Mélouza massacre grew from F.L.N.-M.N.A. rivalry, not solely French action

Evidence

One such group five hundred strong was created, armed and uniformed in eastern Kabylia under a former M.T.L.D. municipal councillor called Bellounis. At first the F.L.N. reacted by slitting a few random throats. In Algiers, Soustelle’s psychological-warfare experts began to toy with the idea of using Bellounis’s dissident force as an “anti-guerrilla” along lines that had proved profitable in Indo-China. Then, with the summer of 1955, the ferocious Amirouche—in whose sector Bellounis had appeared—moved in, encircling Bellounis’s camp at Guenzet and attacking it by surprise. The internecine massacre lasted forty-eight hours, watched gleefully by neighbouring French troops without intervening. Only Bellounis and a handful of his five hundred men escaped alive. Bellounis now directed his footsteps towards the French. Amirouche’s operation did, however, signify the end of the M.N.A. challenge in Kabylia, and the beginning of its elimination as a serious rival to the F.L.N. throughout the country followed in the second half of 1956; an elimination that was to have meaningful echoes when, by the first Evian negotiations of 1961, Gaullist France toyed vainly with hopes of the all but extinct M.N.A. providing an interlocuteur valable alternative to the F.L.N. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 422 (#expands, via linked claim)

In 1960 the killings reached a crescendo as the F.L.N. stepped up its campaign to achieve total ascendancy. Barely a day went by without a corpse fished out of the Seine, or found hanging in the Bois de Boulogne. A favourite place of reckoning was the quiet Canal Saint-Martin, flowing towards the Bastille in the east of Paris, which with hideous regularity yielded up its crop of sacks containing the disfigured bodies of Algerians. As during the Battle of Algiers, women were often employed as executioners’ “liaisons”; they would take a pistol concealed in a handbag to the appointed place, slip it to the killer, then take it back immediately the deed was done, to disappear silently into the crowd. Under the blanket of terror successfully imposed by the F.L.N., the French police received a minimum of information — even from the relatives of victims — with which to track down the terrorists. Meanwhile, the perfected system of fund-raising was bringing in from the Paris region alone something like three hundred million francs a month. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1254 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: F.L.N. annihilated the rival M.N.A. militia with French troops watching passively — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 422; During 1960 the F.L.N. waged a war of terror against the M.N.A. inside Paris; The F.L.N. waged an internecine war in Paris killing hundreds annually by 1960. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1254

Related

• During 1960 the F.L.N. waged a war of terror against the M.N.A. inside Paris (similarity 0.93)
• F.L.N. annihilated the rival M.N.A. militia with French troops watching passively (similarity 0.92)
• The F.L.N. waged an internecine war in Paris killing hundreds annually by 1960. (similarity 0.88)
• The F.L.N. moved its terrorism into metropolitan France in summer 1958 (similarity 0.84)
• The F.L.N. massacred 301 peasants at Mélouza and blamed the French paras (similarity 0.81)
• F.L.N. attacks on French schools were targeted war against French culture, not random savagery (similarity 0.81)
• The massacre was a strategic net gain for the F.L.N. despite its horror (similarity 0.81)
• The F.L.N. physically extended its Algerian terror and fundraising methods to metropolitan France. (similarity 0.81)
• French repression’s martyrs and the F.L.N.’s mere survival drove its 1955 recruitment (similarity 0.81)
• FLN gained most from French brutal strike-breaking methods. (similarity 0.80)
• The Philippeville massacre was a net gain for the F.L.N. despite its horror (similarity 0.80)
• The Philippeville massacre proved a strategic net gain for the F.L.N. (similarity 0.79)
• The F.L.N. adopted total war against French civilians in direct retaliation. (similarity 0.79)
• Philippeville’s slaughter convinced the F.L.N. that terror paid strategically (similarity 0.79)
• F.L.N. terror backfired against France, not the F.L.N., abroad (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• F.L.N. annihilated the rival M.N.A. militia with French troops watching passively #expands (0.70) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 422
• During 1960 the F.L.N. waged a war of terror against the M.N.A. inside Paris #corroborates (0.60)
• The F.L.N. waged an internecine war in Paris killing hundreds annually by 1960. #corroborates (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1254