French Algérie served as a defensive bulwark against Soviet influence

Evidence

What in France is called “la guerre d’Algérie” and in Algeria “the Revolution” was one of the last and most historically important of the grand-style “colonial wars,” in the strictest sense of the words. Many a French leader, and especially the pieds noirs of Algeria, waged the war in the good faith that they were, indeed, shouldering the “White Man’s Burden.” Many a French para gave his life heroically, assured that he was defending a bastion of Western civilisation, and the bogey slogan of “the Soviet fleet at Mers-el-Kébir” retained its force right until the last days of the présence française. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 9

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to colonial ideology as ‘White Man’s Burden’ justifications, resonating with the reader’s interest in how imperial self-conception shaped the Algerian war. — connects to: Soviet coldness toward Algeria shaped the F.L.N.’s lasting aversion to Soviet Communism. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1245

Related

• Soviet coldness toward Algeria shaped the F.L.N.’s lasting aversion to Soviet Communism. (similarity 0.82)
• The Algerian war was simultaneously a war of peace and one of extreme savagery (similarity 0.81)
• Pieds noirs never honestly wanted Algérie française but a protected white-ruled Algeria (similarity 0.80)
• The pieds noirs, not Muslims, triggered the events sealing Algérie française’s fate (similarity 0.80)
• A lingering Algerian hatred of French rule simmers until it erupts into war (similarity 0.80)
• Algerians credited France’s Algerian achievements as benefiting French settlers, not natives. (similarity 0.80)
• The Battle of Algiers marked the end of any possibility of negotiated settlement (similarity 0.80)
• Algeria descended into a secret civil war parallel to the main front (similarity 0.80)
• The independent Algerian state proved as unable to crush insurgency as France had been. (similarity 0.80)
• Official naming of the Algerian conflict shaped military honors and refused war status (similarity 0.80)
• Algerians fighting for France outnumbered those fighting for independence (similarity 0.79)
• Wartime Algeria indelibly shaped the post-1962 regime. (similarity 0.79)
• The Algerian war’s decisive turning point came from the pieds noirs, not the FLN. (similarity 0.79)
• French officers framed Algeria as the next instalment of a global communist struggle (similarity 0.79)
• An Algeria cut off from France could not survive more than a fortnight (similarity 0.79)