Pied noir ultrac organisations crystallized in early 1956 and dominated Algiers for six years

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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Arriving in Algeria as chief-of-staff to Ducournau’s 25th Airborne Division, Thomazo had been transferred to command the Unités Territoriales (U.T.) of part-time pied noir militiamen, with whose views he wholeheartedly identified himself. Tournoux describes him as being “fifty years old by civil status, a thousand by right of military service, but eighteen years old politically”. There was not an intrigue in Algiers into which he had not thrown himself with the total enthusiasm of a Dumas musketeer, and without any fear of compromising himself. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 842 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: An airborne colonel led the pied noir territorial militia and every Algiers intrigue. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 842; Lacoste’s paramilitary takeover of Algiers doomed the Fourth Republic — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 564; Street violence in Algiers could force any French government to yield (+5 more)

Related

• The paras’ takeover of Algiers doomed the French Fourth Republic. (similarity 0.92)
• Lacoste’s paramilitary takeover of Algiers doomed the Fourth Republic (similarity 0.89)
• An airborne colonel led the pied noir territorial militia and every Algiers intrigue. (similarity 0.82)
• De Gaulle relocated his Algerian government to escape pied noir mobs (similarity 0.80)
• Pied noir factions demanded a second front against FLN and Paris alike. (similarity 0.79)
• Twenty thousand war veterans marched silently in Algiers to intimidate Mollet. (similarity 0.79)
• Algeria’s post-independence regime was captured by its wartime armed wing. (similarity 0.79)
• The pied noir lobby immediately demanded violent suppression of the revolt (similarity 0.79)
• Pied noir soldiers balked at shooting Muslim demonstrators to save Algérie française (similarity 0.79)
• De Gaulle relocated Algeria’s command to Rocher-Noir to escape ultra mobs, but too late. (similarity 0.78)
• Every French reform effort in Algeria was blocked by pied noir pressure groups (similarity 0.78)
• Military commanders seized power in both Algeria and France at the same moment (similarity 0.78)
• The bazooka assassination attempt stemmed from pied noir ultras, not the FLN (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Lacoste’s paramilitary takeover of Algiers doomed the Fourth Republic #expands (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 564
• An airborne colonel led the pied noir territorial militia and every Algiers intrigue. #expands (0.55) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 842
• The paras’ takeover of Algiers doomed the French Fourth Republic. #expands (0.55)
• Street violence in Algiers could force any French government to yield #expands (0.50)
• Twenty thousand war veterans marched silently in Algiers to intimidate Mollet. #expands (0.50) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 462
• Europeans were only one-third of Algiers’ 900,000 population yet dominated its cityscape #expands (0.45)
• The January 1960 Algiers uprising was premeditated, not spontaneous #expands (0.45) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1091
• European Algerians numbered only a third of Algiers’ population yet dominated it #expands (0.45) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 141