Algerian War: Practices of War and the Impact on the Outcome Notes

Key Questions

1. Which side had the strongest armed forces at the outbreak of the war?
2. What was the impact of foreign intervention on the outcome of the war?
3. What was the significance of tactics and strategy in determining the outcome of the war?
4. What was the role of the mobilisation of human and economic resources on the outcome of the war?

The Combatants of the War

FLN Organization and Structure

1. The Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) was supported by its armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN), which divided Algeria into six military zones known as Wilayas.
   1. Each Wilaya commander oversaw not only military operations but also recruitment, political indoctrination, taxation, and intimidation campaigns, which included assassinations of opponents.
   2. While ethnic and tribal rivalries sometimes weakened the unity and effectiveness of these districts, the Wilaya system provided a decentralized yet flexible structure suitable for guerrilla warfare across Algeria’s rugged terrain.
2. The FLN’s Central Command often operated from safe havens in Tunisia and Morocco, allowing leaders to coordinate activities while avoiding direct French retaliation.
3. During the initial attacks of November 1954, fighters were organized into small, four-man cells designed to operate independently and maintain secrecy.
   1. As the war continued, these small cells evolved into larger formations: sections, companies, and battalions, with the 110-man company emerging as the most common unit.
4. The number of full-time guerrilla fighters fluctuated dramatically: in 1957, there were around 15,000 full-time fighters and another 15,000–20,000 part-timer.
   1. By 1959 losses and border blockades reduced this to about 8,000 active fighters.
5. Despite these losses, the FLN maintained sizeable forces in Tunisia and Morocco, which steadily grew and reached approximately 35,000 fighters by 1962.

French Army in Algeria

1. At the beginning of the war, France deployed around 74,000 soldiers, but this number quickly increased to about 400,000, a level maintained throughout the conflict.
   1. The French force was mixed in quality: elite formations such as the Foreign Legion and paratrooper units formed the backbone of combat effectiveness, while the majority consisted of conscripts, reservists, and locally recruited auxiliaries known as harkis.
2. The French army faced constant challenges in sustaining troop numbers due to widespread unpopularity of conscription for an overseas war that many French citizens did not support.
   1. Only around 15% of the French force was made up of professionals, leaving training and leadership stretched thin. Many units lacked the discipline and cohesion of the elite formations.
   2. To maintain manpower, conscription terms were extended to 27 months, but this policy lowered morale and contributed to growing resentment among soldiers.
   3. Sharp divisions emerged between elite units, often marked by arrogance and professionalism, and the bulk of the army, which grew increasingly disillusioned with the conflict.
   4. This morale gap undermined unity and led to tensions within the French military throughout the war.

FLN Weapons and Equipment

1. At the outbreak of the war in 1954, the FLN’s arsenal was extremely limited, with only about 350 small arms available.
   1. Early weapons included makeshift bombs and grenades produced in clandestine workshops, surplus rifles from the Second World War, stolen hunting weapons, and occasional light machine guns.
2. In the first years, the FLN lacked both reliable funding and consistent sponsorship from foreign governments, which restricted its military capabilities.
   1. Although Egypt’s President Nasser expressed strong political sympathy, direct aid was limited until later in the conflict, when arms shipments began to flow despite French attempts at interception.
3. Even with external support, the FLN primarily relied on Second World War–era small arms such as rifles and light machine guns.
   1. Heavy weaponry like artillery, mortars, and bazookas remained rare, usually appearing only when captured from French units.
4. The absence of mass transport forced most FLN units to move on foot or by pack animals, which restricted mobility and limited the size of their operations.
5. In urban settings, such as the famous Battle of Algiers (1956–57), the FLN’s needs were different: they developed hidden bomb factories to produce explosives for targeted terrorist attacks against French and settler populations.

French Weapons and Equipment

1. The French army in Algeria was part of a modern, industrialized military and enjoyed far greater access to equipment than the FLN.
   1. Standardized small arms gave French troops consistent firepower, while Algeria’s open terrain allowed for more effective use of mechanized vehicles than had been possible in the jungles of Indo-China.
   2. Tanks, half-tracks, weapons carriers, and transport trucks gave the French significant mobility and logistical advantages over guerrilla forces.
2. A crucial innovation was the large-scale use of helicopters, which provided rapid troop deployment and battlefield mobility.
   1. By the end of the war, France had around 120 transport helicopters stationed in Algeria, enabling them to quickly move troops across the country or respond to guerrilla ambushes.
   2. Smaller helicopter gunships and close air support from aircraft such as the T-6 Texan and P-47 Thunderbolt strengthened French ground operations.
3. This mechanization and air mobility gave the French military an edge in conventional engagements, though it could not fully overcome the guerrilla tactics of the FLN.

Strategy and Tactics

FLN Strategy and Tactics

1. The FLN’s main priority in the early years of the war was survival, since its fighters were poorly equipped and lacked large-scale backing.
2. In line with guerrilla doctrine, the FLN focused on controlling people rather than territory, aiming to undermine French authority and demonstrate the state’s inability to govern effectively.
   1. To achieve this, FLN fighters carried out ambushes of convoys and patrols, assaults on small French outposts, and bombings of both civilian and military targets.
3. Terror campaigns were directed at suspected Muslim collaborators as well as French administrators and pied noir civilians, creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity.
4. Beyond military action, the FLN established parallel administrations in rural villages. These shadow governments challenged French-appointed local leaders and worked to replace French influence with FLN authority.
5. The FLN also deliberately provoked harsh French reprisals by carrying out terrorist attacks on European civilians.
   1. They believed that indiscriminate French retaliation would alienate the Muslim population and increase support for the nationalist cause.
6. The FLN never advanced to the “offensive” stage of Mao’s revolutionary model; instead, they remained in the guerrilla phase, avoiding large confrontations with French forces to minimize casualties.
   1. The ALN’s operational doctrine therefore emphasized hit-and-run tactics, secrecy, and the avoidance of direct battles with heavily armed French troops.

Strategic Operations

1955

1. On 1 November 1954, the FLN launched coordinated attacks on 70 police stations, army posts, and government buildings, hoping to trigger a mass uprising.
   1. While these attacks caused some disruption, they failed to ignite the widespread rebellion the FLN had hoped for.
2. The FLN lacked a major sponsor state in the early years, leaving them short of weapons and supplies, which limited them to small-scale bombings of infrastructure during 1954 and 1955.
3. The French government, by contrast, declared that Algeria was part of France and reinforced its commitment by sending in paratroopers and legionnaires.
   1. These elite troops carried out assassinations and retaliatory operations that seriously weakened FLN leadership in the early stages.
4. A brutal cycle emerged: FLN attacks provoked harsh French reprisals, which in turn fueled further resistance.
5. The FLN pressured Algerian civilians into cooperation while also terrorizing the pieds noirs, while the French army relied on torture, intimidation, and collective punishment to obtain information and suppress rebellion.
6. As in many guerrilla wars, non-combatants bore the greatest suffering, caught between the violence of both sides.

The Philippeville Massacre, August 1955

1. In August 1955, FLN guerrillas attacked the city of Philippeville, killing 123 civilians, both Muslim and pied noir.
2. The French military retaliated with overwhelming force, killing at least 1,200 by their own estimate and as many as 12,000 according to outside observers.
3. This cycle of violence reflected the principle of collective responsibility practiced by both sides, in which entire communities were punished for suspected collaboration with the enemy.
4. The brutality of these reprisals hardened attitudes, radicalizing moderates on both sides of the conflict.
5. Pied noir gangs also began carrying out independent terror campaigns against Algerians, driving more Muslims to join the FLN.

The War Intensifies, 1956

1. In 1956, the French administration intensified its campaign by relocating entire villages suspected of supporting the FLN and imprisoning nationalist leaders.
2. At the same time, the French attempted limited economic reforms to address grievances, though these were often undermined by the ongoing violence.
3. French paratroops and legionnaires adopted new tactics, including the use of helicopter transport, which allowed them to bypass vulnerable roads and pursue guerrillas into remote areas.
4. This innovation gave French forces some of the mobility previously enjoyed only by the FLN, a tactic that would later be copied by U.S. forces in Vietnam.
5. The FLN continued to struggle with supply shortages, despite receiving some support from Egypt’s President Nasser.
6. By the end of 1956, French troop strength in Algeria had reached 400,000, and the FLN had lost over half its fighters.
7. France was now committing half a million troops against just 30,000 guerrillas, raising the central question of endurance: which side could sustain the war politically and materially for longer?

The Morice Line and the Battle of the Frontiers

1. With Morocco and Tunisia gaining independence in 1956–57, the FLN gained safe havens just outside Algeria’s borders.
   1. In response, the French constructed the Morice Line, an electrified border fence backed by landmines, artillery, and 80,000 soldiers. A similar barrier was built along the Moroccan frontier.
2. Despite the sophistication of the line, FLN forces continued to launch cross-border raids. One such attack provoked a French airstrike on the Tunisian town of Sakiet, straining regional diplomacy.
3. Between January and July 1958, the French confronted the FLN in the Battle of the Frontiers. The ALN suffered devastating losses, losing around 20,000 men compared to 350 French.
   1. The defeat forced the ALN to abandon attempts to move large numbers of fighters across the border, though arms smuggling continued.
   2. This situation highlighted a common problem in counter-insurgency warfare: the difficulty of dealing with insurgents who enjoy sanctuary in neighboring states, a dilemma later mirrored in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Political Crisis in France, 1958

1. In May 1958, after the collapse of the French government, pieds noirs settlers and senior military officers in Algiers staged a coup, seizing control of the local administration.
2. Their plan included pressuring France to recall Charles de Gaulle to power, whom they trusted as both a war hero and a defender of Algeria’s French status.
3. De Gaulle returned, but his vision for France’s interests was ambiguous, and he would eventually move toward granting Algeria independence.
4. His rise coincided with the birth of the French Fifth Republic, which gave him sweeping presidential powers.

The Challe Plan, 1959

1. French commander Maurice Challe launched a new strategy that combined military operations with social and economic reforms.
2. The Constantine Plan sought to modernize Algeria with low-cost housing projects, land reclamation for agriculture, and infrastructure development, while the Challe Plan emphasized systematic military sweeps.
3. French forces concentrated in northern Algeria, advancing from west to east, capturing towns and villages before conducting long-term sweeps of surrounding countryside.
4. Secured areas were then fortified with strongpoints manned by harkis (Muslim auxiliaries loyal to France).
5. The Challe Plan significantly weakened the ALN, shrinking its territorial control and cutting supply lines.

Terrorism, the Week of the Barricades, and Shifting French Policy

1. Despite military setbacks in Algeria, the FLN carried out terrorist attacks in France itself, with some 42,000 incidents over the course of the war, killing around 2,800 civilians.
2. These attacks made the conflict feel immediate to ordinary French citizens and eroded public support for the war.
3. By 1960, de Gaulle recognized that European colonialism was in decline and concluded that Algeria was not worth the cost of endless guerrilla war.
4. He proposed a referendum on Algerian self-determination, which passed, angering pieds noirs settlers and army commanders.
5. In response, pieds noirs staged the Week of the Barricades in Algiers in 1960, but their uprising collapsed without French military support.

Final Years of the Conflict, 1961–1962

1. Negotiations for independence were complicated by divisions among Algerians themselves, since the FLN did not represent all nationalist groups.
2. Around 60,000 Muslim Algerians served in the French military, and many others remained loyal to France in varying degrees.
3. In 1961, some pieds noirs and military officers formed the Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS), a violent paramilitary group that carried out bombings and assassinations in both Algeria and France.
4. Despite these efforts, the French military campaigns of 1959 had already pushed the FLN to the brink of collapse.
5. Yet, as de Gaulle realized, in guerrilla war the absence of total defeat could be enough to secure eventual victory. As Henry Kissinger later observed: “A conventional army loses if it does not win. A guerrilla army wins if it does not lose.”
6. By 1962, it was clear that the FLN had survived, and de Gaulle accepted that Algeria’s independence was inevitable.

Technological Developments

Helicopters

1. Experiments with vertical take-off and landing aircraft had been taking place since the period after the First World War, but mass production of helicopters only became possible near the end of the Second World War.
   1. As a combat vehicle, the helicopter began to prove its usefulness during the Korean War, particularly in the rapid extraction of wounded soldiers from the battlefield.
2. The French military saw the helicopter as a possible solution to the problems they had faced in Indochina, where they had struggled to transport troops quickly to remote areas and extract them when needed.
   1. In Algeria, this potential was realized. The helicopter freed French forces from reliance on road systems, allowing them to match the mobility and unpredictability of guerrilla fighters.
3. Once ground forces made contact with ALN troops, French airborne soldiers, usually around 20 per helicopter, could be deployed, reinforced, or evacuated as the situation required.
4. Smaller helicopters armed with machine guns could provide direct fire support to both ground units and airborne troops, making them highly versatile.
5. By 1960, French forces had about 120 helicopters in Algeria, which were moving around 21,000 troops in and out of combat zones each month.
6. This innovative use of helicopters represented one of the most significant tactical developments of the war. The United States military would later refine and expand helicopter warfare during the Vietnam War.