Martin S. Alexander

The Algerian War 1954-62 was one of the most prolonged and violent examples of decolonization. At times horribly savage, it was an undeclared war in the sense that no formal declaration of hostilities was ever made. Bringing to an end one hundred and thirty two years of French rule, the Algerian struggle caused the fall of six French prime ministers, the collapse of the Fourth Republic and expulsion of one million French settlers. This volume, bringing together leading experts in the field, focuses on one of the key actors in the drama - the French army. They show that the Algerian War was just as much about conflicts of ideas, beliefs and loyalties as it was about simple military operations. In this way, the collection goes beyond polemic and recrimination to explore the many and varied nuances of what was one of the historically most important of the grand style colonial wars.

The Algerian War 1954-62 was one of the most prolonged and violent examples of decolonization. At times horribly savage, it was an undeclared war in the sense that no formal declaration of hostilities was ever made. Bringing to an end one hundred and thirty two years of French rule, the Algerian struggle caused the fall of six French prime ministers, the collapse of the Fourth Republic and expulsion of one million French settlers. This volume, bringing together leading experts in the field, focuses on one of the key actors in the drama - the French army. They show that the Algerian War was just as much about conflicts of ideas, beliefs and loyalties as it was about simple military operations. In this way, the collection goes beyond polemic and recrimination to explore the many and varied nuances of what was one of the historically most important of the grand style colonial wars.

This is the first full-length study in English of the career of one of France's most controversial military leaders, General Maurice Gamelin (1872–1958). Gamelin was reviled by many of his contemporaries and denigrated by historians as 'the man who lost the Battle of France'. Here Gamelin is re-appraised in the context of the unstable civil-military relations and national decline of the years 1933–40. Basing his account on hitherto inaccessible primary sources and on public and private archives. The evidence reviewed, including Gamelin's private headquarters' diary, provides the basis for a revision of the earlier hostile portraits of the general. The author argues that less attention should be paid to the campaign in France in 1940, by which time Gamelin's role was that of co-ordinator and adviser. Rather, he suggests that great credit is due to Gamelin for his success in holding together the pre-war civil-military consensus, and for re-arming France by 1939.