May 8, 1945 · Constantine region, eastern Algeria Theater

On VE Day 1945, as Algerians marched in victory celebrations carrying banners demanding independence, French police fired on the crowd. The resulting violence spread across the Constantine region — Algerian rioters killed 102 Europeans, and the French military, police, and settler militias responded with massive reprisals, killing between 6,000 and 45,000 Algerians over several weeks. Aircraft bombed villages, warships shelled coastal settlements, and settlers organized vigilante massacres.

November 1, 1954 · Aurès Mountains & across Algeria Theater

On the night of November 1, 1954, the newly-formed FLN launched 70 simultaneous attacks across Algeria, striking military installations, police posts, and infrastructure. The attacks killed 8 people and wounded dozens, but their political impact was enormous — they announced the birth of an armed independence movement to the world. French Interior Minister François Mitterrand famously replied that 'the only possible negotiation is war.'

August 20, 1955 · Constantine region, northeastern Algeria Theater

FLN forces under Zighoud Youcef launched mass attacks on European and 'pro-French' Algerian civilians in the Philippeville region, killing 123 people including 71 Europeans. The French military responded with overwhelming force, killing an estimated 12,000 Algerian Muslims in reprisal operations over the following weeks. The cycle of atrocity forever poisoned the possibility of moderate compromise.

January 7, 1957 · Algiers, the Casbah Theater

French paratroopers under General Massu were given full police powers over Algiers to crush an FLN bombing campaign. The 10th Parachute Division systematically dismantled the FLN's urban network using torture, disappearances, and mass arrests. By October 1957, the FLN organization in Algiers was destroyed — but the methods used, particularly systematic torture, caused an international scandal and a moral crisis in France.

May 28, 1957 · Mélouza village, Kabylie region Theater

FLN forces massacred the entire male population of the village of Mélouza — 374 men and boys — because the village supported the rival MNA (Mouvement National Algérien) of Messali Hadj. The village was surrounded at night, and all men over 15 were systematically killed with knives and axes. The massacre shocked France and the world and demonstrated the FLN's ruthlessness toward internal rivals.

September 1, 1957 · Algerian-Tunisian border Theater

The Morice Line was a 460km electrified fence along the Tunisian border, augmented by minefields, radar, and mobile reaction forces. ALN units attempting to infiltrate Algeria from Tunisia were decimated by the defensive system, which killed thousands of guerrillas. The line effectively isolated the interior FLN from reinforcement and supply from Tunisia and Morocco, severely degrading the ALN's military capacity.

January 24, 1960 · Algiers Theater

Ultra-nationalist French settlers (pieds-noirs) and sympathetic soldiers erected barricades in Algiers and fought with gendarmes to prevent de Gaulle from pursuing a negotiated settlement with the FLN. The 'ultras' believed de Gaulle was betraying French Algeria. After a week of standoff in which the army refused to storm the barricades, de Gaulle appeared on television in his general's uniform and demanded obedience — the barricades collapsed and the rebellion fizzled.

February 13, 1960 · Sahara Desert, southern Algeria Theater

France detonated its first atomic bomb, 'Gerboise Bleue,' in the Algerian Sahara on February 13, 1960. The explosion was four times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. France would conduct 17 nuclear tests in Algeria between 1960 and 1966 — four atmospheric and thirteen underground. The tests exposed Algerian Tuareg populations to radiation without their knowledge or consent, and radioactive contamination persists in the Sahara to this day.

January 25, 1961 · Algeria and metropolitan France Theater

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.

April 21, 1961 · Algiers and France Theater

Four retired French generals — Salan, Challe, Jouhaud, and Zeller — seized power in Algiers with the support of the 1st Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment, declaring they would keep Algeria French. De Gaulle, wearing his general's uniform, appeared on television to denounce the 'quarteron de généraux en retraite' (handful of retired generals) and ordered conscript soldiers not to obey their orders. Young soldiers listened to de Gaulle's address on their transistor radios, and the putsch collapsed after four days.

March 18, 1962 · Évian-les-Bains, France Theater

After months of secret and public negotiations, France and the GPRA (Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic) signed the Évian Accords, granting Algeria independence effective July 3, 1962. A ceasefire took effect on March 19. The accords provided for a transitional period, protected the rights of European settlers who chose to remain, and granted France continued access to Saharan oil fields and nuclear test sites. A referendum in Algeria on July 1 approved independence by 99.7%.