Boumedienne replaced mass breaching with pin-prick harassment and low-profile interior warfare

Evidence

To staff officers in Tunisia Boumedienne disclosed his new military tactics a month after his assumption of office: the previous policy of periodic, massive breaching attempts on the Morice Line with their “decimating” losses was to be abandoned; liaison agents would still have to run the gauntlet through the Line to keep up contact with the “interior”, but they would only go in small, highly trained packets, taking advantage of electric storms which fused the high-tension barrier. Using its increasing firepower, the A.L.N. would harass the French army with repeated, painful “pin-pricks”, shelling and mortaring units from the safety of their Tunisian and Moroccan sanctuaries. This, Boumedienne reckoned with reason, would “freeze” on the frontiers substantial numbers of French troops — thereby granting the hard-pressed “interior” as much relief as the reinforcements that could be run through to them at appalling and unacceptable cost. Meanwhile, the “interior” was instructed to maintain a low profile; to refuse combat in the face of continuing French ratissages; to break up and dissipate in small groups and, if necessary, take refuge in another Wilaya far from the current offensive. Without in any way launching a new wave of terrorism that would inevitably bring massive counter-measures, the fidayine were just to keep the pot simmering with an occasional grenade thrown into a café here, a burst of machine-gun fire against bathers on a beach there. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1266 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Boumedienne abandoned frontal assault for pinprick harassment to freeze French troops — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1266

Related

• Boumedienne abandoned frontal assault for pinprick harassment to freeze French troops (similarity 0.94)
• Boumedienne rejected attritional frontal attacks on the Morice Line and won by waiting (similarity 0.83)
• The Morice Line cut off the interior Wilayas from all exterior support. (similarity 0.81)
• FLN units staged cross-border ambushes from Tunisian sanctuary (similarity 0.79)
• The French committed 80,000 of their best troops to defend the Morice Line. (similarity 0.79)
• The Morice Line was an electrified, mined, and patrolled barrier across the Tunisian frontier. (similarity 0.79)
• Foreign weapons flowed through Tunisia while the interior Wilayas asphyxiated without reinforcements. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Boumedienne abandoned frontal assault for pinprick harassment to freeze French troops #corroborates (0.85) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1266