Algeria’s official war-dead figure of one million exceeds all credible estimates

Evidence

It was a “war of peace” in that no declaration of hostilities was ever made (unless one should recognise the first FLN proclamation of 1 November 1954 as such), and during most of the eight years the vast majority of Frenchmen lived unaffected by it. Equally, it was undeniably and horribly savage, bringing death to an estimated one million Muslim Algerians and the expulsion from their homes of approximately the same number of European settlers. If the one side practised unspeakable mutilations, the other tortured and, once it took hold, there seemed no halting the pitiless spread of violence. As at a certain moment in the Battle of Verdun in 1916, it seemed as if events had escaped all human control; often, in Algeria, the essential tragedy was heightened by the feeling that—with a little more magnanimity, a little more trust, moderation and compassion—the worst might have been avoided. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 9 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Algerian war fit no declared-war category yet killed a million people; Algeria’s 1990s civil war killed roughly 100,000 people.; The Algerian War killed about one million Muslims and expelled roughly a million settlers — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 9

Related

• The Algerian war fit no declared-war category yet killed a million people (similarity 0.96)
• The Algerian War killed about one million Muslims and expelled roughly a million settlers (similarity 0.95)
• Algeria’s 1990s civil war killed roughly 100,000 people. (similarity 0.90)
• The Algerian war was simultaneously a war of peace and one of extreme savagery (similarity 0.82)
• Algeria’s post-independence civil war killed over twice as many as the war against France (similarity 0.81)
• The O.A.S. killed more Algerian civilians than the F.L.N. ever did (similarity 0.81)
• Algerians fighting for France outnumbered those fighting for independence (similarity 0.81)
• Ten Algerian civilians died for every combatant killed (similarity 0.80)
• The barricades marked the first killing of Frenchmen by Frenchmen in the war. (similarity 0.80)
• Algeria’s post-independence ‘peace’ proved as savage as its war (similarity 0.80)
• The Algerian War’s aftermath migrated with émigrés into France’s banlieues (similarity 0.80)
• Official naming of the Algerian conflict shaped military honors and refused war status (similarity 0.79)
• The Evian peace abandoned up to 150,000 Algerian collaborators to massacre (similarity 0.79)
• Algerian fighters in Tunisia outnumbered the infant Tunisian army. (similarity 0.79)
• The Algerian War proved too recent for any definitive historical account (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The Algerian War killed about one million Muslims and expelled roughly a million settlers #qualifies (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 9