Heavy-handed military reprisals in Algeria drove more Algerians to join the rebels.

Evidence

Quickly he realised both that poverty was far more dire and that the revolt was far more serious than metropolitan France yet appreciated. “Terror had taken hold. No one spoke,” he wrote later. “The population as a whole, without throwing in its lot with the rebels … remained frightened and noncommittal.” He also saw the futility of General Cherrière’s grandiose and elephantine ratissages, the ill-named Operations “Véronique” and “Violette” that were then under way, and agreed with the analysis Vaujour prepared for him on his return to Algiers: “To send in tank units, to destroy villages, to bombard certain zones, this is no longer the fine comb; it is using a sledgehammer to kill fleas. And what is much more serious, it is to encourage the young — and sometimes the less young — to go into the maquis.” — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 342

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the counterproductive-repression theme from the Spanish Armada chapter and other colonial histories. — connects to: France regrouped a million Algerians to sever the army from the people — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 99; By late 1956 both France’s military and diplomatic options in Algeria had failed; Regroupment camps won militarily but drove Algerians into F.L.N. ranks (+8 more)

Related

• Fear of castration conditioned brutal French reprisals against Algerians. (similarity 0.91)
• French countermeasures such as ratissages and prison drove Algerians into the F.L.N. (similarity 0.91)
• Regroupment camps won militarily but drove Algerians into F.L.N. ranks (similarity 0.89)
• Brutal French reprisals backfired by deepening Algerian hatred of France (similarity 0.87)
• Closing legal channels of protest pushed Algerians toward violent resistance. (similarity 0.85)
• Massive French troop increases failed to halt the rebellion’s spread in 1955-56. (similarity 0.84)
• France regrouped a million Algerians to sever the army from the people (similarity 0.83)
• French army sweeping operations drove Algerians into the F.L.N. (similarity 0.83)
• Regroupement bred resistance even as it hampered the A.L.N. militarily. (similarity 0.83)
• French failed counterinsurgency reprisals drove the uncommitted into the F.L.N. (similarity 0.83)
• The regroupment policy displaced over a million Algerian villagers into camps with scandalous conditions. (similarity 0.83)
• France’s refusal to restrain settler fascism drove liberal Algerians to the F.L.N. (similarity 0.82)
• French regroupment policy severed the FLN from village support (similarity 0.82)
• Heavy-handed counterinsurgency sweeps drove the young into the maquis (similarity 0.82)
• Rural Algerians underwent a profound revolutionary politicization that French administrators could not reverse. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Brutal French reprisals backfired by deepening Algerian hatred of France #corroborates (0.95) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 525
• French army sweeping operations drove Algerians into the F.L.N. #corroborates (0.90) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 348
• Torture backfired as a boomerang weapon in the Algerian war. #corroborates (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1659