The 1945 uprising targeted symbols of French colonial presence

Evidence

Small groups of killers, the scent of blood in their nostrils, now fanned out by taxi, bicycle or even on horseback into the surrounding countryside, spreading the word that a general jihad, or “holy war”, had broken out. At Chevreul European small farmers found themselves — like the Kenyan settlers under Mau-Mau — attacked by faithful servants whom they had employed for thirty years, and survivors huddled for protection in the local gendarmerie. At Périgotville Muslims seized an arms magazine, slaughtered a dozen Europeans, including the administrator and his assistant, then pillaged and burned the town. At the charming small seaport of Djidjelli four forest guards were among the murdered; at Kerrata a justice of the peace and his wife. In many cases it was the petits fonction-naires, symbols of the présence française, that the assassins seemed particularly bent on hunting down. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 72

Categorization

• XREF: Horne’s Mau-Mau comparison connects this chapter to the reader’s broader study of colonial insurgency patterns across Africa.