20 Aug 1955 — The FLN attacks European civilians, and France answers with a massive reprisal in which thousands are killed. Together, the attack and reprisal end any middle ground in Algeria. Terror and counter-terror become a war without mercy. Remember the dead of both.
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20 AUGUST 1955 · THE DECOLONIZATION OF AFRICA, 1945–1994
The moment in context
At Sétif in 1945, a victory-day march gave way to killings. Weeks of French reprisals followed, leaving thousands dead and destroying a generation’s faith in gradual reform. Nine years later, on 1 November 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) launched a coordinated insurrection. Its cells and regional zones were intended to sustain a struggle that would make Algeria impossible to govern, rather than simply hold ground against the French army.
From Algerian War, chapter 4 of The Decolonization of Africa, 1945–1994 (MAY 1960).
Why it happened — Why settlers made compromise difficult. For a million Europeans, Algeria was home. Their land, economic power and influence in Paris gave them both a reason and the means to resist a…
The turn — The Battle of Algiers, 1957 — victory as defeat. Massu’s paratroopers break the FLN bombing network in the Casbah in 1957, using checkpoints, mass arrests and torture. France has won control of the…
What it changed — Independence and its costs. The July 1962 independence left a country with a shattered economy and hundreds of thousands of Algerians dead; estimates vary widely and remain…
Then ask the room: France could crush the FLN in open battle yet still lost the war. What does Algeria teach about how colonial and settler wars are actually decided? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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