De Gaulle’s true intentions on Algeria remain irreducibly ambiguous even to his closest associates.

Evidence

At this point one comes back inevitably to the riddle that was as central to the latter stages of the Algerian war as it was difficult to unravel. To one acute French observer in 1960, de Gaulle and his intentions resembled Molière’s Don Juan who had “promised marriage to five or six women and absolutely had to avoid being pinned down by any one of them”. But on which one had he really set his heart? Did he change his mind? If so, when? Why was he always so ambiguous in declaring his intentions? Whole books have been dedicated to the subject, and still the controversy thrives. To Massu, de Gaulle always “intended to pull out, from the beginning”; to Mendès-France, he was for Algérie française, from the beginning; to General Beaufre he “made a formula, then saw it didn’t work”; to Louis Joxe, “he seemed always groping”; to Bernard Tricot, he never believed in integration; to Tournoux, he always hoped he could talk the Muslims out of secession; while Harold Macmillan admits, “I was rather alarmed, at one time, that de Gaulle would try to hold on to Algeria. After our experiences I was certain he couldn’t do so.” Who read the oracle aright? — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1145

Categorization

• QUESTION: The competing testimonies each put forward different verdicts on de Gaulle’s intentions; worth chasing which memoir accounts most later evidence corroborates.
• XREF: connects to: De Gaulle’s triumphant Algeria slogans masked his private conviction the colony was doomed; Junior officers saw Algerian independence immediately in de Gaulle’s self-determination speech; De Gaulle’s true intentions on Algeria remain a fundamentally contested riddle. (+4 more)

Related

• De Gaulle’s true intentions on Algeria remain a fundamentally contested riddle. (similarity 0.96)
• Gaulle hid his Algeria intentions to avoid capsizing French public opinion. (similarity 0.88)
• De Gaulle’s triumphant Algeria slogans masked his private conviction the colony was doomed (similarity 0.88)
• De Gaulle’s ambiguity made every faction believe he would serve their agenda (similarity 0.87)
• De Gaulle’s June 1958 Algiers rhetoric was deliberately ambiguous, hiding his pessimism (similarity 0.86)
• De Gaulle’s ambiguity to the army was deliberate deception for its own good. (similarity 0.86)
• De Gaulle hid his Algerian self-determination policy because public opinion was unready (similarity 0.86)
• Algeria was only one element of de Gaulle’s larger ambitions. (similarity 0.85)
• De Gaulle’s calculated ambiguity prevented civil war and French collapse. (similarity 0.84)
• De Gaulle’s pursuit of national grandeur dictated abandoning Algeria (similarity 0.84)
• De Gaulle’s pursuit of national grandeur required sacrificing Algeria. (similarity 0.84)
• De Gaulle’s allies saw Algeria as subordinate to the French state’s crisis (similarity 0.84)
• The full truth of the Algerian war may now be permanently unknowable to anyone (similarity 0.83)
• Gaulle concealed the pullout from the army to preserve it. (similarity 0.83)
• De Gaulle and Challe gave conflicting accounts of the self-determination private briefing. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• The full truth of the Algerian war may now be permanently unknowable to anyone #expands (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 17
• De Gaulle concealed his Algerian aims to avoid capsizing public passions #corroborates (0.50) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1155