French troops looted and destroyed Algerian villages with gratuitous joy
Evidence
Later this scene was followed by the “inevitable looting” of abandoned mechtas: … We turned the village over like a field. After a while, unable to find anything, we amused ourselves by smashing the whole place, through sheer joy of destruction. Old wedding dresses, which we discovered carefully folded at the bottom of every box, were hung derisively from trees in grotesque shapes, and then dragged through the mud. Some dressed themselves up in women’s clothes.…The waste was so great that there was nothing left to eat amongst the rubbish. Picture of a gone age. But then war is ageless. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 520
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: More soldiers cited French atrocities than war hardship as their worst Algerian experience — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 732; Torture boomeranged against France in the Algerian war
Related
- More soldiers cited French atrocities than war hardship as their worst Algerian experience (similarity 0.83)
- Torture more than any single factor caused France’s Algerian defeat (similarity 0.80)
- Torture in Algeria threatened France with state self-destruction (similarity 0.79)
- Algerians could not ascribe each destroyed site to a particular side (similarity 0.79)
- Torture boomeranged against France in the Algerian war (similarity 0.78)
- Heavy-handed military reprisals in Algeria drove more Algerians to join the rebels. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- More soldiers cited French atrocities than war hardship as their worst Algerian experience
#corroborates(0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 732 - Torture boomeranged against France in the Algerian war
#expands(0.45)