Torture’s Nazi echoes caused France’s defeat despite its military supremacy

Evidence

Then appeared Captain Pierre-Henri Simon’s book, Contre la Torture. Simon was a Catholic writer who had spent five years in prisoner-of-war camps during the Second World War; shortly after his release he had visited Belsen and, shocked by the rejection of responsibility by the local Germans, he had said to himself, “May the good people of France never fall into such a moral degradation of this order!” Though Simon was in no way an apostle of withdrawal from Algeria, his book listed malpractices witnessed there, sternly denouncing them as well as the collective culpability of the army and nation at large. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 729 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

From the French army’s point of view, their tragedy was that at various points they could see with agonising clarity (and not without reason) that they were winning the war militarily. But (not unlike the American commanders in Vietnam) it was not given them to perceive that, at the same time, their chances of winning the war politically and on the wider world stage were growing ever slimmer. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1653 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Torture destroyed the Muslim third force and turned French opinion against the war; Algeria would be lost on France’s interior political front, not on the military front; Torture was the chief factor in France’s defeat. (+7 more)

Related

• French soldiers who saw Belsen recognized the same moral degradation in Algeria’s torture (similarity 0.92)
• Torture was the chief factor in France’s defeat. (similarity 0.92)
• Torture won the Battle of Algiers but lost the war for France (similarity 0.91)
• Torture more than any single factor caused France’s Algerian defeat (similarity 0.89)
• Torture boomeranged against France in the Algerian war (similarity 0.88)
• Torture destroyed the Muslim third force and turned French opinion against the war (similarity 0.87)
• Torture in Algeria left a lingering poison in the French system (similarity 0.86)
• Torture proved a boomerang weapon that undermined the power using it (similarity 0.86)
• The Battle of Algiers exposed torture as a lasting poison for France (similarity 0.86)
• Torture was effective in winning the short-term battle of Algiers (similarity 0.85)
• Torture backfired as a boomerang weapon in the Algerian war. (similarity 0.85)
• Algeria would be lost on France’s interior political front, not on the military front (similarity 0.84)
• Torture’s contested truth made it a lasting canker for France (similarity 0.84)
• Perpetrators of torture carried its moral damage home to France in person (similarity 0.84)
• Torture in Algeria threatened France with state self-destruction (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• French soldiers who saw Belsen recognized the same moral degradation in Algeria’s torture #corroborates (0.80) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 729
• Torture boomeranged against France in the Algerian war #corroborates (0.70)
• Torture more than any single factor caused France’s Algerian defeat #contradicts (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 51
• The Battle of Algiers exposed torture as a lasting poison for France #corroborates (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 580
• Winning militarily while losing politically doomed the French army in Algeria #expands (0.60)
• The French army won militarily while losing the political and world battle #expands (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1653