**Algerian Crisis**

European Empires 2. I have seminar on The Algerian Crisis, decolonialization of France.

I read some powerpoints and from wiki. Since im not taking Algeria crisis as my chosen essay, i didnt focus on this topic area. But I want to know some of the event that happened during the crisis.

The Algerian War (French: Guerre d'Algérie; 1954–1962), also known as Algerian War of Independence, led to Algeria's independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, use of torture on both sides and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. Effectively started by members of the National Liberation Front (FLN) on 1 November 1954 during the Toussaint Rouge ("Red All Saints' Day"), the conflict shook the French Fourth Republic's (1946–58) foundations and led to its collapse.

Because of the instability of the French parliament, the French Fourth Republic was dissolved with Charles de Gaulle's return to power during the May 1958 crisis and his subsequent founding of the Fifth Republic and the establishment of a new Constitution constructed by himself and his Gaullist followers. De Gaulle's return to power was supposed to ensure Algeria's continued occupation and integration with the French Community, which had replaced the French Union which gathered France's colonies.

The Algerians chose independence and France engaged in negotiations with the FLN, leading to the March 1962 Evian Accords which resulted in the independence of Algeria. The Évian Accords comprise a treaty which was signed on March 18, 1962 in Évian-les-Bains, France by France and the F.L.N. (Front de Libération nationale). The Accords put an end to the Algerian War with a formal cease-fire proclaimed for March 19, and formalized the idea of cooperative exchange between the two countries.

The Algerian war was a founding event in Modern Algerian history. It left long-standing scars in both French and Algerian society, and still affects some segments of society in both countries to this day. After the 1997 legislative elections, won by the Socialist Party (PS), the National Assembly officially acknowledged in June 1999, 37 years after its end, that a "war" had taken place;while the Paris massacre of 1961 was recognized by the French state only in October 2001; on the other hand the Oran massacre of 1962 by the FLN has not been recognized yet by the Algerian state. Relations between France and Algeria are still deeply marked by this conflict and its aftermath.

The Paris massacre of 1961 refers to a massacre in Paris on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War(1954–62). Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French police attacked an unarmed and peaceful demonstration of some 30,000 Algerians. The French government acknowledged 40 deaths in 1998, although there are estimates of up to 200.
Conquest of Algeria

1830 - French invaded Algiers

Officially annexed in 1834, Algeria was divided the same year into three French departments, Alger, Oran and Constantine. Under the Second Empire (1852–1871), the Code de l'indigénat (Indigenous Code) was implemented by the senatus consulte of July 14, 1865.
Algerian nationalism

1926- Algerians (natives and Europeans altogether) took part in World War I, fighting for France. Hadj Abd el-Kadir had spearheaded the resistance against the French in the first half of the 19th century and a member of the directing committee of the French Communist Party (PCF).

1937- The independent party was dissolved and its leaders were charged with illegal reconstitution of a dissolved league, leading to Messali Hadj's foundation of the Parti du peuple algérien (Algerian People's Party, PPA), which this time no longer espoused full independence, but only an extensive autonomy.

1939- This new party was again dissolved.

1938- independent leader Ferhat Abbas founded the Algerian Popular Union, while writing in

1943 the Algerian People's Manifest .

1st November 1954 - independent leader Ferhat Abbas founded the Algerian Popular Union in 1938, while writing in 1943 the Algerian People's Manifest. From Cairo, the FLN broadcast a proclamation calling on Muslims in Algeria to join in a national struggle for the "restoration of the Algerian state - sovereign, democratic and social - within the framework of the principles of Islam.”

The FLN

After the collapse of the MTLD, Messali Hadj formed the leftist Mouvement National Algérien (MNA), which advocated a policy of violent revolution and total independence similar to that of the FLN. The ALN, the military wing of the FLN, subsequently wiped out the MNA guerrilla operation, and Messali Hadj's movement lost what little influence it had had in Algeria. However, the MNA gained the support of many Algerian workers in France through the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Algériens (Union of Algerian Workers). The FLN also established a strong organization in France to oppose the MNA. "Café wars," resulting in nearly 5,000 deaths, were waged in France between the two rebel groups throughout the years of the War of Independence.

As the FLN campaign of influence and terror spread through the countryside, many European farmers in the interior (called Pieds-Noirs) sold their holdings and sought refuge in Algiers and other Algerian cities. After a series of bloody, random massacres and bombings by Muslim Algerians in several towns and cities, the French Pieds-Noirs and urban French population began to demand that the French government engage in sterner countermeasures, including the proclamation of a state of emergency, capital punishment for political crimes, denunciation of all , and most ominously, a call for 'tit-for-tat' reprisal operations by police, military, and para-military forces. Colon vigilante units, whose unauthorized activities were conducted with the passive cooperation of police authorities, carried out ratonnades (literally, rat-hunts, raton being a racist term for designating Muslim Algerians) against suspected FLN members of the Muslim community. The FLN terror and intimidation campaign gave these hunts strong motivation and starting points.

Philippeville massacre

The killing by the FLN and its supporters of 123 people, including 71 French, including old women and babies, shocked Jacques Soustelle into calling for more repressive measures against the rebels. The government claimed it killed 1,273 guerrillas in retaliation; according to the FLN and to The Times magazine, 12,000 Algerians were massacred by the armed forces and police, as well as Pieds-Noirs gangs. Pied-Noir is a term used to refer to colonists of Algeria until the end of the Algerian War in 1962. Specifically, Pieds-Noirs were French nationals, including those of European descent, Sephardic Jews, and settlers from other European countries such as Spain, Italy, and Malta, who were born in Algeria.

1956- Lacoste had the FLN external political leaders arrested and imprisoned for the duration of the war. This action caused the remaining rebel leaders to harden their stance.

France took a more openly hostile view of President Gamal Abdel Nasser's material and political assistance to the FLN, which some French analysts believed was the most important element in sustaining continued rebel activity in Algeria. This attitude was a factor in persuading France to participate in the November 1956 British attempt to seize the Suez Canal during the Suez Criss.
Battle of Algiers

To increase international and domestic French attention to their struggle, the FLN decided to bring the conflict to the cities and to call a nationwide general strike. The most notable manifestation of the new urban campaign was the Battle of Algiers, which began on September 30, 1956, when three women, including Djamila Bouhired and Zohra Drif, placed bombs at three sites including the downtown office of Air France. The FLN carried out an average of 800 shootings and bombings per month through the spring of 1957, resulting in many civilian casualties and inviting a crushing response from the authorities. The 1957 general strike, timed to coincide with, and influence, the UN debate on Algeria, was largely observed by Muslim workers and businesses.

1956- France had committed more than 400,000 troops to Algeria.
Fall of the Fourth Republic

On May 24, French paratroopers from the Algerian corps landed on Corsica, taking the French island in a bloodless action, "Operation Corse". Subsequently, preparations were made in Algeria for "Operation Resurrection," which had as objectives the seizure of Paris and the removal of the French government. Resurrection was to be implemented if one of three scenarios occurred: if de Gaulle was not approved as leader of France by Parliament; if de Gaulle asked for military assistance to take power, or if it seemed that communist forces were making any move to take power in France. De Gaulle was approved by the French Parliament on May 29, by 329 votes against 224, fifteen hours before the projected launch of Resurrection. This indicated that the French Fourth Republic by 1958 no longer had any support from the French army in Algeria, and was at its mercy even in civilian political matters. This decisive shift in the balance of power in civil-military relations in France in 1958 and the threat of force was the main immediate factor in the return of de Gaulle to power in France.

During that period in France, however, opposition to the conflict was growing among many segments of the population, notably the leftists, with the pro-USSR French Communist Party — then one of the country's strongest political forces — supporting the Algerian Revolution. Thousands of relatives of conscripts and reserve soldiers suffered loss and pain; revelations of torture and the indiscriminate brutality the army visited on the Muslim population prompted widespread revulsion; and a significant constituency supported the principle of national liberation. International pressure was also building on France to grant Algeria independence. Annually since 1955 the UN General Assembly had considered the Algerian question, and the FLN position was gaining support. France's seeming intransigence in settling a colonial war that tied down half the manpower of its armed forces was also a source of concern to its NATO allies. In a 16 September 1959 statement de Gaulle dramatically reversed his stand and uttered the words "self-determination" as the third and preferred solution which he envisioned as leading to majority rule in an Algeria formally associated with France. In Tunis, Abbas acknowledged that de Gaulle's statement might be accepted as a basis for settlement, but the French government refused to recognize the GPRA as the representative of Algeria's Muslim community.
July 3 1962 - De Gaulle pronounced Algeria an independent country.

Most Important Things For Me Now:D

High Grade, Money and Books(It's weird when three of these things combined.haha)

Studying-Hard and Smart!

Shopping :D

Sleeping!!

For now, that's all i can think. Actually there's many things that i love to do;)

Well, now im just reading my History Book - "Europe Since Napoleon". Quite interesting book! Wanna read it all~

*****

Tommorow I have seminar on "From Geneva to the Stresa Front"



I read the "Stresa" notes that proffersor give to us. I supposed to read it few days ago. But yes, im also a type of student that "eh karang2 tah, eh nanti2 th". So i ended up , reading last2 minute. haha. But thats alright , i can still read a bit about the topic:)

Firstly , I really want to know Benito Mussolini. I didnt learn about him or his era during form sixth. I read some of his infomation from wikipedia to understand more about his bibliography.




Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini is an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and one of the important figure in the creation of Fascism. (I wonder what is the real meaning of Facism?)



Fascism is a radical, authoritarian nationalist ideology that aims to create a single-party state in which the government is led by a dictator who seeks national unity and development by requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest of the nation or a race.



Fascist movements promote violence between nations, political factions, and races as part of a social Darwinist and militarist stance that views violence between these groups as a natural and positive part of evolution. In the view that violence is a natural part of survival, fascists believe only the strong can and should survive by being healthy, vital, and aggressive through conquering and eliminating people deemed weak and degenerate.



Mussolini was among the founders of Italian fascism, which included elements of nationalism, corporatism, national syndicalism, expansionism, social progress and anti-communism in combination with censorship of subversives and state propaganda.

Examination

Tommorow i have english Academic Essay examination:)

I found this qoute in te website while reading some relevent points of my essay.

Love these:
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with an open heart;
To appreciate beauty;
To seek elegance rather than luxury;
To live content with small means;
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, never in a hurry;
To find the best in others;
To give of oneself without the slightest thought of return;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a rescued soul, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To play with enthusiasm and sing with exaltation;
To laugh often and much;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded…
to have filled my niche and accomplished all my tasks;
leaving this world better than I found it.

*****

Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang

I read the Wikipedia and found some interesting facts and events during the Vietnamese struggle agaisnt France occupation :-

On February 10, 1930, there was an uprising by Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial army's Yen Bai garrison. The "Yên Bái mutiny" was sponsored by the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDD). The VNQDD was the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The attack was the largest disturbance against the colonisation of Vietnam since Phan Dinh Phung and the "Can Vuong monarchist movement" of the late 19th century. The aim of the revolt was to inspire a wider uprising among the general populace in an attempt to overthrow the colonial authority. The VNQDD had previously attempted to engage in clandestine activities to undermine French rule, but increasing French scrutiny on their activities led to their leadership group taking the risk of staging a large scale military attack in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam.

The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDD), also known as the Việt Quốc, is the Vietnamese Nationalist Party, a revolutionary political party that sought independence from French colonial rule in Vietnam during the early 20th century. Its origins lie in the mid-1920s, when a group of young Hanoi-based intellectuals began publishing revolutionary material. In 1927, after the publishing house failed because of French harassment and censorship, the VNQDD was formed under the leadership of Nguyen Thai Hoc. Modelling itself on the Republic of China's Kuomintang, the VNQDD gained a following among northerners, particularly teachers and intellectuals. The party, which was less successful among peasants and industrial workers, was organised in small clandestine cells.

Nguyễn Thái Học (1904-1930) was a Vietnamese revolutionary who was the founding leader of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. He was captured and executed by the French colonial authorities after the failure of the Yen Bai mutiny.
The Yên Bái mutiny was a general uprising on 10 February 1930, organized by the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD), the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The uprising force was combined of students, teachers, intellectuals, workers, farmers, and Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial army's garrison in different provinces of the North Vietnam.

In September 1940, during World War II, the newly created regime of Vichy France, which was a puppet state of Nazi Germany, granted Japan's demands for military access to Tonkin with the invasion of French Indochina (or Vietnam Expedition). This allowed Japan better access to China in the Second Sino-Japanese War against the forces of Chiang Kai-shek, but it was also part of Japan's strategy for dominion over the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Thailand took this opportunity of weakness to reclaim previously lost territories, resulting in the French-Thai War between October 1940 and 9 May 1941.
On 9 March 1945, with France liberated, Germany in retreat, and the United States ascendant in the Pacific, Japan decided to take complete control of Indochina. The Japanese launched the Second French Indochina Campaign. The Japanese kept power in Indochina until the news of their government's surrender came through in August

First Indochina War

After the war, France petitioned for the nullification of the 1938 Franco-Siamese Treaty and attempted to reassert itself in the region, but came into conflict with the Viet Minh, a coalition of Communist and Vietnamese nationalists under French-educated dissident Ho Chi Minh. During World War II, the United States had supported the Viet Minh in resistance against the Japanese; the group had been in control of the countryside since the French gave way in March 1945.

After persuading Emperor Bao Dai to abdicate in his favour, on September 2, 1945 President Ho declared independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. But before September's end, a force of British, French, and Indian soldiers, along with captured Japanese troops, restored French control. Bitter fighting ensued in the First Indochina War. In 1950 Ho again declared an independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which was recognized by the fellow Communist governments of China and the Soviet Union. Fighting lasted until March 1954, when the Viet Minh won the decisive victory against French forces at the gruelling Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
The First Indochina War (also known as the French Indochina War, the The Anti-French War, the Franco-Vietnamese War, the Franco-Vietminh War, the Indochina War, the Dirty War in France and as the French War in contemporary Vietnam) was fought in French Indochina from December 19, 1946, until August 1, 1954, between the French Union’s French Far East Expeditionary Corps, led by France and supported by Bảo Đại’s Vietnamese National Army against the Việt Minh, led by Hồ Chí Minh and Võ Nguyên Giáp. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia.
Geneva Agreements

On April 27, 1954, the Geneva Conference produced the Geneva Agreements; supporting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Indochina, granting it independence from France, declaring the cessation of hostilities and foreign involvement in internal Indochina affairs, delineating northern and southern zones into which opposing troops were to withdraw, they mandated unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections to be held in July 1956. It also settled a number of outstanding disputes relating to the Korean War. It was at this conference that France relinquished any claim to territory in the Indochinese peninsula. Neither the U.S. nor South Vietnam signed the Geneva Accords. South Vietnamese leader Diem rejected the idea of nationwide election as proposed in the agreement, saying that a free election was impossible in the communist North and that his government was not bound by the Geneva Accords.

The events of 1954 marked the beginnings of serious involvement in Vietnam by the United States (which led to the Vietnam War) and the end of direct French involvement in the region (other than to host the 1973 Paris Peace Accords ceasefire convention during the Vietnam War). Laos and Cambodia also became independent in 1954, but were both drawn into the Vietnam War.

*****

European Decolonization 1918-1981

I will have seminar about the ‘French retreat from Empire in the twentieth Century’ on Monday. Therefore i read a bit about Frech decolonization in Indo- China. Indo-China (Vietnam) is located in Southeast Asia. It was part of French colonial Empire and during that time Vietnam was divided into three different territories :- Tonkin(in North), Annam(in the Centre) and Cochina(in the South).



In 1939 the total population of French Indo-China was 23 million. The two great concentrations pf population lay in the Tonkin-Annam plains and on the east side of Cochin. However, this two region experience different agricultural and social patterns. Tonkin was a land of peasant smallholders with over 90 percent of farmers owning less than 1.8 hectares. Most of the Tonkinese move to less densely populated Cochin, where plantation employment was available. It was this movement that later led to resentment througout Indo-China on the eve of the Second World War due to ineffective Frecnh authorities in managing them.

However, in Cochin , the peasant held large farms than the Tonkinese. But 45 percent of their rice acreage being in the hands of French , Chinese and Amnamite planters. Viewed from a French rubber plantation, the colonial achievement in Indo-China was indeed remarkable, making Indo-China into the third largest world exporter of rice and rubber.

The capital city is Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). The French transformed the landscape to the west and south of Saigon by undertaking monumental earthworks and canal construction,using corvee labour until the 1890s. The peasants have to adopt the policy of landlordism in which in the end led to landlessness. By 1930, 2.5 per cent of landholders owned 45 percent of the cultivated land, while only one peasant household in four possessed any land at all.

*****

Greater France : A History Of France Overseas expansion. I choose to further reading chapter 8 of the book because I think it is related to my lecture of European Decolonization.

Chapter 8: Colonial Nationalism and Decolonisation Pg 266.

Beggining of the Second World War, the political figures especially those who did not support the colonialism policy already notice the speedy decolonisation of the empire.

In 1943, France granted independence to Syria and Lebanon, the first steps in imperial divestment. 21 years later, France gave independent to other states including Algeria.

From the 1940s - 1960s, debates on decolonisation aggravated politics, colonial conflicts caused ministers to resign and the Algeria crisis brought down the Fouth Republic.

Hm..I wonder...what the Algeria Crisis all about =_='' . Ok let's us google "Algeria Crisis".

" The Algerian War (1954–1962), also known as Algerian War of Independence, led to Algeria's independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, use of torture on both sides and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. Effectively started by members of the National Liberation Front (FLN) on 1 November 1954 during the Toussaint Rouge ("Red All Saints' Day"), the conflict shook the French Fourth Republic's (1946–58) foundations and led to its collapse. Under directives from Guy Mollet's (SFIO) government, the French Army initiated a campaign of "pacification" of what was considered at the time to be fully part of France. This "public order operation" quickly grew to a full-scale war. Algerians, who had at first largely favored a peaceful resolution, turned increasingly toward the goal of independence, supported by other Arab countries and, more generally, by worldwide opinion fueled by anti-colonialist ideas. Meanwhile, the French divided themselves on the issues of "French Algeria" : whether to keep the status quo, negotiate a status intermediate between independence and complete integration in the French Republic, or allow complete independence. The French army finally obtained a military victory in the war, but the situation had changed and Algerian independence could no longer be forestalled. "

*****

Recently , I read a book about Greater France oversea expansion by Robert Aldrich:)

Map Above showing Algeria in connection with the Medditerranean Sea and France

Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion

In the 1920s and 1930s. France and its overseas domains- 'Greater France', encompassed 11 million inhabitants; Paris controlled the second largest empire in the world. France's possession including Africa, and South America jungles, islands in Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, vast expanses of Saharan desert and Antartic ice, enormous colonies such as IndoChina and Madagascar, remote little-known outposts such as Wallis and Kerguelen, and toeholds in India and on the Red Sea.

By the early 1960s, most countries in French empirehad gained independence, though some had been forced to fight for their sovereignty. France had withdraw from its empire. The age of colonialism seemed to have come to an end, even if ties between France and its former colonies were not always severed. Nevertheless, only 130 years after France took over Algiers, less than a century after it annexed Cochinchina and the Congo, less than 50 years after it proclaimed a protectorate over Morocco, 'greater France' was no more.

The Conquest of Empire : Africa and Indian Ocean

15 years after defeat of Napoleon, France invade territories in Africa- Ageria and held protectorate of Tunisia and Morcco. Algeria, located directly across the Mediterranean from France's southern coast. It had been a sphere of French commercial activity since the early 1500s.

Nineteeth Century , the situation had changed. The conquest of Algeria in 1830s was more towards domestic political reason rather than economic reason. France debt of 7 to 8 million franc to the merchants remained outstanding. The dey of Algiers asked France to pay for their debt, but the French, with arrogant superior way, informed that they could not accept Algeirs's raising issue about their debt. The dey took offence , lost his temper and then destroyed the tradings post at the Bastion de France. This result a series blow to French Meditteranean commerce, the cost to be borne bh Mairseille traders.

Meanwhile , in France, there was resentment towards Restoration Monarch. King Charles X tried to adopt medorate government and sent armistice to Algiers. However, the Algerian ships fired their ship and thus gave an excuse to the king to change the moderate government to more autocratic government. France attacked and invade Algeria 1830s(40 Years). Monarchial rule of King Charles X was replace by July Monarchy of King Louis-Philippe.

To control the remaining area in Algeria, the France had to fight Emir Abd EL-Khader. El-Khader was in the process of extending his area of political influence when France invaded Algeria. In 1834, the Algerian agreed to recognize French sovereignty over Algeria. The 1840s show France campaigns to push back the frontiers of empire in North America. In December 1847, el-Khader surrender.

French continued their invansion and held millitary attack towards the Algerians. In 1871, Frane repressed the last major nationalist movement, led by el-Mokhrani, and extended control over the hold-out Kabyle region east of Algiers.

Conquest of Algeria gave France an immense domain in North Africa, a territory of 2.4 million square kilometres - although seven-eights of the country was desert. Algeria formed the most important site of French colonial activity.

*****

I am focusing to essay question on France, in module of European Empires : Crisis and Collapse.

The question is:-

June 2004
1) Why did France go to war in IndoChina?
2) Assess the imporatance of Algeria for French decolonisation

June 2005
1) Why was France unable to rebuild its colonial administration in Indo-China after 1945?
2) Why was the Frech withdrawal from Algeria so problematic?

June 2006
1) Why did the French fail to restore their empire in Indo-China during 1945-54?
2) What does the Algerian crisis indicate about the relationship of France to 'Greater France' in the post-war period?

May 2007
1) Why did French resistance to anti-colonialism fail in Indochina?

Miss History’s journal

Hi there. Today(28 February 2009), I launch my new blog as my personal History Website. I got this idea due to my deep interest in learning Modern European History. This blog is not only focus on my major course but also other module that I am taking now. As undergraduate student, I am hoping that I can learn and get more knowledge about my course. My main aimed also want to help other students in History course. Therefore, I decided to write down here, each time I got new information , or each time i read books. I hope it help me alot.

Sincerely,

MH