The asymetric strengths of France and the F.L.N. reversed across the home-abroad divide.

Evidence

THE STRIKING and fateful difference between continental and overseas imperialism has been that their initial successes and failures were in exact opposition. While continental imperialism, even in its beginnings, succeeded in realizing the imperialist hostility against the nation-state by organizing large strata of people outside the party system, and always failed to get results in tangible expansion, overseas imperialism, in its mad and successful rushes to annex more and more far-flung territories, was never very successful when it attempted to change the home countries’ political structure. The nation-state system’s ruin, having been prepared by its own overseas imperialism, was eventually carried out by those movements which had originated outside its own realm. And when it came to pass that movements began successfully to compete with the nation-state’s party system, it was also seen that they could undermine only countries with a multiparty system, that mere imperialist tradition was not sufficient to give them mass appeal, and that Great Britain, the classic country of two-party rule, did not produce a movement of either Fascist or Communist orientation of any consequence outside her party system. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 632 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Defeat in Algeria paradoxically produced a stronger France; France’s Algerian military dominance coexisted with its political weakness at home; Interior-exterior rivalry among leaders threatened the F.L.N. as much as French pressure. (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Continental and overseas imperialism achieved opposite successes and failures #corroborates (0.95) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 632
• France’s Algerian military dominance coexisted with its political weakness at home #expands (0.85)
• Defeat in Algeria paradoxically produced a stronger France #corroborates (0.80)
• Algeria would be lost on France’s interior political front, not on the military front #corroborates (0.75)
• Soustelle predicted France would lose Algeria on the home front, not militarily. #corroborates (0.70) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 749
• Interior-exterior rivalry among leaders threatened the F.L.N. as much as French pressure. #corroborates (0.50)
• Abbas signalled the F.L.N. might drop the independence precondition for talks #contradicts (0.50) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 967