French workers’ domestic resistance to capitalism shortened Algeria’s war

Evidence

In a remarkable summer entente, the Communist and non-Communist trade unions had joined together to plead for successful peace negotiations, with threats of a general strike “as an answer to any insurrection or coup d’état that might tend to impede the Algerian peace”, and the government had actually had to ban all demonstrations in favour of peace. … Among the youth of France the Algerian war was coming to be known as “The Hundred Years’ War” — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1272 (#expands, via linked claim)

Though the immediate cause of his defeat was the financial crisis in France, as always the dominant background factor was Algeria. “It is one of the characteristics of our regime”, remarked Jacques Soustelle in his book, Aimée et Souffrante Algérie, published that same year, “that no issue, however vital to the nation, is ever treated fundamentally and on its own account, but as a function of other questions and above all of the parliamentary situation”. He went on to predict, with some accuracy, that Algeria would be lost “not from a collapse on the military front in Algeria, but on the interior front in France”. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 749 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Colonialism shuts its eyes to the real facts of the problem. It imagines that our power is measured by the number of our heavy machine guns. This was true in the first months of 1955. It is no longer true today. First of all, because other elements have their weight in the scales of history. Next, because machine guns and cannons are no longer the weapons of the colonialist alone. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 114 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Algerian war manpower losses strained France’s economy more than military outlay; French labour unions united across party lines against the Algerian war — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1272; Algerian war conscription cost France more in lost productivity than in military outlay (+3 more)

Related

• French labour unions united across party lines against the Algerian war (similarity 0.88)
• Soustelle predicted France would lose Algeria on the home front, not militarily. (similarity 0.85)
• Algerian war manpower losses strained France’s economy more than military outlay (similarity 0.85)
• Algeria would be lost on France’s interior political front, not on the military front (similarity 0.85)
• Colonial military dominance ceased to be decisive in Algeria’s war. (similarity 0.83)
• Defeat in Algeria paradoxically produced a stronger France (similarity 0.82)
• By late 1956 both France’s military and diplomatic options in Algeria had failed (similarity 0.82)
• Algerian immigrant remittances helped fund the F.L.N.’s war against France. (similarity 0.82)
• Algeria’s loss paradoxically produced a stronger postcolonial France (similarity 0.81)
• Severing Algeria proved a net economic gain for France (similarity 0.80)
• Heavy-handed military reprisals in Algeria drove more Algerians to join the rebels. (similarity 0.80)
• The Battle of Algiers marked the end of any possibility of negotiated settlement (similarity 0.79)
• Algerian workers in France lived in squalor while remitting vital billions home. (similarity 0.79)
• French metropolitan democracy attenuated, while colonial Algeria criminalized, dissent against empire. (similarity 0.79)
• Winning militarily while losing politically doomed the French army in Algeria (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• French labour unions united across party lines against the Algerian war #expands (0.70) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1272
• Soustelle predicted France would lose Algeria on the home front, not militarily. #corroborates (0.70) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 749
• Colonial military dominance ceased to be decisive in Algeria’s war. #corroborates (0.60) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 114
• Algerian war manpower losses strained France’s economy more than military outlay #corroborates (0.50)
• Algerian war conscription cost France more in lost productivity than in military outlay #corroborates (0.50)