Algeria

France's Undeclared War

Martin Evans

Making of the Modern World

• Traces the origins of the Algerian war from the initial French invasion in 1830
• Looks at the war both on the ground in Algeria and how developments in France affected the course of the war
• Re-examines the war to argue that it was the Socialist led Republican front of 1956-7 which represents the defining moment in the war
• Draws upon both previously classified archival sources as well as new oral testimony to highlight the clash of values between the Republican Front in France and Algerian nationalism

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From Our Blog

17 October 1961: Fifty years on

By Martin Evans On 17 October 1961 at 5.30 am 30,000 unarmed Algerians converged on the centre of Paris in the light rain, flooding in from the surrounding shanty towns and poor suburbs ' Nanterre, Colombe and Gennevilliers. Mostly made up of young men and women, but also a scattering of older people and some mothers with young children, the demonstration was organised by the National Liberation Front (FLN) which had been engaged in war for Algerian national independence against France since November 1954.

Posted on October 20, 2011

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Frantz Fanon: Third world revolutionary

By Martin Evans Frantz Fanon died of leukaemia on 6 December 1961 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA where he had sought treatment for his cancer. At Fanon's request, his body was returned to Algeria and buried with full military honours by the Algerian National Army of Liberation, shortly after the publication of his most influential work, The Wretched of the Earth.

Posted on December 9, 2011

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Algeria's televised coup d'©tat

By Martin Evans On 11 January 1992 the Algerian President, the white-haired sixty-one year old Chadli Bendjedid, announced live on television that he was standing down as head of state with immediate effect. Nervous and ill at ease, the president read out a brief prepared statement. In it he explained his decision as a necessary one. Why? Because the democratic process which he had put in place two years earlier could no longer guarantee law and order on the streets.

Posted on January 11, 2012

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50 years of Algerian independence

2012 marks the 50th anniversary of Algerian independence. Martin Evans, author of Algeria: France's Undeclared War, talks about the complexities of Algerian colonial history and the country's fight for independence in this new video.

Posted on July 5, 2012

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5 July 1962: Algerian Independence

By Martin Evans On 5 July 1962, Algeria achieved independence from France after an eight-year-long war ' one of the longest and bloodiest episodes in the whole decolonisation process. An undeclared war in the sense there was no formal beginning of hostilities, the intensity of this violence is partly explained by the fact that Algeria (invaded in 1830) was an integral part of France, but also by the presence of European settlers who in 1954, numbered one million as against the nine million Arabo-Berber population.

Posted on July 5, 2012

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