An airborne colonel led the pied noir territorial militia and every Algiers intrigue.

Evidence

Arriving in Algeria as chief-of-staff to Ducournau’s 25th Airborne Division, Thomazo had been transferred to command the Unités Territoriales (U.T.) of part-time pied noir militiamen, with whose views he wholeheartedly identified himself. Tournoux describes him as being “fifty years old by civil status, a thousand by right of military service, but eighteen years old politically”. There was not an intrigue in Algiers into which he had not thrown himself with the total enthusiasm of a Dumas musketeer, and without any fear of compromising himself. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 842

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Pied noir ultrac organisations crystallized in early 1956 and dominated Algiers for six years

Related

• Pied noir ultrac organisations crystallized in early 1956 and dominated Algiers for six years (similarity 0.82)
• Pieds noirs treated every new governor as a betrayer (similarity 0.79)
• The Algerian war’s decisive turning point came from the pieds noirs, not the FLN. (similarity 0.78)
• The pieds noirs, not Muslims, triggered the events sealing Algérie française’s fate (similarity 0.78)