France and Algeria

[Jack_Sarang]

I’ve been reading Tom Clancy’s biography/history on the US Special forces entitled “Shadow Warriors” there is a passage in which local insurgents are being discussed and he speaks about how the British were successful in Malaysia but the French failed in Indochino and won a “phony victory” in Algeria.

My question is, in what way was the French victory in Algeria “phony” and whats the background behind the French involvement in Algeria?

[zimaane]

Algeria was a French colony, starting around 1850. By 1954, hundreds of thousands of French citizens lived in Algeria, alongside millions of native Algerians. A group of native Algerians organzied a campaign of terrorist bombings and attacks that mushroomed into something close to a full-scale war. The violence ended in 1962, with France granting Algeria independence, and the return of most French to France. I’m not sure why the author referred to it as a ‘phony victory’. A better term would be ‘genuine defeat’.

[Bromley]

Well, it seems that the French had won the fight. However, politics/popular support screwed it up:

Meanwhile, the French army shifted its tactics at the end of 1958 from dependence on quadrillage to the use of mobile forces deployed on massive search-and-destroy missions against ALN strongholds. Within the next year, Salan’s successor, General Maurice Challe, appeared to have suppressed major rebel resistance. In 1958-59 the French army had won military control in Algeria and was the closest it would be to victory. But political developments had already overtaken the French army’s successes.

During 1958-59, opposition to the conflict was growing among many segments of French society. International pressure was also building on France to grant Algeria independence. In September 1959, de Gaulle dramatically reversed his stand on Algeria and uttered the words “self-determination” in a speech. Claiming that de Gaulle had betrayed them, the colons, with backing by elements of the French army, staged insurrections in January 1960 and April 1961. De Gaulle was now prepared to abandon the colons, the group that no previous French government could have written off.

Source
Note that the key difference between the French loss of Empire and the British one is that the French fought it whilst the British accepted it. In general. So in Malaya we fought a pretty dirty war (if my History Channel is to be believed ) but got out as soon as the Communist threat was dealt with, thus a victory. The French fought a pretty dirty war, won it, wanted to stay and was forced by non-military pressures to leave. Hence a phony victory.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

Odd you should mention this. I just happened to be reading an antique World Book Yearbook for 1962 (covering '61), and it said that many French conservatives didn’t want to let Algeria go free. Part of the army mutinied against the De Gaulle government, and the country stood on the brink of civil war. There were terrorist strikes all over the country, and De Gaulle was nearly killed by a car bomb. Amazing, not least because, in the regular encyclopedia issues of the era, the World Book people would always downplay internal strife or harsh governments in non-Communist countries. In the yearly supplements, apparently, they were more forthright.