ON THIS DAY ·
Independence of Algeria
5 Jul 1962 — After 132 years of French rule and nearly eight years of war, Algeria is free. Almost a million pieds-noirs flee to France; Ahmed Ben Bella leads a country bled white.
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The moment in context
The road to war had been marked out in advance. At Sétif in 1945 a victory-day march gave way to killings and then to weeks of French reprisal that left thousands dead and buried a generation’s faith in gradual reform. On 1 November 1954 the FLN launched a coordinated insurrection built from cells and regional zones, designed less to hold territory than to make Algeria impossible to rule. France committed about half a million soldiers. In the 1957 Battle of Algiers, paratroopers dismantled the FLN’s urban network through mass arrests and torture, a tactical success that damaged France’s standing in the wider world as the methods became known.
From Algerian War, chapter 4 of The Decolonization of Africa, 1945–1994 (MAY 1960).
The place: Independence of Algeria — map and full story →
Teach this in 5 minutes
- Why it happened — Settlers change the equation. A million Europeans regarded Algeria as their country, held its economy and land, and had the political weight in Paris to veto compromise.…
- The turn — The Battle of Algiers, 1957 — victory as defeat. Massu’s paratroopers dismantle the FLN’s bombing network in the Casbah through mass arrests, checkpoints and torture. Militarily it is a clear…
- What it changed — Independence at a catastrophic price. Algeria was free in July 1962, but the cost. Hundreds of thousands of Algerian dead (estimates range wildly and remain politically charged), a…
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 →
The atlas that shows it
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