Resettlement camps won ground militarily but created enduring political grievance for the F.L.N.

Evidence

One factor that was costing the French much goodwill was a new policy designed in the first instance to protect the loyal and the uncommitted from F.L.N. terrorism. This was regroupement, or resettlement, which—to rephrase the oft-quoted axiom—aimed at emptying the water away from the fish by isolating communities from the F.L.N. and thus denying it refuge and supplies. It involved the resettlement of over a million peasants from “exposed” communities to barbed-wire encampments, which often looked horribly like concentration camps. Through faulty organisation, privations in these camps were often excessive. … By uprooting these Algerians from their homes and fields and placing them in camps where they led listless and largely unemployed existences, the French only created a new area of profound social discontent; while by helping “to break up an antiquated rural and tribal structure”, says Dorothy Pickles, they also encouraged “a sense of national solidarity”. Thousands fled over the border into Tunisia or Morocco to join the ranks of the F.L.N. there. Regroupment undeniably made life much more difficult for the A.L.N., but—as so often in the Algerian war—French policy found itself caught in the insoluble paradox of what was good militarily being bad politically, and vice versa. It was a pitfall into which, to some extent, the Americans were to stumble in South Vietnam. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 693

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘emptying the water away from the fish’ axiom and the South Vietnam parallel connect directly to the strategic hamlet program in Vietnam and broader counterinsurgency doctrine the reader has encountered. — connects to: The F.L.N. won the decisive political round just as the army defeated it militarily — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1061; Political struggle continues after military defeat on political terrain
• DEFINE: Defines ‘regroupement’ (resettlement) as a key French counterinsurgency tool in Algeria.

Related

• Regroupment camps won militarily but drove Algerians into F.L.N. ranks (similarity 0.83)
• French counterinsurgency repeatedly traded military advantage for political costs (similarity 0.82)
• French regroupment policy severed the FLN from village support (similarity 0.82)
• The regroupment policy displaced over a million Algerian villagers into camps with scandalous conditions. (similarity 0.80)
• France regrouped a million Algerians to sever the army from the people (similarity 0.80)
• The army’s ambiguous pacification strategy left it unsuited to counterinsurgency (similarity 0.80)
• French regroupement policy relocated over a million Algerian peasants into guarded camps. (similarity 0.79)
• French army sweeping operations drove Algerians into the F.L.N. (similarity 0.79)
• A militarily victorious counterinsurgency can still lose due to non-battlefield factors (similarity 0.78)
• The political moment must always prevail over the military in strategy (similarity 0.78)
• Regroupment camps interned over a million Algerian villagers in squalid conditions (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The F.L.N. won the decisive political round just as the army defeated it militarily #complicates (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1061