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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Algeria
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)