The Sahara and the Algerian War

The Sahara was not an important battlefield during the Algerian War. Historical accounts of this period give it little prominence. The distances involved, the fact that inhabited zones were widely dispersed and the difficulties in concealing population movements from aircraft created conditions that did not favour guerrilla warfare. The ALN did not have at its disposal the sort of motorized transport which, twenty years later, mobile units in Morocco and Chad were to be able to call upon. These units, moreover, were at the service of nomadic peoples who had retained much of their traditionally warlike nature. Through tradition and coercion, the French effectively succeeded in keeping the majority of tribal warriors under control

Ancient history · Battlefield · Citizen journalism · Coercion (linguistics) · Geography · Political science · Population · Sociology · African history and culture studies · African Studies and Geopolitics · Demography · History · Law · North African History and Literature · Philosophy

• Stealing fire from heaven’

  Open Access•C Hill, Clémence Maillochon•International Review of…•2024

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