De Gaulle concealed his Algerian aims to avoid capsizing public passions

Evidence

Were I to announce my intentions point-blank, there was no doubt that the sea of ignorant fear, of shocked surprise, of concerted malevolence through which I was navigating would cause such a tidal wave of alarms and passions in every walk of life that the ship would capsize. I must, therefore, manoeuvre without ever changing course until such time as, unmistakably, common sense broke through the mists…. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1155

Categorization

• XREF: The ship-of-state metaphor resonates with the naval-siege passages in the Drake and Armada chapters on maneuver under constraint. — connects to: De Gaulle took power in June 1958 offering no Algerian solution.; De Gaulle’s triumphant Algeria slogans masked his private conviction the colony was doomed; De Gaulle’s true intentions on Algeria remain a fundamentally contested riddle. (+16 more)

Related

• Gaulle concealed the pullout from the army to preserve it. (similarity 0.89)
• 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 0.86)
• De Gaulle’s true intentions on Algeria remain a fundamentally contested riddle. (similarity 0.86)
• De Gaulle hid his Algerian self-determination policy because public opinion was unready (similarity 0.83)
• De Gaulle’s pursuit of national grandeur required sacrificing Algeria. (similarity 0.82)
• De Gaulle’s allies saw Algeria as subordinate to the French state’s crisis (similarity 0.82)
• De Gaulle’s true intentions on Algeria remain irreducibly ambiguous even to his closest associates. (similarity 0.82)
• De Gaulle’s June 1958 Algiers rhetoric was deliberately ambiguous, hiding his pessimism (similarity 0.81)
• De Gaulle’s decolonisation rhetoric was the final trigger for Challe’s decision. (similarity 0.80)
• Algeria was only one element of de Gaulle’s larger ambitions. (similarity 0.80)
• Challe aimed to change Gaullist policy, not remove de Gaulle (similarity 0.80)
• De Gaulle’s first public offer of power was deliberately equivocal and terrifying (similarity 0.80)
• De Gaulle’s ambiguity made every faction believe he would serve their agenda (similarity 0.80)
• De Gaulle’s Algeria offensive aimed partly to distract the army from politics (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• De Gaulle’s Algerian independence was framed as a victory over French self #expands (0.60)
• Challe’s loyalty to the republic collapsed only when de Gaulle shifted toward Algerian self-determination #complicates (0.50) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1344