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145-400: Souk Ahras is situated in the extreme north east of Algeria . Its area is 4360 km. Its border to the north is the province of El Taref ; in the east is Tunisia ; westward is the province of Guelma and the province of Oum el Bouaghi ; in the south the province of Tebessa . Its geography is composed of three distinct areas, with a mountainous north, the central region being lowlands, and

290-467: A " scorched earth " policy designed to reduce the power of the native rulers, the Dey , including massacres, mass rapes and other atrocities. Between 500,000 and 1,000,000, from approximately 3 million Algerians, were killed in the first three decades of the conquest. French losses from 1830 to 1851 were 3,336 killed in action and 92,329 dying in hospital. In 1834, Algeria became a French military colony. It

435-645: A Berber dynasty originating from Algeria and which at one point was a dominant power in the Maghreb ruling over much of Morocco and western Algeria including Fez, Sijilmasa , Aghmat , Oujda , most of the Sous and Draa and reaching as far as M'sila and the Zab in Algeria. As the Fatimid state was at the time too weak to attempt a direct invasion, they found another means of revenge. Between

580-607: A bloody siege, they conquered Oran . Following their decisive victories over the Algerians in the western-coastal areas of Algeria, the Spanish decided to get bolder, and invaded more Algerian cities. In 1510, they led a series of sieges and attacks, taking over Bejaia in a large siege , and leading a semi-successful siege against Algiers . They also besieged Tlemcen. In 1511, they took control over Cherchell and Jijel , and attacked Mostaganem where although they were not able to conquer

725-544: A destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as colons and later, as Pied-Noirs . Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria. These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land. Many Europeans settled in Oran and Algiers , and by

870-612: A dissolved league, leading to Messali Hadj's 1937 founding of the Parti du peuple algérien (Algerian People's Party, PPA), which, no longer espoused full independence but only extensive autonomy. This new party was dissolved in 1939. Under Vichy France , the French State attempted to abrogate the Crémieux Decree to suppress the Jews' French citizenship, but the measure was never implemented. On

1015-625: A distinct native population that came to be called Berbers , who are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa. From their principal center of power at Carthage , the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements along the North African coast; by 600 BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa , east of Cherchell , Hippo Regius (modern Annaba ) and Rusicade (modern Skikda ). These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages. As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on

1160-759: A few months before had completed the liquidation of France's tete empire in Indochina , which set the tone of French policy for five years. He declared in the National Assembly, "One does not compromise when it comes to defending the internal peace of the nation, the unity and integrity of the Republic. The Algerian departments are part of the French Republic. They have been French for a long time, and they are irrevocably French. ... Between them and metropolitan France there can be no conceivable secession." At first, and despite

1305-525: A formal policy-making body to synchronize the movement's political and military activities. The highest authority of the FLN was vested in the thirty-four member National Council of the Algerian Revolution (Conseil National de la Révolution Algérienne, CNRA), within which the five-man Committee of Coordination and Enforcement ( Comité de Coordination et d'Exécution , CCE) formed the executive. The leadership of

1450-540: A frenzy of throat-cutting and disemboweling broke out among confused and suspicious FLN cadres, nationalist slaughtered nationalist from April to September 1957 and did France's work for her." But this type of operation involved individual operatives rather than organized covert units. One organized pseudo-guerrilla unit, however, was created in December 1956 by the French DST domestic intelligence agency. The Organization of

1595-570: A man originating from modern day Algeria known as Abd al-Mu'min would soon take control over the Maghreb. During the time of the Almohad Dynasty Abd al-Mu'min 's tribe, the Koumïa, were the main supporters of the throne and the most important body of the empire. Defeating the weakening Almoravid Empire and taking control over Morocco in 1147, they pushed into Algeria in 1152, taking control over Tlemcen, Oran, and Algiers, wrestling control from

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1740-475: A measure that few took since it involved renouncing the right to be governed by sharia law in personal matters and was widely considered to be apostasy . Its first article stipulated: The indigenous Muslim is French; however, he will continue to be subjected to Muslim law. He may be admitted to serve in the army (armée de terre) and the navy (armée de mer). He may be called to functions and civil employment in Algeria. He may, on his demand, be admitted to enjoy

1885-689: A member of the Communist Party and of its affiliated trade union, the Confédération générale du travail unitaire (CGTU), joined the following year. The North African Star broke from the Communist Party in 1928, before being dissolved in 1929 at Paris's demand. Amid growing discontent from the Algerian population, the Third Republic (1871–1940) acknowledged some demands, and the Popular Front initiated

2030-468: A mixed system of "total domination and total colonization" whereby French military would wage total war against civilian populations while a colonial administration would provide rule of law and property rights to settlers within French occupied cities. From 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and département of the nation. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became

2175-607: 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 separatists, 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

2320-515: A significant part of the population of Algerians in France . The decision to capture Algiers was made by Charles X and his ministers in January 1830. An invasion had already been discussed in 1827 in part in reaction to Barbary pirates activities and their ransoming of Christian captives and slaves, and the refusal of Marseilles merchants to pay their debts to the Dey of Algiers. By early 1830 however,

2465-598: A sizeable minority. Sunni Islam is the official religion and practised by 99 percent of the population. Algeria is a semi-presidential republic composed of 58 provinces ( wilayas ) and 1,541 communes . It is a regional power in North Africa and a middle power in global affairs. The country has the second-highest Human Development Index in continental Africa and one of the largest economies in Africa , due mostly to its large petroleum and natural gas reserves, which are

2610-601: A strong organization in France to oppose the MNA. The " 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. On the political front, the FLN worked to persuade—and to coerce—the Algerian masses to support the aims of the independence movement through contributions. FLN-influenced labor unions, professional associations, and students' and women's organizations were created to lead opinion in diverse segments of

2755-508: Is 138.8 km, among which 100 km are electrified. The province was created from Guelma Province in 1984. The province is divided into 10 districts ( daïras ), which are further divided into 26 communes or municipalities. Algeria Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa . It is bordered to

2900-524: Is now Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Spain, Malta and Italy. The Hammadids captured and held important regions such as Ouargla, Constantine, Sfax, Susa, Algiers, Tripoli and Fez establishing their rule in every country in the Maghreb region. The Fatimids which was created and established by the Kutama Berbers conquered all of North Africa as well as Sicily and parts of the Middle East. Following

3045-545: Is to take care of the happiness of the three million Arabs, whom the fate of arms has brought under our domination." During this time, only Kabylia resisted, the Kabylians were not colonized until after the Mokrani Revolt in 1871. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote and never completed an unpublished essay outlining his ideas for how to transform Algeria from an occupied tributary state to a colonial regime, wherein he advocated for

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3190-533: Is very rich, with species such as: Trading activities are widespread in Sedrata and Zaarouria were many public and private companies have been set up: The most important activities in this region are: agriculture, breeding and com cultivation. The total area is about 436,000 hectares. 235,000 hectares are consecrated to agriculture. Basic under structures and the railway system: Main roads: 600 km Secondary roads: 1600 km. The railway from Souk Ahras to Annaba

3335-501: The Toussaint Rouge (Red All-Saints' Day ). From Cairo , the FLN broadcast the declaration of 1 November 1954 written by the journalist Mohamed Aïchaoui 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." It was the reaction of Premier Pierre Mendès France ( Radical-Socialist Party ), who only

3480-594: The Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence ) was a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. An important decolonization war , it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and war crimes. The conflict also became a civil war between

3625-533: The Almohads in the second half of the 12th century. The influx of Bedouin tribes was a major factor in the linguistic, cultural Arabization of the Maghreb and in the spread of nomadism in areas where agriculture had previously been dominant. Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by the Banu Hilal tribes had become completely arid desert. The Almohads originating from modern day Morocco, although founded by

3770-571: The Aurès , the Kabylie , and other mountainous areas around Constantine and south of Algiers and Oran . In these places, the FLN established a simple but effective—although frequently temporary—military administration that was able to collect taxes and food and to recruit manpower. But it was never able to hold large, fixed positions. The loss of competent field commanders both on the battlefield and through defections and political purges created difficulties for

3915-614: The Battle of the borders , the ALN failed to penetrate these defence lines. The French military command ruthlessly applied the principle of collective responsibility to villages suspected of sheltering, supplying, or in any way cooperating with the guerrillas. Villages that could not be reached by mobile units were subject to aerial bombardment. FLN guerrillas that fled to caves or other remote hiding places were tracked and hunted down. In one episode, FLN guerrillas who refused to surrender and withdraw from

4060-597: The Blum-Viollette proposal in 1936, which was supposed to enlighten the Indigenous Code by giving French citizenship to a small number of Muslims. The pieds-noirs (Algerians of European origin) violently demonstrated against it and the North African Party also opposed it, leading to its abandonment. The pro-independence party was dissolved in 1937, and its leaders were charged with the illegal reconstitution of

4205-534: The Constantine wilaya /region, however, decided a drastic escalation was needed. 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 French authorities stated that 1,273 guerrillas died in what Soustelle admitted were "severe" reprisals. The FLN subsequently claimed that 12,000 Muslims were killed. Soustelle's repression

4350-530: The Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency. The brutality of the methods employed by the French forces failed to win hearts and minds in Algeria, alienated support in metropolitan France, and discredited French prestige abroad. As the war dragged on, the French public slowly turned against it and many of France's key allies, including the United States, switched from supporting France to abstaining in

4495-579: The Kingdom of Altava . During the reign of Kusaila its territory extended from the region of modern-day Fez in the west to the western Aurès and later Kairaouan and the interior of Ifriqiya in the east. After negligible resistance from the locals, Muslim Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate conquered Algeria in the early 8th century. Large numbers of the indigenous Berber people converted to Islam. Christians, Berber and Latin speakers remained in

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4640-469: The Levant . Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian (after the archaeological site of Bir el Ater , south of Tebessa ). The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian (located mainly in the Oran region). This industry appears to have spread throughout

4785-570: The Moulouya River in modern-day Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilisation, unequalled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Masinissa in the 2nd century BC. After Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited several times. Masinissa's line survived until 24 AD, when

4930-523: The Muslim community acceptable to the French through whom a compromise or reforms within the system might be achieved. As the FLN campaign of influence spread through the countryside, many European farmers in the interior (called Pieds-Noirs ), many of whom lived on lands taken from Muslim communities during the nineteenth century, sold their holdings and sought refuge in Algiers and other Algerian cities. After

5075-751: The Nile and the Red Sea were living Bedouin nomad tribes expelled from Arabia for their disruption and turbulency. The Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym for example, who regularly disrupted farmers in the Nile Valley since the nomads would often loot their farms. The then Fatimid vizier decided to destroy what he could not control, and broke a deal with the chiefs of these Bedouin tribes. The Fatimids even gave them money to leave. Whole tribes set off with women, children, elders, animals and camping equipment. Some stopped on

5220-923: The OIC , OPEC , the United Nations, and the Arab Maghreb Union , of which it is a founding member. Different forms of the name Algeria include: Arabic : الجزائر , romanized :  al-Jazāʾir , Algerian Arabic : دزاير , romanized:  dzāyer , French : l'Algérie . The country's full name is officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (Arabic: الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية , romanized:  al-Jumhūriyah al-Jazāʾiriyah ad-Dīmuqrāṭiyah ash‑Shaʿbiyah ; French: République algérienne démocratique et populaire , abbr. RADP; Berber Tifinagh : ⵜⴰⴳⴷⵓⴷⴰ ⵜⴰⵣⵣⴰⵢⵔⵉⵜ ⵜⴰⵎⴰⴳⴷⴰⵢⵜ ⵜⴰⵖⴻⵔⴼⴰⵏⵜ , Berber Latin alphabet : Tagduda tazzayrit tamagdayt taɣerfant ). Algeria's name derives from

5365-551: The Odjak of Algiers; and the Reis or the company of corsair captains rebelled, they removed the Ottoman viceroy from power, and placed one of its own in power. The new leader received the title of "Agha" then " Dey " in 1671, and the right to select passed to the divan , a council of some sixty military senior officers. Thus Algiers became a sovereign military republic. It was at first dominated by

5510-589: The Ottoman Empire . After nearly three centuries as a major power in the Mediterranean, the country was invaded by France in 1830 and formally annexed in 1848, though it was not fully conquered and pacified until 1903. French rule brought mass European settlement that displaced the local population, which was reduced by up to one-third due to warfare, disease, and starvation. The Sétif and Guelma massacre in 1945 catalysed local resistance that culminated in

5655-719: The Ottoman sultan . Algerian nationalist, historian and statesman Ahmed Tewfik El Madani regarded the regency as the "first Algerian state" and the "Algerian Ottoman republic". Around ~1.8-million-year-old stone artifacts from Ain Hanech (Algeria) were considered to represent the oldest archaeological materials in North Africa. Stone artifacts and cut-marked bones that were excavated from two nearby deposits at Ain Boucherit are estimated to be ~1.9 million years old, and even older stone artifacts to be as old as ~2.4 million years. Hence,

5800-542: The Phoenicians , Numidians , Romans , Vandals , and Byzantine Greeks . Its modern identity is rooted in centuries of Arab Muslim migration waves since the seventh century and the subsequent Arabization of the indigenous populations. Following a succession of Islamic Arab and Berber dynasties between the eighth and 15th centuries, the Regency of Algiers was established in 1516 as a largely independent tributary state of

5945-584: The Spanish Navy bombarded Algiers in 1783 and 1784 . For the attack in 1784, the Spanish fleet was to be joined by ships from such traditional enemies of Algiers as Naples , Portugal and the Knights of Malta . Over 20,000 cannonballs were fired, but all these military campaigns were doomed and Spain had to ask for peace in 1786 and paid 1 million pesos to the Dey. In 1792, Algiers took back Oran and Mers el Kébir,

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6090-485: The Sétif massacre of 8 May 1945, and the pro-Independence struggle before World War II, most Algerians were in favor of a relative status-quo. While Messali Hadj had radicalized by forming the FLN, Ferhat Abbas maintained a more moderate, electoral strategy. Fewer than 500 fellaghas (pro-Independence fighters) could be counted at the beginning of the conflict. The Algerian population radicalized itself in particular because of

6235-769: The Vietnam War . The French also used napalm . The French army resumed an important role in local Algerian administration through the Special Administration Section ( Section Administrative Spécialisée , SAS), created in 1955. The SAS's mission was to establish contact with the Muslim population and weaken nationalist influence in the rural areas by asserting the "French presence" there. SAS officers—called képis bleus (blue caps)—also recruited and trained bands of loyal Muslim irregulars, known as harkis . Armed with shotguns and using guerrilla tactics similar to those of

6380-876: The Zirids seceded. To punish them the Fatimids sent the Arab Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym against them. The resultant war is recounted in the epic Tāghribāt . In Al-Tāghrībāt the Amazigh Zirid Hero Khālīfā Al-Zānatī asks daily, for duels, to defeat the Hilalan hero Ābu Zayd al-Hilalī and many other Arab knights in a string of victories. The Zirids , however, were ultimately defeated ushering in an adoption of Arab customs and culture. The indigenous Amazigh tribes, however, remained largely independent, and depending on tribe, location and time controlled varying parts of

6525-520: The sixteenth and ninth-largest in the world, respectively. Sonatrach , the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa and a major supplier of natural gas to Europe. The Algerian military is one of the largest in Africa, with the highest defence budget on the continent and among the highest in the world (ranks 22nd globally). Algeria is a member of the African Union , the Arab League ,

6670-594: The 1 million deaths claimed by the Algerian government after independence. Horne estimated Algerian casualties during the span of eight years to be around 700,000. The war uprooted more than 2 million Algerians. Algerian War ~1,500,000 total Algerian deaths (Algerian historians' estimate) ~1,000,000 total Algerian deaths (Horne's estimate) ~400,000 total deaths (French historians' estimate) 1960s French Algeria (19th–20th centuries) Algerian War (1954–1962) 1990s– 2000s 2010s to present The Algerian War (also known as

6815-434: The 11th. The last were evacuated to Sicily by the Normans and the few remaining died out in the 14th century. During the Middle Ages , North Africa was home to many great scholars, saints and sovereigns including Judah Ibn Quraysh , the first grammarian to mention Semitic and Berber languages, the great Sufi masters Sidi Boumediene (Abu Madyan) and Sidi El Houari , and the Emirs Abd Al Mu'min and Yāghmūrasen . It

6960-418: The ALN. France, which had just lost French Indochina , was determined not to lose the next colonial war, particularly in its oldest and nearest major colony, which was regarded as a part of Metropolitan France (rather than a colony), by French law. In the early morning hours of 1 November 1954, FLN maquisards (guerrillas) attacked military and civilian targets throughout Algeria in what became known as

7105-462: The Ain Boucherit evidence shows that ancestral hominins inhabited the Mediterranean fringe in northern Africa much earlier than previously thought. The evidence strongly argues for early dispersal of stone tool manufacture and use from East Africa, or a possible multiple-origin scenario of stone technology in both East and North Africa. Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (43,000 BC) similar to those in

7250-455: The Algerian Manifesto (UDMA) in 1946 and was elected as a deputy. Founded in 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) created an armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Army) to engage in an armed struggle against French authority. Many Algerian soldiers who served for the French Army in the First Indochina War had strong sympathy for the Vietnamese fighting against France and took up their experience to support

7395-441: The Algerian Manifesto (UDMA), the ulema , and the Algerian Communist Party (PCA) maintained a friendly neutrality toward the FLN. The communists , who had made no move to cooperate in the uprising at the start, later tried to infiltrate the FLN, but FLN leaders publicly repudiated the support of the party. In April 1956, Abbas flew to Cairo , where he formally joined the FLN. This action brought in many évolués who had supported

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7540-410: The Algerian situation was out of control and that what was viewed officially as a pacification operation had developed into a war. By 1956, there were more than 400,000 French troops in Algeria. Although the elite airborne infantry units of the Troupes coloniales and the Foreign Legion bore the brunt of offensive counterinsurgency combat operations, approximately 170,000 Muslim Algerians also served in

7685-411: The Almohads in 1248 after killing their Caliph in a successful ambush near Oujda. The Zayyanids retained their control over Algeria for 3 centuries. Much of the eastern territories of Algeria were under the authority of the Hafsid dynasty , although the Emirate of Bejaia encompassing the Algerian territories of the Hafsids would occasionally be independent from central Tunisian control. At their peak

7830-489: The Berber revolt numerous independent states emerged across the Maghreb. In Algeria the Rustamid Kingdom was established. The Rustamid realm stretched from Tafilalt in Morocco to the Nafusa mountains in Libya including south, central and western Tunisia therefore including territory in all of the modern day Maghreb countries, in the south the Rustamid realm expanded to the modern borders of Mali and included territory in Mauritania . Once extending their control over all of

7975-405: 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 opposed Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser 's material and political assistance to the FLN, which some French analysts believed was the revolution's main sustenance. This attitude was a factor in persuading France to participate in

8120-456: The FLN, but aimed to compete with that organisation. The Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN), the military wing of the FLN, subsequently wiped out the MNA guerrilla operation in Algeria, and Messali Hadj's movement lost what weak influence it had had there. However, the MNA retained the support of many Algerian workers in France through the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Algériens (the Union of Algerian Workers). The FLN also established

8265-421: The FLN, the harkis , who eventually numbered about 180,000 volunteers, more than the FLN activists, were an ideal instrument of counterinsurgency warfare. Harkis were mostly used in conventional formations, either in all-Algerian units commanded by French officers or in mixed units. Other uses included platoon or smaller size units, attached to French battalions, in a similar way as the Kit Carson Scouts by

8410-411: The FLN. Moreover, power struggles in the early years of the war split leadership in the wilayat, particularly in the Aurès. Some officers created their own fiefdoms, using units under their command to settle old scores and engage in private wars against military rivals within the FLN. Despite complaints from the military command in Algiers, the French government was reluctant for many months to admit that

8555-463: The French Algerian Resistance (ORAF), a group of counter-terrorists had as its mission to carry out false flag terrorist attacks with the aim of quashing any hopes of political compromise. But it seemed that, as in Indochina, "the French focused on developing native guerrilla groups that would fight against the FLN", one of whom fought in the Southern Atlas Mountains , equipped by the French Army. The FLN also used pseudo-guerrilla strategies against

8700-417: The French Army on one occasion, with Force K, a group of 1,000 Algerians who volunteered to serve in Force K as guerrillas for the French. But most of these members were either already FLN members or were turned by the FLN once enlisted. Corpses of purported FLN members displayed by the unit were in fact those of dissidents and members of other Algerian groups killed by the FLN. The French Army finally discovered

8845-408: The French destroyed over 8,000 villages and relocated over 2 million Algerians to concentration camps . The war led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and hundreds of thousands of injuries. Historians, like Alistair Horne and Raymond Aron , state that the actual number of Algerian Muslim war dead was far greater than the original FLN and official French estimates but was less than

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8990-412: The French did not realize the seriousness of the challenge they faced until 1955, when the FLN moved into urbanized areas. An important watershed in the War of Independence was the massacre of Pieds-Noirs civilians by the FLN near the town of Philippeville (now known as Skikda ) in August 1955. Before this operation, FLN policy was to attack only military and government-related targets. The commander of

9135-429: The French electorate approved the Évian Accords. The final result was 91% in favor of the ratification of this agreement and on 1 July, the Accords were subject to a second referendum in Algeria, where 99.72% voted for independence and just 0.28% against. The planned French withdrawal led to a state crisis. This included various assassination attempts on de Gaulle as well as some attempts at military coups . Most of

9280-427: The French government to negotiate a cease-fire. In 1957, it became common knowledge in France that the French Army was routinely using torture to extract information from suspected FLN members. Hubert Beuve-Méry , the editor of Le Monde , declared in an edition on 13 March 1957: "From now on, Frenchman must know that they don't have the right to condemn in the same terms as ten years ago the destruction of Oradour and

9425-574: The French were disarmed and left behind, as the agreement between French and Algerian authorities declared that no actions could be taken against them. However, the Harkis in particular, having served as auxiliaries with the French army, were regarded as traitors and many were murdered  [ fr ] by the FLN or by lynch mobs, often after being abducted and tortured. About 20,000 Harki families (around 90,000 people) managed to flee to France, some with help from their French officers acting against orders, and today they and their descendants form

9570-484: The Hilian Arabs, and by the same year they defeated Hammadids who controlled Eastern Algeria. Following their decisive defeat in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 the Almohads began collapsing, and in 1235 the governor of modern-day Western Algeria, Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan declared his independence and established the Kingdom of Tlemcen and the Zayyanid dynasty . Warring with the Almohad forces attempting to restore control over Algeria for 13 years, they defeated

9715-441: The Islamic Era. The Berber people historically consisted of several tribes. The two main branches were the Botr and Barnès tribes, who were divided into tribes, and again into sub-tribes. Each region of the Maghreb contained several tribes (for example, Sanhadja , Houara , Zenata , Masmouda , Kutama , Awarba, and Berghwata ). All these tribes made independent territorial decisions. Several Amazigh dynasties emerged during

9860-472: The Maghreb, at times unifying it (as under the Fatimids). The Fatimid Islamic state, also known as Fatimid Caliphate made an Islamic empire that included North Africa, Sicily, Palestine , Jordan , Lebanon , Syria , Egypt , the Red Sea coast of Africa, Tihamah, Hejaz and Yemen . Caliphates from Northern Africa traded with the other empires of their time, as well as forming part of a confederated support and trade network with other Islamic states during

10005-403: The Maghreb, part of Spain and briefly over Sicily, originating from modern Algeria, the Zirids only controlled modern Ifriqiya by the 11th century. The Zirids recognized nominal suzerainty of the Fatimid caliphs of Cairo. El Mu'izz the Zirid ruler decided to end this recognition and declared his independence. The Zirids also fought against other Zenata Kingdoms, for example the Maghrawa ,

10150-444: The Middle Ages in the Maghreb and other nearby lands. Ibn Khaldun provides a table summarising the Amazigh dynasties of the Maghreb region, the Zirid , Ifranid , Maghrawa , Almoravid , Hammadid , Almohad , Merinid , Abdalwadid , Wattasid , Meknassa and Hafsid dynasties. Both of the Hammadid and Zirid empires as well as the Fatimids established their rule in all of the Maghreb countries. The Zirids ruled land in what

10295-431: The Muslim population, which lacked political and economic status under the colonial system, gave rise to demands for greater political autonomy and eventually independence from France . In May 1945, the uprising against the occupying French forces was suppressed through what is now known as the Sétif and Guelma massacre . Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what

10440-633: The November 1956 attempt to seize the Suez Canal during the Suez Crisis . During 1957, support for the FLN weakened as the breach between the internals and externals widened. To halt the drift, the FLN expanded its executive committee to include Abbas, as well as imprisoned political leaders such as Ben Bella. It also convinced communist and Arab members of the United Nations (UN) to put diplomatic pressure on

10585-556: The Romans in the Punic Wars . In 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the 2nd century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia , behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania , which extended across

10730-565: The U.S. in Vietnam. A third use was an intelligence gathering role, with some reported minor pseudo-operations in support of their intelligence collection. U.S. military expert Lawrence E. Cline stated, "The extent of these pseudo-operations appears to have been very limited both in time and scope. ... The most widespread use of pseudo type operations was during the 'Battle of Algiers' in 1957. The principal French employer of covert agents in Algiers

10875-537: The UDMA in the past. The AUMA also threw the full weight of its prestige behind the FLN. Bendjelloul and the pro-integrationist moderates had already abandoned their efforts to mediate between the French and the rebels. After the collapse of the MTLD , the veteran nationalist Messali Hadj formed the leftist Mouvement National Algérien (MNA), which advocated a policy of violent revolution and total independence similar to that of

11020-585: The UN debate on Algeria. After major demonstrations in Algiers and several other cities in favor of independence (1960) and a United Nations resolution recognizing the right to independence, Charles de Gaulle , the first president of the Fifth Republic, decided to open a series of negotiations with the FLN. These concluded with the signing of the Évian Accords in March 1962. A referendum took place on 8 April 1962 and

11165-458: The Zayyanid kingdom included all of Morocco as its vassal to the west and in the east reached as far as Tunis which they captured during the reign of Abu Tashfin. After several conflicts with local Barbary pirates sponsored by the Zayyanid sultans, Spain decided to invade Algeria and defeat the native Kingdom of Tlemcen. In 1505, they invaded and captured Mers el Kébir , and in 1509 after

11310-481: The attacks on U.S. ships in 1815. A year later, a combined Anglo - Dutch fleet, under the command of Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers to stop similar attacks on European fishermen. These efforts proved successful, although Algerian piracy would continue until the French conquest in 1830. Under the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded and captured Algiers in 1830. According to several historians,

11455-513: The captives. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. They often made raids on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in North Africa and other parts of the Ottoman Empire . In 1544, for example, Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the island of Ischia , taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari , almost

11600-427: The cities of North Africa. Algiers lost between 30,000 and 50,000 inhabitants to the plague in 1620–21, and had high fatalities in 1654–57, 1665, 1691 and 1740–42. The Barbary pirates preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea. The pirates often took the passengers and crew on the ships and sold them or used them as slaves . They also did a brisk business in ransoming some of

11745-609: The cities, instead looting them and destroying them. The invasion kept going, and in 1057 the Arabs spread on the high plains of Constantine where they encircled the Qalaa of Banu Hammad (capital of the Hammadid Emirate ), as they had done in Kairouan a few decades ago. From there they gradually gained the upper Algiers and Oran plains. Some of these territories were forcibly taken back by

11890-468: The city and to find and eliminate terrorists. Using paratroopers, he broke the strike and, in the succeeding months, destroyed the FLN infrastructure in Algiers. But the FLN had succeeded in showing its ability to strike at the heart of French Algeria and to assemble a mass response to its demands among urban Muslims. The publicity given to the brutal methods used by the army to win the Battle of Algiers, including

12035-503: The city of Algiers , which in turn derives from the Arabic al-Jazāʾir ( الجزائر , "the islands"), referring to four small islands off its coast, a truncated form of the older Jazāʾir Banī Mazghanna ( جزائر بني مزغنة , "islands of Bani Mazghanna"). The name was given by Buluggin ibn Ziri after he established the city on the ruins of the Phoenician city of Icosium in 950. It

12180-605: The city, they were able to force a tribute on them. In 1516, the Turkish privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa , who operated successfully under the Hafsids , moved their base of operations to Algiers. They succeeded in conquering Jijel and Algiers from the Spaniards with help from the locals who saw them as liberators from the Christians, but the brothers eventually assassinated

12325-531: The coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization (animal domestication and agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC. This life, richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The mixture of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into

12470-653: The command of Dutch pirate Jan Janszoon sailed as far as Iceland , raiding and capturing slaves . Two weeks earlier another pirate ship from Salé in Morocco had also raided in Iceland. Some of the slaves brought to Algiers were later ransomed back to Iceland, but some chose to stay in Algeria. In 1629, pirate ships from Algeria raided the Faroe Islands . In 1659, the Janissaries stationed in Algiers, also known commonly as

12615-525: The conflict. A major success was the conversion of Jacques Soustelle , who went to Algeria as governor general in January 1955 determined to restore peace. Soustelle, a one-time leftist and by 1955 an ardent Gaullist, began an ambitious reform program (the Soustelle Plan ) aimed at improving economic conditions among the Muslim population. The FLN adopted tactics similar to those of nationalist groups in Asia, and

12760-465: The custody of the French Army led to the case becoming a cause célèbre as his widow aided by the historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet determinedly sought to have the men responsible for her husband's death prosecuted. Existentialist writer, philosopher and playwright Albert Camus , native of Algiers, tried unsuccessfully to persuade both sides to at least leave civilians alone, writing editorials against

12905-500: The definition of its borders with its neighboring entities on the east and west. The Ottoman Turks who settled in Algeria referred both to themselves and the peoples as " Algerians ". Acting as a central military and political authority in the regency, the Ottoman Turks shaped the modern political identity of Algeria as a state possessing all the attributes of sovereign independence, despite still being nominally subject to

13050-480: The desire for independence or, at the very least, autonomy and self-rule . Within that context, Khalid ibn Hashim , a grandson of Abd el-Kadir , spearheaded the resistance against the French in the first half of the 20th century and was a member of the directing committee of the French Communist Party . In 1926, he founded the Étoile Nord-Africaine ("North African Star"), to which Messali Hadj , also

13195-519: The different communities and within the communities. The war took place mainly on the territory of Algeria , with repercussions in metropolitan France . Effectively started by members of the FLN on 1 November 1954, during the Toussaint Rouge ("Red All Saints' Day "), the conflict led to serious political crises in France, causing the fall of the Fourth Republic (1946–58), to be replaced by

13340-489: The early 20th century they formed a majority of the population in both cities. During the late 19th and early 20th century, the European share was almost a fifth of the population. The French government aimed at making Algeria an assimilated part of France, and this included substantial educational investments especially after 1900. The indigenous cultural and religious resistance heavily opposed this tendency, but in contrast to

13485-760: The early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries , Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War . They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by

13630-611: The entire population. In 1551, the Ottoman governor of Algiers, Turgut Reis , enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo . Barbary pirates often attacked the Balearic Islands . The threat was so severe that residents abandoned the island of Formentera . The introduction of broad-sail ships from the beginning of the 17th century allowed them to branch out into the Atlantic. In July 1627 two pirate ships from Algiers under

13775-642: The few in North Africa who remained independent. The Berber people were so resistant that even during the Muslim conquest of North Africa they still had control and possession over their mountains. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire led to the establishment of a native Kingdom based in Altava (modern-day Algeria) known as the Mauro-Roman Kingdom . It was succeeded by another Kingdom based in Altava,

13920-411: The fifth read: "A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined." Some Algerian intellectuals, dubbed oulémas , began to nurture

14065-507: The former were carried out by the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), an underground organization formed mainly from French military personnel supporting a French Algeria, which committed a large number of bombings and murders both in Algeria and in the homeland to stop the planned independence. The war caused the deaths of between 400,000 and 1.5 million Algerians, 25,600 French soldiers, and 6,000 Europeans. War crimes committed during

14210-622: The great majority in Tunisia until the end of the 9th century and Muslims only became a vast majority some time in the 10th. After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, numerous local dynasties emerged, including the Rustamids , Aghlabids , Fatimids , Zirids , Hammadids , Almoravids , Almohads and the Zayyanids . The Christians left in three waves: after the initial conquest, in the 10th century and

14355-456: The indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilisation was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organisation supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others. By

14500-554: The instances of FLN terrorism but tied down a large number of troops in static defense. Salan also constructed a heavily patrolled system of barriers to limit infiltration from Tunisia and Morocco. The best known of these was the Morice Line (named for the French defense minister, André Morice ), which consisted of an electrified fence, barbed wire, and mines over a 320-kilometer stretch of the Tunisian border. Despite ruthless clashes during

14645-533: The institution of a regular administration, governors with the title of pasha ruled for three-year terms. The pasha was assisted by an autonomous janissary unit, known in Algeria as the Ojaq who were led by an agha . Discontent among the ojaq rose in the mid-1600s because they were not paid regularly, and they repeatedly revolted against the pasha. As a result, the agha charged the pasha with corruption and incompetence and seized power in 1659. Plague had repeatedly struck

14790-515: The land, as they were harassed by local tribes. In fact, by the time the Byzantines arrived Leptis Magna was abandoned and the Msellata region was occupied by the indigenous Laguatan who had been busy facilitating an Amazigh political, military and cultural revival. Furthermore, during the rule of the Romans, Byzantines, Vandals, Carthaginians, and Ottomans the Berber people were the only or one of

14935-434: The local noble Salim al-Tumi and took control over the city and the surrounding regions. Their state is known as the Regency of Algiers . When Aruj was killed in 1518 during his invasion of Tlemcen , Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers. The Ottoman sultan gave him the title of beylerbey and a contingent of some 2,000 janissaries . With the aid of this force and native Algerians, Hayreddin conquered

15080-467: The methods used by the French to establish control over Algeria reached genocidal proportions. Historian Ben Kiernan wrote on the French conquest of Algeria: "By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war had killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830." French losses from 1831 to 1851 were 92,329 dead in the hospital and only 3,336 killed in action. In 1872, The Algerian population stood at about 2.9 million. French policy

15225-498: The northeast by Tunisia ; to the east by Libya ; to the southeast by Niger ; to the southwest by Mali , Mauritania , and Western Sahara ; to the west by Morocco ; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea . The capital and largest city is Algiers , located in the far north on the Mediterranean coast. Inhabited since prehistory , Algeria has been at the crossroads of numerous cultures and civilizations, including

15370-580: The odjak; but by the 18th century, it had become the dey's instrument. Although Algiers remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, in reality they acted independently from the rest of the Empire, and often had wars with other Ottoman subjects and territories such as the Beylik of Tunis . The dey was in effect a constitutional autocrat. The dey was elected for a life term, but in the 159 years (1671–1830) that

15515-481: The official thesis of an ordinary accident (a quick open-and-shut case) left more than a few observers doubtful. His widow claimed that Camus, though discreet, was in fact an ardent supporter of French Algeria in the last years of his life. 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 and also to plant bombs in public places. The most notable instance

15660-637: The other colonized countries' path in central Asia and Caucasus , Algeria kept its individual skills and a relatively human-capital intensive agriculture. During the Second World War , Algeria came under Vichy control before being liberated by the Allies in Operation Torch , which saw the first large-scale deployment of American troops in the North African campaign . Gradually, dissatisfaction among

15805-586: The other hand, the nationalist leader Ferhat Abbas founded the Algerian Popular Union ( Union populaire algérienne ) in 1938. In 1943, Abbas wrote the Algerian People's Manifesto ( Manifeste du peuple algérien ). Arrested after the Sétif and Guelma massacre of May 8, 1945, when the French Army and pieds-noirs mobs killed between 6,000 and 30,000 Algerians, Abbas founded the Democratic Union of

15950-507: The outbreak of the Algerian War in 1954. Algeria gained its independence in 1962. The country descended into a bloody civil war from 1992 to 2002. Spanning 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), Algeria is the world's tenth-largest nation by area , and the largest nation in Africa . It has a semi-arid climate, with the Sahara desert dominating most of the territory except for its fertile and mountainous north, where most of

16095-470: The passive cooperation of police authorities, carried out ratonnades (literally, rat-hunts , raton being a racist term for denigrating Muslim Algerians) against suspected FLN members of the Muslim community. By 1955, effective political action groups within the Algerian colonial community succeeded in convincing many of the Governors General sent by Paris that the military was not the way to resolve

16240-514: The population is concentrated. With a population of 44 million, Algeria is the tenth-most populous country in Africa, and the 33rd-most populous country in the world. Algeria's official languages are Arabic and Tamazight ; French is used in media, education, and certain administrative matters, but it has no official status. The vast majority of the population speak the Algerian dialect of Arabic . Most Algerians are Arabs , with Berbers forming

16385-406: The population, but here too, violent coercion was widely used. Frantz Fanon , a psychiatrist from Martinique who became the FLN's leading political theorist, provided a sophisticated intellectual justification for the use of violence in achieving national liberation. From Cairo , Ahmed Ben Bella ordered the liquidation of potential interlocuteurs valables , those independent representatives of

16530-461: The real motive was to distract and assuage with a foreign conquest French opinion hostile to the increasingly authoritarian king. On the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French attacked and captured Algiers in June 1830. In following years the conquest spread to the interior. Directed by Marshall Bugeaud , who became the first Governor-General of Algeria , the conquest was violent and marked by

16675-578: The regency's authority was seldom applied in the Kabylia , although in 1730 the Regency was able to take control over the Kingdom of Kuku in western Kabylia. Many cities in the northern parts of the Algerian desert paid taxes to Algiers or one of its Beys. Barbary raids in the Mediterranean continued to attack Spanish merchant shipping, and as a result, the Spanish Empire launched an invasion in 1775 , then

16820-491: The regular FLN forces based in Tunisia and Morocco ("externals"), including Ben Bella, knew the conference was taking place but by chance or design on the part of the "internals" were unable to attend. In October 1956, the French Air Force intercepted a Moroccan DC-3 plane bound for Tunis , carrying Ahmed Ben Bella , Mohammed Boudiaf , Mohamed Khider and Hocine Aït Ahmed , and forced it to land in Algiers. Lacoste had

16965-418: The regular French army, most of them volunteers. France also sent air force and naval units to the Algerian theater, including helicopters. In addition to service as a flying ambulance and cargo carrier, French forces utilized the helicopter for the first time in a ground attack role in order to pursue and destroy fleeing FLN guerrilla units. The American military later used the same helicopter combat methods in

17110-501: The remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire . For several centuries Algeria was ruled by the Romans, who founded many colonies in the region. Algeria is home to the second-largest number of Roman sites and remains after Italy. Rome, after getting rid of its powerful rival Carthage in the year 146 BC, decided a century later to include Numidia to become the new master of North Africa. They built more than 500 cities. Like

17255-456: The rest of North Africa, Algeria was one of the breadbaskets of the empire, exporting cereals and other agricultural products. Saint Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius (modern-day Annaba, Algeria), located in the Roman province of Africa . The Germanic Vandals of Geiseric moved into North Africa in 429, and by 435 controlled coastal Numidia. They did not make any significant settlement on

17400-534: The rights of a French citizen; in this case, he is subjected to the political and civil laws of France. Prior to 1870, fewer than 200 demands were registered by Muslims and 152 by Jewish Algerians. The 1865 decree was then modified by the 1870 Crémieux Decree , which granted French nationality to Jews living in one of the three Algerian departments. In 1881, the Code de l'Indigénat made the discrimination official by creating specific penalties for indigènes and organising

17545-487: The seizure or appropriation of their lands. After World War II , equality of rights was proclaimed by the ordonnance of 7 March 1944 and later confirmed by the loi Lamine Guèye of 7 May 1946, which granted French citizenship to all subjects of France's territories and overseas departments, and by the 1946 Constitution. The Law of 20 September 1947 granted French citizenship to all Algerian subjects, who were not required to renounce their Muslim personal status. Algeria

17690-539: The south being fertile. The city of Souk Ahras has a semi continental and humid climate, heavy rains in the north in winter and very hot and dry in the south during summer. The rains are 350–750 mm/year and the temperatures vary from 1 °C to 14 °C in winter and from 25 °C to 38 °C in summer. The fauna is very rich in Souk Ahras, where species such as the hare, partridge, fox, sparrow, ferret, porcupine and barbarian hart can be found. The flora as well

17835-470: The system was in place, fourteen of the twenty-nine deys were assassinated. Despite usurpation, military coups and occasional mob rule, the day-to-day operation of the Deylikal government was remarkably orderly. Although the regency patronised the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest. Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and

17980-482: The terrorist acts of French-sponsored Main Rouge (Red Hand) group, which targeted anti-colonialists in all of the Maghreb region (Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria), killing, for example, Tunisian activist Farhat Hached in 1952. The FLN uprising presented nationalist groups with the question of whether to adopt armed revolt as the main course of action. During the first year of the war, Ferhat Abbas 's Democratic Union of

18125-525: The torture by the Gestapo ." Another case that attracted much media attention was the murder of Maurice Audin , a member of the outlawed Algerian Communist party, mathematics professor at the University of Algiers and a suspected FLN member whom the French Army arrested in June 1957. Audin was tortured and killed and his body was never found. As Audin was French rather than Algerian, his "disappearance" while in

18270-518: The two last Spanish strongholds in Algeria. In the same year, they conquered the Moroccan Rif and Oujda , which they then abandoned in 1795. In the 19th century, Algerian pirates forged affiliations with Caribbean powers, paying a "license tax" in exchange for safe harbor of their vessels. Attacks by Algerian pirates on American merchantmen resulted in the First and Second Barbary Wars , which ended

18415-554: The use of torture in Combat newspaper. The FLN considered him a fool, and some Pieds-Noirs considered him a traitor. Nevertheless, in his speech when he received the Nobel Prize in Literature , Camus said that when faced with a radical choice he would eventually support his community. This statement made him lose his status among left-wing intellectuals; when he died in 1960 in a car crash,

18560-440: The use of torture, strong movement control and curfew called quadrillage and where all authority was under the military, created doubt in France about its role in Algeria. What was originally " pacification " or a "public order operation" had turned into a colonial war accompanied by torture. During 1956 and 1957, the FLN successfully applied hit-and-run tactics in accordance with guerrilla warfare theory. Whilst some of this

18705-476: The war included massacres of civilians, rape, and torture ; the French destroyed over 8,000 villages and relocated over 2 million Algerians to concentration camps . Upon independence in 1962, 900,000 European-Algerians ( Pieds-noirs ) fled to France within a few months for fear of the FLN's revenge. The French government was unprepared to receive such a vast number of refugees, which caused turmoil in France. The majority of Algerian Muslims who had worked for

18850-467: The war ruse and tried to hunt down Force K members. However, some 600 managed to escape and join the FLN with weapons and equipment. Late in 1957, General Raoul Salan , commanding the French Army in Algeria, instituted a system of quadrillage (surveillance using a grid pattern), dividing the country into sectors, each permanently garrisoned by troops responsible for suppressing rebel operations in their assigned territory. Salan's methods sharply reduced

18995-557: The way, especially in Cyrenaica , where they are still one of the essential elements of the settlement but most arrived in Ifriqiya by the Gabes region, arriving 1051. The Zirid ruler tried to stop this rising tide, but with each encounter, the last under the walls of Kairouan , his troops were defeated and the Arabs remained masters of the battlefield. The Arabs usually did not take control over

19140-399: The whole area between Constantine and Oran (although the city of Oran remained in Spanish hands until 1792). The next beylerbey was Hayreddin's son Hasan , who assumed the position in 1544. He was a Kouloughli or of mixed origins, as his mother was an Algerian Mooresse. Until 1587 Beylerbeylik of Algiers was governed by Beylerbeys who served terms with no fixed limits. Subsequently, with

19285-453: The work of his administration, and he undertook the rule of Algeria by decree. He favored stepping up French military operations and granted the army exceptional police powers—a concession of dubious legality under French law—to deal with the mounting political violence. At the same time, Lacoste proposed a new administrative structure to give Algeria some autonomy and a decentralized government. Whilst remaining an integral part of France, Algeria

19430-562: Was aimed at military targets, a significant amount was invested in a terror campaign against those in any way deemed to support or encourage French authority. This resulted in acts of sadistic torture and brutal violence against all, including women and children. Specializing in ambushes and night raids and avoiding direct contact with superior French firepower, the internal forces targeted army patrols, military encampments, police posts, and colonial farms, mines, and factories, as well as transportation and communications facilities. Once an engagement

19575-431: Was an early cause of the Algerian population's rallying to the FLN. After Philippeville, Soustelle declared sterner measures and an all-out war began. In 1956, demonstrations by French Algerians caused the French government to not make reforms. Soustelle's successor, Governor General Robert Lacoste , a socialist, abolished the Algerian Assembly . Lacoste saw the assembly, which was dominated by pieds-noirs , as hindering

19720-417: Was broken off, the guerrillas merged with the population in the countryside, in accordance with Mao's theories. Although successfully provoking fear and uncertainty within both communities in Algeria, the revolutionaries' coercive tactics suggested that they had not yet inspired the bulk of the Muslim people to revolt against French colonial rule. Gradually, however, the FLN gained control in certain sectors of

19865-455: Was declared by the Constitution of 1848 to be an integral part of France and was divided into three departments : Alger , Oran and Constantine . Many French and other Europeans (Spanish, Italians, Maltese and others) later settled in Algeria. Under the Second Empire (1852–1871), the Code de l'indigénat (Indigenous Code) was implemented by the sénatus-consulte of 14 July 1865. It allowed Muslims to apply for full French citizenship,

20010-465: Was during this time that the Fatimids or children of Fatima , daughter of Muhammad , came to the Maghreb . These "Fatimids" went on to found a long lasting dynasty stretching across the Maghreb, Hejaz and the Levant , boasting a secular inner government, as well as a powerful army and navy, made up primarily of Arabs and Levantines extending from Algeria to their capital state of Cairo . The Fatimid caliphate began to collapse when its governors

20155-437: Was employed by medieval geographers such as Muhammad al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi . Algeria took its name from the Regency of Algeria or Regency of Algiers, when Ottoman rule was established in the central Maghreb in early 16th century. This period saw the installation of a political and administrative organization which participated in the establishment of the Watan el djazâïr ( وطن الجزائر , country of Algiers) and

20300-410: Was later called the Algerian War began after the publication of the Declaration of 1 November 1954 . Historians have estimated that between 30,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the National Liberation Front (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria. The FLN used hit and run attacks in Algeria and France as part of its war, and the French conducted severe reprisals . In addition,

20445-423: Was predicated on "civilising" the country. The slave trade and piracy in Algeria ceased following the French conquest. The conquest of Algeria by the French took some time and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872. On 17 September 1860, Napoleon III declared "Our first duty

20590-463: Was the Battle of Algiers, which began on September 30, 1956, when three women, including Djamila Bouhired and Zohra Drif , simultaneously placed bombs at three sites including the downtown office of Air France . The FLN carried out shootings and bombings in the spring of 1957, resulting in civilian casualties and a crushing response from the authorities. General Jacques Massu was instructed to use whatever methods deemed necessary to restore order in

20735-450: Was the Fifth Bureau, the psychological warfare branch. "The Fifth Bureau" made extensive use of 'turned' FLN members, one such network being run by Captain Paul-Alain Leger of the 10th Paras. " Persuaded " to work for the French forces included by the use of torture and threats against their family; these agents "mingled with FLN cadres. They planted incriminating forged documents, spread false rumors of treachery and fomented distrust. ... As

20880-409: Was to be divided into five districts, each of which would have a territorial assembly elected from a single slate of candidates. Until 1958, deputies representing Algerian districts were able to delay the passage of the measure by the National Assembly of France . In August and September 1956, the leadership of the FLN guerrillas operating within Algeria (popularly known as "internals") met to organize

21025-499: Was unique to France because unlike all other overseas possessions acquired by France during the 19th century, Algeria was considered and legally classified to be an integral part of France. Both Muslim and European Algerians took part in World War II and fought for France. Algerian Muslims served as tirailleurs (such regiments were created as early as 1842 ) and spahis ; and French settlers as Zouaves or Chasseurs d'Afrique . US President Woodrow Wilson 's 1918 Fourteen Points had

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