Torture more than any single factor caused France’s Algerian defeat

Evidence

The vile hand of torture; of abuse, and counter-abuse. In the Algerian War what led—probably more than any other single factor—to the ultimate defeat of France was the realisation, in France and the world at large, that methods of interrogation were being used that had been condemned under the Nazi Occupation. At the dawn of the new century, the ugly ghosts of torture returned to plague France. In 2001, an eighty-three-year-old former general, Paul Aussaresses, published a book in which he unashamedly, indeed proudly, admitted to having tortured—in a good cause, he claimed. After a trial which gripped France, the aging general got away with a fine of one hundred thousand francs, on a uniquely worded charge “in the name of respect for the victims.” — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 51

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s pursuit of the civil war’s permutations and the ‘fought back’ dynamic in France. — connects to: Torture destroyed the Muslim third force and turned French opinion against the war; Torture was effective in winning the short-term battle of Algiers — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 608; Algeria would be lost on France’s interior political front, not on the military front (+10 more)
• SEED: Angle: torture as strategic self-defeat—the mechanism by which Algeria cost France a war it was winning militarily.

Related

• Torture was the chief factor in France’s defeat. (similarity 0.95)
• Torture boomeranged against France in the Algerian war (similarity 0.94)
• Torture won the Battle of Algiers but lost the war for France (similarity 0.91)
• Torture proved a boomerang weapon that undermined the power using it (similarity 0.91)
• Torture backfired as a boomerang weapon in the Algerian war. (similarity 0.90)
• The Battle of Algiers exposed torture as a lasting poison for France (similarity 0.90)
• Torture in Algeria left a lingering poison in the French system (similarity 0.89)
• Torture’s Nazi echoes caused France’s defeat despite its military supremacy (similarity 0.89)
• Torture was effective in winning the short-term battle of Algiers (similarity 0.89)
• Torture in Algeria threatened France with state self-destruction (similarity 0.89)
• Torture destroyed the Muslim third force and turned French opinion against the war (similarity 0.88)
• Torture’s contested truth made it a lasting canker for France (similarity 0.88)
• Perpetrators of torture carried its moral damage home to France in person (similarity 0.87)
• Torture became institutionalized in the French army during the Battle of Algiers (similarity 0.86)
• Conscripts forced to commit torture brought psychological scars back to metropolitan France (similarity 0.86)

Broader Connections

• Torture backfired as a boomerang weapon in the Algerian war. #corroborates (0.82) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1659