1954–1962: (The Algerian War: The FLN Organizing Abroad Under Ben Bella, the French Army Reaching Half a Million Men, Bitter Fighting in Algiers 1956 to 1957…

1954–1962: (The Algerian War: The FLN Organizing Abroad Under Ben Bella, the French Army Reaching Half a Million Men, Bitter Fighting in Algiers 1956 to 1957, Failed Negotiations and Settler Attempts to Seize Colonial Government, the UN Recognizing Algeria’s Right to Self-Determination in 1960, French Withdrawal in July 1962, Up to a Million Colons Departing, and Over a Million Algerians Dead in One of Africa’s Bloodiest Liberation Wars): The Algerian war escalated through the early 1950s, entering a bitter new phase in 1956 with bomb attacks in Algiers, while the French government doubled its army to some half a million men. The FLN organized itself successfully abroad through the energetic efforts of Ahmed Ben Bella, who had escaped from prison and oversaw a steady supply of arms, with Nasser’s Egypt as an important ally. Fighting in Algiers was bitter from 1956 to 1957, followed by failed negotiations and abortive attempts by French settlers to seize control of colonial government. De Gaulle’s offensives in the late 1950s, while hugely destructive, were ultimately unsuccessful, and within France public criticism of the war increased. By 1960, when the UN formally recognized Algeria’s right to self-determination, the days of French rule were numbered. After further false dawns of failed negotiations and atrocities, the French finally withdrew in July 1962 and Algerian independence was recognized. Up to a million colons departed with the administration, but their ten thousand casualties paled against the million or more Algerians who had died in the course of one of Africa’s bloodiest liberation wars. The Algerian struggle, theorized by Fanon in Les Damnés de la Terre, demonstrated that colonial violence begets revolutionary violence, and that the costs of maintaining empire could become catastrophic for colonizer and colonized alike.