Abstract
The Eden and Macmillan governments always looked on the Algerian rebellion as a colonial problem. The war’s impact on France’s international power and its repercussions within French domestic politics were shaped by the manner in which France struggled to avoid decolonisation from Algeria. This chapter focuses on the final years of the Fourth Republic when withdrawal from Algeria was officially ruled out. It analyses the four aspects of the conflict which stimulated most discussion in British government circles. These were the viability of Franco-Algerian integration, the changing nature of colonial government in Algiers, the military policies pursued in the field, and the prospects for dialogue with Algerian nationalists.
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Notes
Colonel Paynaud, SPDN, ‘Note sur le problème de l’intégration du point de vue de la défense nationale’, 4 June 1958, no. 1360/DN, 1H1104/D5, SHAT.
M. Calcat, ‘Comment résoudre en Algérie l’équation démographie-ressources’, 22 July 1946, Cours professés au Centre de Hautes Etudes d’Administration Musulmane, Aff. pol. C2299/D3, ANCOM.
Roger Quillot, La S.F.I.O. et l’exercise du pouvoir 1944–1958 (Paris: Fayard, 1972), 268.
Clark to State Dept., 25 January 1955; tel. 3143, Dillon to Dulles, 26 January 1955; Clark to State Dept., 31 January 1955, RG 59, 751S.00, box 3375, NARA; Bernard Ullmann, Jacques Soustelle. Le mal aimé (Paris: Plon, 1995), 186–90.
Couve de Murville to Quai, 7 February 1956, no. 748, Etats-Unis, vol. 342, MAE; Denis Lefebvre, Guy Mollet. Le mal aimé (Paris: Plon, 1992), 183–9.
Clark to Dulles, 14 February 1956; M. N. Coates (Algiers) to WEA, 29 February 1956, RG 59, 751S.00, box 3376, NARA; Philippe Bourdrel, La Dernière chance de l’Algérie française. Du gouvernement socialiste au retour de De Gaulle, 1956–1958 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1996), 21–8.
Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962 (London: Macmillan, 1987), 148–55.
Theodore Achilles (Paris) to Dulles, 13 January 1956, RG 59, 751S.00, box 3376, NARA; Dugdale to African dept., 8 July 1955, FO 371/113788; Sarell, annual review for Algeria, 1956, 14 January 1957, FO 371/125913, PRO; Ullmann, Jacques Soustelle, ch.2; Geoffrey Adams, The Call of Conscience. French Protestant Responses to the Algerian War, 1954–1962 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1998), 27–8.
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Neil MacMaster and Toni Lewis, ‘Orientalism: from unveiling to hyperveiling’, Journal of European Studies, 28:1 (1998), 257–7.
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Between 1949–51 and 1956–58, Papon completed two tours of service in the prefectural and departmental administration of Constantine and in 1954 worked as secretary-general in the protectorate administration in Rabat. With dreadful consequences for Algerian immigrants, Papon was appointed prefect of Paris police by Félix Gaillard’s government in March 1958. See Richard J. Golsan, ‘Memory’s bombes à retardement: Maurice Papon, crimes against humanity and 17 October 1961’, Journal of European Studies, 28:1 (1998), 159–61. Clark to Dulles, 15 March 1956, RG 59, 751S.00, box 3377, NARA.
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Henry Descombin, Guerre d’Algérie 1959–60. Le Cinquième Bureau ou ‘Le théorème du poisson’ (Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1994), 28.
Michel Cornaton, Les Camps de regroupement de la guerre d’Algérie (Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 1998), 54–6. 74–5.
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© 2000 Martin Thomas
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Thomas, M. (2000). The Algerian War as a Colonial Problem: British Responses, 1954–58. In: The French North African Crisis. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287426_4
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