The Aurès mountains’ poverty made it a land of unvanquishable guerrillas

Evidence

Separating Constantine from the desert, the Aurès is a land of savage, inhospitable grandeur with Algeria’s highest peaks occasionally (and surprisingly) relieved by a few fertile strips along the floors of narrow canyons, and an occasional forest dense with scrub oak and entangling ivy. … Equally like the north-west frontier of India, which it closely resembles, it has from time immemorial been a land of unvanquishable guerrillas and banditry. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 146 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

From a largely military point of view, the worst situation had arisen in Wilaya 1, the Aurès, the very cradle of the revolt in its earliest days. Its leader, Ben Boulaid, had been captured, it will be recalled, in February 1955. Nine months later he achieved a remarkable escape from the condemned cell in Constantine prison, and on returning to the Aurès discovered that it had more or less reverted to its traditional state of parochial anarchy. Morale was very low, and his successor, Bachir Chihani, leader of the detachment that had ambushed the Monnerots, had aroused mounting opposition. Coming from the Nementchas, fifty miles away, he was regarded as a “foreigner”; he was accused of pederasty and other more savage excesses; and he appears to have made a series of grave tactical errors. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 442 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Aurès mountains have long produced unvanquishable guerrilla resistance — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 146; Regional factionalism and parochial anarchy eroded the Aurès insurgency — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 442; A guerrilla’s power rests in incarnating the whole people’s resistance

Related

• The Aurès mountains have long produced unvanquishable guerrilla resistance (similarity 0.93)
• Regional factionalism and parochial anarchy eroded the Aurès insurgency (similarity 0.83)
• Kabylia’s terrain and high villages enabled guerrilla resistance throughout its history (similarity 0.82)
• Guerrilla warfare made French suppression of the insurgency fail (similarity 0.81)
• Algeria split between Europeanised coast and Muslim-populated mountain interior (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The Aurès mountains have long produced unvanquishable guerrilla resistance #corroborates (0.90) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 146
• Regional factionalism and parochial anarchy eroded the Aurès insurgency #complicates (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 442
• A guerrilla’s power rests in incarnating the whole people’s resistance #expands (0.55)