French forces fought a pitched urban battle against the O.A.S.

Evidence

In a towering rage, the French Commander-in-Chief, General Ailleret, now ordered a full-scale assault on the O.A.S. stronghold of Bab-el-Oued. At first gendarmerie armoured cars raked the façades of apartment buildings with heavy . calibre machine-guns. But the O.A.S. marksmen fired back. Then, in the afternoon, 20,000 French troops — led by Ailleret himself — moved in and sealed off Bab-el-Oued with its some 60,000 inhabitants. Tanks fired their cannon at point-blank range into suspected O.A.S. snipers’ nests. In the evening a flight of T. planes flew in to strafe the still rebellious quarter with rockets and machine-guns. It was a scene more familiar to an army coup in Bolivia than anything ever experienced on French territory. … During those days of siege, and afterwards, the uncommitted residents of Bab-el-Oued found themselves caught in a grim no-man’s-land between the O.A.S. and the F.L.N. “We didn’t dare go into the Casbah for fear of being kidnapped or killed by the F.L.N.,” recalled a Jewish school-teacher, Madame Lorette Ankaoua: “nor did we dare go into the European shops behind our house for fear of the O.A.S. So small Arab children in my class smuggled us bread secretly in their dirty haversacks. It was all we had to eat.” — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1602 (#expands, via linked claim)

Three events now marked the climax of pure civil war, of Frenchmen killing Frenchmen. On the 23rd two army trucks loaded with young conscripts were surrounded by hostile pieds noirs in Bab-el-Oued. A new addition to Degueldre’s Deltas, called an “A-Commando” after its leader Jacques Achard, arrived on the scene and attempted to disarm the soldiers. Apparently a Muslim private nervously cocked his sub-machine-gun; Achard’s squad ruthlessly opened fire, killing outright seven of the conscripts and wounding another eleven. … Salan’s instructions had been obeyed, but the massacre of the young conscripts totally transformed the attitude of the army — hitherto almost passively neutral — towards the O.A.S. A determination to avenge fallen comrades took over. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1601 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Killing French conscripts turned the army decisively against the O.A.S. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1601; French troops stormed Bab-el-Oued with tanks and planes to crush the O.A.S. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1602

Related

• French troops stormed Bab-el-Oued with tanks and planes to crush the O.A.S. (similarity 0.94)
• Killing French conscripts turned the army decisively against the O.A.S. (similarity 0.88)
• The OAS escalated to total war against French authority to force general paralysis (similarity 0.84)
• Defeated OAS destroyed Algeria’s French-built infrastructure and institutions (similarity 0.83)
• The Ouarsenis offensive broke up the O.P.A. and left French forces controlling the territory. (similarity 0.81)
• French troops faced guerrilla warfare that negated their conventional military advantage. (similarity 0.79)
• OAS believed attacking French Communists would trap de Gaulle politically, but miscalculated. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• French troops stormed Bab-el-Oued with tanks and planes to crush the O.A.S. #expands (0.85) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1602
• Killing French conscripts turned the army decisively against the O.A.S. #expands (0.50) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1601