiers in 1830
• In 1834: Algeria became a French military colony
• In 1848: Algeria became an integral part of France
• Algeria was divided into three French departments:

• Ahmed Zabana

• FLN method: bring the conflict to the cities
• call a nationwide general strike 
• plant bombs in public places

Oberst Lucien-Francois de Montagnac in a letter:

„Wir töten, wir erwürgen. Die Schreie der Verzweifelten, der Sterbenden mischen sich mit dem Lärm des brüllenden, blökenden Viehs. Ihr fragt mich, was wir mit den Frauen machen. Nun, wir behalten einige als Geiseln, andere tauschen wir gegen Pferde, der Rest wird wie Vieh versteigert. (…) Köpfe abschneiden, keine Artischockenköpfe, Menschenköpfe“

• take the humanity and sovereignty of Algerian Muslim people
• French citizen: the French settlers
• French subjects: the native Algerians
• made  discrimination official by:
• organizing the seizure of lands

• violation of law was punished
• Algerians could obtain French citizenship only if they abandon their identity as a Muslim in order to lose their status as "subjects"

• UDMA (Union Democratique de Manifeste Algerien):
• negotiated for equality and autonomy within the French state, for partial independence
• ULEMA: favoured statehood based on Islamic law
• MTLD: combination of traditional Islamic law and a left-wing social agenda and complete independence > FLN
• led by Ahmed Ben Bella
• supported by Gamal Abled Nasser in Egypt
• fight between the different groups -> Civil War