Free A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne

from the mother country, with its 100,000 Algerian wage-earners there, and successive famines caused standards of living to sink acutely. As Harold Macmillan noted in his wartime memoirs:
It is as if the Irishmen in the U.S.A. and Great Britain were to cease sending money home, and at the same time no Irish labour was going over to England for the harvest, etc., and earning money in that way.
The population is therefore very poor, and the food and clothing position among the people has caused us all a lot of worry.
     
    On top of the humiliation of defeat was compounded the confusion of not knowing what authority represented the true France. After 1940, while the French colonies in Equatorial Africa went over to de Gaulle, Algeria remained pro-Vichy; thus, within three years, Algerians found their loyalty invoked first to Pétain, then to Darlan, then Giraud and finally de Gaulle. But even after the rise to eminence of de Gaulle, it was the shadow of the Allied colossus in the background that constantly obscured the rekindled, feeble light of the présence française in Algeria. Landing — once again at Sidi-Ferruch — in November 1942, the Anglo-Americans with their overwhelming weight of war material and the power and riches that this implied, in contrast to the puny resources of the Vichy French, made a powerful impact on the Algerian nationalists. They were also soon aware of the anti-colonialist creed of Roosevelt’s America, and Abbas had several meetings with Bob Murphy, the President’s personal representative in Algiers, to explore the possibility of applying the Atlantic Charter to Algeria.
    But when, early in 1943, a Muslim delegation approached the Free French leader, General Giraud, with a petition of reforms, they were headed off with “I don’t care about reforms, I want soldiers first.” And, indeed, Algeria did provide France with soldiers — as in the First World War: magnificient Tirailleurs and Spahis, to whom General Juin was heavily indebted for his victorious progress through the grinding Italian campaign. These Algerian soldiers at the front were either largely unaware of, or had their backs turned upon, the turmoil brewing at home — until Sétif. But the camaraderie of the battle-front, their contact with the more privileged British and American troops, as well as the training they received, were things not to be lightly forgotten.
    In 12 February 1943, Abbas produced his own “Atlantic Charter” called the “Manifesto of the Algerian People”. In a more virulent tone than heretofore, he claimed savagely: “The French colony only admits equality with Muslim Algeria on one level; sacrifice on the battlefields.” More ambitious than his previous demands, the “Manifesto” now marked a clear turning away from assimilation, calling for an “immediate and effective participation” of Muslims in the government and the establishment of a constitution guaranteeing inter alia , liberty and equality for all Algerians, the suppression of feudal property — as well as various other planks borrowed from the more radical platform of Messali. At this point, Messali was under house arrest (a sentence commuted from sixteen years’ hard labour imposed following an army mutiny in 1941), his P.P.A. was in dissolution and the Communist Party of Algeria (P.C.A.) banned — so, temporarily, Abbas reigned supreme. Next, in May 1943, pressed on by the followers of Messali, Abbas came out with a “Supplement” to the “Manifesto” which demanded nothing less than “an Algerian state” — though still through recourse only to legal and peaceful means.
    This was too much for the French authorities, and Abbas too was consigned to house arrest. In protest against French policy the Muslim representatives on the Délégations Financières refused to take their seats that September. Perhaps realising that he had gone too far, Abbas recanted, affirming his “fidelity to France”, and was released again at