January 25, 1961 · Algeria and metropolitan France Theater
January 25, 1961
The Organisation armée secrète (OAS), formed by former French military officers and pied-noir extremists, launched a terror campaign to prevent Algerian independence. The OAS carried out bombings, assassinations, and massacres targeting Muslim Algerians, French liberals, and even attempted to assassinate de Gaulle himself at Petit-Clamart in August 1962. The campaign killed approximately 2,788 people and drove the mass exodus of pieds-noirs from Algeria.
Commanders