French retaliation massacres played directly into the F.L.N.’s strategy

Evidence

Then Manévy was transferred to Constantine where he witnessed a terrorist grenade attack on a 14 July parade. Several paras were wounded. One of Manévy’s age panicked, fired into the crowd, and killed a Muslim woman on a balcony. Next, a hundred of the paras, some evidently fortified with anisette, broke loose, heading towards the Casbah to avenge their wounded with shouts of “Les melons! Les melons!” Unable to find any Muslims, they first smashed up a Jewish shop. At the height of the ratonnade a large French civilian intervened angrily from a nearby billiard saloon: “I am Captain Bottier; I fought myself; I did thirty-seven jumps with the Resistance.… You band of little idiots — you’re doing exactly what the F.L.N. terrorists count on you doing.…” To Manévy, Captain Bottier disclosed that he was an S.A.S. officer in from the bled, adding, “Two months of work as an S.A.S. officer are wrecked in one evening like this.” — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 521

Categorization

• XREF: The S.A.S. officer’s lament that violence undermines hearts-and-minds work connects to later chapters on counterinsurgency doctrine and the failure of the integration strategy. — connects to: The F.L.N. adopted total war against French civilians in direct retaliation.; The Philippeville massacre proved a strategic net gain for the F.L.N.; Philippeville’s slaughter convinced the F.L.N. that terror paid strategically (+14 more)

Related

• The F.L.N. adopted total war against French civilians in direct retaliation. (similarity 0.92)
• Philippeville’s slaughter convinced the F.L.N. that terror paid strategically (similarity 0.90)
• The Philippeville massacre was a net gain for the F.L.N. despite its horror (similarity 0.88)
• The F.L.N. mirrored French collective responsibility with collective reprisals (similarity 0.86)
• The Philippeville massacre proved a strategic net gain for the F.L.N. (similarity 0.85)
• F.L.N. attacks on French schools were targeted war against French culture, not random savagery (similarity 0.85)
• FLN gained most from French brutal strike-breaking methods. (similarity 0.85)
• The F.L.N. adopted total war on civilians as its strategy (similarity 0.85)
• The massacre was a strategic net gain for the F.L.N. despite its horror (similarity 0.84)
• F.L.N. terror backfired against France, not the F.L.N., abroad (similarity 0.83)
• French soldiers retaliated against Arab civilians with mass killing after rebel attacks (similarity 0.82)
• French repression’s martyrs and the F.L.N.’s mere survival drove its 1955 recruitment (similarity 0.82)
• The F.L.N. justified civilian massacre as reprisal for collective repression (similarity 0.81)
• The F.L.N. moved its terrorism into metropolitan France in summer 1958 (similarity 0.80)
• The F.L.N. massacred 301 peasants at Mélouza and blamed the French paras (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• The massacre was a strategic net gain for the F.L.N. despite its horror #exemplifies (0.85) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 388
• The F.L.N. adopted total war on civilians as its strategy #expands (0.70) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 371