V o L u m e I : a d

Northwest African nation, almost 920,000 square miles in area, with a 1945

population of slightly over 8 million; originally peopled by Berbers (who still

make up a sizable national minority), now predominantly Arab. Algeria is

bordered to the west by Morocco and Mauritania, to the north by the Mediter-

ranean Sea, to the east by Tunisia and Libya, to the south by Niger, Mali, and

Chad. In 1830 France seized Algiers and from then until 1847 expanded its

holdings to the interior in a protracted war that created modern Algeria, which

was absorbed into France’s metropolitan administrative structure in 1848.

French colonizers and their descendants (known as colons) dispossessed

native Algerians of the best arable lands and monopolized political power.

The non-European population worked the colons’ lands or eked out a mea-

ger living in the less hospitable areas. By 1945 Algeria’s population included

approximately 900,000 colons, whose numbers had vastly expanded since

the 1920s.

The postwar era saw the rapid growth of a militant nationalist movement

that was adamantly opposed by the colons, who were determined that Alge-

ria should remain part of France. In May 1945, Muslims throughout Algeria

demonstrated against colonial rule. When French colonial police fired on the

protesters in Sétif, they responded by attacking Europeans. In retaliation,

the military carried out reprisals that killed thousands of Algerian Muslims.

This massacre accelerated the conflict that culminated in the brutal Algerian

War during 1954–1962.

From the beginning of the war, the Front de Libération Nationale

(FLN) appealed to the United Nations (UN) for support of the nationalist

cause, while France appealed to the United States and its European allies for

assistance in its colonial claim. The Americans initially urged a negotiated

peace, hoping to avoid a confrontation with France without antagonizing

Arab nations. Alarmed at the French role in the 1956 Suez Crisis, the United

States then adopted a less compromising line with France, determined to

prevent a wider conflict between Arab nationalists and France (and Britain).

The war also split the communist bloc, with the People’s Republic of China

(PRC) supporting the Algerian nationalists and the Soviet Union keeping its

distance.

The war actively influenced French politics and led to social and politi-

cal turmoil in metropolitan France that toppled the Fourth French Republic

in 1958 and brought to power General Charles de Gaulle, who created the

Fifth French Republic. In 1962 de Gaulle, then president of France and hav-

ing exhausted other options, signed the Évian Agreements of March 1962

that granted Algeria its independence effective 3 July 1962. Tens of thou-

sands of colons immediately immigrated to France. The FLN-led Algerian

government, headed by Prime Minister Mohamed Ben Bella, promptly

confiscated the colons’ abandoned property and established a decentralized

socialist economy and one-party state. Upon independence, Algerian military

forces numbered around 125,000 men, including various irregular militias that

were gradually eliminated or integrated into the national force.

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Ben Bella’s attempt to consolidate his power, com-

bined with popular discontent with the economy’s ineffi-

ciency, sparked a bloodless military coup by Defense

Minister Houari Boumédienne in June 1965. In 1971, the

government endeavored to stimulate economic growth by

nationalizing the oil industry and investing the revenues

in centrally orchestrated industrial development. Boumé-

dienne’s military-dominated government took on an in-

creasingly authoritarian cast over the years. The military

expanded rapidly during the 1970s and 1980s, with the

army numbering 110,000, the air force 12,000, and the

navy 8,000 by 1985.

Algeria’s leaders sought to retain their autonomy,

joining their country to the Non-Aligned Movement.

Boumédienne phased out French military bases. Although

Algeria denounced perceived American imperialism and

supported Cuba, the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, Pales-

tinian nationalists, and African anticolonial fighters, it

maintained a strong trading relationship with the United

States. At the same time, Algeria cultivated economic

ties  with the Soviet Union, which provided the nation

with important military matériel and training. When the

Spanish relinquished control of Western Sahara in 1976,

Morocco attempted to annex the region. This led to a

twelve-year war with Algeria, which supported the guer-

rilla movement fighting for the region’s independence.

Diplomatic relations with the United States warmed after

Algeria negotiated the release of American hostages in

Iran in 1980 and Morocco fell out of U.S. favor by allying

with Libya in 1984.

In 1976, a long-promised constitution that provided for elections was

enacted, although Algeria remained a one-party state. When Boumédienne

died in December 1978, power passed to Chadli Bendjedid, the army-

backed candidate. Bendjedid retreated from Boumédienne’s increasingly

ineffective economic policies, privatizing much of the economy and encour-

aging entrepreneurship. However, accumulated debt continued to retard

economic expansion. Growing public protests from labor unions, students,

and Islamic fundamentalists forced the government to end restrictions on

political expression in 1988.

The Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut, FIS) proved the

most successful of the host of new political parties founded. After large vic-

tories by the FIS in local elections in June 1990 and national elections in

December 1991, Bendjedid resigned. A new regime under Mohamed

Boudiaf imposed martial law, banning the FIS in March 1992. In response,

Islamist radicals began a guerrilla war that has persisted to the present, tak-

ing a toll of 150,000 or more lives. Although Algeria’s military government

managed to gain the upper hand in the struggle after 1998, Islamic groups

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Crowds in Algiers celebrate their country’s independence

on 4 July 1962. A referendum held three days earlier

secured Algerian independence from France after eight

years of one of the longest and bloodiest wars to over-

throw European colonial rule in Africa. (Central Press/

Getty Images)

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