The first stroke of the Algerian War came in the form of widespread terrorism. On 1 November 1954 a series of seventy incidents occurred in the capital, Algiers, alone, with other incidents occurring throughout Algeria. The Algiers sector commander, Major General Pardes, reacted immediately by throwing four regiments, including a paratroop unit, into the Aures mountains south of the coastal zone. Police and security measures in the cities were immediately strengthened.

What the French confronted in November 1954 was a guerrilla movement in its infancy. But the insurgent movement rapidly gained strength among the Algerian population. The CRUA group was converted into a sort of central committee for a larger united front movement, the Federation for National Liberation (FLN). Military forces operated by the FLN were known as the National Liberation Army, or ALN. Under ALN command, Algeria was split into six zones, the Willaya, plus independent willaya for Algiers city and metropolitan France.

Similar to other guerrilla movements, the ALN operated three types of forces. The 'fighters for the faith' (mujahidin) were regular infantry troops whose organization passed from company to battalion level as the ALN grew in strength. These infantry forces were assigned operational areas which corresponded to the willayas. Along with the regular troops were 'death squad' units (mussabilin) for special missions. Finally, there were local guerrillas (fiday1n) who were under the direct control of the willaya leaders. By the spring of 1956 the ALN, despite its losses from fierce fighting against the French, had built its strength to 8,500 regulars and 21,000 local guerrillas.

ALN recruitment remained a problem throughout the war, however. In the beginning there was no lack of recruits, but there were few weapons with which to arm the ALN troops. It was one of the main tasks of the FLN, the political leadership of the Algerian nationalists, to procure outside aid for the ALN. In this they obtained increasing success as the war continued and the French proved unable to eliminate the insurgent movement. Many nations provided armaments to the FLN while the neighboring Moslem nations of Tunisia and Morocco allowed the ALN to establish training areas and base camps on their territories.

Guns were smuggled across the borders or carried into Algeria aboard ships. In fact, the French Navy captured both Egyptian and Yugoslav vessels which were hauling arms. Later it was claimed that Iraq had given the FLN $5.6 million in aid during 1959 alone. It was not until 1958, however, that the ALN could be regarded as substantially armed with modern weapons.

Even after weapons were available, however, ALN recruitment problems remained. French strategy, from 1957 on, concentrated on isolating both Algeria as a whole, and each willaya in particular, from outside communication. It became more difficult for the ALN to bring weapons into a local district and distribute them to guerrilla forces and newly recruited troops.

As a result, the ALN considered it easier to form complete regulaT units in Morocco and Tunisia and then infiltrate the forces across the border. The ALN had found the more than 100,000 Algerian refugees in Tunisia and Morocco (they had fled after the early French military operations) to be excellent sources of recruits, while at the same time the ALN possessed a functional training structure in these countries, along with foreign soldiers of fortune (brought in through Italy by an ingenious process) as trainers for the new ALN troops.

Thus, as the war continued, tile Algerian forces shifted front their original basis of a strong local guerrilla orientation to one based upon regular battalions. By 1958-1959, when 120,000 Algerians worked in the military and political structure of the FLN, the 40,000-man ALN contained 25,000 regular troops. Later, the fact that the National Liberation Army was no longer locally based would be used by the French Army to argue that they had defeated the ALN.

When tile Algerian war commenced, the chief, General Paul Cherriere, possessed about only 50,000 troops, built around a force of four understrength divisions. Each of his regiments contained perhaps 1,500-1,800 men. Air power was limited to two squadrons of fighters and a similar number of transport aircraft. Naval strength was not notable, but Algeria was only a day's sailing from the major French naval bases on the French Mediterranean coast.

The overall situation could not have given Cherriere much to be optimistic about, but the French were aided in that the ALN did not at that time possess significant offensive capabilities.

Perhaps for this very reason, Cherriere did not hesitate to commit major portions of his forces to the Aures campaign. The four regiments committed to this operation by General Pardes, after all, constituted a third of the entire French force in Algeria. Relatively heavy fighting broke out in the Aures on 10 November, and the campaign in that mountain region continued past the end of 1954. In the meantime the ALN grew in strength, and by April 1955 local guerrilla units had become active in the Constantine-Philippeville area, east of Algiers and close to the Moroccan border.

For the ALN, 1955 was a year of buildup. The willaya command system was perfected while their military forces expanded. ALN regular troops numbered 6,000 before the end of the year, and the ALN was beginning to operate them in units of company strength. Most of their attacks, however, were concentrated in the border regions near Tunisia and Morocco.

For their part, the French concentrated upon search and destroy operations into suspected ALN areas of concentration. The French also reinforced their troops considerably. By the end of 1955, there were 120,000 French troops deployed in Algeria, a reinforcement of 70,000 men. Considering that in this same period withdrawals of units from Indochina totalled 124,000 men, the scale of this effort may be appreciated. Many of the soldiers who sailed from Indochina were immediately thrown into the Algerian War. This was particularly true of three Algerian regiments and six Moroccan regiments of the French Army which sailed directly front Indochina to North Africa.

Colonial Twilight The French War in Algeria

Introduction
Origins of the Algerian War
War Comes to Algiers
The Year of Mobilization
The New War Strategy
Battle of Algiers
Challe's Campaign of 1959
Jaws of Victory