Lacoste’s paramilitary takeover of Algiers doomed the Fourth Republic
Evidence
Governor-General Lacoste’s patience was now at breaking-point, and after another series of assassinations he took a fateful decision. On 7 January he summoned to his office the newly-arrived Commander-in-Chief, General Salan, and the commander of the élite 10th Para Division who had recently led it back, frustrated, from Suez: General Jacques Massu. He explained to Massu that, since the 1,500 police in Algiers had proved unable both to prevent the F.L.N. outrages and to control the backlash of the pied noir mobs, he proposed reinforcing them with the 4,600 soldiers from Massu’s division. More than this, Massu was to be granted full responsibility for maintenance of order in the city. On a purely tactical level, Lacoste’s decision meant that, virtually for the first time in the two years of war, France was accepting the F.L.N.’s challenge, confronting it with total force and backed by the will to use it. The confrontation would have to end in a clear-cut defeat for one side or the other. But beyond this, the calling in of the paras was to signify far more than just a transient cession of power by the civil authorities to the military; for it was never fully to be restored for another five years. That good Socialist and democrat, Robert Lacoste, was in effect placing his signature on the death warrant of the Fourth Republic. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 564
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the book’s overarching theme of colonial war serving as a ‘savage war of peace’ and how it undermined metropolitan French democracy. — connects to: Pied noir ultrac organisations crystallized in early 1956 and dominated Algiers for six years; Army disaffection extended into the Fourth Republic’s highest levels; The paras’ takeover of Algiers doomed the French Fourth Republic. (+4 more)
- SEED: Essay angle: how a ‘good Socialist and democrat’ rationalized handing civilian authority to the military — the institutional death spiral of settler colonial governance.
Related
- The paras’ takeover of Algiers doomed the French Fourth Republic. (similarity 0.95)
- Pied noir ultrac organisations crystallized in early 1956 and dominated Algiers for six years (similarity 0.89)
- The French bombing of Sakiet triggered the Fourth Republic’s collapse (similarity 0.80)
- Army disaffection extended into the Fourth Republic’s highest levels (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Winning militarily while losing politically doomed the French army in Algeria
#expands(0.50) - The French bombing of Sakiet internationalized the war and toppled the Fourth Republic
#complicates(0.35) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 780 - De Gaulle demanded total replacement of the Fourth Republic as his price for returning.
#expands(0.30) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 853